In this thought-provoking conversation with Anthony Scaramucci, legendary investor Marc Faber, publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, shares his insights on the state of the global economy, central bank policies, and the long-term effects of inflation on wealth and society.
- Are we in the final stages of a historic asset bubble?
- How inflation distorts the financial system — who wins and who loses?
- The misunderstood realities of capitalism — why it works, but not how most people think.
- Why governments intervene in markets and what that means for the future. How global power shifts — China, emerging markets, and the future of U.S. dominance.
- The role of gold, Bitcoin, and hard assets in uncertain times.
Marc Faber argues that while capitalism remains the best economic system, it has been distorted by monetary policies, government intervention, and financial engineering. He challenges mainstream economic narratives and explains why many people misunderstand wealth creation, inflation, and financial cycles. If you want a contrarian perspective on where markets and the economy are heading, this conversation is a must-watch.
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Marc Faber 0:00
We are in history, in an unprecedented asset bubble. I think the US is in a terminal phase of a bull market. I call this the Trump top, a central bank that prints money is a is a criminal. That is the word criminal.
Anthony Scaramucci 0:30
Welcome to speak up on the wealthy on network, I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci and joining us now, longtime legend in the investment business, somebody that’s been to our conferences a few times, Mark, so thank you for that. It’s the legendary Mark Faber. He publishes a well known letter. It’s the gloom boom and doom report, which, of course, I am a subscriber to. He is a contrarian, and he’s somebody that we should all listen to for so many different reasons, but the main one is, you’re right a lot. You’re right a lot. Mr. Faber and So Mark, tell us first how you got into finance, why this has been a dedication of yours for almost 50 years. How many years? Mark, more than 50 years. More than 50 years.
Marc Faber 1:18
But actually what happened is, when I was studying, I was ski racing, so I was earning some money from the ski races that participated in several world club races. But by the time I finished my studies with a PhD at the London School of Economics, I sort of had some money, just some $20,000 and I thought, okay, I put it all in some stocks, and if I win, I travel around the world, and if I lose, I go to work. So I bought Penn Central and Lytton, and both went down. They have gone down by 90% they went down another 90% and Penn Central went past and was restructured. But Litton was in performing very well. But anyway, I started to work, and it was very simple. I didn’t know what to do, and I went for different job interviews. Took the job that paid the most. It was an American investment bank.
Anthony Scaramucci 2:27
Well, I love, I love that part of your story. But you’re, you’re seeing the world. To me, it’s almost like, you know you have a realism about you. So some of us are, some of us are fed centric. I would say that my investment career has basically been fed centric. Fed’s lowering rates. I don’t fight the Fed. I get along the markets, but I think you see the world a little bit more from an old school neoclassical economic theory. So tell us where we are right now, sir. Well,
Marc Faber 3:02
some people think that we are about to enter world war three, and the situation in the Middle East is very tense. I mean, the world looks at the US differently than Americans look at America, and your use said you are faith centric. I am a person who already, as a child, I was maybe eight years old, went to Yugoslavia, and there wasn’t an economist at the time. But is even as a child, I could see the incredible poverty compared to the Western world in the 1950s because the Western world, especially Switzerland, had become already a reasonably prosperous whereby I have to say, my father was a famous surgeon in Zurich, and he had All these world champions of the cyclists and the footballers, the gymnastic people and so forth, as clients. And he always said, if he wanted to say that someone was very rich, one of his friends, he said he is a millionaire who gives a nowadays, it’s about millionaires. The money has depreciated incredibly, but this is not what I wanted to talk about. But then, as a student, that was ski racing, and we frequently went to races, ski races in Eastern Europe, and I saw the poverty there. And then I went to Hong Kong, and I met my wife, and then we went to Russia in 1980 and I could see they had markets where people would line up to buy rotten tomatoes and apples and carrots and so forth. I went to China. The whole country was in incredible poverty. And. Everywhere in Eastern Europe, there was people were depressed. And what I want to really emphasize here the young people today who won’t vote for the socialists and the rich people who vote for the socialists are a disaster because they haven’t seen the oppression that occurs on the socialism and capitalism. This is the essential ideology of freedom and of prosperity that I want to say this I’ve seen with my own eyes, and therefore I can judge it. You go to China today, you go to India today, Vietnam, Russia, Eastern Europe, everywhere, the standards of living have been lifted by the capitalistic system and the market economy. That has to be told to the young students who always wrote socialists and to the academics at universities who are mostly socialists because they’re jealous of uneducated people being successful in business.
Anthony Scaramucci 6:09
Well, I obviously agree with everything you said. We could probably end our show right there, because I think it’s so declarative. But I guess the problem with our society is that we live together, and so we have capitalists, and we have socialists, and there’s always a struggle, and we have monetarists and we have Keynesians, and so there’s always a struggle. And you mentioned about the depreciation that’s going on. You know, myself, I grew up in a blue collar family, so the inflation is a very regressive tax mark for people that don’t have assets. And so what I’m worried about is there’s a big strain now in the Western nations, particularly the United States, where the blue collar people feel left out. They feel like they’ve worked hard. You give them the money, the money’s worth 10% less in a year, and they can’t catch up, and they’re and it’s almost like you’re stealing their time and their labor from them. And so I guess my question is, where do you think we are in the society in terms of, I don’t know. I mean, you know, you know, when people get unhappy, you get a lot of political upheaval. You know, I always tell my capitalist friends, take care of the people that are in the lower and middle income, so you don’t end up with too much
Marc Faber 7:27
socialism. Frankly, look your observations, I fully agree with but the cause of inflation, as you know, is government fiscal policies. In other words, you create deficits, and you have an accomplice in the form of your central bank that you follow for the last 4050, years, and they are printing money. And as a I mean, I’ve so many books and read so many literature about the subject, a central bank that prints money is a is a criminal. That is the word criminal, because they impoverish, by purpose, the lower income recipients and the middle class, and they enrich the asset holders who were born already with money, or who were favored by the government through policies and so forth. I mean, I have this book, and I recommend you it to all of you. This is a the economics of inflation by preciano turoni, okay, anyway, that describes the social impact of inflation. It also describes how stocks and gold performs during inflation. It also describes the concentration of wealth. This is what has happened, money printing favors people like me, I have assets, the favors people like you, you have also assets. And destroys your what you call blue collar family. And the other book that I really recommend, of course, the academics will never talk about this, because it’s not in their interest. They want interventions. The government says this, that that and the government, as we know now, is being documented, is stealing from people all the time. But this book describes, you know, socialist, capitalism and democracy, and this is the capitalistic system is not perfect. It has also some disadvantages, but it’s still the fairest system.
Andrew Brill 9:53
Thanks so much for watching our discussion here on wealthion. If you would like help with your wealth efforts, please head over to wealthion.com/free For Free portfolio review, well,
Anthony Scaramucci 10:02
but in that book, you’re referencing Joseph Schumpeter’s book, he talked about creative destruction. In that book, we don’t allow that to happen. You know, during the financial crisis, the government stepped in and prevented the destruction, right? So
Marc Faber 10:17
we encourage the support of useless enterprises, exactly
Anthony Scaramucci 10:26
take risk so but where do you where do you think we are now? Are we in the gloom, the boom, or the Doom?
Marc Faber 10:35
We are in history, in an unprecedented asset bubble, because the fiscal deficits combined with money printing have been very favorable since 1981 for bonds, for stocks, for commodities, for real estate now recently and this, I have to mention here we have an example that money printing doesn’t always help. In the last five years, commercial properties have tanked, although money printing has continued at a very high rate. So if people say, Oh, I just buy stocks because of money printing, it will depend what kind of stocks you buy. You know, there’s some markets like the US. I think the US is in a terminal phase of a bull market. I call this the Trump top. And from here on and here, we have to adjust the value of stocks, for the rate of inflation, you talked about inflation around 10% I agree with you. I think for most households in the US, it’s been five and 10% but the fed the 10 years, bond yield is at four and a half percent. So interest rates are strongly negative. This kind of favors for assets to go up, but not all assets. And number two, against gold and hard currencies, probably these assets will go down. I mean, I think the dollar is significantly overvalued, yeah,
Anthony Scaramucci 12:18
well, I mean, that happened last year. Obviously, gold was probably the best performing asset last year. You know it, it’s outperforming all these operating companies. But,
Marc Faber 12:26
well, COVID was one of the best performing in Argentina because the media, the media is a catastrophe in the Western world, the biased and they they support the government social policy. But what the one the best performing ETF last year? Country ETF was Argentina, because the president dismantled government and cut expenditures, and so the rate of inflation went down from something like 20% per month. Do now 4% and the stock market went ballistic? Is
Anthony Scaramucci 13:07
obviously trying to implement something like that in the US, but, but my, my question is related to assets like gold, like what are your thoughts there over the next couple years? And what about Bitcoin? Do you have an opinion on Bitcoin?
Marc Faber 13:19
It is the favorite. Cryptocurrencies are the favorite of young people. They’re less interested in gold, but I prefer physical precious metals. Now, I have to say, and we don’t have the time to talk about because it will take about an hour to explain the advantages of of cryptocurrencies, disadvantages of precious metals and the advantages of precious metals that’s also to do with the transferability, but as a store of value, In my opinion, gold, silver, platinum are the more desirable assets. And about
Anthony Scaramucci 14:08
Bitcoin, bitcoins yet you like it or you don’t like it.
Marc Faber 14:13
Well, I traded bitcoins from time to time, but I’m not say someone who would store my money in bitcoins.
Anthony Scaramucci 14:22
Okay, all right, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it’s your it’s a generational, philosophical issue. Um, let’s talk about, before I go to the outside questions, let’s talk about the US China relationship. What do you what do you feel there in terms of the current tension, and is there an opportunity to heal that relationship, or will it worsen?
Marc Faber 14:43
In my opinion, the US would greatly benefit from having a very friendly relationship with China and expand the trade. I mean, the fact is, simply the man on this. Rate in the Western world has been brainwashed and believes that the evil Chinese, they have low salaries, and they undercut the salaries of Western workers. And this and that this is all nonsense. The salaries in China are, of course, far higher than in Bangladesh or India or Vietnam, but, but this, the advantage of China is that you have a group of people who are highly educated to the tune say, America produces this many engineers every year, or physicians or mathematicians in China produces 10 times more. And you look at international services are not service made by Chinese but by international groups, the best universities in science, technology, mathematics, physics and so forth. Out of the 10 best in the world, normally six are in China. Six. Of course, Harvard is the best university overall. But this is has to be given to Harvard. I mean, if someone tells me that Harvard is the best university, have to laugh out loud, because I know how many of these Harvard people have bankrupted companies
Anthony Scaramucci 16:35
right right now. Listen, believe me, I went, I went to Harvard. There are people in my neighborhood that are putting in sheetrock that are as smart as some of the people I met at Harvard. All right, let’s go to the outside questions. Let’s take some questions. What has been the most surprising or unexpected global shift you’ve witnessed? This is Vera from the United Kingdom. Yes,
Marc Faber 16:59
I want to say that that is something. There are many things that have surprised me a lot in my life, but one of them is when I went to school in my final years, interest rates in 69 that’s the year I kind of wrote my thesis on the 10 years treasury bond were around 6% because inflation had accelerated during the Vietnam War and the social programs of Johnson now in the 70s, these interest rates, and I mean, I was a friend So of Sidney Homer, he wrote the Bible about interest rates, the history of interest rates, and through him, I met Henry Coffman, and we became friends, and we still correspond nowadays. And interest rates went to over 15% on the 10 years. Treasury fee, the high was 15.84 and deposits rate were around 20% that surprised me, but at that time, bonds were considered certificates of confiscation, and I would never although I had studied about the character called Silvio gazelle, who, in the 1910s 1920s had written about negative interest rates, but I personally, I would never have thought that interest rates could become negative number two when I went to China the first time and I saw this incredible Country and the poverty and the choices in department so you could buy a blue suit or a green suit, and that was it. There were no choices. You wanted the taxi. You had to tell the hotel desk you wanted the taxi, and they already did answer it, and that in essentially 40 years, the country has come this far with the modern infrastructure is incredible. I have to say this is, I mean, for me, an up mind boggling event. And a third thing, it shows how stupid I am. I never would have thought that with a mobile phone, you can send a picture to you. I was not born in this environment. I was born in the environment and started to work in 1973 the most popular stocks at that time, as you remember, were the Nifty 50 in America, among them, Polaroid, Dr land and Kodak and both of them essentially disappeared. So the technology progresses, but not all companies benefit to the same extent. Xerox was also one of the most popular stocks. It. Little equipment and so forth. Sears, JC Penny, were also among the Nifty 50. So I did lots of things that have surprised no, and
Anthony Scaramucci 20:10
listen, I, I’m old enough to remember the Nifty 50. And you know whether in the world, look at, look at the top 50 stocks today compared to 50 years ago, and that that’ll be the same 50 years from now. Okay, let’s go to the next question. If the Fed had to choose between letting inflation run hot this is a good question, actually, if the Fed had to choose between letting inflation run hot mark or crashing the stock market with rate hikes, which path do you think they’ll take? This is Frank from Texas.
Marc Faber 20:42
Frank, you’re my man. I think there’s no hope that the Fed would crash the stock market voluntarily, especially not under the current administration. You look at who is in the administration, they’re all billionaires or rich people, they all own stocks. Do you think Elon Musk wants to crash the stock market? No way take every society in history that I guarantee you, every society has chosen the easier way of as Anthony said, tax is an inflation. It arises inflation because the government doesn’t collect it in official taxes. Because it would be painful for a politician to go to the people and say, Okay, we have to increase taxation. No, the people wouldn’t vote for him. Or it would be painful for someone to go to the people and say, Look, we have to tighten our belt. We’re going to cut all the pensions of the policemen and the veterans, the firefighters and so forth. Nobody will get elected. They have a revolution. So the easiest way is just to print money. And I think the sprinting of money will lift assets. But as I explained, we had money printing, and commercial properties went down because i The problem is money printing, and I want to spell this out, is affordability. You know, like in housing, according to Goldman Sachs indices, housing affordability is at the lowest in history. The young people don’t earn enough money when I started to work on Wall Street in 1970 I mean, I could rent the flat easily with my salary. And my salary wasn’t particularly high in Zurich, I paid in the center of the city, yeah, okay, my family made through my that’s a connection to the wholeness of the properties. But I paid about 15% of my salary as a starting salary for the for an apartment in the center of the city and the nice apartment nowadays, you pay 70 or 100% of your salary as a trade when you start in an investment bank or so. Let’s go to the next question.
Anthony Scaramucci 23:17
It’s a great question. Thank you more. Which sectors do you think will be the biggest winners and losers in the next decade? This is Lucas from California. Look at I
Marc Faber 23:29
wish I knew. I mean, I think what is happening in the markets is very interesting, because, as you know, the US stock market has outperformed the Europe and emerging economies for the last 10 years, in some cases, actually more than 10 years. In some cases, maybe five years. And these markets have gone down to some extent, or also in absolute terms. Say, you look at Chinese stocks, they’re at the bottom, and America is up in the sky. So my view is that some, let me rephrase it, in Japan, in 89 the Japanese market was 50% of the world’s stock market capitalization at the time. I thought that Japan would go down and that it would drag down other markets as well. But now I was wrong. The Japanese market went down, and the Nasdaq went ballistic. So my view is the US could go down, and markets like China, Hong Kong, the Asian markets, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the woods could go up. And especially, I believe. That Latin American markets are inexpensive. So I also in a world war Latin America is out out of sight of the world war theater. The war theater will probably be Middle East, Central Asia, because I doubt I have some well informed friends. They think an attack by the US Israel on Iran is imminent. If that happens and they want to create the Greater Israel scheme, I think that it will not be welcomed by Russia and China, because China depends on Middle East and oil, so whatever happens, who knows? Plus, say, if Israel takes the Gaza Strip, I mean, China could argue, well, if they take the Gaza strip with American help. Why shouldn’t we take why? Why shouldn’t we take Cambodia? Why shouldn’t they Laos and why not Thailand?
Anthony Scaramucci 26:12
I think that’s really where the hypocrisy is, right? I mean, we, we, you know, it’s imagine I live here on Long Island. Imagine somebody told me I had to move off of Long Island. I don’t know. People have to see things from each other’s points of view. All right, let’s take another question mark. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received in your career? This is Charles from Canada,
Marc Faber 26:38
yeah. Wonderful question you Well,
Marc Faber 26:43
I think a good piece of advice was, you know that in the long run, I mean, I know I’m a friend of Eddie Ardene, and his track record is actually quite good, because he says, statistically, the market goes up because the money printing, and because the money printing, of course, helps corporate profits and so forth. And this is true. I mean, for a long time, I was very good friend with Jim Chanos and the short sellers of this world, and I get really lost a lot of money on the short side. But then someone military expert. He was a colonel in the Swiss Army. He said, Mark often in life, if you’re convinced of something, you do the opposite of your conviction as a military strategy. And so I, I closed all my shorts in 2003 and went along the markets in Asia. And that was very rewarding, because India at the time was very cheap, and Hong Kong was cheap and so forth. So I’ve become less convinced that what you and I think is correct. You understand everybody thinks he’s correct in the market, and we have to kind of be very careful not to be overly confident in our views. And the second advice, I mean, Ray Dalio and I, we met already in the 70s, when he was not a well known manager in Australia, because he not knew something about Kondratiev cycles, something about contract cycle and diversification lets you sleep in peace. And I can tell you, here in Thailand, I mix among, let’s say, upper class Thais and so forth, but mostly among poor people, because I go out at night, at three, four in the morning when New York roses, I go to Paris to play pool, they told me, at an old age, you need to learn something new. So I go and play pool, and there are always lots of girls, and there was a curse for people, is to have heavy borrowings. And heavy borrowings. You know, it’s not 10% per annum, it’s 10 20% a month, and people are in that incredible mess and hardship because they can’t pay the debts just explode. And so a good advice has been, you know, our parents and grandparents to be financial conservative, and that I remained all my life. I never borrowed any money, never I prefer not to be that rich. I can’t spend everything because my diet is very simple. It’s cigarettes and beer
Anthony Scaramucci 29:59
and. I love you, and you’re going to live to
Anthony Scaramucci 30:03
be 300 years old on cigarettes, and maybe the best advice you’ve given here on the wealthy on network mark is to smoke cigarettes and drink beer, which is the secret to longevity. Perhaps right? Am I wrong?
Marc Faber 30:16
I think that the success to live long, is to have a fulfilling life and to be with people who motivate you or give you incentive to do things and not be around boring people that never traveled anywhere and just are scared to stand up, because not everybody can talk and not everybody can express his views, but a lot of wealthy people, they’re scared to take a stance and say this is wrong. Society should change and so forth.
Anthony Scaramucci 30:53
Well, I totally agree with you, so I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the wealthy on network and speak up, but hopefully I can get you back, and I appreciate your recommendations on the books and also on living the good life. Before I let you go, there’s that bus behind you. Is that you when you were in the Olympics? Who is that this one? Yeah,
Marc Faber 31:23
this one is Ho Chi Minh,
Anthony Scaramucci 31:26
oh, it’s Ho Chi Minh, oh, okay, yes, because I have this
Marc Faber 31:29
collection of Mao Tse Tung, I mean, communist memorabilia, you could see them, and they have this book collection, but essentially, you can see everywhere there are statues and badges and plates of Mao and so forth.
Anthony Scaramucci 31:53
You collecting that as a reminder to stay away from communism.
Marc Faber 31:59
You see, when I arrived in Hong Kong, Mao was still alive, and my idea was, nobody is interested to collect Mao and other communist leaders memorabilia. And I thought, when they die, the system will change. They will no longer produce these buttons of Mao Zedong and the Russians will no longer produce the propaganda of communism and so forth. So I bought, initially posters, and then I bought 300,000 buttons that you pin on your shirt with Mao, and they were, at that time worthless. You bought them by the bucket, by the kilowatts, and now they are catalogs like stamp catalogs, because each one has a different value. And I mean, I will never sell them in my life. Maybe one day someone will take it away, or they send me to Egypt in the sun.
Anthony Scaramucci 33:04
I’m, I’m, I’m very grateful to you for being on sir. And I look, I look forward to having you back. Thank you so much.
Marc Faber 33:13
Well, Anthony, thank you very much. It’s nice to see you, and you look very well. You look younger than before when you were actively engaged in management.
Anthony Scaramucci 33:22
Maybe I got out of politics. Mark, maybe that’s what happened. You get reversing when you when you’re done with politics, you go back a few years. You know,
Marc Faber 33:33
I remember your remarks about the quality of politicians. All right. Will you be well? Sir, great to see you. Okay. Thank you very much.
Andrew Brill 33:45
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