Sen. Ben Sasse Gives Parents a Plan for 'Removing the Training Wheels' in His New Book

May 18, 2017

WRITER

Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) is a deep thinker with wicked sense of humor. He joined Glenn on radio to discuss his new book The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis--and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance.

In the book, Sasse diagnoses the causes of a generation that can't grow up and offers a path for raising children to become active and engaged citizens. He identifies core formative experiences that all young people should pursue: hard work to appreciate the benefits of labor, travel to understand deprivation and want, the power of reading, the importance of nurturing your body --- and explains how parents can encourage them.

His refreshingly honest approach to parenting gives practical steps on how to cross the finish line and reach the ultimate goal: raising independent, resilient adults.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: There's truly so much in this new book by Senator Ben Sasse that has nothing to do with politics, has everything about restoring America. The -- the problems really stem from within our own homes. No matter who you are, no matter how big you think you are or how much, you know -- you're a United States senator. The most important work you will ever do will be with inside the walls of your own home. And he has -- it's not just a screed against what's happening. This is an actual plan to help restore it. The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-reliance.

Ben, I don't even know where to start on this book. I want to start on one of the -- no, let's start with you defining the problem. And then I want to start with one of the solutions in the book that I am personally going to do with my family. I think it's such a great idea. Start with what the problem is.

BEN: Thanks. So I think a lot of our kids are caught in a state of perpetual adolescence, and that's not good for them. And it's not good for our communities. And it's not good for the republic. But the book is not -- The Vanishing American Adult is not a blame game book. It's two-thirds, as you said, Glenn, constructive project. What do we do about it? How do we make this better? But if we were going to lay some blame, we're not laying it really directly at the feet of teens and 20-somethings. This is not an anti-millennial book.

It is more about parents and grandparents. We haven't done a good job of recognizing that this new category of perpetual adolescence that's drifted in, has let us sort of start to think of adolescence as a destination, as opposed to a means to an end. Childhood is a glorious part of life. It's supposed to be protected. Our kid's innocence is supposed to be guarded. And then adulthood, you get to pursue the good, the true, and the beautiful, and the heights of human achievement and loving your neighbor and building the new app that's going to change the world.

Adolescence is that transitional state between the two. And it's not an eternal idea. It's only a couple thousand years old that we've had this idea, that you hit puberty, you get to biological adulthood, and you don't have to be totally an independent adult yet. And that's a pretty special thing, except if you act like adolescence is a destination. And right now, it's really hard to tell ten and 15 and 20-year-olds apart. That's not good.

GLENN: I will tell you, it's sometimes hard to tell parents apart from the 15-year-old.

BEN: Yeah. I mean, we have started to think of life as different consumption opportunities.

We are the richest people at the richest time and place in all of human history. Of course, there are some bumps over the course of the last seven, eight, nine years. But this is a couple decades in the making problem, and it's going to last for, you know, a half a century in the future.

We are largely unable to feel in our belly the distinction between production and consumption. And that's new across time and space.

GLENN: Explain -- explain the difference.

BEN: So when you work, when you're needed, when you're producing something, when you're serving your neighbor, you do something that is for the benefit of somebody else. Consumption is a different kind of a thing. And lots of consumption is great, right? I mean, there are all sorts of things, that when we consume a fine meal, it is recreating. It revivifies us to go back and serve again.

But we're not satisfied in life if we just consume more and more stuff. And right now, we're having a kind of pop cultural sense that we're drifting toward a world where more and more cotton candy may be good for us. We all know that's not true.

There's a two and a seven-minute dopamine hit that feels good, to take more cotton candy. But two and seven hours later, let alone two and seven years later, I never look back and say, "Oh, that was great. I'm glad I did that."

And, right now, our kids are not developing a work ethic in any sort of intentional way, and it's our fault that we're not celebrating scar tissue with them.

GLENN: So let's go -- celebrating scar tissue. This is the kind of stuff that is in this book that you -- please go out and buy this book. It is -- just that is worth the price of -- celebrating scar tissue. What do you mean by that, Ben?

BEN: Well, scar tissue is the foundation of future character, right? At our house, when we get stitches, we throw a little party. Because if we get stitches and it didn't come with a spinal injury that's going to have permanent problems for us, we think we got away with something.

My wife and I use the frame -- and I want to be clear, we're not setting our family up as a model in this. We stumble and fall every day. We are sinners. But we have a shared theory of what we're trying to accomplish, as parents. And we want to get our kids toward an independent adulthood. And so Melissa and I use this idea that a huge part of parenting kids from eight to ten to 12 to 14 to 16 is about training wheel removal exercises. How can we help them get from a place where they need our protective -- they need our protection, where they're still dependent. Get them to a place where they're independent, so they can live a life of gratitude to God by serving their neighbor and doing something productive.

I'm a no-training wheels guy when I teach my kids to bike. I'm sort of a freak about this. I've trained my three kids and a lot of neighborhood kids. I like teaching kids how to ride a bike. But we don't do training wheels at our house.

The time we bubble wrap them -- because I'm critical of bubble wrapping in this book. But when we're going to teach them how to ride a bike, we wrap them in all their snow gear. Right? They got ski pants and a big winter coat on. We put a hat on them.

And I put the bike, no training wheels, on a slightly declining hill, and I run behind them. And I bat them -- I'm straddling the back wheel. And I bat them, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, trying to let them finally catch their balance. And when they do, it's like a two-hour learning process. And all of a sudden, they catch their balance a few times, and it's glorious. Like there's this moment. And now they can ride a bike.

And the goal of teaching a kid to ride a bike is not for them to have training wheels forever. It's for them to ride next to you and smell the flowers and have a great workout. And so much of parenting should be about figuring out, how can we take off the training wheels? Let's protect them as we're taking them off. But the goal is to get them to independence.

GLENN: Ben, I've talked to you several times, and I've always been impressed by you. But this is remarkable stuff. And you and your family are going to be added to my family's nightly prayers.

BEN: Thank you.

GLENN: You have a lot -- a lot to teach. Can we jump to a part in the book where you're talking about the five-foot shelf?

BEN: Yeah. Yeah.

I -- the book is structured. One-third is cultural stage setting. Where did this perpetual adolescence come from?

Then the last two-thirds is, let's think of five things we can do to help our kids realize what it means to be an independent adult. Because it's not just progressing through grades in school. That's one of the problems, is that we've started to think that what growing up is about is about checking these markers of just grade progression. And mostly school, which is really important, is a tool. It's a means to an end.

But we want them to get to these certain ends. So the Vanishing American Adult is built around developing a work ethic. It's about learning to limit consumption. Distinguish among different kinds of consumption and especially know the difference between need and want. Don't assume that everything you might feel a yearning for, an appetite for, that you might want, that doesn't make it necessarily a need. How do you learn how to travel? How do you build intergenerational relationships? And to your point, Glenn, how do we learn to be a truly literate people? Not functionally literate. Not, can you read a passage if you sit down to do it? But how can you build appetites, where you want to be a reader?

Because our republic is premised on the idea of deliberation. The ability to be dispassionate and to reflect on other ideas, to persuade or to be persuaded. Not to be in a safe space, but to actually encounter hard and different ideas. And so we built this idea. It's related to some canon fights. But it's not really about a one-size-fits-all canon for America. It would be fun to have that discussion too.

But it is, how do I teach my kids to get to a place where they've got a shelf of books that they want to read, that they've started to read, that they want to go back to again? How do we get them to love both quantity and quality, as they actually become appetitive readers?

GLENN: So, but, for instance, the founding documents, how do you get your kids to want to read those?

BEN: Well, for one thing, you let them understand that there were big debates, right?

We sometimes read these documents, and it feels like they're Scripture handed down from heaven. And everything about them can start to feel boring because it's just eternal truth, where there was no dispute.

And so one of the things we do -- again, distinguishing quantity and quality. We want them to be addicted to quality. We want them to be formed and shaped by a certain set of books. I sort of made up the idea that the average width of a book is about an inch. And so we call it a five-foot shelf because we wanted to put 60 books on it.

We want our kids to have a 60-book 5-foot shelf, that when they leave home, they've already started through these books, and these are books they want to go back to.

Well, it's fine for us to use quantity as a pathway into quality. When my kids were seven and eight and nine and starting to read, we just wanted them to read more, more, more. And so we let them read stuff that felt a little bit cotton candy-ish. And then once they were developing a real appetite and a desire to read, then we'd start substituting in a little bit more vegetables for some of the ice cream and the cotton candy.

GLENN: So let me go through -- some of the books that you say are on your shelf. And it's different for everybody. C.S. Lewis. Martin Luther. Martin Luther King. All understandable. You put George Orwell, Karl Marx, and Moneyball.

BEN: Yeah.

GLENN: Why?

BEN: Well, so first what I tried to do is I wouldn't let there be more than five books in any particular category. So first I thought about genres. My wife and I got out a bunch of index cards, and we started looking at our shelf and pulling down books that we would say, "This is so important, that even if I think disagree with big pieces of it -- so Marx, as an example, or Rousseau's Emile, which is sort of one of the most interesting books ever written on child rearing, but written by an absolutely despicable person. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, you know, abandoned his own kids at an orphanage so he could have more time to write, and then he had the hubris to write a book about how you would raise kids.

So there are people that I strongly disagree with, but I wanted the criteria to be, this is a book so important that I would want to read it more than twice in my life, and I would want to spend 20 bucks to buy it, to give to other people I love and care about. Because I'd like to frame a debate with them, where we'd keep coming back to some of these ideas.

So we've got index cards out, started naming a bunch of our books, started building stacks. We'd name categories, like, you know, sort of fundamental theology, or American history, or founding documents, or markets, or American literature. In each of these, we would only let there be five books. You had to max out in that.

So I was trying to get to 12 categories of five or fewer books. And I just randomly realized that I had a prison lit category. Prison literature, from Mandela to the Apostle Paul to Martin Luther.

GLENN: Martin Luther King.

BEN: To Martin Luther King. A whole bunch of really interesting stuff that's been written when people were in prison.

And so we just sort of organically built a list. It took weeks and months of haggling at my house as we came up with a list. And our list is totally imperfect. And when people read it, they're going to want to scream, "My goodness, what's wrong with you, man? There's no poetry category on your list. You're a broken intellect."

And when people want to start arguing about our boundaries of our list, then I think we've succeeded. Because The Vanishing American Adult is not saying I know the one way to parent; it's that lots of American parents are worried that we're not parenting well and we don't have a deliberative context to talk with our friends and neighbors about it. And the purpose of The Vanishing American Adult is to bring people together into conversation, where we argue about this, because we're all going to do a better job if we're more intentional about our parenting.

GLENN: So, Ben, you were supposed to come in today. You were going to be with us, but you had a vote that you had to be back for. And I wanted to -- you offered to come in and sit with me at 5 o'clock in the morning to do an hour on television.

And I said "no" to that. Because what I would really like to do is see if there's a time where you and your wife can come in and just talk about this.

I think -- I think this is -- it is exactly where my head is right now. That we are in a culture of absolute chaos because we don't know what he is true anymore. And everything is up for grabs. And we have to find our way to putting things back together for our kids. Enough for them to be able to then wrestle with some of these new ideas that are causing chaos.

Can I invite you and your wife to come in together? Would she ever say "yes" to that?

BEN: I like it a lot. In general, she doesn't like to do media, but for you, on this topic, I think there's a chance I could twist her arm and persuade her to do it. So let's talk more about that offline.

One of the things that you said there that I want to completely underscore is the word "virtue."

You didn't use it, but you were speaking about it. When people hear virtue right now, that we all get a squeamishness: Oh, that sounds like a highly moralistic tone.

Actually, the root of virtue, it's from the Latin word for "strength." And a huge part of what America presupposes is that when we go through hard times, we individuals and we families and we local communities are actually tough enough to navigate lots of these problems. And right now, we have a kind of national drift toward a belief that we're all so fragile, that, A, these problems probably can't be solved. And if they can be solved, they'd better be solved by some strongman who says, "I will be your political leader. I can fix everything."

That is not an American idea. And the truth is, these young people -- these teens and 20-somethings -- are going to have to be more resilient.

GLENN: They're the heroic hero generation.

BEN: They have to be more perseverant than anybody before. Because nobody -- we've never had a time when 40 and 45 and 50-year-olds regularly lost their jobs because of technological change. And that's the world that our young people are going to enter. We need them to be tough. It's because we love them that you want them to be gritty, not because you're trying to harm them, but because you want them to be able to navigate this world and love the true and the beautiful and serve their neighbor.

GLENN: Right.

Ben Sasse, The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-reliance. You're going to be hearing a lot of that on this program. Please, go out and buy this book now. This is one that every single American who wants to solve the problems and are tired of looking at the problem in Washington need to put their nose in this book for a while. It will spur you into some action.

Ben Sasse, The Vanishing American Adult. We'll talk to you again soon, Ben. Thank you so much.

BEN: Great to be with you.

GLENN: You bet. Senator from Nebraska.

The Left's war on Tesla owners

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Across the country, Teslas are being torched by the very people who, just a few years ago, championed them as the future of sustainable transportation.

Recently, Glenn highlighted the heinous actions targeting Tesla owners and dealerships. He reached the same conclusion as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi: these are acts of domestic terrorism. Tesla owners are being doxxed; a dealership in Las Vegas was firebombed, vandalized, and shot at. Similar attacks have struck South Carolina, Oregon, and Colorado, where Molotov cocktails destroyed multiple Tesla vehicles.

But this isn’t really about cars—it’s a symptom of a deeper rot that has eroded any principles the Left once held. Just as they celebrated the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the attacks on Tesla reflect a lust for destruction—a self-righteous anger that disregards decency and the sanctity of life.

For them, the ends justify the means.

A Pattern of Lawlessness

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The attacks on Tesla owners and dealerships aren’t random; they form an emerging pattern that exposes the Left’s true motives.

A quick look at the alleged grievances of the protesters, vandals, and arsonists harassing electric vehicles and their owners reveals a thin veneer masking their deeds. Their motives range from semi-rational—disagreeing with Elon Musk’s actions and the goals of DOGE —to outlandish, like labeling Musk a Nazi or fascist. Yet, rational or not, their actions far outweigh the severity of their complaints. Their crimes include keying and spray-painting privately owned Teslas, vandalizing dealerships (including firing rounds into a Tesla service center in Las Vegas), and using Molotov cocktails to ignite Teslas in cities nationwide. As noted, these aren’t the acts of disgruntled voters but of domestic terrorists.

Glenn recently tied this Tesla terrorism to the brutal murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December. Just as liberals rejoice over burning Teslas today, they cheered when Thompson was gunned down in New York’s streets, leaving his children fatherless days before Christmas. Much like the Tesla attacks, the Left justified their jubilation with half-baked critiques of the U.S. healthcare system, sandwiched between callous jokes about the slain CEO. It’s not about cars or insurance—it runs deeper.

Hypocrisy Exposed

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Rules for thee, not for me.

This theme keeps resurfacing. Remember when the Left was obsessed with climate change? “It’s the biggest threat to humanity,” they declared, warning we couldn’t drive cars or eat beef because their emissions would doom us all. They once praised Musk, hailing Tesla as the future of transportation. But now that Musk defies their ever-shifting liberal orthodoxy, Tesla must die—environment be damned. It’s a replay of the pandemic’s peak: while they preached staying home, wearing double masks, keeping six feet apart, and “following the science,” they burned, looted, and rioted through nearly every major U.S. city—rules for thee, not for me.

Owning a Tesla no longer earns eco-warrior cred—it marks you as a closet Nazi, liable to get your car keyed. The same crowd that once fretted over cow farts endangering the planet now sets electric cars ablaze. One can hardly imagine that the fumes from hundreds of pounds of burning lithium, plastic, and chemicals in a Tesla are eco-friendly.

Tyranny of Anger

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What’s the takeaway? What’s the common thread?

The Left isn’t bound by values—not even their own. Nothing is sacred to them; destruction is all they crave. Climate change, the sanctity of life, and “following the science” are mere excuses for outrage, discarded when they obstruct their lust to destroy. Their twisted ideology preaches that building, improving, or creating is evil—only taking and tearing down matter. They seethe at the sight of creation. From Tesla’s burning hulks to Thompson’s blood on the pavement, their anger trumps your rights every time.

Glenn has been warning of the collapse of our common values for years. If we don’t fight this moral rot and defend the values that built America—law, life, liberty—we’ll lose them to the flames of their rage.

Grim truth behind Mexico's death camps and cult of Santa Muerte

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Behind the iron gates of Izaguirre Ranch lie buried horrors that reveal the heinous acts committed within its boundaries.

Over the weekend, the volunteer group Buscadores Guerreros de Jalisco Collective, dedicated to finding missing people, uncovered human remains at the now-abandoned ranch after receiving a tip about a mass grave. Their grim discovery included more than 200 pairs of shoes, clothes, suitcases, farewell letters, and children’s toys buried among cremation ovens and fire-scorched bone fragments. No official count of victims has been released, nor have any bodies been identified, but the sheer volume of artifacts suggests hundreds may lie within the mass grave. Perhaps most disturbing is that local police raided the ranch just months earlier, in September 2024, making arrests and freeing two hostages—yet failed to detect (or deliberately ignored) the gruesome scene beneath their feet.

Earlier this week Glenn covered this story on air and explained that this is the sad reality in Mexico: missing people and mass graves are becoming normalized. Since 2006, more than 90,000 individuals have vanished, with cartels and other malicious groups presumed responsible. The Mexican government offers little help, often conspiring with these cartels to perpetrate and conceal these crimes.

Mexico is being devoured by a festering evil within its borders. No longer the land of tacos and beaches, it’s a place where the dead don’t rest, and the living can’t escape.

The Death Camps

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The full scale of the atrocities at Izaguirre Ranch may never be known. It’s believed the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) used the site as a training facility for recruits. The role of the victims buried there remains unclear, but their fate was undoubtedly nightmarish.

Izaguirre is not an isolated case. In 2022, an abandoned house near Nuevo Laredo was found concealing charred human remains, with one room blanketed by two feet of compacted ashes and bone fragments. In 2009, a man in Baja California nicknamed “Pozolero” or “The Stewmaker,” confessed to dissolving up to 300 bodies in lye for his drug-lord boss, disposing of the remains in dumps or graves—a task he wasn’t alone in performing.

These sites are just the beginning. Dozens of similar mass graves have been identified across Mexico. This isn’t the mark of a healthy country—it’s a hallmark of nations engulfed in war or gripped by dark forces. The Mexican government has lost control, leaving chaos to reign.

The Corruption

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Does anyone in Mexico’s government still serve its people?

The scale of these atrocities can’t be dismissed as mere incompetence—complicity is evident. From local police overlooking the mass grave at Izaguirre Ranch to active conspiracy with cartels, such as in the case of a 2014 mass abduction, the evidence is damning. In 2014, 43 students in Guerrero were abducted and presumed killed, with independent investigations implicating police, military, and courts in the crime.

Glenn has uncovered further proof of corruption: the Mexican military is arming the cartels. An ATF whistleblower recently revealed that, despite Mexico’s claims that U.S. manufacturers supply cartel weapons, these firearms are first sold to the Mexican military by the U.S. government—only to be resold to the cartels. Add to this countless bribes and hush money, and it’s clear why Mexico’s soft stance has allowed cartels to seize control of the country.

The Cult of Death

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Perhaps the most terrifying sign of Mexico’s collapse is the rise of the Santa Muerte cult, or “Holy Death.” This cult venerates a skeletal figure—often robed in red or black, wielding a scythe and scales—promising protection amid Mexico’s harsh realities. Since the early 2000s, Santa Muerte has grown to seven million followers. Once a fringe belief, it’s now a mainstream force, filling the void left by a government too weak to shield its people.

While this mass embrace of death worship is alarming, its adoption by cartels is horrifying. Rather than seeking protection from violence, cartels offer bloody sacrifices to Santa Muerte—pyramids of burnt heads, ritual disembowelments, and grisly rites—to embolden their atrocities.

Temples and altars honoring death dot the landscape, signaling the decay of Mexico’s soul. This isn’t just superstition—it’s a dark religion fueling a nation’s descent into chaos.

Conclusion

Mass graves, corrupt officials, and a death cult are not anomalies—they’re symptoms of a failed state. Mexico’s government has ceded power to cartels, leaving its people trapped in a nightmare. As Glenn has warned, this isn’t just a distant tragedy—it’s a wake-up call for Americans. This isn’t just an issue south of the border; it’s a warning to America about the cost of ignoring evil at our doorstep.

Trump's 3 BIGGEST border victories

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The Southern Border is healing!

Just hours after his inauguration on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border. A little over a month later, the tide of migrants pouring into the United States has been significantly stemmed. Trump is delivering on his major campaign promises: stopping illegal crossings, rolling back Biden-era border policies, and using every available resource to fortify the border against future challenges.

In his recent congressional speech, Trump highlighted these border security successes—achievements often overshadowed by the flood of other news stories this past month. To spotlight this monumental progress, we’ve compiled a list of Trump’s three most significant border victories.

1. Significantly reduced border encounters

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When Trump took office, it was clear—the sheriff was back in town. According to the Department of Homeland Security, daily border encounters have plummeted by 93 percent since his inauguration. Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has ramped up its efforts: in the past month alone, ICE doubled arrests of criminal aliens and tripled apprehensions of fugitives at large. This dramatic shift stems from reinstating strict border policies, restoring common-sense enforcement, and unleashing the full capabilities of ICE and Border Patrol.

2. Major policy changes

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President Trump has also made sweeping strides in border policy. He reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” policy, requiring immigrants to wait in Mexico during their immigration proceedings instead of being released into the U.S. He also terminated the controversial “catch and release” practice, which had allowed millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the country pending court dates. Additionally, Trump signed the Laken Riley Act, mandating detention for all illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes.

Another key victory was designating cartels like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua as terrorist organizations. This classification empowers law enforcement and border agencies to tackle these ruthless gangs with the seriousness and resources they demand.

3. Deployed major muscle

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Trump is doubling down on border security—and he’s not holding back. He deployed 1,500 U.S. troops to secure the southern border and restarted construction of the border wall. Among the forces sent is a Stryker Brigade, a rapid-response, high-tech mechanized infantry unit equipped with armored ground and air vehicles. This brigade’s mobility and long-range capabilities make it ideal for patrolling the rugged, remote stretches of the border.

Fort Knox exposed: Is America's gold MISSING?

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President Trump promised that we would get a peek inside Fort Knox, but are we ready for what we might find?

In this new era of radical transparency, the possibility that the Deep State's darkest secrets could be exposed has many desperate for answers to old questions. Recently, Glenn has zeroed in on gold, specifically America's gold reserves, which are supposed to be locked away inside the vaults of Fort Knox. According to the government, there are 147.3 million ounces of gold stored within several small secured rooms that are themselves locked behind a massive 22 ton vault door, but the truth is that no one has officially seen this gold since 1953. An audit is long overdue, and President Trump has already shown interest in the idea.

America's gold reserve has been surrounded by suspicion for the better part of a hundred years. It all started in 1933, when FDR effectively nationalized the United States's private gold stores, forcing Americans to sell their gold to the government. This gold was melted down, forged into bars, and stored in the newly constructed U.S. Bullion Depository building at Fort Knox. By 1941, Fort Knox had held 649.6 million ounces of gold—which, you may have noticed, was 502.3 million ounces more than today. We'll come back to that.

By 1944, World War II was ending, and the Allies began planning how to rebuild Europe. The U.N. held a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where the USD was established as the world's reserve currency. This meant that any country (though not U.S. citizens) could exchange the USD for gold at the fixed rate of $35 per ounce. Already, you can see where our gold might have gone.

Jump to the 1960s, where Lyndon B. Johnson was busy digging America into a massive debt hole. Between the Vietnam War and Johnson's "Great Society" project, the U.S. was bleeding cash and printing money to keep up. But now Fort Knox no longer held enough physical gold to cover the $35 an ounce rate promised by the Bretton Woods agreement. France took notice of this weakness and began to redeem hundreds of millions of dollars. In the 70s Nixon staunched this gushing wound by halting foreign nations from redeeming dollars for gold, but this had the adverse effect of ending the gold standard.

This brings us to the present, where inflation is through the roof, no one knows how much gold is actually inside Fort Knox, and someone in America has been buying a LOT of gold. Who is buying this gold? Where is it going and for what purpose? Glenn has a few ideas, and one of them is MUCH better than the other:

The path back to gold

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One possibility is that all of this gold that has been flooding into America is in preparation for a shift back to a gold-backed, or partial-gold-backed system. The influx of gold corresponds with a comment recently made by Trump's new Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who said he was going to:

“Monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people.”

Glenn pointed out that per a 1972 law, the gold in Fort Knox is currently set at a fixed value of $42 an ounce. At the time of this writing, gold was valued at $2,912.09 an ounce, which is more than a 6,800 percent increase. If the U.S. stockpile was revalued to reflect current market prices, it could be used to stabilize the dollar. This could even mean a full, or partial return to the gold standard, depending on the amount of gold currently being imported.

Empty coffers—you will own nothing

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Unfortunately, Glenn suspects there is another, darker purpose behind the recent gold hubbub.

As mentioned before, the last realaudit of Fort Knox was done under President Eisenhower, in 1953. While the audit passed, a report from the Secretary of the Treasury revealed that a mere 13.6 percent was checked. For the better part of a century, we've had no idea how much gold is present under Fort Knox. After the gold hemorrhage in the 60s, many were suspicious of the status of our gold supply. In the 80s, a wealthy businessman named Edward Durell released over a decade's worth of research that led him to conclude that Fort Knox was all but empty. In short, he claimed that the Federal Reserve had siphoned off all the gold and sold it to Europe.

What would it mean if America's coffers are empty? According to a post by X user Matt Smith that Glenn shared, empty coffers combined with an influx of foreign gold could represent the beginning of a new, controlled economy. We couldstill be headed towards a future where you'll ownnothing.

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