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does work. And I was just very impressed when I met Doug and Bill and started traveling around the world with them. I was also very impressed about how the Austrian economics described the world as it was and how much better that was as a forecasting tool, because it really revolves around human incentives, human actions, and human decisions. And I don’t see any of our mainstream political leaders or thinkers talking about the realities of how the public makes decisions and how they respond to incentives. But of course that’s what the Austrians focus on. Ron Paul: So you officially started your letter and your advisory service in 1999. Were you doing exactly the same thing immediately or did you start out with a small, little newsletter that just grew? Or was it always the same thing of advising people and giving them information to help them make their investment decisions? Porter Stansberry: Yeah, definitely. I have had a passion my entire career for helping individuals level the playing field with the folks on Wall Street. I started in 1996 working as an associate at Agora for Bill Bonner. And then in 1999, I left and started my own publication because I was quite a bit younger than they were and I could see in ways I don’t think they understood yet how the Internet was going to change the economy and change our way of life. And so my first independent publication was all about the Internet and how it was
going to change things. And you might have remembered seeing the advertisement that I launched my business with. The headline was, “There’s a new railroad across America and it’s making some people very rich.” And it was all about how companies like Amazon and Qualcomm and the growth of bandwidth and Moore’s Law was going to really change the way that we do things... everything from, for example, digital photography to retail. And so having some insight into that, because I had a background in computer programming as well, really gave me a big advantage in the markets for a number of years. But the real advantage that I think we have at Stansberry Research is we are very well- grounded in Austrian economics. So I think we have a much better idea of what the numbers mean than what the mainstream media and other financial advisors would say. Ron Paul: Right, and you’ve had some successes. I know you were on top of it when the housing bubble was building – warning people and getting prepared for that. But you also have to keep up with all current events, and I can’t think of more challenging times than what we’re going through right now. You know about the business cycle. You know about the Fed and the distortions there and you can anticipate financial bubbles. But then right now, we have thrown in the mix here – we have the coronavirus, the overreaction on coronavirus, Black Lives Matter, too much concentration on the Federal
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September 2020
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