BLOGMay 18, 2017

End of Medical Dark Ages: Entrepreneur Predicts When We'll Have Cancer Under Control

Serial entrepreneur, historian and dreamer Jay Walker joined Glenn on radio Wednesday for an epic conversation about the future of America.

"If you are a dreamer and a doer, this is going to be a fantastic hour. I have wanted to sit down with this guy for quite some time," Glenn said Wednesday on radio.

Walker --- labeled the Edison of his age by Forbes in 1999 --- is a modern-day Renaissance man. While his day job involves creating cutting-edge companies like Priceline.com and Upside.com that provide a patented, buyer-driven experience, his obsession is finding the connectedness . . . in everything. The breakthroughs he sees coming in the fields of health and medicine are of particular interest.

"For 3 billion years, life on the planet has followed a very simple system," Walker said. "We all share the same DNA --- a tree, a dog, a human. We have so much in common. For the first time in human history, in the history of the world, humans have control of the operating code. We are now manipulating the DNA, which means, for the first time, it's as if we had the software of life."

Walker explained how scientists are at the cusp of operating down to the instructional layer, which creates the proteins that create the tissues, systems and organs of the body.

"It's almost as if we're inventing printing, reading, writing and thinking all at the same time in forms of medicine," Walker said.

In effect, we're living in an extraordinary time in the history of the world.

"We're at the end of the medical Dark Ages," Glenn offered.

So passionate is Walker about the field of medicine he helped launch TEDMED, an independent health and medicine edition of the world-famous TED conference.

"How far do you think we are away from curing the majority of cancer?" Glenn asked.

According to Walker, it's not so much curing cancer that's around the corner, but being able to manage it as a livable disease like AIDS.

"How far do you think we are away from that?" Glenn asked.

"If you're saying leukemias and blood cancers, we're probably five years, maybe 10," Walker said.

"Holy cow," Glenn responded.

Walker's belief in the systematic, connectedness of everything even applies to his remarkable library which holds 25,000 books.

"People come to my library and they say, 'How are the books organized, Jay? How do you organize the books? You have 25,000 books. Is there a card catalog?' I say, 'Absolutely not. They're organized randomly by height,'" Walker laughed.

The library, Walker says, is one of imagination.

"They were all written by humans. They're all connected. You figure out why this is connected to that. The act of imagining is the essential act of creation. Nothing happens if you don't imagine it, whether it's who you're going to marry, the children you want to have, the kind of country you want to live in, the kind of job you want to have. It's all about your imagination. Everything happens here first. It happens in your head."

Enjoy the complimentary clip or listen to this segment for details.

GLENN: I first talked to Jay Walker -- I've known about him for a long, long time. But I first met Jay Walker on the phone -- this is the first time we've actually sat in the same room together.

And immediately, I felt connected to him and the way he thinks. He's an optimist. He sees a massive change on the horizon. But he knows it doesn't have to be bad. It probably is going to be a little rough getting there. But it doesn't have to be bad. And he sees the future unlike most people do. And he sees it through the eyes of history, which is so wickedly important. Just full disclosure, he is the guy who started upside.com which is an advertiser on this program. But I do want to ask him one question on something he told me about Upside when we first spoke. But this is not an advertisement. We're not even going to talk about that. You need to meet this man.

He's just started something called Ted MD, which is TED talks -- no, I'm sorry. Med Ted. Sorry. Med Ted. Yeah, TEDMED.

Jeez, how many times am I going to get this wrong?

STU: You only asked him three times before you came on the air.

GLENN: I know. I know. What am I thinking?

So he started this, and I want to start here. I hate to bring it to a cheesy TV show, but I've been watching a show -- and now I can't even remember the name of it. It is --

JEFFY: Pure Genius, which was just cancelled.

GLENN: Pure Genius. Was it cancelled?

JEFFY: Yes.

GLENN: Oh, crap. That was such an optimistic show.

JEFFY: I know. I know.

GLENN: Have you seen that?

JAY: I have not.

GLENN: Okay. So the premise is a guy who is a billionaire, you know, a guy like you . . . just a serial entrepreneur, tech guy. He's in Silicon Valley. He's like, I'm going to start a hospital. And it shows --

JAY: Oh, boy. You'd be better starting a government.

GLENN: But it shows all the -- it takes all the red tape out and shows all the tech that is coming and how optimistic life really looks when you look at what's on the horizon and the breakthroughs we're about to go through.

As you're doing this, what are you seeing for --

JAY: Well, Glenn, the way to think about it for health and medicine, is that for 3 billion years, life on the planet has followed a very simple system. It's very simple. There's one -- you know, there's DNA. We have a common ancestor. And it's been evolving for 3 billion years, give or take depending on your beliefs. And I'm not picking on anybody's beliefs.

But the fact is, we all share the same DNA --- a tree, a dog, a human. We have so much in common. For the first time in human history, in the history of the world, humans have control of the operating code. We are now manipulating the DNA. Which means, for the first time, it's as if we had the software of life. That's never happened in history before.

It means for the first time, we're going to be able to operate down at the instruction layer, which creates the proteins, which then creates the tissues and the systems and the organs of the body. So we're right at the cusp.

It's almost as if we're inventing printing, reading, writing, and thinking all at the same time in forms of medicine. And so we are living at the beginning of an extraordinary time in the history of the world.

GLENN: We're at the end of the medical Dark Ages.

JAY: Exactly. It's as if we had just gotten the microscope for the first time, and we saw there was a tiny world that nobody knew existed. In 1665, Hook looks through his microscope, and he sees that the fly is composed of thousands of little eyes. And he says, "What is this micro world? What are these little things swimming around?"

And he can't even see bacteria. He can't even see the smallest things. And yet, an entirely new world opens up. Galileo looks into the heavens and sees that there are planets, but also sees that there are moons around Saturn and Jupiter. And suddenly, the notion that the earth is in the center of the universe drops away. The telescope and the microscope were the great changes of the 17th century. And now we're in the 21st century, and we're now seeing for the first time the actual code that brings things to life.

GLENN: We're seeing things -- Ray Kurzweil, I've talked to several times. I am --

JAY: The singularity, right? Ray talks about, we're about to hit this point at which everything breaks free and goes on an extraordinary compounding effect, and whether or not you agree or disagree with Ray, there is no question if you back up and you look at where we are in history, in medicine and health, we are about to exit the Dark Ages.

GLENN: So he said it's as if -- he said, the human body should last a lot longer than it does. It shouldn't wear out. He said, it's as if there's a switch somewhere that's just been turned off. And he said, we just have to find that switch. Are you -- when you look at the DNA --

JAY: Yeah, I wouldn't agree with Ray on that, but I understand where he's coming from.

The human body isn't a thing. The human body is a system. Think of the Amazon rain forest. It's composed of enormous different things. It's got trees and insects. It's got birds. It's got animals. It's got leaves. It's got photosynthesis. It's got fungi.

It's got all these things, and we call it the Amazon. It's constantly changing. You are an Amazon rain forest. You have trillions of --

GLENN: I think that's a fat joke --

JEFFY: It certainly was a fat joke to me.

JAY: So we don't switch on or off the Amazon rain forest. No, the Amazon rain forest isn't going away, despite, you know, our efforts to cut it down for lumber or to grow grass. But that being said, it's about a system.

What we're learning is how all the different systems of the body, including many that are not even human, we're learning about the microbiome. These are bacteria that we need to survive in our guts and all throughout us, for which without them, we can't make it.

GLENN: How far do you think we are away from curing the majority of cancer?

JAY: I think we're far from curing the majority. But we're not far from turning a significant number of cancers into a manageable, livable disease, like we did with AIDS.

We figured out not how to cure AIDs, but how to slow it down so you could live with the rest of your life with it, much like all men have prostate cancer. We just don't die of it.

But literally, 100 percent of men, if you do an autopsy at age 75, are going to have prostate cancer. They simply are not going to die from it.

Cancer is essentially a natural byproduct of having multicellular organisms. Because in the process of duplicating at the cellular level, you're going to have some mistakes randomly, and some of those mistakes are going to be so damned good at not being killed, that they're going to reproduce in a way that's bad for the organism as a whole, but good for the cell. So we don't eliminate cancer. We eventually figure out how to manage with it.

GLENN: How far do you think we are away from that?

JAY: If you say 50 percent of -- if you're saying leukemias and blood cancers, we're probably five years, maybe ten.

GLENN: Holy cow.

JAY: If you're saying soft tissue cancers, more like ten to 20. But a lot of it depends on whether or not we get better at finding them sooner. Today, we cannot detect cancer until it's about seven years old. So when somebody comes from a doctor and they say, "I've been diagnosed with cancer," you've had it for seven years. We can't see less than 100 million cells, which is less than the tiny point of a pin, 100 million cancer cells.

So cancer is a system disease of which we have many in our bodies, most of which will never come to the point where they hurt us. Cancer isn't like an infection where it's binary, you have it or you don't. Cancer is a symptom of the system. And the system learns to cope with it for most of your life.

GLENN: What's the most amazing thing you seen on the horizon in medical tech?

JAY: The most amazing thing is probably the mapping of the human protyle. So we call all the -- the proteins are the workhouses of the body --

PAT: That's what I was going to say.

JAY: They're the things that do all the work in your body. Your DNA codes for proteins. Proteins are the worker bees of the body at the simplest level. We really have never mapped them all. And it turns out most of the diseases, if not nearly all of them are dysfunctions of protein operations. Proteins are very complicated organisms. They're very, very small, but they're very complicated. We are now at the cusp of mapping them all.

And forget about mapping the human genome, which is great. It's the protium where all the action is at, and we're right about to map it.

GLENN: What will that change?

JAY: Well, it will allow us, for the first time, to understand what's really going on with disease. Up to now, we've actually not understood what's really going on.

GLENN: What does that mean?

JAY: Well, it means that the proteins are malfunctioning. When you have a disease --

GLENN: Hang on just a second. I just want to -- you know you're in the room with someone who is smart when you're -- I'm now in three levels deep of asking what the hell does that mean, and really --

JAY: I'm trying -- I'm trying to keep it broad for the audience. I'm not an MD or a PhD. I'm really not a doctor. I just talk to them all day.

GLENN: No, it's amazing. Right.

JAY: And, by the way, that's my spare time job because my main job is building a great company in Upside. So ironically, we're off on the side here.

But the -- basically, what it means is when we learn how proteins behave badly, we will recognize that your arthritis may be very similar to the fact that you have a sleep apnea, that they are the same proteins, just misbehaving.

There is a map of all the proteins.

GLENN: Wow.

JAY: And once we start to look at where the proteins are behaving badly, we now have the tools to finally figure out what the hell is going on with these diseases. We don't know anything about Alzheimer's. So much of that is a protein --

GLENN: So that's why sometimes you'll go in and things are absolutely not connected. Doctors will tell you, that's not connected. Well, but they're all happening at the same time.

JAY: Right.

GLENN: And, yeah, I know they're not connected. But I've never had these before, and now they're all happening.

JAY: Everything is connected. Okay? So anybody who tells you something isn't connected -- you don't go into the Amazon rain forest and say, well, the fact that the toads are dying is unconnected to the blight on the trees. No, everything is connected. The question is, at what level?

GLENN: Right.

JAY: Does it have a common cause? Or is it the result of common external factors? We're learning all that.

GLENN: You know what I'm amazed, talking to people like you, A, I feel really average. That's being very kind.

JAY: This isn't your area of expertise, in all fairness.

GLENN: I know. But, still, this is -- this is not your job.

JAY: It's not my day job.

GLENN: And the people I meet like you, have they always been around? Because I look through history -- and you'll see the people like Tesla and Edison. You'll see these people who are really quite bright in a million different things. We used to call them renaissance men.

JAY: Yeah.

GLENN: But there is something about this new group of entrepreneurs that they are -- Jon Huntsman Sr. is a friend of mine and started the Huntsman Cancer Center.

JAY: Yeah.

GLENN: And he said to me -- I asked him, teach me how to be charitable. I've been poor my whole life. I don't know how to be charitable.

JAY: It's an art. You have to learn how to do it.

GLENN: Yes. And he said, first lesson, you have to care about everything. Not just -- you have to care about everything.

And that kind of goes to --

JAY: It's very American. So this is a nation of insatiable curiosity. It's always been that way. It's because we've had the West. We were founded by a group of people who were fleeing somewhere else, with the handful of exceptions of the people who were here, right?

We've all come from somewhere else. We've all left a world behind, in order to come and build a new world in America. Nobody even knew it existed until 1500.

So the beauty of the American spirit is it's a spirit of insatiable curiosity. That's why we're a nation of tinkerers, a nation of inventors, a nation that's always trying to change. We don't look back as a nation. It's a weakness and a strength both at the same time.

But the fact is, this is -- the country -- America looks forward. People like that are insatiably curious about everything. And you find whether it's John Muir or Thomas Edison, these people recognized that at the deepest level, it's all connected.

So I have a great library in the history of human imagination. About 25,000 books.

GLENN: Love this.

JAY: Right? Now, it's a library about imagination. People come to my library. And they say, "How are the books organized, Jay? How do you organize the books? You have 25,000 books. Is there a card catalog?"

I say absolutely not. They're organized randomly by height. And he goes, "You have a library of 25,000 books organized randomly?" I said, "Yes. It's about imagination. You connect them. They were all written by humans. They're all connected. You figure out why this is connected to that."

The act of imagining is the essential act of creation. Nothing happens if you don't imagine it, whether it's who you're going to marry, the children you want to have, the kind of country you want to live in, the kind of job you want to have. It's all about your imagination -- everything happens here first. It happens in your head.

GLENN: We're having a great debate now between the legal and business side and the creative side of this company, of what -- who is the creative? And I keep saying, everyone is.

JAY: We all work for the customer. We all work for the customer.

GLENN: It's not even that, I am, fill in the blank. I am happy or I am sad. What are you going to create at the basic level? And everyone has the same power in a different way. Just, what are you creating?

JAY: Yeah. And we've taught, unfortunately, in so many ways, we live in a society of specialists. We've taught, specialize. Focus on one field. Do the best. Your economic result will be highest if you specialize.

And that's true. But it's generalists who integrate completely, unexpectedly. When you look at Steve Jobs and his life, you see a generalist. Not a specialist. You see a guy who was happy to go to India, happy to learn about type fonts, happy to understand the aesthetics of design. And yet, he was a technologist. Why? Because, really, great leaps forward are made by people who integrate from multiple fields. And that's why we call them polymaths, when they happen to be geniuses. Leonardo was a polymath. He was a genius in five fields. That allowed him to be a bigger genius in any one of them. And we see this throughout history.

GLENN: We're going to run out of time so fast. Jay Walker, a serial entrepreneur. A founder -- cofounder of Priceline. And many other things -- 900 patents. We'll continue our conversation with him in just a second.

[break]

GLENN: Let's talk a little bit about the -- the future and what you're seeing in things like Priceline and Upside.

JAY: So one of the great futures is we're living in this digital world, right? And everybody is saying, look at all this data. Okay. What does that mean to me? What does that mean to a person sitting out in the audience, and just listening and saying, okay. That's nice. The world is filled with data.

Here's one of the things it means. It means your flexibility, which right now you don't get paid for, you're going to start getting paid for.

Look, when you're walking down the supermarket aisle and you see an item on sale, next to one that isn't on sale, you can be flexible and say, I'm going to buy the brand that's on sale today because I normally buy that brand.

But that's just a small case. What happens every time you're shopping online and somebody says, "Hey, are you willing to be a little flexible? I'll give you $50, if you do this instead of that." I'll give you $90 if you do this instead of that."

Imagine a smart piece of software that offers you options that gives you personally more money for being flexible. And, by the way, gives your boss something too.

So the key idea behind one of the things I'm working on is, how do you turn flexibility into an asset? How do you turn it into something where I have my phone -- hey, look, I want to go to New York on a trip. But if I leave 15 minutes earlier, you'll give me $50. If I leave -- if I go into a different airport, you'll give me $100. If I stay at a hotel across the street, that's worth $200 to me.

I can't find all those choices. There's too many choices. But software can.

The beauty of the world we're living in, with this new big data software, is it can evaluate tens of thousands of choices for you. Show you just a few that makes sense.

GLENN: So when we come back -- can you talk a little bit about that? Because you've demonstrated that in Upside. And that's -- I got to that with you because I said, okay. What's the catch? And you explained it to me. And I'm like, holy cow, that's brilliant.

And you said to me, now, imagine that with everything.

So let's talk about that. And also, I want to talk about the -- the world that is going out and examining all these things, but then putting us into little teeny boxes, where we don't see the big picture anymore.

VIDEOS

TPUSA Presents This is The Turning Point Tour LIVE with Glenn Beck at the University of North Dakota

In this poignant segment of Turning Point USA's American Comeback Tour live event, Glenn Beck honors the late Charlie Kirk by revealing his private plan to name Kirk as his successor in conservative media, emphasizing Kirk's unparalleled dedication and achievements. Blending themes of faith, history, and personal resilience, Beck shares life principles on forgiveness and truth while unveiling 'George AI,' a revolutionary tool for exploring American history through digitized artifacts and interactive conversations with Founding Fathers.

RADIO

Israel and Hamas sign Trump's historic deal. Will it work?

Israel and Hamas have signed phase 1 of President Trump’s peace deal, paving the path for the release of all remaining hostages, hopefully in a few days. Glenn and Stu explain the significance of this historic deal and what it could mean moving forward.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Oh. Your initial thoughts here on the peace deal?

STU: It's an incredible opportunity. I think it is important to remind ourselves, that this -- these things typically do fall apart. That is essentially your expectation, any time anything like this happens. Part of this is going to be Hamas coming through on promises.

I have very little belief that they are typically able to do such things.

That being said. They probably also -- you know, one of the things -- a friend of mine pointed this out to me. We were going through all of this.

And he said, you know, one thing to think about it: This is, like, not the B team of Hamas. But the R team of Hamas. They've killed so many of the leadership.

GLENN: Yeah, yeah.

STU: These are people making decisions that were not at the top of this organization and had those ridiculous ideological beliefs that would lead you to October 7th. That's not to mean that Hamas, these people that are left are like, "Hey, you want to invite them over for Thanksgiving."

But I do think there's a possibility here that they're like, you know, maybe this life is not here for us.

GLENN: That would be nice if that were true. I don't know if that were true. But it would be really thyself.

STU: I don't know if that's true. I do think there may be a little bit lower ideological commitment, potentially. And also, the idea that some of these people might be able to make this deal and escape to another third country.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: And live life there, in a different way.

GLENN: So the breaking news that just was announced, Israel, their parliament or their cabinet just met or approved phase one of the deal.

And Hamas has just come out and said, they accept phase one of the deal.

That means the hostages will be released either this weekend or Monday.

Any remaining hostage will be released.

STU: I mean, just that.

GLENN: Just that.

STU: If that occurs, it is a massive achievement.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: So far, it is already the greatest opportunity we've had.

And only possible because of his detection to this idea!

GLENN: And his deal-making.

Not just his vision.

But his ability to work all of the parties and find out what all the parties need.

And make it happen.

You know, we're not talking about peace between Gaza, you know, Hamas, and Israel.

We're talking about peace in the Middle East.

STU: Yeah. It's bigger. It's bigger than just Israel.

GLENN: I mean, it's Egypt and Saudi Arabia and -- and Jordan to some extent. And -- and Turkey. All of them getting together and saying, you know what! We'll rebuild Gaza. We want to make it into a very prosperous kind of area. I mean, think of places in Saudi Arabia that are so prosperous. That's the way Gaza could be. So they're all getting together and they're saying, "We will rebuild. We'll oversee. We will try to make everything -- you know, keep everything held."

They will put their money into it, which means they have a lot to lose if it goes awry. And they're all saying, "We can co-exist with Israel."

Three years ago, did you even think that was possible?

STU: Yeah. And, you know, look, there are a lot of places you can go and find non-stop criticism of Donald Trump. They will say terrible things he does, and everything he does is the worst thing ever.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: Also, there are plenty of places you can go where you find that everything that he does is the greatest thing of all time.

I hope you realize that's not what we do here. And I -- on a -- I said this -- and you said this as well when we -- when this was unveiled.

Sometimes, you can get -- people are critical of the way Trump handles these situations.
Sometimes. And sometimes there's arguments on that.
Sometimes it's not the best approach.

You know, we were critical of him, for example, how he handled Canada. You know, probably cost Poilievre that election. And I think that's a really bad thing.

GLENN: I do on top.

STU: That being said, this is a great example of where his instincts work perfectly. This is all set up over a long period of foundational stuff from his first term. With the decision he made, to come out and just announce the agreement with Netanyahu. We agreed. We agreed to this peace deal.

Now, in theory, we have no position to agree between these two parties. But he came out and all of the focus had been, look at all the bad things Israel is doing. Look at how bad, they're so evil. They're so bad.

And he said, we agree with Israel. Now we just need Hamas.

And so the world's attention was like, what's Hamas going to say?

Finally, he was able to focus his attention to the appropriate place. To the party that is holding the hostages, to say, hey. How about asking if they want to a freaking cease-fire for once?

He was able to do that. In a way that I think only Donald Trump could achieve. Which leads to this, over a long foundation.

GLENN: And here's another thing.

You know, this guy has walked through wall after wall after wall of fire. Everybody calling him everything. Nazi, every day.

Here's a guy who, you know, in a time period where the whole world is like, the Jews control everything. Donald Trump is run by the Jews.

He not only kept his relationship with Israel solid and helped them, when he thought they were right. But when they were wrong, in his view, he chastised them.

He knew how to do it. And still hold their respect.

And gained the respect of places like Qatar. And say, so Qatar. When he chastised Benjamin Netanyahu and Benjamin Netanyahu had to I think apologize to some degree about what they did in Qatar.

That's when the Middle East went, wait a minute.

He's not being controlled by the Jews! You know what I mean?

That should be a really big wake-up call to everybody who thinks that Donald Trump is just being controlled by the Jews.

No. No. No. He's not.

He does what he thinks is right. And he'll chastise both sides.

And he will support either side. When they're right, to get to a deal. That's good for everybody.

This deal could be amazing.

I don't have any -- and it's not because of this deal.

I happen to -- I read the end of the book. So I know how this ends.

This will not -- you know, this is not --

STU: You skipped ahead?

GLENN: I skipped ahead. I skipped ahead.

STU: Don't ruin anything.

Don't -- no spoiler alerts.

GLENN: I won't. No spoiler alerts.

Let's just say, this might last for a week. It might last for a thousand years. I don't know.

But we will be in this situation again. We all know that. We all know that. But let's take and celebrate peace while we can.

And the hostage is coming back. That is massive. Massive.

And due to Donald Trump.

Today, if you don't like Donald Trump, fine. Fine.

But how do you take this one apart?

Honestly, how do you not claim this is a massive victory, for the whole world?

STU: Well, I can tell you, that a lot of people on the left are rooting for it to collapse, which is a shockingly revealing moment. I mean --

GLENN: Wait. What?

STU: They are -- you know, they're not going to be out there like, we hope this collapse is.

But you know they hope it collapses.

They don't want to give Trump credit for it.

And they would rather have this continue. They would rather have this war go on.

Than admit that the reason it's ending is because Donald Trump was able to negotiate this deal.

That is central!

GLENN: I think anybody who has played politics with the Palestinian, you know, all that stuff. And all the stuff on the streets. That -- that has been a very effective tool for them. And so I would agree.

And they don't want that tool to be taken away.

STU: You think the Hamas wing of the party wants this? You think Rashida Tlaib is all thrilled about Donald Trump's efforts here. They will hear about Ilhan Omar -- how wonderful --

GLENN: Those are extremists.

STU: I mean that. This is a very revealing dividing line on the left. Right?

If there is anything that is ever going to happen, that Donald Trump can be given credit for. That you think this could be clear. John Fetterman. Fetterman has obviously pretty good on this issue. But Fetterman came out, gave a statement that should be basic. Basic. Like, hey, this is good. And I really hope it works. Donald Trump did a good job on this.

That's the type of stuff that should be obvious for everyone to be able to --

GLENN: That's what "Tip" O'Neill would have done. "Tip" O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, they got together. They disagreed. They fought hard, but they had dinner.

Yeah. Because "Tip" O'Neill could say, that was good. That was good. What he did was just good for all of us.

STU: That worked well. Good. I'm glad that happened. You should be glad that happened. We should all be rooting for the success here.

Even if what the -- you know, like, I rooted -- again, I have all sorts of criticisms the way Barack Obama dealt with the Middle East.

Yeah. Plenty of them. And we went over them over and over and over again.

And plenty of issues with specifically the way he went after Osama bin Laden. But on the day that it happened, really happy about.

Very happy that we were able to do it.

Now, look, it's our military that does it. They can say all this stuff too. They can say, oh, well, the real reason is. Blah, blah, blah.

But we can still be happy, that this occurred. And you can still be excited and give credit where credit is due.

GLENN: This is a win for all humankind. For humanity!

For life!

Stopping Hamas from torturing. You know, torturing kidnap victims.

Stopping the bloodshed that was happening because of the war on both sides.

That is a win. Having the possibility of a stable Middle East, at least for a while. That's a win!

That's a win all the way around. Everyone should be happy. I don't care if you like the president or not.

Everyone should be happy that mankind, put one on the chalkboard for all of mankind today.

This is a huge -- never seen -- this is on the good side. Never seen this one before. Didn't see this one coming.

I mean, we should all be able to say, wow!

And thank you. Because he's the -- I really, truly believe, when it comes to negotiating things like this, there is nobody better.

I mean, that's what he does for a living.

And he knows it. He knows how to read people. He knows how to it.

And this is evidence of it.

STU: And he will do things that are so out of the norm. That it resets everybody's thinking. You know, I mentioned --

GLENN: If he wouldn't have done that. If he wouldn't have done that, we wouldn't have all the Middle East signing on to a peace deal.

STU: I respect. What would they have done in a situation like Trump was with Netanyahu?

Their advisers would have said, "Look, this is great. You guys are together on this. Let's go to Hamas. We'll talk to them. We will see if we can get something done. We don't want to ruin it by announcing it publicly. There are times, where that tactic cannot work. But it worked really well here."

He forced them to basically say, "No, we don't want a cease-fire," or, "Okay. We'll go along with this."

And, by the way, you go down this list, there's a lot of stuff -- this is Hamas never, ever having control of this region ever again is built into this agreement. Now they've only talked about -- they're only on phase one here. So we don't know that we get all of this stuff. But like, there's a lot here that really improves the lives of Israelis, of --

GLENN: Palestinians.

STU: Arab Israelis in the region. You know, Palestinians. Other Arabs in the region.

GLENN: Saudi Arabia. Everybody.

STU: Yeah. Not to mention, just globally.

Right? This is a positive.

GLENN: Look what this does.

That's Turkey. So that separates Turkey from Syria, which is right in bed with -- with Iran.

I mean, think about how this box is. If you have the entire Middle East, now operating with Israel, and saying, we have a right to exist. Think about what that means, for this block, now to Iran. Iran doesn't mind being a pariah.

But now, everyone is officially saying, aisled do business with them.

STU: We will choose business over these guys.

That's a big statement in that world.

GLENN: That's a big deal. Big deal.

RADIO

Gold is at $4k an ounce. What that means for YOUR dollar

Gold has reached a record high price of over $4,000 an ounce. So, what does that mean for your dollar? Financial expert Carol Roth joins Glenn to explain why this news is so concerning and why many big investors have started to buy gold.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Well, Carol Roth, welcome to the program. How are you?

CAROL: I'm doing great, Glenn! I'm actually celebrating my 26th wedding anniversary today, so it's a blessed day.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Congratulations! Congratulations! It's weird. I'm coming up on my 26th on January.

CAROL: Oh, fabulous. Fabulous. It's a good amount of time to be married, yes.

GLENN: It is. It is. So, Carol. Let's talk about the price of gold hitting --

CAROL: It's over 4,000.

GLENN: Which is nuts. And I don't think people really understand. I don't think the average -- this is my guess, and I want you to correct me. I don't think the average person is buying gold. I think this gold-buying is happening from sovereign funds and central banks, mainly. Also, Asian markets. I don't think Americans really understand what $4,000 an ounce means. Can you explain it?

CAROL: Absolutely. I think the world both, investors and central banks are catching up to the things that you and I have been talking about for years. So, you know, we're ahead. We warned everyone. And now this is a little bit of catch-up. Interestingly, you know, as you noted, the average American is very behind in terms of what gold means.

When you look at Chinese households. When you look at Indian household. There are estimates that each one of those country's households owns up to 30,000 tons of gold at this point. Which to put that in context, the US government owns 8,133 times.

GLENN: So the Indian households, all of them combined, 27,000 tons.

CAROL: Right.

GLENN: What we say we have, is he 8100. Wow!

CAROL: So the households in China and India are really ahead of the curve. When you look at data for the US, it's a little bit hard to get good data. But from what I've seen, the estimates are only about ten to 11 percent of US households at all, have exposure to gold.

Now, I know that your audience is very sophisticated and is ahead of the curve. And I would imagine blows through that number. But just shows how sort of unprepared US households are in general.

GLENN: When you're looking at Indian and Chinese households that own gold. Does that include all the gold jewelry?

CAROL: Yes. Yes. That's actually, particularly in India. One of their preferred ways of procuring gold. Yeah.

GLENN: Okay. So gold has -- gold has shot up over $4,000 in record times. I mean, breathtaking time. What is causing that?

CAROL: Okay. So there are a confluence of factors, and I think the two most important factors, which, of course, are linked. Are what Wall Street is now calling the debt debasement trade. Which they're just caught up. And gave it a cute name.

And changing the global financial order. And they're very much linked.

GLENN: Yeah. Tell me, what is it? The debt debasement? What is that?

CAROL: They're doing the debt debasement trade, which is just basically what you and I have been talking about, which is our unsustainable fiscal position.

GLENN: All right.

CAROL: And what all of the money printing that we've seen over the past 17 years, what that has done to our purchasing power, and how that's going to catch up to us.

So as a reminder, our debt to GDP is at emerging market crisis levels. We were at 120 police levels of GDP.

We're running deficits equivalent to a war-time level. Or recession level, while we still have growth.

Which is crazy. We have interesting interest rate -- or interest payments that are outpacing defense spending.

So everyone is now finally catching on to the fact that this is an unsustainable financial position.

And it is going to be very difficult to get out of. Without there being some sort of additional debasement of our currency. Which is a fancy way of saying, a diminishment of your purchasing power.

What's really crazy. There's a chart that's been going around, and they did kind of a comparison of different asset classes. Price in US dollars, price in gold.

So if I look from the end of September 2018, out seven years, and you look at the top 100 NASDAQ nonfinancial companies. It's called the NDX. In US dollar terms, that is up 236 percent. So you think you're super rich, right?

But in gold terms, solid money that doesn't -- you know, that doesn't have its value debased. It's only up 4.7 percent.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

CAROL: Yeah. Of course. The S&P 500 up 133 percent over that period in dollar terms. It's down 27.6 percent in gold terms.

And what's called the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which is the value of homes, the way that's measured. Dollar terms, 60 percent. Oh, houses. So expensive In gold terms, it's down 50 percent.

In fact, right now, it takes less gold in terms of ounces, to buy the median single-family house, than it has in decades and decades and decades.

So it goes to show, that even though we see these dollars. They're buying less and less. And now, you and I were talking about this forever.

But now Wall Street is catching on. Oh, that's not a great thing. And so in terms of preserving the hard-earned capital, we need something that is that -- that hedge. That mutual hedge that is going to retain its value.

And that's why more investors, institutional investors. Funny enough, a lot of millennials, more than anyone starting to really get in to gold.

GLENN: You know why? Because millennials have not been trained their whole life. Trust the system!

CAROL: Yes.

GLENN: And they see it clearly. And they look at it, and they're like, well, this doesn't make any sense at all. And they're going to spend this.

And they will wreck the dollar and everything else. They just see it without being trained over and over and over again. Like, trust the system. They don't trust the system.

And once you realize, the system is rigged in a million different ways. And the system is not telling you the truth.

I mean, that is amazing. When you look at the stock market. And you say, it's actually down, when you compare it in US dollars. To gold!

What's happening -- let me explain this to the audience. What all that means is: Gold is only going up in dollars. It's staying -- it's staying stable. But it's costing you more because of inflation. The dollars are buying less! So it looks like you're paying more, but you're really not. It looks like the stock market is going up, but it's really not! It's what it costs to get in with dollars. If you're going in with gold. You'll actually see that if it was all done in gold, the stock market is down. The price of housing is town.

It's the dollar. It takes more dollars to buy, than it does with gold, which holds its value.

That is -- if people could understand that one thing, that changes all the conversations of, the government has to do something to make housing more affordable. No, they don't. They have to stabilize the dollar. They have to stop spending so much money.

CAROL: Yeah, I mean, if you think of the three definitions of money, it is a medium of exchange. You know, how you helped to exchange goods.

It's a unit of account, which we say, things are priced in dollars, and it's supposed to be a store value. The unit of account, that you just talked about. My friend Steve Forbes has a great analogy, and he talks about other measurements.

You know, imagine that your clock, you know, one day, at 12 o'clock, you know, means midnight. And another day, 3 o'clock means midnight. Or 6 inches to measure a curtain one day. And then the same measurement is like a foot, a different day.

You can't have -- a consistent measurement if the unit of account continues to change. And that's what we've been seeing here with the dollar. And unfortunately, it has not been to our favor.

Which means, that when you work really hard to earn something and it's valued in a dollar, that over time, that -- that work that you put out, your productivity is worth less and less.

And so what gold is meant to do. It's meant to be Capitol preservation. It's not a risk asset. It's not meant to take on risk. And maybe go up a ton. And maybe go down a ton. It's really meant to be a counterbalance to what you have earned. So that you can preserve your purchasing power.

GLENN: You know, I've been saying this for a long time. That you put your money. And I have money in the stock market. You put the money in the stock market.

If things really go awry, go ahead. You're going to cash out for an awful lot of money. But those dollars. It will be paid back to you in dollars.

Those dollars will be worth less, even though there's more of them stacked up, than that ounce of gold, or, you know, that 10 ounces of gold, or whatever you had!

The stock market is paid in dollars. And so as the inflation goes up.

But gold keeps its value!

Keeps its value and hold it steady.

So, yeah. You will be paying more in dollars if you try to sell your gold. But that will continue to increase while stock markets will go down. Am I right?

CAROL: It's a counterbalance. So if things were to shift, and for some reason, you know, things were to change with the dollars, which we would need a lot of different catalysts. Then your gold goes down. It's a counterbalance, which is why it's important to have that diversification in your portfolio. And to have the gold hedge.

What's interesting, Glenn. Just the history, we're talking about millennials.

You know, they went through the great recession. Financial crisis.

They're kind of keyed into this. But if you think about when we came out of the '70s with this crazy inflation. We came out of the gold standard. It used to be very commonplace for a financial adviser to sit down and say, okay.

We've been through this. And so you should be putting, you know, five to 10 percent of your portfolio in gold. As the stock market took off in dollars. And became this big thing.

And they started seeking fees. That went away. Financial advisers, who don't get paid sometimes at all, when you allocate to gold. Stop recommending it.

GLENN: Yep.

CAROL: And now we're seeing a shift back, now we're seeing, you know, oh, yes. You should have some. Some of the big names out there saying, even more.

GLENN: Ray Dalio just came out and said, 15 percent.

CAROL: Yes, we've seen big names like that, anywhere from ten to 20.

And when they surveyed high net worth investors, which are $250,000 in assets or more, they're averaging right now, 21 percent of their holdings in gold.

So it's a very big flip in recent years, on how this is being viewed bit people who have accumulated those dollars and are worried about them.

GLENN: Okay. So let me just summarize here before we move on. On to some other questions.

That is exactly what my grandfather who lived through the great depression said. What are the people with big large amounts of money doing?

I want to do that. And if I did do that. I would be better off in the great depression.

You just heard it, 20 percent or more, right?

From big dollars.

They're investing in gold. 20 percent!

You should -- you should have some!

CAROL: And it's interesting. Some of the portfolios we're seeing is coming from not only the equity peace, but from the fixed-income peace, which is pretty interesting too.

GLENN: Amazing.

Unmasking Antifa: The Dark Truth Behind Its Well-Funded Network | Glenn TV | Ep 461

The cities of Portland and Chicago are turning into war zones. Federal agents have been ambushed, police have been ordered to stand down, and mayors are defying the Constitution. It’s insurrection in plain sight. Glenn Beck heads to the chalkboard to uncover the hidden support and funding networks propping up Antifa. Glenn debunks the myth that Antifa is decentralized and leaderless, tracing connections from Soros to Tides and other shadowy nonprofits. Plus, independent journalist Nick Sortor joins from outside an ICE facility in Portland, where he was wrongfully arrested by police following attacks by Antifa members.

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Transcript

Gold is at $4k an ounce. What that means for YOUR dollar

Transcript

Unmasking Antifa: The Dark Truth Behind Its Well-Funded Network | Glenn TV | Ep 461