Arpad is the creator and host of Star Path Academy which focuses on what it’s like living in hyperinflation.

He was born under communism in Romania, and lived through the 90’s Romanian high inflation period as a young person. This drove him to vigorously study the economic and political causes and effects of inflation as well as other monetary topics. Fusing childhood memories, hard lessons learned from parents and grandparents with his later studies, he shares his thoughts and insights with us.

Follow Arpad ⬇️

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/StarPathAcademy/videos

TRANSCRIPT FROM VIDEO:

Arpad:

To be honest, there was a bias in me as well, positive bias, in the United States this would never happen right? Why we’re too rich? I’ve been living my life. We would always be looking towards the west, right? As a good role model. You were, you still are in some cases, right? You still want to live in the United States are very good people. There are some good policies and so on, but I have this positive bias that in the United States, this never happened, not happened. And eventually it dawned on me, well, why wouldn’t it? But I’m saying it took even time for me, even after I went all of that, through all of that even took time for me to realize, well, it’s all the same thing all over again, with some different tastes in it.

Lynette Zang:

I’m Lynette Zang, Chief Market Analyst here at ITM Trading. And I have an extremely special guest on Coffee with Lynette today. It’s Arpad who is the creator and host of Star Path Academy, which focuses on his experience, living through hyperinflation, the link to all of his channels, or I hope we got all of them are below, but he was born under communism in Romania. And he’s lived through the 90’s Romanian high inflation period as a young person. This drove him to vigorously study the economic and political causes and effects of inflation as well as other monetary topics, which is really important for us to be aware of today. Fusing childhood memories, hard lessons learned from his parents and his grandparents with his own experience and studies. He shares his thoughts and insights with his viewers on YouTube. I am so excited to meet you finally, and have you here today. Thank you so much for coming Arpad.

Arpad:

Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you. I’ve been watching your shows, you share really great information and I just love your work and all whole work you do at ITM. So thank you very much for inviting me.

Lynette Zang:

I can’t even, I can’t even tell you how happy I am that you’re here. And I think your work is fabulous too. And so I always want to ask, why do you do, I mean, I think with you, it’s probably a little more obvious, but I’m still going to ask from your perspective, why you do the work that you’re doing with the hyperinflation?

Arpad:

Well, when I came to United States, I thought that the general people of the United States are at least somewhat familiar. What went down in Eastern Europe all of these satellite states of the post Soviet union and what we suffered through. And I thought, well, this would be common knowledge where historians, your university, your universities would be teaching it. So I thought, well, perfect. You know, you know, now that experience that we had, so hopefully you don’t repeat it, but as I spent more time talking about economics and just finances or general news with friends and people that I met here, I found out that’s really not the case at all. And whenever I started talking, they started to really listen. So I was happy to share my, you know, my history, our misfortune, if you want to put it that way. And it just went to the point where more and more people that asked that I should write the book or do a YouTube channel. So I, I started a YouTube channel that was easy. And as soon as people caught on, I was really happy to share my knowledge and really our history and you know, the sufferings that we went through because there’s a lot to learn in that. And hopefully this way I can help people.

Lynette Zang:

That’s really wonderful because you know, it is amazing how little people know of history, but, you know, and they always think, well, this time is different. Do you think this time is different? And do you think that it’s going to be localized when it, like it was in Romania and when the Soviet, when Russia fell, the USSR fell, or do you think this is more global? What do you think is going on?

Arpad:

Well, I think the song may be different, but the tunes are similar. So it’s always with a different twist just because of how the global politics shifts in the meantime, of course, however, the effect on the general people is always the same. It could be a different global situation. It could be a different economical situation. However, the effect on the general public, the good old, you know, nine to five people who just their only fault is that they, they haven’t paid attention. The effect on those people is always the same and it’s always suffering and losing their savings and losing their, you know, multi-generational properties, forms or something like that. It’s always the same. So I try to approach it from them from their perspective, because where we have control is truly in our lives and what we do have being west and so on. We don’t have too much control about global politics. And yes, it’s good to know about those things. And it’s good to know how things shift so you can dissipate things however, a lot of people will focus on those things where we don’t have no power, and then we feel powerless and we feel that have nothing to do well. Of course, there are a lot of things that we can do, how we can prepare. So we are not affected. Yes, it’s different in the sense this time, I think it will be much more global. It was sort of global even back then because the hyperinflation situation Romania was really tied together with the post-Soviet hyperinflation of Eastern Europe and all these other Soviet satellite states and including Russia, they suffered a lot as well. So I tried to talk about their history a little bit, the one, at least from what I studied, however, this time it is, I would say a bigger empire that is really all across the world. You know, there’s very little, very few countries in the world where they don’t know what a dollar is. You know, it might’ve been different in back then. People knew about the Soviet Union, but they were not trading rubles or other currencies in the four corners of the world. Well, now they are, they are trading in dollars, right? They have, even in Romania today, we have exchange houses and people save in dollars. Now we’re saving euros. And then we use those currencies. Sometimes when we list property in Romania, we directly say in euros, or we directly say in U.S. Dollars because we know we kind of don’t ha we don’t trust our own local currency anymore. So this is a much more global thing, and it will be much, much bigger. However, the effect on the general people is always the same. They just lose everything.

Lynette Zang:

You know, you said something that was really interesting, and I think we’re going to feel it, but when the population no longer trust the local currency, they will use another currency. So what happens if they are all in a synchronized hyperinflationary event?

Arpad:

Right? We actually had the benefit of Western Europe not going through this major inflation. We started eventually using the German Deutschmark which later became the Euro. So we had that privilege. I don’t think we’re going to have a privilege like that if it happens now, because I do believe because of a bigger empire, because of a bigger global system the tide is rising or all the ships are sinking at the same time. There’s no safe Haven, at least in currencies that I see where we can go to every currency or digital currency that I see is still in a speculation phase where it could work out. And it has historically, at least this brief history, brief history of cryptocurrencies, it went through it worked out however, when there’s a loss in currency, it tends to trickle down into other areas, anything that is monetary, or people have used to trade it will trickle down and it will have the same effect.

Lynette Zang:

It’s true. But, you know, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin came out in January of 2009, and then the federal reserve started quantitative easing in March of 2009, you know, coincidence, maybe I don’t think there are really a lot of coincidences, but it has not been tested through a crisis yet. So who knows what’s going to happen? And I agree with you. It is really just a speculation, but we see in south America that the particularly in Venezuela and there are other countries too, that when they lost all confidence in the Bolivar, well, there are many towns that actually use gold, little slivers, gold dust to make their purchases and things are actually priced in gold, which I think is really interesting. So do you think that that’s the kind of thing, I mean, if you can get your hands on it, I mean, they’re going out and they’re mining, so they’re getting it, they’re doing the same thing in Zimbabwe where they’re going out and they’re mining it. And so they have it. But what do you think is going to happen here if all currencies go down at the same time? I mean…

Arpad:

Right. So my opinion is, and from what I learned is that it has to be something physical, not just outside of the system, but it has to be something that is not affected at all by politics or perceptions of evaluation, because we now have the benefit of trading stocks or anything just with our phones, right? When electricity goes down for a couple of weeks, then what happens with your assets or perceived assets that are really just numbers on screens? You know, how much more, how much faith will you lose under those two weeks and how much the rest of the world will lose faith in under those two weeks, if that would happen. Right. And that’s hard to tell, but I’m assuming that what you have on your person or somewhere. That you still have there. And, you know, with electricity outages and energy shortages, this is not new to me. We live through this again and again, you know, my father went to two hyperinflations in his life. My grandfather went through two hyperinflation in his life. I went through one, I at least expect another hyperinflation in my lifetime. And during those times, there’s really, there’s not a global market where you could say, I’m going to check the price of X on my phone. No, it’s not like that. It’s connections. It’s your, the people that you know, that you can trade with in a situation like that, and things are valued on the spot, on the market, that you might not even know what the value of X is and gold or something physical like that has always had that benefit. That it’s actually something that is not relying on another system, may that be banking or even electricity or someone else you can just trade it directly. Now, in our case, gold was not really an option because we were actually coming out of communism where gold, especially investment gold was definitely outlawed. So we did not even have that privilege. However, people of course, smuggle in. And I have some interesting stories about gold and how my family try to you know, hedge against calming inflation with gold and how that worked out. But I know for sure that even when in the darkest of days, there were always, people may be, of course, in dark alleys or somewhere else, or just end up the street or your friends or your family that always took silver or gold for something. Now, of course, they actually have to have something to trade, or you have to have something to trade. So it was a bit harder, but not relying on electricity, not relying on bigger systems is key to survive and even trying to hyperinflation and from my studies and from what I studied from what I studied there are for the, at least for the general people, there is no better way to weather the storm. And these storms are long mind you, it could be seven years, 20 years, you know, in case of Zimbabwe is still going on in order to weather these long storms, you need something physical outside of the system. And you know, the best elements for that is silver and gold.

Lynette Zang:

I’ve also heard you talk. And I would love it if you would share your family’s stories. You know, you know, my mantra cause you watch my work. So it’s food, water, energy, security, barterability, wealth preservation community, which I think is the most important one and shelter. So can you relate your family stories and you know, where you set up with the mantra?

Arpad:

Yes. Yes. Well, we didn’t have everything of course, but we at least had the basics or acquired the base things during hyperinflation. The early start, the time for inflation. Now I come from a poor family. We didn’t have much to lose at all. Right. you know, my parents worked in factories, they were factory workers. They didn’t have wealth to store up a lot of wealth that we could lose really. When a fleecing comes, it’s really the people who actually have stored wealth in paper assets or other means that are in the system that get fleeced. The most, we our fault was not that much, but what, that also meant that we were immediately at the level where we needed to think about food or start. So that was our first thing that we moved back to homesteads that, you know, my grandparents had, and these were mind you, these were not big farms. It could be just a two and a half acres my grandmother had, or my grandmother’s sister had, and we immediately have to move back there and work on the land and start working the field to produce to the immediately. Now we had the knowledge, right? My grandparents, my parents used to do that now as me as a team started learning immediately how to do that. So we have that. We also had the privilege of community because these small towns in Romania or Eastern Europe are usually sort of historical towns where, you know, when you’re your neighbor or your next door neighbor could be your second cousin or your grandparents’ cousin or someone like that. So you already had that feeling of, if you move there, somebody will help you take care of yourself or you will, can help them. So we have that community. That’s no longer here, but we have that privilege. We also have the knowledge and we also, we’re not afraid of the hard labor to be honest so that we have of course. well, a community shelter. Now, of course, these were, when I talk about, you know, these homes they were mud brick houses from, you know, a couple of hundred years old without flowing water, but we dug a well and so on, but it was something we could, we could start with that, you know, and also the community families used to be bigger. I had 10 cousins. I was the youngest one, you know, they had their own place, some do different vegetables, some raised animals. We grew potatoes. That was our thing because it was easy to store. And we knew about potatoes and onions and that sort of stuff. So, and we were able to trade between us. Bartering works out really well, if you already have that layer of trust, or, that first layer of trust is hard to acquire in a big city. So we had a couple of things that we had going on for us. And just the knowledge, just a sheer knowledge of these old folk who went through much, worst times, to be honest, you know, my, my grandparents lived to the first or the second world war. So this was a walk in the park for them really. Of course I’m joking, but I always remember my grandmother being such light-hearted happy, you know, whereas I know my parents had a really hard time. Me as a young person, I didn’t even understood really what was happening. I just got the experiences, the feelings on what’s going on, the insecurities that a lot of emotional package that you know happened. And later on, I really wanted to know what was happening to us because for me it was just like, I didn’t necessarily even know how poor we were because everyone around me was so poor and we were walking around in rags sometimes, no shoes that is just, and that was life for me, you know? So I tend to have a different perspective because of this, I believe. And then later on our families financials, they changed during hyperinflation. Thanks to my my parents really, really hard work.

Lynette Zang:

There are a couple of things in there, but in the U.S. You know, people like I grow food, I just have a half an acre and food is the single biggest issue for most people during hyperinflation. And then I would also say medicine is right up there, but I mean, the U.S. And the people in the U.S. I remember when I started putting in the gardens and my neighbors were like, oh my God, people are going to come. People don’t know what food growing in the ground actually looks like anymore. So where you had that advantage and they did in Greece too, as Greece went through that, a lot of people, they went back to their roots and they had that community and they had that farmland. What do you think it’s going to look like since we’re not used to that here?

Arpad:

Well, we better get started now. If it’s possible. It will look more, more chaotic because the land was there for us. It’s hard to acquire land during hyperinflation. I mean, you can, but it will be very different than how you imagined it. Actually there, everything fluctuates. And we can talk about prices going up and down during the hyperinflationary period, however we had the land? Right? We had the knowledge, we actually didn’t have the tools. So I have to work with my hands, digging up the potatoes from the ground. There was a bit different, but eventually we had the knowledge how to make tools or trade for tools. So we have that, and we also have that community and that layer of trust. Now, if you would have at least that, you know then you’ll find a land somewhere, or somebody will give you pieces of land to work it for yourself or something needs to work out. Then people work out. People come together. A lot of people imagine a chaotic situation, or it’s a total Mad Max situation. Actually people become at least a nice people become even nicer. They are humbled and people are happy to help, as long as you’re you’re trustworthy, really being trustworthy and keeping your word was the best currency, to be honest, because that way you there’s always need for good people. There’s always needs for good people who you can trust and who you can work with, even in the darkest of times. So having that community, we could work it out right, and there’s land. But however right now, what I’m seeing in the United States, that’s everything has been systemized or put into bigger system where you’re really even a farmer or a lot of farmers are really disconnected. How, what actually their local people need around their community and becoming more of a corporation where only thing is you grow is soy beans and you sell it that this bison there’s Bing, Bing, Bing there’s, it’s like a stock market now. So we have to move back a little bit where you’re serving more your local community better because you will need them and they will need you. So we need to think about local farms how to help people now, because the people that you connect with now, those will be the people who can help you when there’s a bigger calamity. So we have to work on that really hard. And, you know, if you don’t have the means for it, you still have your currency, your word and your trustworthiness is is the biggest advantage you can have.

Lynette Zang:

Yeah. For those that live in a bigger city, though, there are also community gardens. So there are ways to build that community. And I think it’s critically important because you do. I mean, I agree with you. And when you’re talking about everything, getting really local for awhile, we get blackouts, brownouts, etcetera. Then one of the things that I’ve heard you talk about that I, that I love, cause I couldn’t agree with it more is that everything is barterable anything physical, but also your skills and your talents. So as I was becoming a gardener, because that’s not really who I am, but, you know, I, I believe my work. So, you know, I can lay irrigation. Do I want to lay irrigation? No, it don’t, but it is a barterable skill. So, you know, I encourage everybody to really develop and hone those kinds of skills because they come in really, really handy.

Arpad:

Yes, I totally agree. And actually skills were more bartered than anything because you know, we, everyone, all your finances or perceived wealth is evaporated. What remains is what you have in your house, maybe on your farm, if you have one in your car and that’s it, and how you start from that. Well, there are things that you can barter and give away and get rid of. Well, of course, if you store something that’s even better, but the biggest thing that we could marker without fear, because there’s a fear. If you’re bartering with someone who you don’t know, you can just go ahead and say, yeah, I have these couple of thousands of, or hundreds of cans of beans. You know, you’re exposing yourself. Now. They know you have the beans, but you can always go there and say, Hey, I can fix toilets. You know, that’s a really good barterable skill. Ours was one of the best ones or Hey, I can work for an hour on your field that, that we would trade that. Now, of course, in our case, because we had the community it would never be counted, but it would be somewhere this weekend, everybody comes together and work on your field. And next week, and everybody comes together because around, I had 10 cousins and we would go to their place and raise the barn or go there or feed the pig. And we would work backed off. Of course, the people or my relatives who already had bigger farms to start with, they would get a better deal because they have more things to do us with our little land did not so much. However, in that, in those cases we would get paid in live chicken or you know, some meat. Actually we had to store up wealth and buy a pork later on in the year because they were, the pricing was just that high for food. So things are barterable, but your skills will be really the biggest barterable thing that you can have and knowledge of course, knowledge, skills, and trustworthiness.

Lynette Zang:

And you know, I can tell you from my, my personal experience, when I was putting in this farm, there are meet up groups that do exactly what you were talking about. And so if you, if in your, wherever you guys are, if you’re in your local area and you can find a meetup group you know, for, for me, when I was first starting, it was garden pool. And I had like, I don’t remember like 42 or 52 people that showed up on my house on a Saturday morning and I fed them lunch, but I mean, they worked and they planted the trees and they did everything. So, you know, I, you and I definitely agree that community is like critical to get you through these periods of time. But can you tell us more about your family’s experience and how, you know, having lived through one hyperinflationary event, did your, were they able to do anything or what did they do to prepare for the next one? Or did they just think, well, that’s never going to happen again, so I don’t have to worry about it.

Arpad:

Right? Well, things have shifted and changed in our online. However, people have a short memory to be honest, around 20, 25 years and forget everything. But even after 25 years we keep at least my family or relatives. I have relatives who ever since the nineties, they never put any money in the bank ever. They never even got close to a bank ever. They learn to live without credit and they learn to live with cash only. And that’s it. Now of course they lost a lot, they had more wealth to lose, but that was it that, that I think those people, especially my aunt she will never go to a bank, not even close to it. She just completely lost the trust and I don’t even blame her, you know, so there are things and we also started valuing land and relationships much more. Now back then, I think the culture was different. Eighties, Romania was different. I think now sort of in the United States or Western Europe, it’s more fragmented, I would say back in Romania, wasn’t that fragmented. And we we knew our neighbors and so on. I think we are losing that. So I don’t think we lost our we, we didn’t, we didn’t learn our lessons there, how valuable community is. However, I still have the cousins and we are like brothers and sisters. We exactly know when something happens in the family and we are keeping in touch as much as I can of course from the United States, but it became that my cousins and my relatives became much more closer. And the connections that you make under these times, will last forever because these were forced in hard times, I should say. Now, without the hard times, we’re no longer forging new connections. I think that’s the problem. However, we did learn that you know, how valuable land is, if you can work it, of course, real estate, if you know what you’re doing, and you can do the right picks. Not to trust the big systems because when they feel they feel big and of course bank and something like that, and also really hard assets, anything that is outside of the system, like silver and gold we know their actual value. We know what their actual value during these times. So back then we used to fantasize about, you know, my father and I would sit under the Chestnut tree during night and we would talk about things and him explaining when they went through times like this. And when he was a baby what happened? And even then we were talking about how nice it would be if this, and we had actually a bucket full of aluminum. We collected metals to to sell later on too, for food. And so not how good it would be if this bucket of aluminum would be silver. And we would fantasize. These are silver nuggets and things like that. And you will never forget those, you know, and the, the lessons that I learned from that experience, I will pass down to my children hopefully further along because these lessons and these asset classes, or really multi-generational asset classes, and our memory is really short. If something goes up, then we jump on it and then we’ll jump out and we made some money and the good, the good stories get stalled. The bad stories don’t get told, but what you need to have is a long-term memory. You need to connect with your grandparents. What are they saying? You know, back we used to actually consult them about knowledge. You know, the further you go back in the past, the further you can see into the future. The lessons that they learn. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, my grandmother, especially, and those lessons that I learned from wartime and from a famines that we had to go to, those are not lost on me. At least. I think we are losing it in Romania as well because of Western influence, but also the flashiness and the generated wealth that we perceive now.

Lynette Zang:

And you’re referring to the stock market going up and the Fiat money assets, those that the central banks have targeted for reflation, because that’s what everybody looks at, is that what you’re referring to?

Arpad:

And it’s in one way, it’s a good thing because it’s sucking up all the money instead of it going to, well, now it’s starting to trickle into gas price and other things, but even then it’s kind of crazy. Even then we have these scams one big scam was out of Cluj-Napoca, which is a city in Romania. I think that [inaudible] was the name of it. And they would give you like 30% return on your money for extra months or some, it was a big Ponzi scheme type of thing. But even then people were speculating. And this, the easy money that people made somewhere will always have a place where it could be flushed out to be honest. And these would suck in all the money of the people who actually worked hard for it, but they wanted to do outsmart the system. And of course they lost a lot of it. So there’s always these two lips or something like that that could suck in the money that has been printed. And the people who are running the system don’t mind, they will let it run for a long time because they are actually acquiring real wealth, real assets and actually power that they grab because they’re printing the money. They don’t really care too much about paper, they’re grieving, grabbing assets power. And, you know, just look at what Bill Gates is doing. You know, he’s smart, you know, why is he acquiring so much farmland? So they’re acquiring assets. And is it being flushed out through the system? The people who actually may be had some stored up, well, you’re putting it into tulips or somewhere to flush it out where it doesn’t count anymore. You know, and what, as this continues for multiple years, eventually there’s a buildup where people start buying assets or start buying more and more stuff. And then you start a low long-term inflation that happens that eventually will spike up.

Lynette Zang:

Right. Which is, which is where I think, unfortunately I think we’re at the beginning parts of the hyperinflation, but I have people that ask me all the time about the banks and about how safe their money is in the banks and the safe deposit boxes. So can you talk to us about that?

Arpad:

Well, the tune is always the same. I remember I told you that one. So I interviewed other people around the globe from Lebanon and from Argentina. And the tune is always the same, the very first thing, when, when it hits the fan. So to speak it will be the banks have a holiday, they have a shutdown, and then they will decide in the next two weeks, what we’ll do with, with the situation based on your reaction, how violent or nonviolent that gets, I guess. But what actually happened in Romania was we had one, well it was sort of a fake commercial bank. It was really just owned by the government back at when Romania used to be a kingdom, it was a commercial bank and a private bank eventually communism took over and then we have this bank that for, you know, for the general people, it was called CEC. You can look that up and everyone’s money and everyone’s investment was there during communism. And even after communism, when it started everyone. And just, that was the safest thing that you could have, you know, it was government backed. Everybody was putting their money, your pension or your pay could be only coming to that system. Everything was managed. It was perfect. It was safe. Well, the very first thing, once hyperinflation started, it closed and it closed from two years and everything that was there, it got stuck. And I have relatives who had enough cash in the bank. Well, in the CEC, wasn’t really a bank, but it’s actually functioning like a bank enough to buy three houses fully, so no down payment, no nothing. They could have just bought that three houses for cash. Right. And after the hyperinflation and what, after the bank closed they were able to buy one television set with the same amount of money, same amount of currency. And it was mind mind-boggling for them as well. They actually debated whether they should invest that in something physical or not just prior, before everything happened. And they chose, yes, it was eventually a big frustration in the family, but, you know, people have to live together and work together. So they worked through it, but they left, they lost a lot of money that way. It was a big inheritance from my grandfather and they just kept it there. And yes, it was a television set, a black and white television set, eventually that they bought with the exact same currency, the exact same numbers and everything. They just went and bought a television and they at least have had a television. We didn’t. So that was fun. But as I mentioned when I talk with people with, from Lebanon or Argentina or some other place, it’s always the same. That’s the first money they can grab. All they have to do is shut off the app. They closed the door, that’s it, the money never even existed. It was just a number on the screen. And that was your problem, right? And I’m pretty sure the paperwork or the fine print or ideas in there that is their money. And it’s their, their liability. Actually, if you read to the fine print. So that’s always the first thing that happens. Eventually they come up with a scheme in Lebanon, they put it in a savings account. That’s locked for two years. Is it really usable? I mean, what, what will happen after the currency has inflated tenfold or 20 fold…you don’t, people don’t understand the gravity of inflation. You don’t have to percentage wise, you don’t have to lose that much in order to lose everything, right. If it’s 10 fold, that means you just have $1 out of 10, if it 10 folds, again, that’s a hundred out of a hundred dollars. Your purchasing power is one. It doesn’t even matter at that point, if you knew to lose another half, like another tenfold, it doesn’t read the first two, halfing of a purchasing power in the currency as where you lose everything. It’s, after that point, it’s just a, it’s just a rat race to have something to eat, I guess, because what happens is if you have a hundred dollars and everything else in price doubles, that just means now you have $50. Everything else, the price doubles again. Now you have $25

Lynette Zang:

Even nominally they’re identical.

Arpad:

Yeah. Of course. Purchasing power is halfing after the second halfing, does it really matter. People say, well, it was just a high inflationary period. Not necessarily hyperinflation because hyperinflation needs to go up, I think 500% per month. And this was like only 50% per month. Yes. But if they locked in your money, they could last it for two years. And by that time you did lose everything because you couldn’t take it out. So that’s always the same. That’s why I hadn’t relatives who never even go near banks now. I don’t choose that lifestyle, but I don’t and safety deposit box and anything like that, as long as it’s a system and there’s a key to the system and turning that key will change the things that are, how running the system is just for governments or big entities that are in stress is just too much temptation not to do it. So of course they will do it. They actually hope they don’t have to do more, but usually it never stops there.

Lynette Zang:

Yeah, I would absolutely agree with you. So just to kind of recap, basically anything that you hold inside of the banking system, whether it is in a bank account, or it is in a safe deposit box, you lose all access to it?

Arpad:

That was our experience. Now I can, I don’t see foresee the future. I hope not. And of course this is a global reserve currency we’re talking about. So it might be a bit different.

Lynette Zang:

It might be a bit worse

Arpad:

Yes. It’s I just told ’em I was having conversation. The analogy or the metaphor is we’re just on a higher shelf, everybody’s going to fall down. We’re just going to be falling from the top shelf. That that’s what it means, because that means that we’re even doing better now in this in this generated economy that we’re living in. So that wasn’t our experience. That was the experience in Argentina, Lebanon. Now having scheduled in Venezuela from someone from men as well. We’ll see. But at this point, yeah. It could be different. I don’t know. But I, for me, it’s probably not good enough. That’s enough. Yeah. I mean, you know,

Lynette Zang:

Well, you, you, you said that during the Soviet period, you were not allowed to own gold, right? But could you own it in different forms, like an heirlooms, you know, something that was passed down from the family or a collectible piece of jewelry or, you know, or a collectible, was that different?

Arpad:

No. So communism, every dictator has its own vision of it, his communism and everyone who supports communism has its own vision of communism. And they’re all different of course. And so that’s why I’m not too hard on people. If they disagree with me politically, because they might have a good vision in their mind, it’s just, we’re, we’re having a conversation, communication issue. Right. They might not understand the history or I’m not understanding their vision. So what I’m saying is that during communism things have changed first, they started with [inaudible] in Romania. Then CeauÈ™escu got more famous. A lot of Westerners know about the dictator CeauÈ™escu. They all had their different version, even as time has passed, things have changed, right. It’s not completely static, but basically every ounce of gold was no matter what it was outlawed, you could get and of course I was young, but my parents’ generation, they could get a wedding band if they filled out the paperwork a couple of months prior, and then the wedding band itself, the gold was made by approved the jewelers by the state. And it was, it was that like that. Silver actually wasn’t banned, but there was nothing, no available you couldn’t buy it in stores or anything like that. People did get silver from Bulgaria or even Russia, but it was more like ornamentals or jewelry or something like that, that they could get it as, yeah, just because I want to do want to clarify, just because it wasn’t legal. That doesn’t mean people didn’t have gold people did have gold, you know, even the Soviet higher ups had wives, they liked some gold earrings. There was there, but it was very tricky to have it, but kind of people did shut their eyes here and there. So you could get it, however, you have to make sure that it’s worth it for you to hold it, or you would be risking too much.

Lynette Zang:

Okay. That that’s wow. You know…

Arpad:

crazy times in the crazy policies. That one thing I do say to people and my family and I’m doing as well now is to have your assets in multiple political jurisdictions. If you cannot diversify outside of the country, at least outside your state or outside here, I have multiple citizenships. I have the benefit of doing much more things than the average U.S. Citizen. But yeah, I do think that as things will get bad they will they will try some shenanigans, but it’s up for us to decide that we let them or not, I believe because it’s really a power play. And even in communism, people did push back on some stuff. And communism has changed during that time. There’s a famous leaders. Goulash, communism, goulash is a Hungarian food. So who asked communism was something much more soft during Hungary, but because the youth was, was pushing for rock music and hip music and the Soviet officials couldn’t deal with that. There was just too many people wanting it. Right. So something like that did happen. And even with gold and different states had their different variety of communism. Romania actually had a very strict Dictatorship.

Lynette Zang:

Well, that would definitely do it, but then another thing that, so I still, well, so I wonder, cause I heard you talking about people using their wedding band, they would use everything else first that they had and then use their wedding bands or what gold they had at the, at, at the last, if they really needed to buy some food or what have you. And we’re, we’re hearing the same kind of things in different parts of the world right now.

Arpad:

Yes. So I have so many stories, but yeah. So just logically to explain to the viewers, well, if there’s something that is going up in value, why would you trade it? Right. And that was silver and gold or whatever we had. Why would you barter that? Right? I think it’s Gresham’s law. The worst currency pushes out the better currency. You actually want to save that. And you remember using whenever it was possible, we’re still using Romanian lane. Some people would still take it, immediately exchange it into something else. It was sort of a hot potato, but when it, things were easy into pricing, Romanian leg, do that. If that didn’t work, then we move up to the Deutsche, mark, the German mark, then the U.S. Dollars. And then if nothing else worked, then you would auction off or not auction off, but sell off your jewelry or something like that. But you would keep that to last. Now this caused an effect that since everybody knew that you would be doing this. They knew that you were desperate. You have to be really desperate in order to try to sell your jewelry because it was going up in price. So there was a huge premium, depending on when you sold it, how you sold it and who you sold it to in your local market, it was a huge premium, or I should say price difference if you were selling gold or buying gold because because people knew that if you’re selling gold, unless you are someone who’s a speculator and know that they can get gold from you, you are desperate really. So another good lesson for people is to have your securities first, have your food, your shelter, possibly community, and then whatever wealth that you want to save through an inflation or high inflation period, and kind of have at the other end of the tube. So to say that is what you would store in things that store, wealth, I should say precious metals as well, because, because during this time there has, there are practical issues that you have to deal with. If you’re selling gold, just for instance people would, if they would have investment gold, they would make a fake ring out of it and then sell it as a ring. That was all for a safety reason because if you’re selling bars of silver or bars of gold, they will track you where you live, you know, and find out where you have it. Now, most people didn’t keep anything at home. You would rather dig a hole and somewhere outside in the national forest, know where it is and keep it there instead of having it home because you could, you would have to leave your home on a moment’s notice. It would be crazy to have a lot of wealth stored in your home. That’s, that’s a good lesson for future as well from my family as well. However, there are practical issues that you have to deal with. So making sure that you’re selling your silver or gold on your own terms, and you can wait and you can sell it to the right person who actually wants it, not some speculator in an alley who will who have, you know, paid off some local cops and so on. So you have to, you have to control your own situation after you plan it out, you know, ask for help from the people who actually know what they’re doing, how you plan your strategy, because there are good strategies for even for collapses. And then then stick to it basically.

Lynette Zang:

Oh, I agree. And I, and I do want to hit on this cause we’re starting to run short on time, but people always, I could talk to you all day easily, but people always ask about real estate and about holding purchasing power. And I know that I heard you talking about how people were able to pay off their mortgage with cheaper dollars, but they had to do something to have that purchasing power intact. So can you, can you talk about what happens to real estate and what your experience was and the opportunities that you know, because it’s not all black, you know, there’s always opportunity in crisis. So can you address that a little bit? You just have to hold your purchasing power.

Arpad:

Yes. It’s really comes down to you having control, you having control and you not being desperate. My family eventually got desperate and we had to sell our aunts real estate. She passed away unfortunately during these times and she didn’t have any heirs and it came down to the family members to divide it and sell it off. And we were in a, in a bad situation. The people decided it’s better for us to sell. And we sold that property. It was a different homestead. And actually the price was around. I believe 2 million Romania leu now that that’s a large amount in numbers, but that didn’t actually buy you a lot. And I bring this story up because the same year, within the same 12 months, our family situation happened to change a lot. Thanks to mostly my father and my mother who started eventually trading their skills for foreign currency directly because my father was a machinist. He was able, he had his own shop set up. He was able to do a lot of things. And eventually we started acquiring foreign currencies or we were storing our newly acquired wealth in something else, right? Or physical things. Sometimes he would buy tooling or something like that. Eventually our anyway, our family situation had changed and now we wanted to store that wealth and we had, we wanted to diversify it and that same amount. And I did bring this here. That same amount of currency bought this gold chain. And this says, I have very, I have a very emotional, I get emotional, even me talking about it because I remember my mother crying about this, but that same amount of currency bought this very exact gold chain. And this is a 14 karat, I think it’s like 15 grams or something like that. So What does it buy?

Lynette Zang:

Right. What was that like 200,000 leu.

Arpad:

2 million.

Lynette Zang:

2 million, 2 million leu?

Arpad:

Pricing is just a number. And that’s the point. Eventually, eventually the minimum wage went up to 8 million later and you can, you could starve on that. So that doesn’t mean anything. So I could see gold up gold go up $200,000, announced it doesn’t matter. It’s just a number. What does it buy? At that point? We were making a course, a bad deal because we were trading real estate to leu to gold, at least my family which was actually on, on a different scale. And we were losing money, but it was actually safety for us. So that gold chain actually still saved purchasing power because if, if we would have left it in currency it would be falling and it would be eventually completely nothing. So you have to know what you’re doing. You have to know what real estate, and of course there are good stories about real estate. And even I have good stories from my family. We actually, later on, we did acquire an apartment that we rented out, however that was after of course our family situation. And to be honest, we actually eventually got better off after hyperinflation. Then we started, but that was through hard work and a lot of knowledge that it got passed down to family members and elders. So real estate, yes, there are examples. And I know multiple ones who had acquired real estate with a mortgage while it was a bit different structured differently. It was more of a government thing and under communism, but basically it was around 15% down or something like that. It was guaranteed by your factory that you worked for. I could explain this long anyway, the mortgage or quote unquote mortgage would have been for 15 years. And eventually that got paid off with in one case three months worth of salary and one case one month worth of salary, but it was not Romanian salary mind you, if you would have just lived and worked as if you would do, you would still be paying it possibly. However, they also acquired something else with their salary, kept it and then exchange that amount into paying off the house. So it’s a bit different. It’s it’s not clear cut. It’s not black and white. You have to kind of know what you’re doing, but yes, there are examples in our case that people paid off their houses with one or two months worth of salary, but it was a bit different, not just like keeping everything and you’re just sitting back and you’re waiting it out, so to speak. And also, I want to mention that people forget that communist Romania went to more of a free, well socialists, but a free economy, much more liberated economy. I think my personal view is that we’re actually in the reverse now. So that means that in these cases, these investments or good investment opportunities were left alone. So in the sense that who had the powerhouse, right, and he was able to pay it off because government or high, the bigger banks or entities didn’t step in because we wanted as a country to become free economy. And basically that was possible because the fee economy took care of it. So to speak. I’m not sure if there will be opportunities like that after hyperinflation, if high inflation happens and the political situation doesn’t change. Yes. I can foresee some cases if you were speculative enough that you could do it. And of course, I have my own plans as well. However it’s not a clear back, you know, and many, many times political shifts happen with currency collapses it’s hand in hand.

Arpad:

Yes, they really, they really do. But I actually, on Thursday, I’m doing a piece on real estate and gold during these hyperinflationary events. So if you held it, like in that necklace, if you had, if you had the gold before we went into hyperinflation, you had that necklace. You’d probably…

Arpad:

You could’ve bought our homestead for sure. Yes. We were on the other end of the trade.

Arpad:

Exactly. So there are opportunities that come up and, you know, my personal goal is for people to be prepared. And frankly, I’d always rather be, I don’t care if I’m 10 years too early, because when do you want to know when it’s hyperinflating? I mean, did you know, did your family know before it really kicked into gear? That that was what was happening?

Arpad:

No we were just regular family. We didn’t have background in studying economy a lot. We just had the knowledge or grandparents, parents about knowing about gold or silver, silver, but it was illegal for us anyway. So we knew about the least don’t sell off the very last land you have. And we had some knowledge, but about what could happen. However, we only really realized what was happening when the food prices tripled or quadrupled. At that point, it was clear that, Hey, I’m working for the same. My parents would be working for the same amount of money and we barely can afford food. At that point, it becomes obvious to everyone. And at that point they will lose the faith in currency and government at that point, the inflection starts. But at that point, it’s too late. At that point, you cannot acquire anything anymore. You already lost all your powers, your monetary power. So at that point, it’s too late by just before that point, usually silver and gold will spike because the people who are in the know who usually hate gold or talk about, and don’t even want to talk about it because of the talking heads in the media and so on, they actually start realizing, okay, this is BS, I’m just going to buy whatever I can. They eventually figure out gold and silver, at that point, it spikes up. And by the time the average people realize that food, which is almost the last link in the chain. I talk about how this gets passed down from raw materials to the, to the chain, to the eventually last prior to last thing is food. By that time, it’s already too late. You’ve been kicked out of the market, so to speak. So prior to that, there is a spike in our experience in gold and silver. But after that, after that another event happens a hockey stick moment, so to speak, and then there will be another opportunity towards the end of hyperinflation. When people like us eventually acquire some wealth and still remember, Hey, if we would’ve had gold or silver or property, that would be livable. And also workable, we would have not suffered this much, but now we have some cash let’s buy gold again. So towards the end of the period, there’s another realization of the general people that, Hey, this is a good thing. And of course, 25 years later, we forget it.

Lynette Zang:

Well you haven’t forgotten,

Arpad:

Well, not me. I’ve I spent a lot of time with my parents and grandparents.

Lynette Zang:

Have they forgotten

Arpad:

Well they have passed away. Unfortunately. But yes, our family and newer family members are not into much interested in it. However they know me and I keep pushing it. So they, they are making steps.

Lynette Zang:

Yeah. And, and for me personally, I’m just getting ready to take care of everybody I can. Cause I know exactly what you’re talking about. Fortunately, I do have some family members that are starting to listen so that I don’t have to do it, but, but you know, and I know our time is short. Now I just want to ask you two questions. Number one, where do you think we are right now in this whole trend? And number two, what else do you want people to know from this interview? Because I think this is probably one of the most important ones I’ve ever done, frankly.

Arpad:

Well, thank you very much. So for the first question, it’s hard to tell and you shouldn’t care too much about it because it happens fast when it happens. It’s already too late. Yeah. So it doesn’t really matter if you put 10 or five or whatever percent that you can afford into precious metals or something else…

Lynette Zang:

Or 80% – 90% cause I’m all in!

Arpad:

Well, depending on your age and depending on what your plan is, right. It doesn’t really matter if you put you know, if something for safety, you don’t count the cost of the fire extinguisher, right? It’s it’s like that. You don’t count it. You just want to have it right. You just want to have it. You don’t care when the fire is going to burn. So it’s that sort of [inaudible].

Lynette Zang:

and hopefully it never does!

Arpad:

But you want to have it regardless now, of course, I do want to provide you at least with some answer. So when usually these things happen, they happen for the reason. And I don’t want to be too speculative or too mean, but it’s usually to reset generational wealth to really bottom level. So now they have another few, couple of generations that will be that will have to work for the rest of their lives. Basically, we are resecting. We want to reset the wealth stored in these hardworking families to zero. So we can make sure that they will be hardworking families for the next 80 years or so. That is my perspective on why it happens. Now, our case in Romania was a bit different and this is a long answer, but please stay through it. Our case was different because we actually, during communism people actually eventually towards the end, was the softening period of communism had stored wealth to lose. Now in the United States. There’s I mean, it’s my opinion, but in the average people who are living paycheck to paycheck, there’s not much stored wealth, but they have some equity. They have some [indistinguishable] in that first, in my opinion, they would have to do a two punch knockout and then do a hyperinflation. So I’m expecting a short, deflationary period where a lot of people who are in debt lose everything they have, because if they just keep the debt and they, we start hyperinflating without political change, everybody who has debt would benefit. So to speak. Not really, but they’re actually, their debt is being wiped away. So is there a future, but they don’t count that. So there, that is…

Lynette Zang:

Well that’s the plan for governments is to repay the debt that they take on.

Arpad:

Right so if I would have to plan a reset, I would plan a short, deflationary period where I get rid of your assets, where you’re such in debt, that you will have to sell your house, sell your gold Sal, your Bitcoin, whatever you have. And then after that, I’ll take you to the hyperinflation panel that I will be talking about. So could it happen? Yes, no, I don’t know. But I’m saying that if this happens, I think we still have a good seven years because usually in order to grab that money from the average folk takes two, three years. Nobody has enough. The general people don’t have enough cash savings to hold their mortgages without the job for three years. Right? I don’t think so. So there w there might be a short period like that. They take you to that, and then they hyperinflate everything away from you, what you have, and then the reset happens. And then you’ll be happy because your student loan went away, but you will be in servitude for the next eight years or something that is good for you anyway. So it might be different scenarios, have different timeframes in my head. It could be seven years, but it could be also around the corner. Maybe just skip that. And in three years, two years, end of the year, who knows, I think we’re already in a collapse. We just we don’t realize it because there’s paper in front of our eyes

Lynette Zang:

And we’re melting up, right? So it goes back to all those numbers.

Arpad:

Yes, for the second question, I want to say that whatever happens you have to rule out fear from your life. Because that is how they get you. That is how you lose everything, by fear. Even if we would go through this situation, as long as you have close connections, family, you have people to care for people. You have people who care for you. You can live through it. You know, during history, we went through such bad times that we will survive somehow, hopefully, right? Or at least some of us. So being afraid will not help you anyway, spreading fear will make things worse because when a possible situation like this happens, you will be happy to give whatever power you have away to a possible dictator or whatever government scheme that could be re replacing our current government or political shifts could happen. What you want to do is not fear because you are still in control, make sure that nobody around you fears or has fear. And then you have a good situation that when something like this happens, everybody is set up to at least a point where you don’t you don’t buy anything that they are selling. You want to have that negotiation power. Well, I don’t care about what’s happening. I have my food. I have my storage wealth. I have my personal safety protection very important during these times. And I’m not going to take your deal. You know, you do what you ever do want to do with this new currency that you’re printing. I’m not taking it enough. People say that there’s no change that cannot be pushed upon it. Now for that, you have, you have to have no fear at least from the future. And you have to spread you know, information that makes sure that there are enough beacons of hope within people who are spreading, hopefulness/opportunity during these times. And if that happens, then then it’s a totally different game. So making sure that you are a beacon in your community, or you also create other beacons in other communities, not to be afraid, being prepared being friendly, being helpful. And that way we have, we could, we could be looking at a much better future. You know,

Lynette Zang:

I agree with you. I couldn’t agree with you more. This has been phenomenal. We have to have you back on again and not wait too long. Cause I want to hear more stories.

Arpad:

Yes. There are plenty. Some are sad, some are happy, but it’s true. We went through it, yeah. and we all need to learn from it, even myself.

Lynette Zang:

Yeah, exactly. You know, and, and the whole point is if you’re prepared, then you don’t have to fear anything, food, water, energy, security, barterability, wealth, preservation, community, and shelter, you know, don’t and I guess I would say stop procrastinating if you’ve been procrastinating, stop procrastinating and get it done. So this has been amazing. Thank you so so much. You’ve got all the links to his work, to our pads work below and also on the blog and also, you know, share this, make sure you share this video, whether they want to watch it. They don’t want to watch it. Everybody needs to see this. And until next time, please be safe out there. Bye-Bye.