Welcome to Grant's Interest Rate Observer of the Air. I am Jim Grant, and with me as always

is the great deputy editor of Grant's, Evan Morens. And we have something special this morning.

We have a transatlantic podcast, not just one of these provincial things, New York or in New York,

but we have a man from the city of London.

And his name is Matthew Earl, and he's managing partner and founder of shadow full capital and research.

And we'll be hearing from that in just a moment.

But in the meantime, Evan, I had a singular experience. I am speaking to you,

ladies and gentlemen. I'm speaking to you from the village of Schoharie in upstate New York,

where Patricia and my wife and I spent about half our time, we're half in New York and half in

Schoherry. And this morning, I drove, as is my want, I drove into the steward shop, which is the

country store nearby, to buy newspapers. That's

a generational thing, Evan. I buy newspapers. They're on paper. And I walked into the steward

shop a little self-consciously because I had a, I couldn't find the mask, a stupid, filthy

surgical mask. You know, this prop, the theatrical prop of, quote, these difficult times I couldn't find damn things.

I walk into the steward shop wearing my wife's femme mask with a kind of a gold chain dangling down from it because that's where she wears.

And I felt stupid wearing this

thing, extra stupid. I always feel stupid wearing these masks. I walked in, not quite reading the sign

the sign as I later discovered said, in effect, no mask required because we've gotten over that.

Much to my delight subsequently, but but in the meantime I'm walking in

not only wearing a stupid mask but also wearing a feminized one and I'm a little self-conscious of the

ages 74 and 7 8th one wants to keep appearances but I noticed that the funny thing about the

crowd in the store nobody was wearing a mask so deliveranceance, Evan, deliverance. We are making progress.

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