Well, this is Grant's Interest Rate Observer of the Air. I am Jim Grant, and with me, as per usual,

Eric Whitehead at the control panel, and the great Evan Lorenz, deputy editor of Grants,

and Fabiano Santine, who was first vice president in charge of most emerging topics a little bit of

soft bank railroads eclectic coverage of Fabiano and we're all kind of back from vacation Evan do you know what

doesn't Eric have a special post vacation glow it does he looks positively does. He looks positively red and glowing, just like the communist flag.

Well, you know, he took the family to Yemen for three weeks.

The kids loved it especially. They took a little side trip to the Gaza Strip.

It was a, I think it was a special moment for the family, Whitehead.

I talked to his sons when they got back. They said the trip was a bomb. Yeah. Let's see. Oh, I have a story. I was on the Amtrak yesterday and the Acela and I was going to

Washington to give a talk about this is an ad, my new book, The Life and Times of Walter Badgett on sale now,

W.W. Norton and Company, Badgett being the muse of central bank. Anyway, I was on

the train. And I was getting off, and these two passengers ahead of me looked at me almost

reverentially. They said, we so love your work. And you can imagine what that's like if you're,

you know, a value investor and a gold guy in this particular phase of our finances. So I

beamed back at them and they said,

would you mind taking a selfie? I said, no. Not at all. I'd be happy to do that. This is one of the

cost of celebrity. So they got out their phones and they took us and they said, thank you, Mr. Nye.

And I said, wait a second. They thought I was Bill Nye, the science guy, just because, fine, old guys wear bow ties.

But I am not Bill Nye the science guy.

I am, I'm not, no.

It was a little embarrassing because then I had to, you know, yeah, God, anyway, here we are.

And what brings us here is interest rates, such as they are. Evan,

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