The World Economic Forum says that by twenty thirty we will own nothing and be happy. So how close have they pushed us towards that goal? Carol Roth just wrote a book on it called You Will Own Nothing. She's, of course, a New York Times bestselling author. We've talked to her about her last book, The War in Small Business. She joins us to break it all down stay tuned for Carol. Well, Carol, it's so good to have you on.
You know, love your.
Work, consider you a friend, so I'm looking forward to having this conversation about your new book.
I'm thrilled to be back with you, Lisa.
We always have such a fun time when we chat, and the subject matter is so important, So I'm thrilled that you're giving your listeners an early sneak peek as to what's ahead.
And you're already crushing it.
You're already an Amazon bestseller in the book is not even out yet, so that's pretty awesome for.
Three months ahead of time.
It's pretty unprecedented that the topic is really resonating with people as it should. Obviously, just thrilled with the response and you know, the ability to be able to help people.
Fight back well, I'm so happy for you, because that's awesome to already be doing so well and it's not even out. I love the title you will Own Nothing. Of course, the title from the book comes from the World Economic Forum, which says that by twenty thirty, we will own nothing and be happy. They're nailing the own nothing, but not not quite the be happy part.
Yeah, it's crazy.
When I first heard that this organization, the World Economic Forum, which is littered with the elite of business leaders, political leaders, very well connected people, we're somehow saying you will own nothing and advocating basically for the end of private property. I was like, there's no way that that's actually true. That's got to be like somebody taking something out of context. You know, there's just there's no way. So obviously I did my own research, and you know, there it was.
You know, several years ago, there was an article on their website, which by the way, has been scrubbed since, but you can still find it with the wayback machine that had their predictions, their tough predictions for twenty thirty, with the number one being you will own nothing and be happy.
And then a couple of years.
Later they did a video which I think is still on their Twitter, but definitely you can find on YouTube that recounted these predictions. And you have this very handsome young man just smiling and you will own nothing and be happy by twenty thirty, which is seven years from now. And I'm like, that is a complete insanity. And so it's always one of those things that stuck with me
in the back of my mind. And as I've been talking to people and thinking about the wealth of issues, from social credit or business social credit, which we know is ESG, to the FED destroying the value of a dollar, to all of the issues we've been facing financially based on government decisions, whether it's you know, energy or stimulus that led to it, whether it's big tech basically renting everything to us as a service, and we actually, you know,
aren't getting anything, but they're getting wealthy, whether it's millennials earning more than all of the the folks that have come before them on an inflation adjusted basis. I mean, they actually earn more than Baby boomers or Gen X at the same time inflation adjusted, but they have no housing and they have no wealth. We've got corporations competing with people for housing. We have hedge funds and universities
endowments buying up land and water rights. You know, I'm thinking about all of these things, and I'm going, what's the through line here? Like there's something going on. And I stepped out of my bed one day in April of last year and I walked two paces and it just hit me on the head. You will own nothing like That's where this is all coming from. And in my research, you know, I realized that we are on this precipice of a new financial world order. This is
not something again that's conspiratorial. It happens on a regular basis. We've only been the global center of the financial universe for about eighty years. It was the British before us, and the Dutch before them, and.
That our run here is getting a little long in the tooth.
And it's clear that all of the people who are well connected, whether it be the folks in our government, the wef you know, big tech, whoever, they're all seeing this and so they're trying to jockey to control every resource they can as this.
Global financial world order shifts.
And in the process, if they own everything, what's left for you nothing, So they have to sell it to you that it's going to be a great thing. But if you are a student of history, even in the least, you know that every time people had no property rights, it had no ownership. They were not only not wealthy, they were not free. And they, certainly, I'm guessing, we're not happy.
That's why they want us to own nothing, right. I mean, it puts them in control role and it leaves us, you know, essentially defenseless and dependent.
One hundred percent. That's exactly it.
They only care about what's in it for them, which is human nature, which is why we had this really cool setup in the United States based on a constitutional republic to try to thwart that from happening, which you know, work for some bit of time and then has.
Started to unravel.
But yeah, the more that they can hold and control, the better off it is for them. They get to be special and you get to be non special. Kind of sounds like essential and non essential. When did when did we hear that in recent history? And yeah, it's it's a it's a good thing for them, and they kind of don't care about what it means for anybody else.
So certainly that's the trajectory, and it does make us more dependent on them, as you alluded to, which gives them the ability to exert more power and more control and make sure that that balance of you know, them having stuff and being special and us being the pleabs you know, continues.
On well, and it seems like COVID just really gave them ample opportunity to sort of accelerate this goal of us owning nothing one and just the government assuming more power over us. And then you wrote about it, but the crushing of small businesses and the centralization of everything.
Yeah, I mean it was the greatest most historic wealth transfer of all time. Greatest meaning the largest, not greatest meaning a good thing that you know that it had ever happened in history. Trillions and trillions of dollars that were just you know, moved from Main Street America to Wall Street. And obviously we're still paying the price quite literally, when you have things like inflation, you know that the the people who are in the working in the middle
class really bear the brunt of that. So it you know, it's a question of whether it sort of gave them cover to do that or if it was all intentional, which I think you can make a good argument that this was a piece of the overall you will own nothing plan, but it also did other things. You know, it did things like cement social credit. When you think of a vaccination card, you know, that's an early form
factor of a social credit card. You could not participate in parts of society in certain places if you did not have a card that said, you know, I'm socially acceptable. So there were a lot of things that kind of started. They had people who were cheerleading and backing the government and not pushing back, and so it really did signal to the elite, Wow, this is probably going to be
easier than we thought. And when you think about new efforts that they're putting out, things like the potential for a central bank digital currency also known as a CBDC, a way to marry that social credit and gain control over your money, you know, this kind of gave them the confidence.
That, hey, we can do this.
Because I mean, I don't know about you, Lisa, but when I was in February of twenty twenty, in March of twenty twenty and seeing this COVID stuff going on going, could they really get people to like close their businesses and stay home at scale, like I don't think that's going to happen.
And of course that's exactly what happened.
So now that we've been through that period, things that you know, five or ten years ago we would have said, yeah, it's probably not going to happen, or would take a really long time.
I think we need to look at through a totally different lens.
Well. I think what scared me the most about COVID is just how easily people are manipulated. You look at things that have happened throughout history and you're like, oh, how would people go along with you know, terrible things.
And during COVID we really saw like, wow, you know you have like.
Friends, you know, people kind of turning their backs on you for making decisions in opposition to the ones they were making, and you kind of paint a picture of Okay, we could easily you could kind of see how these things spiral and how easily people were actually willing to give up control over their own lives and.
People that you thought were in your circle. Our mutual friend Jesse Kelly talks about this all the time. How you know your aunt Peggy, who you know was all in on the vaccine, is like the first person to ratch you out if you weren't following along with the orders.
And so it does give us that perspective. You know, I don't use comparisons to the Holocaust or Nazi Germany lightly, but you know, when you just look at a time frame and how quickly that particular society devolved and how they got people, whether it was for self preservation or to just be aligned with right thing, you know, we're
turning on each other and creating that catalyst. You can say, well, seven years from now twenty thirty isn't a very long time, but in the scope of what we've just been through, were some of these other historical situations that turn very quickly, It's actually a really long time. I COVID thing was just three years ago, so you know, think about that's you know, two plus, you know, the amount of time from now then it was backwards to the start of COVID.
It's also just scary seeing how quickly our society has fallen in such short order. Uh, and out of the leadership we currently have. You know, you talked about the Central Bank digital currency. I know you've written it. You wrote about this in the book as well, talk about what it is and why people should be concerned about it.
So the interesting thing about central bank digital currency is that they are using the interest in cryptocurrency, which is a pushback against centralization, to conflate what a digital currency is to confuse people and I believe to ultimately introduce it.
Cryptocurrency was, and particularly something like bitcoin, was created because people did not have faith as they shouldn't in central banks, including the FED, to you know, basically stand up and and take their fiduciary duty to manage the purchasing power of the dollar. And we've seen it degrade over time, and so you know, the argument is, obviously you want to have the money less centralized and certainly not dependent on one entity that's aligned with government in terms of
their goals. So since that there's so much interest in that, one of the things that country is around the world, and I think particularly the advanced countries have been doing is thinking about how to bring about their own digital currency. But they're not doing it obviously in the spirit of centralization.
They're worried they're going to lose.
Control over the money supply if people migrate to other things bitcoin or whatnot, then you lose a huge tool of your ability to control people, and they certainly don't want it to see that happen.
So they're basically saying.
Oh, no, no, well we'll do we'll do a digital currency and it'll be safer. But it's entirely centralized. It's exactly it stands that, you know, it's a polar opposite of what a decentralized cryptocurrency like a bitcoin is meant to stand for, and so what a central bank digital currency could do.
And they have multiple levels which I won't get into all of the wonkiness.
Here, but there's a level that they can use it to communicate within the banking system amongst financial partners.
But then there's what's called.
The retail facing CBDC, and that's you and I using that and using their digital dollar instead of the physical dollar in our wallet or a proxy for a physical dollar such as our credit cards or debit cards. So just imagine that you have a dollar in your wallet, right and that dollar has a microchip in it and there is a code, and they know exactly what that dollar is and who has been given to and they know that you're holding it.
And you take that dollar to the.
Store and you try to give it to the store clerk and they say, I'm sorry, we saw what you posted on Facebook, Lisa. We don't like it, so we're going to put you in a timeout for a while, or Carol, you know, we know, let you like your burgers, but you've had three this month already. They're bad for the climates alone.
They're bad for the climates.
Yeah, so please stop eating burgers.
Moo moo. Whatever. So that's the kind of control that they can have.
And as you can see, it really marries social credit and that social agenda and what it is they're pushing with the control over the money supply. They would have the mechanism to track everything you do. I mean, yes, they can generally look at you know, credit card statements. I guess if they were to like subpoena them or something, or maybe maybe there's a way for them to do that. But like they can't track every little thing that you
do and everybody you tip out and whatnot. This would literally let them track every move you make and potentially give them the power to shut that off. And you say, oh, they can't do that, it's not constitutional. Well, have you lived through the last three years? And so my concern is that even if people don't want to accept this, that they're going to again trick the financially illiterate population.
Into making this happen.
So if you think about the stimulus that came out under Biden, we all said, you know, this is the American rescue plan. Don't take stimulus because you'll get like a thousand bucks or whatever it was. But you're gonna have massive inflation and it's going to cost you thousands of dollars. And everyone's like, I want my Biden bucks, give me my thousand dollars whatever, And then what happened.
You're now paying thousands and thousands and thousands more dollars every single year because of inflation.
It's the same thing here. They may say, Lisa, I've got a deal for you.
I'm going to trade you your one actual dollar.
I'm going to give you four digital dollars.
And you might go, that's amazing, I'm going to do that, but you know what, each one of those are going to be worth a quarter of what the actual dollar is worth, because you dollars are a proxy for productivity, and you can't just make them out about of nowhere and then assume that everything's going to have the same value. There's a math equation here, there's logic and reason and it all goes together, which is why when they've been
printing this money out of nowhere. First it inflated assets, which the elites love because that helped them out and didn't help the average American out, and then ultimately ended up crushing the Americans when it hit the spending piece of the equation. So that's what we're fighting against. It is the number one affront on personal freedoms and wealth creation opportunities. It will affect your ability to earn, It will affect your ability to spend to get services, think
about things like medical services. I'm sorry, Lisa, you know you can't do this if you don't get the JEB and we can't turn on your dollars. I mean, just
the amount of control is staggering. Not only that, it just from a systemic standpoint, it's extremely risky because when you have a decentralized financial system, if there's a cyber attack, because this is all digital, right, there's a cyber attack on one or two institutions like it could be a big headache if it's a big institution, But it doesn't bring down the whole system, because there are other places
that haven't been attacked. If everything is controlled by the Fed, by the Central Bank, there is just one point of redundancy. And if a hacker were to bring that down, which they would have every incentive to do, that means the entire US economy just comes to a grinding halt. It could be too big to fail on a level that's like ten times has been.
Take a quick commercial break more with Carol Roth. So I think it worries me. Well, I know, Governor Santis has said that we're going to reject central bank digital currency here in Florida, and you know, he's warning people about it and once to take steps to try to, you know, keep it out of here. But I used to hear people say things and I'm like, oh, no,
it's a conspiracy theory. Now, like you could tell me that after COVID, you could tell me that, oh, like Nancy Pelosi is a lizard person, I'd be like, maybe, you.
Know, because like, but I'm like.
It's possible, right, she does.
Kind of have certain time.
But you had talked about, you know, the digital currency and the government's ability to track us. I mean, it really does seem like that's the push on everything, right, because even during COVID with the vaccine passports, you look at China the way that they use them literally not allowing people to leave their homes, right, disallowing them to leave their homes depending on and also falsely saying people had COVID when they didn't to keep them in their homes.
But but even beyond that, you know, you just mentioned that the tracking with the Central Bank digital, but even on electric vehicles as well, because if you look at what the Chinese government does, they actually track their citizens
through electric vehicles. And so one of my concerns for that, especially as we see Joe Biden, you know, essentially make it, you know, trying doing his best to make it impossible to own gas powered cars for stoves apparently, yeah, yeah, exactly through you know, his restrictions and rules out of different agencies.
I mean, is that the play here with electric vehicles?
Is it because they're easier to track or why do you think they so desperately want and forcibly are trying to push us in that direction.
I do think that it's related to the new financial world order and trying to jockey for position to control resources. So one thing is obviously there are certain countries around the world that are very heavily dependent on oil. You know, think about the big oil producing nations, and even though the US has the capability to be the biggest producer of oil, you know, it may be, hey, well if we do this other thing, then you know, we can
kind of cut into their profits. And oh, by the way, think about which states benefit in the United States from oil and gas in terms of, you know, their own revenue creation. It's not a lot of the Blue states, right, It's a lot of the red states.
So here's a new scheme, a new way, you know, through this climate cult this this.
Such dangerous emergence, so dangerous, Lisa, that they're going to drive their private jets and build mansions on the waterfront because they're so afraid. But I do think that it's about it. It's a monetary push behind it. I mean, the amount of money that they can make from investing in these things and giving out favors, and the whole consultant and professional class that has grown up around it. I do think it is completely based on power and greed.
And then I think the fact that that's a trackable thing is fantastic, but they have so many technologies and so many things they're doing that could track us that I think that you know, whether or not you buy an electric vehicle, they could create the rules and regulations to still be able to track you. The concerning part is I think they're actually trying to get rid of vehicles.
Like I don't even think it's about electrical vehicles. I think it's you know, they're coming up with these fifteen minute cities and you know maybe these these you know, autonomous fleets and things, and.
Oh you don't really again, you don't need to own your car. You'd be so much happier.
Think about how much time it just sits idle in your driveway. We'll just leave to the side that it's you know, you know, it enables you to have freedom. That's okay, but think you don't have to make that payment and then you know, we can just help you out and then you need to go to you know, your your big meeting and get in your hail your autonomous vehicle, and they say, I'm sorry, Carol, you sense something bad on Twitter, so you're not going to.
Be able to leave your house today.
I would I would be guilty.
We would never well leave let out, which by the way, was actually my dream. But as long as it's of.
My own volition, okay, yeah, exactly exactly, I'll be a recluse on my own house.
Exactly right. It's okay to be it.
As long as you're the one, you have the agency to make that decision.
Yeah, let me be an introvert on my own you know, don't not by not forced. Yeah.
So obviously you did a.
Ton of research on this book. What kind of like scared the hell out of you the most.
I mean, the whole thing when you put it all together, is frightening. And I have more than six hundred sources in the book, and a lot of them are like mainstream media sources. So CBDC I think is the biggest affront to our wealth and our freedoms because it is just so irreversible once it starts. There's some other things that, you know, maybe have a little maneuverability, but you go
back to the you know, is this a conspiracy theory? Well, the New York Fed did a pilot with major financial companies, about a dozen of them. I think it was sometime last year. Maybe my months are all messed up. So I think it was maybe like somewhere between July and November of last year, the G seven countries came out with joint principles.
For retail facing CBDCs.
We just saw video go viral about this, you know, last week with Christine Legard of the IMF talking about you know, this digital euro and the control that that's going to happen. She thought she was talking to Zelenski on the phone and she was talking to somebody else and she kind of let this stuff all out in the open. So again, these are things where they're doing things and it's out in the public.
So like, why would you have principles for retail facing.
CBDC if you're like, oh, it's not anything we would ever con So, you know, it's everything that I've researched.
These are not just like possibilities.
There are things that are actually happening, and you know kind of across the table, you know, corporations competing with individuals for their.
Homes and ESG.
I mean, all of these things, there's there's so much of a push and there's so much real data behind it, and I think that's probably the most important thing that I've done in this book is I think people know me as somebody with a lot of credibility and a lot of common sense. You know, I have a very good pedigree and you know, a good track record of being pretty common sensible.
Goal I source things.
You know, it makes it makes it makes sense. The problem is a lot of the people who've been talking about this stuff are nuts and so you know, so even though the nutty people can talk about things that are true, the credibility factor isn't high. So I think this is and this is This was a hard thing when I was trying to find people to endorse my book. And I got great people. I've got Glenn Back, I've got Dana Lash, I've got Michael Schellenberger or Charles Payne.
But it was hard. There were a lot of people that, like my publisher and I were like, yeah, we.
Just this person's kind of off the rails when you know, they talk about these things, so we you know, even though we like them as people and they say other good things, like we just kind of can include them. So that's I think the legitimacy here of like let's just take this from a pure data and common sense standpoint, and then we're going to empower you with the knowledge so that you understand it and you can tell other people about it in a way where it doesn't sound
you know that bleep crazy. And then also a plan to fight back because you know it's one thing to make everybody aware of this and then they go, well, what can I do?
Like, you need to have a way.
To be able to make sure that you own everything and do everything you can from a behavior real standpoint and a financial standpoint to preserve the American dream. Because one of the things I learned, and as you mentioned, I'm a recovering investment banker, I've spent my career trying to help people make money and preserve the American dream that I am living proof of.
The American dream is what it's owning.
It's owning a house, right, That's what the American is coming here and having that ownership, because ownership is what creates wealth. You have tangible assets or some cases in tangible assets, and they increase in value over time, and that's different from just earning the things that when you have an asset, it can grow exponentially. So if you work and you earn that's what you get, but then you have to put your money to work for you and that's what creates that wealth and that comfort and
that dream. And you know, if you have a family, that legacy for your family, and we have to preserve that. That's so unique, you know.
It used to be in how do we do that? Because we scared the hell out of people now.
So.
Give us some hope here, you know, what what what what?
You know? You know you're talking about owning things, but you know, tell us what are like some easier steps that people could take, regardless of age.
I know you mentioned millennials my age bracket.
We're kind of screwed comparedor or you know, our parents, but you know, even our parents are trying to retire. What can we all do to to try to combat all this nonsense?
So it obviously depends on your financial situation. But if you are a millennial, you're probably carrying some outside insane amount of debt based on where you went to college, assuming you went to college. Because obviously the government and the universities have been in who is to extract wealth?
I mean, just think about how evil this is. They've enriched the universities at the expense of young people, and they have not only not given you degrees that allow you to go out and you know, get a return on that investment that you made, but they have delayed your ability to create wealth and in some cases just completely obliterated it. So you know, you're not gonna like to hear this, but we got to get real here.
So you're going to do what I did, and you can go into complete austerity.
You know, when I graduated from college a long time before you did, I had forty thousand dollars in college debt. But I knew that based on the jobs that I got because remember I'm a recovering investment banker, so I had a really nice career that if I took undertook extreme austerity, that I would be able to get that paid off.
And I paid it off in a year and a half. And the way I did it.
Is I lived in like a hole in the wall and next to me was a cardboard box with a sheet over it is my bedside table, and so on and so forth. So go into like an extreme austerity measure, get that debt paid off, because even if it's you know, tens of thousands of like I guarantee you if you gave me what you spend your money on, I can find a way for you to do it again.
You're not going to like it. But here's the thing.
Do you want to spend two or three years not, you know, not worrying about it and then not having to worry about money for the rest of your life, or do you want to just worry about money for the rest of your life. So if you do that, then all of a sudden, Okay, now I don't have this debt that's draining me to worry about anymore. Then I'm going to take that money. I'm going to revamp my spending. So maybe you know, I want to enjoy my life, but it's not going to be so extravagant.
And I'm going to continue to invest, and I'm going to invest in things that are hard assets where I can things in a form factor, I can control things that have the ability to grow. If you work for a company that has a four to one k like, you are going to want to take the match if they offer one, because that means every dollar you put in they are matching it. So on a net net basis text deferred, right, It's like fifty of the buy in for you, you're getting your data, you're getting double
the money. So things like that, taking like a small amount maybe five percent, and investing in physical prescious metals, going in and finding a way to buy a house. And again it may not be in the city or the neighborhood that you were hoping, but like start get get in somewhere and build up equity instead of just throwing that rent out the window. But it has to be somewhere that you can afford, because if you end up having to give that up, then you've just wasted the money.
It's just no different than renting.
So you want to take those behaviors and really start accumulating things.
And again, I know, like with millennials and gen z like everything.
Digital, But think about the things that you're buying and like, is there like.
Am I buying the hard copy book or am I buying the kindle? Like get yourself in the habit of getting things and owning things and realizing the value of owning tangible things, and then there are no behavioral changes that you know you can make. One of the things that again Jesse Kelly talks about, is you know this really kind of coming together in your community and living with like minded people who will support each other and have similar values and not do crazy things in terms
of the laws and getting involved. And again, there's a litany of things.
To push back against, so you're not personally going to be able to push back against all of them yourself, but maybe you can divide and conquer and somebody's in charge of the education piece and not making making sure that you.
Have ownership over your children.
And again, I hate to use that phrase ownership over another human being, but we all know that the schools are trying to own that relationship. And if you've read nineteen eighty four, you know that's exactly what they did with the kids. The kids became spies and told told on their parents. So you know, it's all these different
behavioral changes. Even on the tech front, like we've got to really push for digital bill of rights because they are becoming de facto governments and they are, as we know from the Twitter files, working in concert with big tech or excuse me, with government to limit your freedoms. So pushings for us to have more rights and more ownership. You know, if we're creating content, like we should own
that content. They should not be able to license that to somebody else and not pay you like that's insanity. And that's the agreement that you've signed with every social media company that you've signed up for. So again, there's there's a huge litany of learning of things, both behavioral
and financial, but it is possible. We can't stop the new financial world order from happening, right, but we can do things on a personal basis to make sure that we and the people around us are in the best position possible.
Carol, before we go, is Nancy Pelosi a lizard person?
Through I did extensive research in my book, and while she is not a lizard person, to my knowledge, I don't have anything that's said that she is a really good Her and her husband they're really good investors, and they actually have made a ton of money based on the fact that they make decisions and then they get invested in the companies based on the decisions that they've made, which for the rest of us would be called insider trading,
but for her is called capitalism, I guess. And there's actually stock trackers, there's Unusual Wales, dot com and some other places that actually track the trading of people in Congress with the Pelosis being at the top of the list. So maybe one way for you to own everything is to just keep an eye on mister and missus Pelosi.
Older leads do not follow. Jim Kramer on a CNBC followed.
Isn't that funny? Who would have thought? Right?
They're the best? You will own thing is out on July eighteenth. It's already crushing it. You can get it on pre order, already an Amazon bestseller. I'm so proud of you and happy for you. Thanks so much for taking the time and just happy for your success.
Thank you, Thank you, and Lisa and everyone listening. Make sure you go out and own everything.
Yes, yes, yes, let's own everything.
Well then you'll be happy.
We'll own everything. Just to spite them so exactly. I can't let them join them exactly. Take care, Carol, thank you, thank you.
That was Carol Roth. Always love having her on the show. She's so smart but also just funny and enjoyable to talk to. You so appreciate her making the time. Everyone go out and get her book, You Will Own Nothing. It's out on July eighteenth. I want to thank you for listening to the show every Monday, and Thursday, but you can listen throughout the week. Please leave us a review on Apple Podcast, give us a rating. I want to thank John Cassio and my producer for putting the show together.
Until next time,