Welcome to The Gold Collar Investor Podcast with your host, Pancham Gupta. This podcast is dedicated to helping the high paid professionals to break out of the Wall Street investments and create multiple income streams. Here’s your host, Pancham Gupta.

Hi, this is Russell Gray, co-host of The Real Estate Guys radio show and you are listening to The Gold Collar Investor Podcast.

Pancham Gupta  Welcome to The Gold Collar Investor Podcast. This is your host, Pancham. Really appreciate you for tuning in today. I am super excited for the show today. The guest today is an award winning director of a movie called Housing Bubble. He co-wrote it with the author a New York Times bestselling author, Tom Woods, Jimmy Morrison. He drove over 35,000 miles shooting interviews with people that predicted the crash of 2008 and some of those people in the cast are Ron Paul, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Peter Schiff, Doug Casey, Jim Grant, and David Stockman. It’s just crazy in how far people go to pursue their passion and Jimmy is one of them. He was, in 2006, he decided that he wants to become a film director, so he quit his whatever he was doing, and he spent 10 years in making movies where he almost went bankrupt on the verge of bankruptcy before he released his movie. So definitely tune into the show. Let’s welcome Jimmy now. Jimmy, welcome to the show. 

Jimmy  Hey, thanks for having me, man. 

Pancham Gupta  I am super excited for the show today. You’ve been the director of the movie, the Housing Bubble that came out in 2019, I believe, which explained all the things related to the housing crisis. And you know, I’m super pumped to talk about, you know, what you’ve been up to, and you know, what was the genesis of that movie? So, before we get started, are you ready to fire up my listeners break out of Wall Street investments? 

Jimmy  Yes, I’m absolutely ready. 

Pancham Gupta  Awesome, awesome. So, Jimmy, tell our listeners about your background and you know, how you actually got into this movie making business?

Jimmy  Yeah, so I had had a passion for film, and I had written a script. I was spending all my free time, you know, not listening to my teachers in class in high school and college, working on the script, I wanted to make a feature film. And so, I realized that if I finished my economics degree in college, that I’d have the opportunity to make money. And, you know, I wanted to pursue the dream of making movies. And so, I dropped out of college. And the way that I decided I was going to fund my film projects was I started a house painting business. And that kind of gave me the flexibility to be able to go on the road and film bands or, you know, take off for a project or whatever. And so, I did that, and started house painting business, the month that house prices peaked. And so, I was able to kind of watch that in mind and it got me interested in economics again. And so, I did a torrent search for economics, and found Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, the Mises Institute had put it out for free the audio book. And so, I was painting houses and listening to someone who basically described a lot of what happened with the crash, but he was writing in the 1940s. And so, it gave me an idea that, you know, I didn’t want to get caught up in the next bubble. I was relying on this, but I had kind of been tricked into the housing industry and I wanted to not make those mistakes, and the people that could give me the lessons I needed to make sure I didn’t make those mistakes, again, were the people that predicted the crash. And so that set me off and I kind of abandoned all my other film and music, video projects, and just focus for 10 years on making these two documentaries on the housing bubble and the bigger bubble that we think is yet to unwind. 

Pancham Gupta  Yes, that’s awesome. So basically, did you stop doing your house painting business, too?

Jimmy  Yeah, I did. I did. And in 2015, I didn’t expect it was going to take me 10 years to make these films. You know, I tried to condense it down into one movie, and I was never able to do it. And so, I finally decided to split it into two and just focus on getting the first one out, but I basically went bankrupt. overleveraged, myself, you know. In 2015, I didn’t know if any of those films would see the light of day. Yeah, but it’s been an interesting journey, but I’m really excited about it. We’ve had a great reception so far with the first film and we’re excited to get the second one out.

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, no, I people who don’t know and I’m sure we can talk about it towards the end as well. The website is letusdisagree.com right? You can, people who want to watch that movie, that you have already out right? How can they do that? They can go to the website and find it there, right?

Jimmy  Yeah, people can get the Bluray and DVD there. And they come with digital copies. Or they can just get the Vimeo, a digital copy where they can stream and download the film, but they can go to letusdisagree.com which is my film production company and then thebubblefilms.com will take you right to the order page, if you want for the movie.

Pancham Gupta  That’s, I love the name letusdisagree.com. Yeah, this is so right out there that you’re out at the right at the outset. Keeping the expectations clear, right, let us disagree. So, you know, now that you have that movie out and you have this new one coming, which is The Bigger Bubble towards the end of this year, you said, early next year. 

Jimmy  Yeah probably next year, we’ll probably start doing test screenings at the end of this year.

Pancham Gupta  Okay, so I can guess the last movie was more about 2008, what happened in 2000 and people who predicted it, you have interviewed so many of them on that movie. So, what’s the big, The Bigger Bubble movie about?

Jimmy  Yeah, so basically, I wasn’t able to fit everything into the first film like I talked about. And so, they were both written at the same time, both films, it’s kind of more of like a double feature. And so, it’s taking these things that these people that predicted it when I interviewed them from 2011 to 2013. It’s taking what they said about what was happening in the economy and what they thought would happen moving forward. And it’s kind of bringing it up to speed, right. And so, we start with the responses and the bank bailouts in 2008 and bring it all the way up through 2020. And it’s really weird to see the stuff they were saying, because a lot of this stuff kind of has come through with how to control the Federal Reserve’s become and everything. 

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, so you’re gonna talk soon, this Bigger Bubble movie, I guess, you know, do you have COVID related things too or it’s more pre COVID?

Jimmy  It’s more pre COVID but it brings right up to 2020 so we get a taste of the new madness that’s been going on.

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, right now, it’s just crazy, right? Like, you know, the Federal Reserve. There’s so much going on. I mean, I feel sometimes that we’re living in this dystopian world, right? You have this pandemic, everyone got shut down, locked down, and we have these stimulus packages on the other side, then we have eviction moratoriums, and then we had the election. It’s really like a rollercoaster ride, right, and the same time you see the stock market all-time high, the crypto market all-time high, the real estate all-time high. gold, silver recently hitting pretty much I know, gold is kind of hovering to all-time highs, too. So, it’s just mind boggling and what’s your take, If I were to ask, I know you’ve interviewed so many people that on why is this kind of happening?

Jimmy  Yeah, I mean, I think it’s just because they’re creating money on an insane level that we’ve never seen before, you know, they were doing like a billion dollars a day to create the housing bubble. Before that they were creating money and created the stock market bubble, they’re just replacing each one with bigger and bigger problems. And with this last decade, what we’ve seen is that, you know, they were creating all this money and buying mortgage securities to bail out the banks and buying treasury securities to bail out the government. And so, we just had these huge deficits go on and on. And, you know, 10 years ago, a trillion dollar deficit was seen as, you know, an unheard of crazy number. And now, it’s just like, you know, it’s a small insignificant number for people these days. So, I think these things are just getting bigger and bigger. Right now, they’re buying $40 billion of mortgage securities every month, creating money to do that, and then $80 billion of treasury securities. So, you know, as long as they just keep pumping it up, nobody knows the timing of when things will unwind but it seems to be completely unsustainable, and it’s just radically transformed our economy, you know, a decade ago, or 15 years ago, it’s not like the government owned most of the mortgages in the country. And now, you know, we’re getting to the point where the government dictates what companies you really should be investing in, by last year, they just announced that they were buying bonds from corporations, like 100 different corporations. So, it’s like, if you had that list, the 100 companies, you know, maybe you did a lot better than everybody else in the market. But if you’re the average main street investor, you have no idea that needs huge behind the scenes, bailouts or even taking place. And it’s all just built into the system now. The response to 2008 they just kind of made everything standardized, where they can just bail them out whenever they want, and it’s never really stopped.

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, it’s just crazy. Like couple of points, you mentioned there. This is so true, because in 2008, I had just been out of college for like two, three years. And, you know, it was my first like real when I was earning and also seeing the market going down like crazy, right? And then they came out with a bailout package of $700 billion and it was a big number. At that time, it was also $100 billion, right? It was massive. I remember Hank was the guy, right. Hank Paulson, right. And now, we elect it’s a drop in the bucket, you know, 700 billion, it’s only 10 years. It’s just crazy how the times have changed, right when it comes to that. And then your second point that you mentioned about like Federal Reserve, buying these MBS, the mortgage backed securities and treasuries and also add it to the list of junk bonds, right. There’s some crazy corporate names. And then what I, you know, I don’t have a very good understanding of this but there is this other side of things were Blackstone, through Blackstone of Blackrock, they’re trying to buy parts of this, you know, stock portfolio as well, where they’re funding these companies, and they go out and invest in the stock market, which is just buying it. And it’s just mind boggling. And like, as an average person, you don’t get to see any of that all you see is the markets going up. It’s just crazy. So, do you think, I know, no one has a crystal ball, like, when is this going to end?

Jimmy  Well, so like I would say that was kind of the greatest lesson I’ve learned in this project is that these people that I interviewed, even though like some of them are super successful investors, like Mark Farber, Jim Rogers, Doug Casey, David Stockman, Jim grant, like, there’s a lot of Ron Paul, these people, obviously have a lot of insights, you know, but even they aren’t claiming to know, even Peter Schiff isn’t claiming to know, like, when these crashes are going to happen. And that’s something like, with all the millions of people and billions of people in the world, like, you can never predict human behavior. And you can never time these things, like he said, and so I think, like, the greatest thing I’ve learned is that I couldn’t just go out and like, get all the tools I needed, and be able to just know exactly how this is going to unfold you know. It’s really the with everything the feds doing. It’s just, it’s an uncertainty, you know, you never know if they’re going to allow rates to go back up, or if they’re going to keep them at zero, or do you know, 700 billion or trillions of QE, like, you never know what’s going to happen. And so, I really gotten to the point where I stopped trying to make these predictions. But, you know, we haven’t had a recession other than what everybody’s been experiencing the last year and a half.  The whim had recession in like 10 years, and they don’t go away. So regardless of people saying that, we’re in a new era, and suddenly, they can just make everything go away, like, we’re gonna have to, yeah, it’s never different. It’s never different. It’s just getting more out of control. And the problem is, it’s just not the US either, you know, it’s the ECB and in China, and people are having to deal with this with central banks all over the world.

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, it’s just crazy. So, with all this craziness, and the people that you’re interviewing, and they’re telling you all these things, what do you do as an investor? Like, what are you personally investing in, or do you have any suggestions to people who are listening? Like, how can they prepare for the next crash?

Jimmy  I think a pretty universal response is just on a smaller, less risky investment of not even an investment, just a way of trying to hold on to your wealth is obviously gold and silver. You know, there’s been a lot of market manipulation, and then a lot of accusations of market manipulation in the last few years, but I still think gold and silver has been a good way of holding on to holding on to your wealth. And it shouldn’t be looked at as an investment, like a stock where you’re, you know, that’s not the same thing you’re trying to do. It’s more of like an insurance policy of there being a crash or things going wrong. And I like Mark Farber puts it that the value of gold is dependent on if the world thinks central banks are doing good or not. And so if you’re in the middle of the crash, you know, hopefully it’s going to be going up, but there are these times where people are like, oh, they’ve saved us again, you know, everything’s gonna be okay or moving out of this everybody can celebrate but once the stimulus checks run out, and you know, we have all these people with all these terrible incentives to not work I think we’re gonna have to realize that maybe we have to actually produce some things instead of just creating money. 

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, so golden servers one right like, but I know Robert Kiyosaki, I listened to his podcast met him a bunch of times, right he says that he never saves money in cash, right either buys gold or silver or, or buys now Bitcoin as well.

Jimmy  Yeah, and I think there’s a lot of people in our film that say you should have Bitcoin as part of your portfolio. Uh, you know, obviously you shouldn’t be mortgaging your house and getting Bitcoin I caught it people made the mistake of doing or taking out credit cards and everything, but I think it’s proven. You know, Peter Schiff is very anti Bitcoin, there are anti Bitcoin people in the movie, but I think it’s really proven itself as far as its ability of helping people in places like Venezuela as far as like getting their resources out of the country and stuff like that. And that’s something that we were excited about with it early on. And I’m glad that that’s kind of come to fruition. But as far as personally, where I put my money, I’ve honestly put everything just into this documentary because I really think that, you know, educating people about financial crises and the economy, you know, it’s kind of like gold and silver, where it’s a hedge against things going wrong. And I think it’s really important and it’s something where the reason it took us so long was because we spent the extra time making it less academic, and something that the average person could come in and just, you know, get this basic understanding of economics, and really understand what’s going on with the Fed and the economy. And it’s something where we’re not trying to go out and tell them, whether they should buy gold and silver or do whatever. But we’re giving them the basic tools that they can make more informed decisions and do that on their own. Because we’ll have a much better result if we have a decentralized, not just me trying to say, hey, guys, this is what we need to buy, you know, it’s everybody getting that knowledge and having these discussions. And I what I love about the movie is people are able to, you know, watch South Park and the Daily Show and all these news clips and laugh and everything. And then at the end, they can tell each other what they disagree with, or what they agree with. And so, the conversations and discussions people have after the movie are just so much more engaged, and like they’re on a higher level, because you know, you’re not trying to get all the info into one conversation, you know, this person has already seen the basics of the argument. And so, you’re able to actually talk about their concerns and really address things, so

Pancham Gupta  Thanks so much, Jimmy for actually, you know, investing your time, energy, I know how much hard work that goes into things like this, where your channel your focus, left your painting business almost went bankrupt, right, to actually produce this movie, and really, to enlighten the people, right? Like, it’s really all for educating the common people like what’s happening. So, people, listeners, if you have not watched the movie, definitely go check out letusdisagree.com and that movie and also subscribe, I think you I’m sure you have a list there where you can go subscribe, and they will get to know when the next movie is coming out. You have that on the website?

Jimmy  Yeah, if you just go to letusdisagree.com can do that. And I should mention, the first movie isn’t just about the housing bubble, it goes back over the history of going off the gold standard, you know, the stagflation of the 70s goes even as far back as the Great Depression and panic 1920. So, we really get into a lot, you know, even ideas like did the New Deal and the Great Depression and World War Two ended, is war, good for the economy, we get into all sorts of those things. And I guess, you mentioned earlier, it came out in 2019. We had our New York premiere later world premiere at the anthem Film Festival and got an audience award there. And then we had our New York premiere in June of 2019, and we had Jim Grant, and Peter Schiff, and Tom Woods and a bunch of people that are Jean Epstein, David Tice. And it was unbelievable. I’m so glad we got to do that. But then we released the movie on Bluray, and DVD in December of 2019 and we were all set to like, go start screening it everywhere, when everything shut down.

Pancham Gupta  Exactly 

Jimmy  It was pretty bad timing as far as that, but it was pretty awesome release. And we’ve had sales in over 70 countries, and all 50 states. And so, it’s been really awesome to hear from my college students and, you know, people in business, you know, it’s been a very wide range of audience that we’ve heard. And so, it’s been exciting. People are really getting excited about it. And the next move is just going to be even more fun because it’s more current events. You know, it’s more interesting to talk about things that relate to us now than things that happened eight years. 

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, no, but the thing is that you need to know the history before you can really see why now this is even worse, right? Like you know, if you’re just looking at it in the isolation Yeah, you say it worse but then you put it in perspective with what happened in history. And also, if it if you go way back when what happened in ancient Rome, right, like, you know, so all that kind of makes you feel that right now. It’s like happening, it’s same thing is happening just in a different way, different place in different country and all that. So, it’s crazy. Well, thank you for all you do Jimmy, we are going to move go to the second round of the show which I call taking the leap round after this message… Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the thought that you have no time after work, and family time to learn about investing? Do you feel left behind that you are not putting your money to work for you? Do you want to create passive income, but you do not know where to start? If so, I have good news for you. I have created an investor club which I call The Gold Collar Investor Club for accredited investors, I will be putting together investing opportunities exclusively for this crop. These are the opportunities where I have done my part of the due diligence for you and will be investing my own money alongside you. If you are interested, please sign up on thegoldcollarinvestor.com/club, I repeat thegoldcollarinvestor.com/club.  I will reach out to schedule a 30 minute phone conversation to discuss your investing goals. Once you sign up, this can be a good opportunity to diversify and take some chips off the hands of Wall Street to produce some cash flow. And in case you are wondering, what is an accredited investor, accredited investor is someone who has earned more than 200,000 as filing single or more than 300,000 filing jointly for the last two years. Another way to qualify as an accredited investor is if your total net worth is more than $1 million, excluding your personal home. It includes your stocks, 401, K’s, IRAs, cars, etc. Just not the equity in your personal home. If this is you, I would highly encourage you to sign up…. Hey, Jimmy, let’s go to the second round of the show which I call taking the leap round. I ask these four questions to every guest on my show. My first question for you is when was the first time you invested outside of Wall Street?

Jimmy  So, in high school, my dad actually convinced me to save half of all my paychecks in high school for college. And so, he helped me put that into a mutual fund. And so that was kind of my first Wall Street investment, I’d say. And then when I dropped out of college, I’d say that was my first investment because I took all that money out. And it was 2006. So, you know, it’s good time to take the money out but the whole reason was I bought a video camera. And instead of investing in college, I invested in my production company and myself. And so, I would say that was my first investment. And like I kind of talked about earlier, all this time I’ve dedicated on to this project, I almost did go bankrupt, but I didn’t. And I, you know, we’re not profitable yet, but we’re on our way and so I think this is something where I didn’t feel like I could be going off and speculating with my family’s money on things like Bitcoin and stuff, because I was already speculating with everything I was doing in my life as far as putting everything into these movies. And so, I think they’re a big speculation, but they’re really starting to pay off. And I think it’s gonna not just be something that people that are into Austrian economics or any of this stuff that, you know, it’s not just that niche that’s into it. We’re going to reach schools and all sorts of things so

Pancham Gupta  Awesome man, awesome. It’s, it takes a lot of perseverance right to get through the humps. And I can totally imagine the feeling that after December when you release all of that, and then COVID happen, oh, my God, it’s crushing but you know, you learn from all the bad, bad things that happen. So, kudos to you. So, my second question here is that did you have to overcome any fear that in 2006, like, you know, hey, I’m gonna quit all of that, and just go and make a movie like this right?

Jimmy  Yes, every single day? You know, that’s always the question is like, is this project just a delusion or is this something that really makes sense, you know, that doesn’t have value. And, you know, early on, I did not expect this, but when I interviewed most of these people, I actually threw up the morning of the interviews. And so, I drove over 35,000 miles to do the interviews. And on the first trip, I drove from Iowa, up to Montreal, Canada, and I was like, I stayed in my car, just outside of Toronto, Mississauga Canada. And I was totally expecting it. But I woke up and I like puked out of the car and then I had to go to a gas station, get washed up and get a suit on and go to Montreal and interview Mark Farber, who’s like somebody had predicted, like the savings and loan crisis in the 80s that com crash, you know, you would think you’d be very intimidating, but he ended up being a really awesome interview and a fun guy to talk to. 

Pancham Gupta  Yeah you know, it’s just crazy. When I started the podcast, it’s funny, you mentioned this that I would always have those kind of jitters like talking to people, like you know interviewing some of these guys and then slowly you I’m sure the last interview you did whatever that was, was much better than the first one you did

Jimmy  Yeah, for sure you improve, yes. I think although like, maybe some of it doesn’t ever go away, you just find ways of dealing with it. I think the important thing is that you just keep working away. And like one thing that I found that helped me actually was having to do this but having a to do list for like when you’re depressed, because if I’m really depressed, I don’t want to go into the movie and make a bunch of changes when I’m seeing everything from like this negative perspective. And I ran into that a lot, where I would mess things up that way. And so, if you have like a separate list of things that can make you feel productive and feel like you’re moving forward and kind of help you work your way out of that, like, you know, boring things like accounting, or you know, stuff that’s not fun and not doesn’t feel rewarding, but when you’re done, you’re like, oh, damn, I’m really glad I got that. But yeah,

Pancham Gupta  It’s crazy. Well, I will ask you, since you mentioned this thing, I’m gonna just sidetrack a little bit before I go to the third question, do you have any kind of a morning routine that you follow or something you do kind of to keep you balanced?

Jimmy  I should. Let’s see. I have two kids, a six year old and an almost three year old, and so that my routine is kind of dictated by them. But I’ve always prided myself on trying to be able to work in any setting, like if I need to pull out my computer or McDonald’s, like, I’d like to think that I can get in the zone and just focus and, you know, do what I need to do. But to be honest, I used medical marijuana for anxiety, depression, I don’t know if you put the label bipolar two on it but that’s something that I’ve dealt with. And so medical marijuana has helped me focus and be able to make this project. So, I actually started, I’m a patient for medical marijuana back in 2008. And I was one of the last states they’re like, they’re so behind on this, but it’s just kind of an interesting side note, I guess. 

Pancham Gupta  Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. So, my third question is, can you share with us one investment that did not go as expected?

Jimmy  Yeah, I mean, I would say golden silver, has had good gains over the last 20 years, I bought gold at like 1260 1280. And so that went up to 1800, 1900. And I mean, this was after I didn’t act a thing under the first time I waited for it to go down. But that being said, you know, I really thought things would unwind faster than they did the last decade. And then you know, now seeing how fast they can unwind. But it’s been pretty shocking that gold and silver, especially silver haven’t skyrocketed more than they have, because Silver’s not anywhere near its all-time high. But, you know, I’ve gotten back into gold and silver recently and it’s doing well, I think it’s open for a run. But you know, like I said, I’m the last guy to ask, nobody knows. It’s just a complete time of uncertainty. Nobody knows how any of this is gonna play out. It’s really kind of terrifying.

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, yeah, I hear you. All right, so my last question for you, what is one piece of advice would you give to people who are thinking of investing outside of Wall Street that is in the main street?

Jimmy  Yes. So, like, definitely invest in something that you know about, you know, if somebody if you’ve done all your research on Bitcoin, and you think it’s what you want to invest in, you know, do it, but if somebody is coming to you, and just being like, hey, I heard Bitcoins gonna go up, you know, that’s not how you want to want to do it. And that’s something Jim Rogers has talked a lot about. He’s big on agriculture, but just invest in something that you at least have some familiarity with. And then I guess, my real suggestion would be to look outside of the United States, because there are other places and investing in a place that, you know, investing in Microsoft at the later in their years is not the time to invest. If you’re looking for big growth, you know, you want to invest in places like Eastern Europe, or something or Africa or Eastern Asia, if you’re looking for that growth, it’s out there, but I don’t know, I think everything everybody needs to understand their limitations as an investor, you know, like, it’s good to want to manage your money but I think it’s also important to like, at least be trying to connect to people that do this full time. You know, like, I’m a filmmaker, you know, I’m trying to tell these guys story, but I think investing in things you know, and investing outside the US and trying to find mentors and other experts, you can lean on as well, you got to do. 

Pancham Gupta  Great. Thank you. That’s great advice. So, thank you Jimmy so much for your time. How can listeners connect with you if they want to reach out to your work? I know let us disagree is your website. Is there anywhere else they should connect with you?

Jimmy  Yeah, you can get all my social media from the website, but it’s let us disagree. com, thebubblefilms.com and we’re on Facebook, Twitter, with the bubble phones on Facebook and Twitter and then I’m Jim Morrison film at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. So,

Pancham Gupta  Great. Thank you so much Jimmy for your time.  I hope that you guys enjoyed the show with Jimmy Morrison today, really great guy. If you have not watched his movie, the Housing Bubble go check it out on letusdisagree.com and definitely sign up for his next movie, which is The Bigger Bubble. I know a bunch of these guys who are in the cast. I’m sure it’s gonna be great. Thank you for joining me. I really appreciate you for tuning in today. If you have questions, email me at p@thegoldcollarinvestor.com. This is Pancham signing off. Until next time, take care.

Jimmy  Thanks, man. 

Thank you for listening to The Gold Collar Investor Podcast. If you love what you’ve heard and you want more of Pancham Gupta, visit us at www.thegoldcollar investor.com and follow us on Facebook @thegoldcollarinvestor. The information on this podcast are opinions. As always, please consult your own financial team before investing.