I realized, about ten minutes into our chat, that I hadn't clipped a portable microphone onto the lapel of this gentleman's tasteful blazer and secured his permission to record our conversation for posterity. Pity. It was one of the more interesting conversations I'd ever had in a hotel bar.
 
This happens to me a lot. I meet interesting people, strike up a conversation that turns out to be fascinating, and quickly regret that I'm not recording it. Happily, I have this podcast, which allows me to invite the people I meet in various watering holes to sit down for a more deliberate chat, and even more happily, many of those people agree to do so. This week, one of those people happens to be Philip Diehl, the former pipe bender I met in Bad Ragaz, who also happens to have been the 35th director of The US Mint, and the current President of US Money Reserve. 
 
I invited Philip onto the podcast in part, to recreate the conversation we had that evening in Switzerland – a wide-ranging chat that revealed his good humor, vast experience, and deep understanding of a dozen different topics. And I'm pleased to say that today - eighteen months later (and without the sensible bourbon) - Philip is no less fascinating than he was the evening we met.  But I also invited Philip on to shed some light on a minor dustup that occurred two months ago, when I offered a very limited quantity of solid silver coins to the general public, to raise money for the mikeroweWORKS Foundation.

As some of you may recall, those silver beautiful silver coins honoring the American worker, sold out immediately, and raised over $125K for work ethic scholarships. However, they were designed in Lichtenstein and minted in Germany, which prompted a lot of people who support my commitment to making things in America, to chastise me for failing to get these beautiful coins minted the United States. I explained to my critics why it was impossible to do so, but alas, my explanations were weighed, measured, and found wanting.