Alasdair Macleod, our Senior Strategic Advisor at VON GREYERZ, will be speaking at the New Orleans Investment Conference from October 28–31.

His talk will cover fiat currency, infinite credit, and the limits of the current financial system.

You can still register at https://neworleansconference.com/macleod/.

If you’re attending, come and visit us at Booth #432. Our team would be pleased to meet you and talk about gold and protecting wealth.

We hope to see you there.

Every election, investors predict that gold will either collapse or soar.

The short answer:

Zoom out further: since 1971, gold has risen more than 11,000%.

This is not a new story.

For thousands of years, rulers have debased their currencies, from Roman emperors shrinking the silver in the denarius to kings clipping their own coins. Only the faces on the money changed; the pattern never did.

Warren Buffett, summing up the idea of his teacher Benjamin Graham, explained why:

“In the short run, the market is a voting machine … but in the long run, the market is a weighing machine.”

Speedy Gonzales and the National Debt

If you want to picture the US national debt, think of Speedy Gonzales:

The fastest mouse in all Mexico.

He doesn’t slow down for a new administration.

He doesn’t care about the party in the White House.

Every year the debt climbs higher and the deficit gets bigger, and Speedy gets even speedier, racing through every campaign promise and every “balanced budget” pledge, leaving a little cloud of dust behind him.

“I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.”
— Ronald Reagan, in one of his famous one-liners

The punchline is that every president is Speedy Gonzales when it comes to debt: whoever takes office, the debt gets higher and higher, and the dust cloud is paid for in dollars that buy a little less every year. And Speedy is only warming up.

The Race Gets Faster

To see how fast a runner like that can get, consider an old legend.

It tells of a king who offered a man any reward he wished.

The man asked for one grain of rice on the first square of a chessboard, two on the second, four on the third, doubling on every square.

For a long while the king smiled, because the numbers were tiny.

By the last square, he owed more rice than the world has ever grown.

Hemingway captured the feeling in a single line:

Debt behaves the same way.

The debt does not grow in a straight line; it grows exponentially.

The more debt there is, the more interest it costs, and the more must be borrowed to pay that interest.

The currency depreciation that follows is likely to accelerate too.

Gold’s rise is not a prediction about one election or one party. It is the mirror image of that process, and there is little reason to think a change of president will end it.

Suddenly: The Age of Unpredictability

What is new is the erratic behavior.

Governments have become wildly unpredictable: alliances shift overnight, rules change without warning, and what was unthinkable yesterday becomes policy today.

“Suddenly,” as Hemingway put it, now arrives faster than anyone plans for.

France is a striking example: it recently completed moving the last of its gold from the New York Fed to Paris. Whatever the official reasons, it shows that where gold sits is a decision even governments take seriously.

So Where You Store Your Gold Matters Most

If governments can change their minds overnight, the question for you is no longer whether gold goes up or down.

Its long-term rise has not depended on who is in office.

What matters is how and where you hold it.

Politicians will come and go, and the debt keeps sprinting, but your gold should sit somewhere that does not depend on any of them.

5,000 years of money, stored in rock tens of millions of years old:

Jan Baltensweiler

jan.baltensweiler@vongreyerz.gold | +41 44 213 62 45

VON GREYERZ AG has earned the trust of HNWIs and investors in over 90 countries, specializing in the secure, fully segregated gold storage of physical gold—entirely outside the banking system.

But its CEO, Nicolai Tangen, warned that the fund could lose nearly all its value in a catastrophic stock market crash, nuclear war, or biological weapons attack.

Recognizing the danger isn’t enough.

We need to know what steps are being taken to protect the fund if these risks materialize.

If a major crash is considered a real possibility, the fund should reconsider its exposure to US technology stocks, the wider stock market, and bonds. It should also hold substantially more physical gold.

Rising Bond Yields Put Pressure on Markets

The bond market is another warning sign. The Bloomberg Global Long Bond Index yield has risen to around 4.2%, its highest level since July 2008.

Long-term government borrowing costs are back at levels last seen during the global financial crisis.

Government debt keeps rising, and more bonds are coming onto the market. The chain of events could look like this:

As Jan Kneist of Investor Talk puts it,

“There are really good chances it would be the worst crash of all times because the imbalances are so big.”

The United States provides a clear example of the debt problem. The federal deficit is increasing by around $2 trillion a year, while the figures discussed in the interview show a $432 billion deficit in July 2026 alone.

US government debt is approaching $40 trillion, with annual interest costs already around $1 trillion. Higher inflation and interest rates could push those costs up further, making it more difficult for the government to finance its rising obligations.

The result could be a vicious cycle:

• Higher debt increases interest costs.

• Rising interest costs put further pressure on government finances.

• Larger deficits require more borrowing.

• More borrowing adds to the pressure on bond markets.

These imbalances could create serious problems for the financial system. A major crisis could bring falling stock prices, losses in the bond market and a deeply depressed economy, with recession or depression and social unrest among the possible consequences.

Why Hold Physical Gold?

Gold is the simplest way to protect against the risks of the fiat monetary system.

As government debt grows and confidence in fiat money comes under pressure, physical gold provides an alternative to relying entirely on stocks, bonds, and paper currencies.

Norway could become the world’s largest gold buyer and put a substantial share of its sovereign wealth fund into physical gold. Such a move would be “sensational, but that would be prudent.”

But very few sovereign wealth funds take this approach. So, it’s important to hold physical gold directly and store it in a safe, secure location outside the banking system.

This gives you greater control over your wealth.

KEY INSIGHTS

00:00 – 01:50 | Norway’s sovereign wealth fund faces a major risk

Despite record profits driven by technology stocks, Norway’s $2.3 trillion fund could suffer severe losses in a major stock market crash.

01:51 – 03:50 | Warning about a crash is not enough

If the risk is real, major investors should take steps to protect their portfolios rather than remain heavily exposed to US technology stocks, equities, and bonds.

03:51 – 04:10 | Physical gold offers protection against fiat money

With excessive debt threatening the monetary system, physical gold is presented as a straightforward way to protect wealth against the risk of fiat money losing its value.

04:11 – 05:38 | Rising bond yields signal growing pressure

The Bloomberg Global Bond Index yield has reached around 4.2%, its highest level since July 2008. Further bond market selling could push yields higher and weigh heavily on stocks.

05:39 – 06:57 | US debt could trigger a vicious cycle

With the federal deficit increasing by around $2 trillion annually, rising interest costs could lead to larger deficits, more borrowing, and further pressure on financial markets.

06:58 – 07:17 | A financial crisis could lead to economic depression

The combination of excessive debt, rising borrowing costs, and financial market imbalances could result in collapsing stock and bond markets, recession or depression, and social unrest.

The 1970s

Ah, the 1970s. It was an era of bellbottom jeans, checkered suits, wide ties, the music of ABBA and Saturday morning cartoons.

It was also the decade in which Nixon decoupled the dollar and ended the sound money hopes of America’s founding fathers.

Backed by nothing but “full faith and credit,” the USD began its slow but steady death by a thousand cuts of borrow and spend without limit or concern.

Free a golden chaperone, politicians and Fed Chairs of every political stripe could expand balance sheets and the M2 money supply with almost zero concern for the longer-term financial karma that always follows a bacchanalian debt spree paid for with dollars literally created out of thin air.

Government debt, at $238B in 1971, was no big deal to our so-called “experts.”

Besides, any future debts could be easily paid at this dawn of generational fantasy, which Hemingway described as the “temporary prosperity” of excess money printing masquerading as careful policy.

A Time Without Foresight (or Restraint)

In short, no one in the 1970’s was thinking of what it might be like by 2026 when that same government debt had skyrocketed from a couple hundred billion to over $40T.

Instead, post-1971 leadership, red or blue, focused on the next election cycle rather than the next generation’s purchasing power.

As holder of the world reserve currency, DC enjoyed what the French Finance Minister of 1965 described as the “exorbitant privilege” of simply exporting its reserve currency and inflation to the rest of the world.

This may have been inherently unfair to the rest of that world, but as our then Treasury Secretary, John Connally, famously quipped: “It’s our currency but your problem.”

Buying Time with Funky Policies

To insure that “problem,” we effectively forced OPEC to sell its oil in USD, and even made the producers of this oil spend large chunks of their revenues on our USTs. This made oil a critical sponge to absorb our reckless and inflationary spending.

As Mel Brooks would say, it sure was “good to be the king”- or at least King Dollar.

And just in case a rising gold price might otherwise embarrass our nothing-backed dollar, we also made sure in the mid-70s to create a price-fixing mechanism at the COMEX to legally manipulate the paper price of this far more precious and honest metal.

Yep. That was the 1970’s.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well… just about everything.

Some fifty years later, we now see a world de-dollarizing, a petrodollar fracturing, missiles flying and the dollar emerging no longer as just the world’s problem, but America’s as well.

Back to the Future

Fast-forward to 2026 and the foregoing “exorbitant privilege” and “temporary prosperity” has devolved into what Hemingway also foresaw as this debt-n-spend fantasy’s final endgame, namely the “permanent ruin of currency debasement and war.”

Of course, there are defenders of American Exceptionalism who would take offence to words like “permanent ruin” from gold bugs just “selling their book.”

After all, there’s so much to save us. Just look at the record-high S&P. Look at technology. Look at AI. Look at the milkshake theory’s immortal dollar. Look at all the Fed’s brilliant PhDs and magical task forces. Look at stablecoins.

Ok. Let’s look.

The Great AI Gambit

As for the S&P 500, it’s nearing all-time highs, but 440 of its 500 companies are down more than 20% from their 52-week highs.

Rather than a stock market, we have a concentrated minority of tech monopoly powers holding the rest of the broken pack together with techy duct tape and memes of “this time is different with AI.”

The core and leading big names in tech, namely Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft, are part of the biggest AI circular financing and concentration risk gambit in the history of U.S. equity markets.

These hyper-scalers get 70% of their AI revenues from just two players, Anthropic and OpenAI, two profitless companies whose costs are billions greater than their revenues.

These two screaming examples of concentration risk are bleeding money at an historical scale. Even AI’s own search results confirm the same:

From Concentration Risk to Circular Financing

And if you are wondering how Anthropic and OpenAI are funded, it’s not from big VC names.

Actually, the bulk of their equity (over 700B in 2026 AI capex alone) is coming from the very same companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, SoftBank and Nvidia) they sell their un-moted software to…

Even more alarming, these same tech hyper-scalers which keep the two AI ships afloat are themselves burning cash at a record pace on data centers whose costs (and power problems) are killing their cash flows.

Given this circular, financed, uber-concentrated and just massive capex profile and daisy chain, AI is literally becoming too big to fail.

The very survival of our economy and stock market is now being gambled on a single AI play whose profitable future is anything but certain unless the government regulates a duopoly protective measure to keep China out of OpenAI and Anthropic’s backyard, at which point the U.S. won’t be getting rare earths from Asia any more…

NVDA to the Rescue?

But surely Nvidia’s GPU sales will save the day, right? Its earnings are indeed impressive, and it just posted 110% revenue growth. Wow.

But if you look more carefully at Nvidia’s 10Q form (and the notes behind it), you’ll also see that 70% of its accounts receivables come from just five companies (listed above).

Do you see the circular concentration risk? Do you see the massive gambit the S&P is playing on the entire economy if this AI dice-roll (priced for perfection) doesn’t go as planned?

For now, the great AI gambit has yet to play out. But the memory of tech bubbles transitioning from over-bought to over-sold is still very fresh in my dot.com-trading mind…

The Bond Market’s Verdict

But if we move from a profitless AI, circular-financed, and grotesquely concentrated and uncertain U.S. tech bubble to a shattered U.S. sovereign bond market, the suspense is less severe in a nation running $2T in annual deficits.

In fact, when it comes to bonds, the verdict is already obvious.

As the great American bond king, Jeffrey Gundlach, so aptly described it: “We’ve hit peak lunacy” in our sovereign bond market.

With the 10Y UST yield crossing the 5% “uh-oh” Rubicon in a public debt backdrop of $40T, I see a death penalty for the dollar’s purchasing power and a Treasury Secretary with zero parole options.

With Scott Bessent having recently added David Zervos and Judy Shelton to his “dream team,” the set-up is now clear for some major changes—and desperation—ahead.

Meanwhile, DC mouthpieces like Kevin Warsh avoid direct answers as to how Uncle Sam can afford his interest expense or how we got to 5.25% yields by October when they were at 4.4% when he took office in June.

Yields rise as inflation rises, so the war in Iran, which has sent Brent crude to painful highs, is the most common explanation for how our pre-war yields of 3.9% have now crossed above the fatal 5%-handle.

But the real issue (i.e., criminal evidence) behind the rising shark fins of these rising yields lies in U.S. bond issuance at extreme levels at the same time demand for the same has hit extreme lows.

As more deleverage-focused nations dump our debt to support their currencies or buy spiking oil, those Treasury yields just keep rising–and will rise even higher once the USA confesses it’s already in a recession.

The world’s trust in an over-issued, distrusted, debt-soaked, and weaponized UST has fallen from incremental to exponential levels. The premium (i.e., rate) for U.S. IOUs will only continue to climb higher as our deficits do the same.

Signals: This Ain’t Our Father’s Bond Market

The post-2020 Treasury market is not what it used to be since 1980, and it won’t be coming back. The once sacred Treasury market is mathematically broken, which means DC is objectively unhinged.

Between September of 2024 and January of 2026, the Fed, having failed to beat inflation via hawkish rate hikes in 2022 and 2023, then dovishly cut rates by 175 basis points.

In normal bond markets, such cuts are supposed to send yields down. Instead, yields went up across the entire duration range of the yield curve.

Such yield indicators may seem boring to those unfamiliar with bond market lingo while doom-scrolling their iPhones, but it confirms that the Fed has lost control of rates, and hence the cost of his unpayable sovereign bar tab.

And it gets worse.

Since 2000, we’ve seen 13 market corrections. And in the first 12 of those 13 corrections, the dollar always went up (on a DXY basis) by at least 8%. But on the 13^th correction last April, when stocks lost 18%, the dollar, rather than go up, went down even as yields spiked.

That’s not normal…

In this new abnormal, USTs sell off as stocks sell off, and the grossly over-produced (i.e., debased) USD, even in a rising yield setting, can’t strengthen.

There is no safe-haven in the so-called “risk-free return” of a U.S. IOU which, when measured against honest rather the Fed-measured inflation, is nothing more than “return-free-risk.”

In short, we are in a different bond regime. The old rules, correlations and tricks no longer apply.

Our bond market is openly broken.

The only way to bring these yields down to a survivable/payable level is either: 1) money printing to the moon; or 2) a massive debt restructuring, either of which option means further dollar destruction and hence screaming tailwinds for gold.

Credit Default Masquerading as a “Re-Structuring”?

As for “restructuring,” the recent addition of Shelton and Dervos is telling.

Shelton, of course, understands the fall from grace of USTs. She knows that a gold-backed long bond has more credibility than a dollar-backed IOU for the simple reason that our debased dollar is now obvious (and embarrassing) to everyone, including those nations not showing up at our Treasury auctions.

But even a gold-backed 50Y UST is not gonna save the Treasury market. Too little, too late.

Like Gundlach, I feel the Fed and Treasury Dept will buy time with some serious YCC by issuing more debt from the short end in a desperate Operation Twist 2.0 attempt to compress yields on the long end.

But that’s not working so well, is it?

And also like Gundlach, I believe the next desperate act could very likely involve a clever “restructuring” of our sovereign IOUs which boils down to little more than a constructive default on our debt.

That is, at some point down the road, and in the oh-so convenient name of “national security” (blamed, of course, on some foreign bad guy or black swan event), DC will simply announce an extension of bond maturities and a capping of bond coupons at 1%.

This, of course, will crush bondholders, foreign and domestic, as well as pension funds, insurance companies, money markets and the man on the street. It will also mean a massive price fall (and riot) in bonds and no global love for Uncle Sam’s IOUs.

But hey, desperate times require desperate actions.

Under such “restructuring,” DC would be forced to stop issuing debt and rebalance its budget. It would also mean a tanking USD, which is precisely what DC needs to inflate away its debt and gain some yardage in its trade deficit.

All Roads (Still) Lead to Gold

Thus, whether we mouse-click more trillions to save (self-fund) the bond market or restructure USTs with capped coupons, the net result either way is a neutered USD and hence a ripping gold price in the years to come, at least for those who can think that far ahead.

This further explains why central banks, which have been stacking the metal at an historical pace in 2026, now hold more gold than USTs.

They see the direction (and desperation) of the USD, and hence the direction of gold.

The Wile E. Coyote Moment is Now

Thus, as we watch the bond market die on a DC respirator while AI stocks gyrate in a profitless circle of over-investment and narrative changes which will most likely require government regulation to mote/protect the hyper-scalers and over-hyped AI providers from another 08-like catastrophe, I’m done warning of a broken U.S. credit and equity disaster on the horizon.

This is because the “Uh-Oh” moment is not coming; it’s already here.

Based on the dispositive yet largely ignored signals from our anemic, concentrated and over-levered stock market; and based on our openly broken, unpayable bond market (not to mention the private credit time bomb) in search of a liquidity miracle or default policy that further debases our Greenback, the picture is clear.

Warsh, Bessent and Shelton are not going to save this credit market. Nor will Santa Claus or any other miracle trick. It’s too late, folks.

In fact, the picture or image I have in mind takes me/us right back to the 1970’s and those Saturday morning cartoons I alluded to above–and watched as a kid while Nixon and his successors set the current disaster in motion decades before I traded my first dot.com stock…

American credits, equities, monetary fantasies and ignored Main Street realities have already passed beyond the cliff. We now stare suspended above a fall that is no longer theoretical, but right below us.

Of course, in such moments, it’s scary to look down, and thus almost no one does.

While we saw gold go up by 131x, silver went up more modestly at 55x.

But even with that difference, silver has held its value far better than paper money.

“Paper money has already lost 99% of its value against gold since 1971.”

We can see how fickle paper currencies can be when measured against gold. Their value depends on monetary policy and the amount of money being created, while precious metals can’t simply be printed.

What’s becoming more serious is the continued expansion of the money supply. The monetary system is reaching a point where the destruction of paper money can accelerate.

The $10,000 gold objective comes from comparing global M1 with the world’s official gold holdings and applying a 40% gold backing.

Using roughly 35,000 tons of official gold produces an implied gold price of around $10,000 an ounce.

That gives us the reference for silver. But silver has its own reasons for moving much further:

• Silver has been in deficit for seven or eight years.

• Industrial demand continues to absorb physical supply.

• Physical silver is limited.

• Paper claims on silver far exceed the amount available for delivery.

The gold-silver ratio gives us another way to look at the potential.

The ratio is around 66 today. Its historical average has been around 15, while the natural occurrence of silver relative to gold is about 19 to 1. Silver production is around ten times greater than gold production by weight.

The view here is that silver could eventually reach a ratio of 10.

If gold reaches $10,000, the calculation will be:

$10,000 ÷ 10 = $1,000 silver

The move could take months or much longer. The point is to own silver before the market reaches the levels being discussed, rather than waiting until those levels become obvious to everyone.

The $1,000 silver objective comes from two things coming together: a much higher gold price and a much lower gold-silver ratio.

For anyone looking at silver as a way to protect wealth from the continued destruction of paper money, the opportunity is to own the physical metal before that repricing happens.

KEY INSIGHTS

00:05 – 01:05 | Silver could see a dramatic rise

Paper money is losing purchasing power, while silver could see an even stronger move than gold.

01:06 – 02:24 | Why gold could reach $10,000

The $10,000 gold objective is based on global M1, a 40% gold backing and roughly 35,000 tonnes of official gold.

02:25 – 04:13 | Precious metals for wealth preservation

Gold and silver are presented as protection against inflation and the destruction of paper money.

04:14 – 05:42 | Keep wealth outside the banking system

Physical gold and silver provide direct ownership without relying on banks or conventional financial assets.

06:39 – 08:25 | Silver faces a supply deficit

Industrial demand, years of supply deficits and large outstanding futures positions could support a major move in silver.

08:26 – 09:50 | The case for $1,000 silver

With gold at $10,000 and the gold-silver ratio reaching 10, silver would reach $1,000 per ounce.

Markets, led today by a narrow handful of tech juggernauts, continue their nervous melt-up despite openly embarrassing indicators of both over- and malinvestment, as yet another game-changing technological wave of AI dystopia seduces the retail plankton into a textbook setup for an historical meltdown.

In the interim, a small minority of early IPO participants and C-suite insiders with advantageous access to easy capital from the big, credit-extending banks will make fortunes.

Unfortunately, small businesses across the rest of the ignored landscape of the American nightmare just posted a 64% Year-over-Year increase in bankruptcy filings.

From Capitalism to Neo-Feudalism

Such trends, numbers and “forces” are screaming indicators of what I have long described as an America whose superficial claims of “capitalism” are little more than terms of art masking the darker reality of the neo-feudalism now staining the façade of the so-called American dream.

As my son and I enjoyed yesterday’s football game (against Iowa) live from the University of Michigan’s impressive “Big House” stadium, that same university’s infamous consumer sentiment indicator just posted its worst numbers in its five-decade+ history.

Such data effectively confirms that a recession is not only off our bow, but it’s under our keel.

But hey, why worry? We can rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America”, and all will be well again, right?

And let’s not forget that the NASDAǪ 100 has given us five-year returns North of 100%, right?

Even Pam Bondi can remind us to focus on the DOW to keep our faith in American Exceptionalism forever flamed, right?

Hmmm…

The Hidden Crimes

But what few (so very, very few) have realized is that when measured in real money, namely gold, those so-called impressive returns reveal a loss of >20% rather than a gain of 100%.

In other words, if many still think a mythical stock market bubble is going to save us, it’s only because they still think measuring wealth in that melting ice cube, otherwise known as the nominal U.S. dollar, is an actual measure of anything.

For bonds, the story is far darker. Over the last 12 years, USTs, when measured in gold rather than dollars, have punished “safe investors” with a net loss of 90%. How’s that for wealth preservation?

That’s not a typo. It’s a crime.

Based on decades of monetizing trillions in budget deficits with trillions in magical money mouse-clicked at the Eccles Building, the so-called “experts” have been killing the purchasing power of your currency (and hence wealth) in an incremental death by a thousand cuts.

This murder has now become so exponential that even Wall Street has finally given it a name: “The Debasement Trade.”

But there’s more to this Debasement Trade than its name.

The actual, sad and oh-so dangerous reality of this trade is nothing more than an invisible tax on your wealth, which operates in actual (yet hidden) fact as unarmed robbery on a historical scale.

The Hidden Criminals…

If this engineered wealth transfer makes you angry, and it should, the natural reaction to such a crime is to better understand who committed it.

As usual, the best evidence trail for such questions and crimes is simple: Just follow the money…

And this trail, not surprisingly, begins and ends with the centralized power, centralized crimes and centralized (yet hidden) motives of our centralized banks, whose real mandate was never controlling “inflation and employment.”

Their real motive was equally simple. It was simply to control your money.

The Not-So Federal Reserve

When the U.S. Federal Reserve (which is neither federal nor a reserve) was not so immaculately conceived on Jekyll Island and later birthed in 1913 in Washington, DC by a cabal of private bankers, Woodrow Wilson signed his shaking pen to the greatest wealth transfer in the history of our nation.

Rather than allow the natural forces of supply and demand to determine the cost and supply of credit, a handful of private bankers took monopoly control of the same.

Banking Unveiled – Benefiting the Few at the Expense of the Many

The net result has been precisely what our 7^th President, Andrew Jackson, warned as far back as 1832, namely, that our financial system would be prostituted for the “benefit of the few at the expense of the many.”

Jackson knew this because long before this otherwise unconstitutional central bank made its ironic yet deliberate way to Constitution Avenue, he understood the history, tricks and secrets of powerful banks and powerful bankers.

He knew, for example, that indebted princes, kings, presidents and even warlords of flag after flag and nation after nation never held the real power.

Real power, even the power behind armies and capitols, is nothing without the money to wield it, and that money begins and ends with banks and bankers.

He also knew that nations beholden to banks can also extract money from the masses, which is why it was no coincidence that in the very same year the Fed came into law in 1913, so too did the first Federal Income Tax legislation…

The Crazy Mechanics of Credit (and Money) Creation

Jackson further understood how banks actually operate, which is something almost no one is meant or taught to understand, and that’s because it’s so crazy that if they did, it would unmask the crime at the base of our so-called free society and free markets.

Banks, for example, are not just helpful little servants of Bedford Falls public trust who carefully manage depositor monies by judiciously re-lending one dollar of deposited cash for one dollar of wisely underwritten loans.

Oh no, not at all.

Instead, banks take a dollar of your depositor wealth and then add massive turns of leverage when they make their interest-carrying (typically risky) and bank-profiting loans of your money.

They then use very clever (and legalized) double-entry accounting tricks to hide the dirty little secret that whenever they are extending credit, they are actually creating money.

Such money creation via credit extension may seem academic, but when done at the scale of trillions and trillions, what was once academic just becomes inflationary, debasing, and- at levels this high – just plain criminal.

Credit Is Not Created Equal

By extending credit, leverage and money creation (i.e., debasement), powerful banks are also extending privilege, and this privilege is not shared equally.

Big banks, you know—the kind that are too big to fail—hold balance sheets in the trillions (especially when you tack on their notional derivatives exposure), which means they need to make big rather than small loans to move their money and extend their risk exposures.

Needless to say, small businesses and small citizens are not at the top of the priority list for these mega banks.

Instead, the big boys like to make deals with other big boys, which explains why access to capital is not created equal in the so-called land of the free.

Instead, the bigger loans are made to VC funds, mega tech monopolies and pooled superstars in the private equity and private credit corners, temporarily profiting from “sea to shining sea” from Palo Alto to New York City, but largely bypassing the little guys in the flyover states.

The Big Boys Are Not the Smart Boys

But just because these loans and capital infusions are unfairly distributed to the big boys, this by no means implies that they are made to the smartest boys.

Bailing Out the Bad Boys

But power protects power, and the very credit (i.e., banking) system which triggers the next mega crisis in a nation already $40T in public debt will be once again rescued (“bailed out”) by the very bankers and Treasury Secretaries (i.e., former bankers) who systematically created the crisis.

Remember TARP? Remember the BTFP?

In fact, the very same year our TBTF banks broke the global economy in 2008, over 500 bankers received bonuses in excess of $1M each…

It is fascinating how exempt such a system can be from accountability when the criminals are also the judges…

When the Cure and the Sickness Are One & the Same

Of course, the amount of “stimulus,” “accommodation”, and “synthetic liquidity” required to “save” the next banking (and hence credit) crisis will be historically expensive and hence historically ruinous to paper currencies in general and the USD in particular.

Yes, there is theoretically no crisis a money printer can’t solve, and no market dip or even market implosion that a money printer can’t remodel into a V-shaped “recovery.”

But such “solutions” or “recoveries” are as sickening as the very crises they pretend to “cure,” as they can only be achieved by even greater debasement (and money creation) than the debasement and money creation crisis by which the banking system is inherently defined.

In short, the sickness and the cure are one and the same, and the patient zero is always (and I mean always) a bank.

Gold: The Only Honest Solution

The more honest solution, of course, is as obvious as it is ignored by the vast majority of investors, bankers and even innocents of the ignored Main Streets.

That solution is now, and has always been, gold.

In crisis after crisis, bank disaster after bank disaster, and currency failure after currency failure, those families, institutions and sophisticated investors who held gold rather than paper money in a crisis where always the same ones who prevailed rather than failed when their currencies were inflated away/debased into nothing.

But just because your banking system has failed to protect your deposits or dollars in gold, this doesn’t mean you can’t be smarter than your “experts.”

Once you understand their tricks, powers and historical failures – it’s almost too easy. Gold is no longer a debate; it’s the solution.

At the same time, European politicians are putting pressure on governments and central banks to take gold assets out of New York and bring them back to their respective countries.

The Netherlands has already made the move, while politicians in Italy and Germany are putting pressure on their governments to bring gold back to Italy and Germany.

Germany already took a large amount of gold back from New York in 2013, and there is now more pressure to take further gold back.

The issue goes beyond the location of central bank reserves. It also raises a broader question about what can happen to assets when governments take action during a crisis.

“Remember, the US has a tendency to confiscate or bail in assets and you just take the Russian assets, which were confiscated.”

That is why holding physical gold and silver in the US carries a risk that should not be ignored.

The purpose of physical gold is not simply to own an asset that may rise in value. It is to have wealth that can be accessed when the financial system or geopolitical environment becomes unstable.

If there is a crisis, you need to be able to flee to your gold.

This is where the location of your gold becomes important. It should be stored somewhere that gives you direct access and the ability to move it if circumstances change.

Singapore and Switzerland are among the safest places in the world for storing gold, with Switzerland being the preferred location. Mountain vaults provide secure storage while allowing direct access to the metal.

You should always consider:

• Where your gold and silver are stored

• Whether there is direct access to the metal

• Whether the metal can be moved if conditions change

• The government and jurisdiction under which the assets are held

Your precious metals should be somewhere you can reach it when your family needs it most and not somewhere access could be restricted during a crisis.

Direct access gives you the freedom to move your wealth if circumstances change and another country becomes safer.

KEY INSIGHTS

00:00 – 00:18 | Why the location of your gold matters

Gold should be accessible during a crisis, which makes its storage location important.

00:18 – 01:04 | European countries bring gold back

The Netherlands moved 76 tons of gold from New York to London, while Italy and Germany face pressure to bring more gold home.

01:04 – 01:21 | The risk of confiscation

The confiscation of Russian assets highlights the risks of holding assets in a foreign jurisdiction.

01:21 – 01:34 | Where to store physical gold

Singapore and Switzerland are highlighted as safe locations, with Switzerland as the preferred choice.

01:34 – 01:42 | Direct access to your gold

Gold should be directly accessible and movable if conditions change.

01:42 – 01:57 | Preserving wealth long term

Keeping gold away from government intervention can help protect wealth and provide greater flexibility.

I recently sat down with Brian Fung, CEO of the Hong Kong Gold Exchange, to discuss the changing role of Hong Kong in the precious-metals market.

Ahead of the meeting, had given me four questions he wanted me to put to the Exchange.

Among them: Can bullion leave Mainland China for Hong Kong without PBOC permission? Which currencies are actually being used? And after gold, could silver be next?

Following the meeting, I asked the Exchange to clarify several points in writing.

Here is what I learned.

China Is Not Opening the Gold Floodgates

During the interview, I asked Mr. Fung whether Mainland residents could export bullion to Hong Kong without permission from the People’s Bank of China.

My notes record his answer:

“This is a very remote possibility and is not yet possible.”

The Exchange subsequently gave me a more detailed written clarification.

Gold remains a restricted import and export item. Commercial exports remain subject to permits and PBOC oversight.

For individuals, the Exchange highlighted a practical 50-gram threshold. Above that, declaration and supporting documentation are required, and individual exports exceeding 50 grams are, in practice, not feasible. Larger quantities must follow the regulated corporate route.

Interestingly, the Exchange said the same applies to silver.

The message is clear: China may be developing greater connectivity with Hong Kong, but that does not mean uncontrolled bullion exports.

Gold Is Already Trading in Three Currencies

My second question concerned currencies.

The Exchange confirmed in writing that Hong Kong gold trading principally uses HKD, USD and offshore renminbi (CNH).

Traditional Hong Kong products are mainly settled in HKD. London gold and silver contracts use USD. And products connected with the Shanghai Gold Exchange, including RMB kilogram gold bars, principally use CNH.

That matters.

The renminbi does not need to replace the dollar tomorrow. What matters is that the infrastructure already exists for physical gold to trade in different currencies, including CNH.

Is Silver Next?

Brian Fung, Chief Executive Officer, Hong Kong Gold Exchange. The man who runs the institution at the centre of China’s gold strategy.

This was perhaps the most interesting part of my conversation with Fung.

I asked whether the developing market arrangements could eventually be expanded to silver.

According to my contemporaneous notes, his response was:

“Yes, absolutely. They would like to expand the new market arrangements to include silver.”

That is not a launch date or a formal announcement.

But it tells us where the Exchange would like to go.

And it matters because silver could broaden a physical precious-metals infrastructure that is increasingly connecting Hong Kong with Mainland China.

Why This Matters

Alasdair Macleod has argued for years that China’s gold strategy is about more than accumulating reserves.

It is about building monetary infrastructure around physical gold.

Hong Kong could become an increasingly important bridge between China’s domestic gold market and the international financial system.

What we learned from the Exchange is therefore significant:

Mainland bullion exports remain controlled. Hong Kong gold already operates across HKD, USD and CNH. And during my conversation with its CEO, he indicated that they would like the developing market arrangements to extend to silver.

None of this means the dollar disappears tomorrow.

But monetary systems rarely change overnight.

The infrastructure of the next system is usually built while the old one is still operating.

Hong Kong is one of the places where that infrastructure is taking shape.

And if what I heard from the CEO becomes reality, gold may only be the beginning.

Silver could be next.

Pattern Recognition

My father taught me long ago that the years teach things the days do not always notice.

In all areas of our lives, we slowly acquire perspectives earned by experience over theory and by time rather than guesses.

This is equally true of lives spent investing in markets and cycles. A certain pattern recognition is acquired that not even a Bloomberg terminal or AI robot can teach.

As one, for example, who traded through a dot.com bubble led by the undeniably transformative technology of the internet of all things, I remember well how everyone from Wall Street experts to Hollywood movies made it clear that names like Cisco, Yahoo and AOL were kings who would never be dethroned.

That felt very exciting.

At least until the NASDAQ lost 78% and two of those “kings” were carried off the market on their shields, while Cisco, which at least survived the carnage, would never be the same again.

Those days and years are now teaching us yet another lesson, one whose pattern few wish to see, for the simple reason that many are not, or never were, paying attention.

And as for such patterns or lessons, what very few are seeing today is that Japan’s JGB, yen and Nikkei have just given us a familiar road map for what lies ahead for America’s Fed, dollar and S&P.

I Think We’re Turning Japanese (Yes, I Really Think So)

What is happening this year in Japan goes well beyond the otherwise significant conversations on the Japanese “Carry Trade.”

As bond jocks constantly remind us of boring things like sovereign debt yields, it can often be too boring (or too scary) to confront.

Like the sun, topics like death and bond markets are often hard to look at directly.

The fact, for example, that the yield on the Japanese 30Y JGB just hit over 4.18% for the first time in its history may seem like a yawn to many otherwise doom-scrolling through the latest war, AI meme or DC scandal de jour.

But this historical yield spike out of Tokyo is far more than just another bond signal—it’s a harbinger of things to come in your own backyard (and wallet).

The Canary in a Coal Mine

Much like the USA, today’s Japan (which is the world’s 3^rd largest economy) is a paper tiger built on extraordinary debt (greater than 200% of its total economy) and a bond and hence stock market entirely supported by (and correlated to) a central bank fatally addicted to printing (debasing) trillions worth of its currency to keep its illusion of economic survival going.

If this profile looks a lot like America’s and Europe’s, that’s because Japan is just a canary in the Western coal mine. Where it goes, we shall follow.

In fact, Japan’s sins are in many ways our own, especially America’s.

Blame It on the Experts

Just after the Nikkei literally died in 1989, a then-ambitious and much younger Ben Bernanke gave Tokyo a handbook to print their way out of collapse.

Bernanke would use a similar handbook when U.S. markets tanked years later in 2008. As we are now discovering, his expertise was anything but expert.

But during this period of mass MMT delusion and massive currency debasement, Wall Street was betting for years (decades) that Japan’s debt levels would eventually implode under inevitably rising bond yields (and hence debt costs).

For literally decades, Wall Street mavericks were betting big on a yield spike that would re-crush the Nikkei and JGB in one big headline.

But this headline never came, and the foregoing bet against Japan became known on the Street as the “widow maker.”

Buying Time, Postponing Pain

Instead, the BoJ bought itself decades of time and a market recovery by printing just unthinkable levels of yen to keep JGBs (Japanese bonds) bought and the Nikkei higher.

For the near entirety of my career, this kept Japanese yields at zero to negative, buying time while crushing those who bet against Tokyo.

Which brings me back to that boring 4.18% record yield on the 30Y JGB.

This figure confirms that the dam has finally broken on the broken Japanese “plan.”

Or to use the analogy above, the canary in its coal mine just died.

For those paying attention, these rising yields just caused the Nikkei 225 to lose 200B in a single day, and this sell-off was led by the so-called “Immortal” tech kings, you know, the kind which were never supposed to fall—like AOL, Yahoo or Cisco of old.

The Sickness is Global and Currency-Killing

But what happens in Tokyo doesn’t stay in Tokyo.

Yields across the “developed” world have been rising to decade highs because the bond markets are now showing more honesty than central bankers, from Tokyo to DC.

As the yield on the Bloomberg Global Sovereign Bond Index shoots past 3.72%, yields from Australia and the UK to Germany and the USA are skyrocketing to untenable levels.

The bond market is essentially asking for more risk premium (yield) on government IOUs that are no longer trusted.

Given this global debt fiasco, is it therefore any surprise that the global broad money supply of printed paper currencies, which hit $150 TRILLION in June, has increased by a staggering 50% since 2020?

Such open currency debasement now hiding in plain sight not only explains why currencies like the USD have lost 87% in absolute purchasing power since decoupling from gold in 1971, it further explains why the world’s central banks are stacking gold at an unprecedented pace in 2026.

Physical gold is no longer an allocation or dollar “debate”; it is the open and now obvious puck direction of global collateral and the de facto international reserve asset above tanking currencies and unloved sovereign IOUs.

This is not fable but fact.

Stocks vs. Gold

But equally worth noting from the Japanese tech sell-off of late is what it reminds as to the dot.com era of yesterday and what it portends for the AI era/market of tomorrow.

Unlike the aforementioned bloodbath during the internet bubble, today’s U.S. stock market is literally being kept alive by an equally game-changing technology meme with an even greater profile of over-investment ($400B this year alone by the leading tech names), which always moves from over-bought to over-sold.

With U.S. public debt crossing 40T as rates rise to levels costing Uncle Sam (i.e. you) over $3B/day to service the interest expense, the convergence of a credit crisis is about to slam into a dying PE market, an already dead private credit market and an over-valued and over-hyped AI sector.

This suggests that what we just got a glimpse of in Japan (as to both its markets and currency) is an undeniable warning of what is to come to the U.S. NASDAQ and dollar.

Be Prepared

Timing this convergence is a mug’s game. Preparing for it is not.

Even if central banks like the Fed or BoJ “save” the markets with mouse-clicked trillions, the currency destruction necessary to support those “resilient” markets is robbing you in plain sight.

The Nikkei, for example, has seen an impressive 145% gain in the last five years, yet when measured in gold terms, the result was a net loss of -31%.

During that same period, the NASDAQ 100 has shown an impressive nominal return of 95%, yet when measured in gold, the net result has been a loss of -23%.

And if any of you were being told by your advisors over the last 12 years that USTs were the key to your safe retirement, the “risk-free returns” of Uncle Sam’s IOU, when measured against gold, have lost you 90%.

See the theft? See the real measure of wealth?

Given the foregoing interplay of rising rates, tanking bonds, debased currencies and hyper-risk in the tech sector, an allocation to physical rather than paper gold is the only asset separating the informed from the uninformed, and the wealth-protected from the wealth-destroyed.

• Currencies are stable

• Inflation is low

• Governments are running budget surpluses

• Borrowing is around 25% to 30% of GDP

• Countries have little debt

Fiat money will be the better choice in that case… but we all know that’s not the world today.

Most countries now have debt above 100% of GDP. Stock markets, bond markets and property have also been supported for years by low interest rates, heavy borrowing and high leverage.

Stocks are now around 250% of GDP, which is an absolute record in the measure used here.

The Buffett Indicator puts the current valuation into a longer historical context. The ratio of total publicly traded stocks to GDP is now around three times its 50-year mean.

That leaves very little room for stocks to absorb a major change in financial conditions.

Corporate and sovereign borrowers are facing the same problem.

“Bonds are a total bubble with borrowers that will never repay their money.”

Global debt is estimated at around $370 trillion, before derivatives and the shadow banking system are taken into account. The derivatives market is estimated at around $2 quadrillion.

The same forces have pushed property prices higher. Low rates, high borrowing and leverage have inflated property markets, leaving them vulnerable when financial conditions change.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield also shows how the long period of falling yields came to an end in 2020.

This matters because the period of easy money that supported stocks, bonds and property cannot simply continue indefinitely.

The question then becomes “What happens when those markets fall?”

Since 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window, gold has risen from $35 an ounce to around $4,470 in the figures used here. That is 127 times higher. Over the same period, the Dow has risen 57 times, before dividends.

The Dow-to-gold ratio gives a different picture of the stock market than the dollar price alone.

If conventional assets fall substantially against gold, the ratio could move back toward levels seen in earlier periods. The chart points to a potential return toward 1:1.

Gold itself has also gone through corrections. The recent correction is viewed as having ended, with the chart pointing toward much higher potential prices from here.

The point is not that gold will simply rise because its dollar price is going up.

If the dollar and other currencies lose purchasing power, the dollar price of gold can rise dramatically while the actual purchasing power of gold remains much more stable.

That is why giving one precise long-term dollar target for gold misses the main issue.

“It’s no use giving a dollar price for gold when the dollar is going down by the day.”

The same argument applies to silver. Gold has risen 131 times since 1971, while silver has risen only 55 times in the figures shown below. That leaves a large difference between the two metals.

Silver is expected to move faster than gold if the monetary and inflationary conditions described here develop.

The conclusion is therefore quite simple.

Gold is not needed when currencies are sound, inflation is contained, and governments have their finances under control.

But waiting for those conditions before owning gold could mean waiting for a world that is unlikely to return soon.

The purpose of physical gold and silver is to preserve purchasing power when the financial system is under strain. That is why they remain relevant when stocks, bonds, property, and currencies are all exposed to the same debt problem.

KEY INSIGHTS

00:00 – 01:26 | Stocks and bonds face a reckoning

Stocks at 250% of GDP and heavily indebted bond markets are seen as highly vulnerable.

01:27 – 02:14 | Property joins the list of risks

Low rates, borrowing and leverage have pushed property prices higher, with major declines expected against gold.

02:15 – 03:01 | Gold outperforms over the long term

Gold has risen 127 times since 1971, compared with 57 times for the Dow before dividends.

03:09 – 04:31 | Wars threaten energy and markets

The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East could keep energy prices high and put further pressure on the global economy.

04:32 – 05:35 | Gold and silver for wealth preservation

Physical gold and silver are presented as the preferred assets during an inflationary period with high debt and interest rates.

05:36 – 06:44 | Gold protects purchasing power

Gold’s rising dollar price reflects currency weakness, while its real purchasing power has remained stable over long periods.

06:45 – 08:45 | When should you not own gold?

Gold is unnecessary when currencies are stable, inflation is low, and government finances are sound. Those conditions are unlikely in the coming years.

A Market Fall in the Fall?

The macro setting for our collective transition from summer to fall in 2026 is marked by rising yields across the western yield curve, from Paris to DC.

These rising yields, which represent the cost of servicing debt for nations and enterprises (i.e. stocks) already in debt beyond the sustainability mark, are nothing less than flashing warnings of Uh-Oh ahead.

As of this writing, for example, the yield on the 10Y UST has climbed past the Rubicon of sanity to a dangerous 4.7% at the same time trillions of outstanding USTs face a re-finance at much higher rates.

Needless to say, U.S. tax receipts and GDP will not be enough to pay for the same.

More Non-QE-QE…

This means we can expect more “Non-QE-QE” from a debt-trapped and fork-tongued Fed which will need to create trillions in more back-door liquidity (i.e. synthetic dollars) off the Fed’s balance sheet to avoid having to say the embarrassing “QE” word out loud.

Toward this desperate end, Warsh has familiar tricks up his sleeve to keep the TBTF banks (the Fed’s real mandate) temporarily liquid at the expense of Main Street inflation and employment stresses (which are the Fed’s pretended mandates).

In addition to draining liquidity from the Treasury General Account, bailing out the Repo markets or issuing more unwanted IOUs from the short end of the yield-curve,Warsh, talking like a hawk, will be dovishly adding a trillion dollars of levered capital to the big banks by simple non-compliance with the Basel III rules, a maze so complicated that no one on Main Street is expected to notice.

Meanwhile, as Japan, formerly America’s largest buyer of USTs, has become a massive seller of the same, this latest threat to Uncle Sam’s unloved IOUs is being “solved” by more indirect QE conveniently described as “repurchase agreements.”

But in plain English, all these “repurchase agreements” boil down to is this: The moment Japan dumps USTs, the Fed is buying them at volume in a near-term attempt to keep bond prices (and hence yields) under control with printed dollar demand for otherwise unloved USTs.

This is just a diet-Coke version of Yield Curve Control and hidden QE by another name.

America’s Check Mate Moment

In short, as the world foreseeably dumps weaponized and over-indebted USTs at a record pace in favor of gold-stacking at an equally record pace (driven primarily by the Chinese), the writing on the U.S. debt wall couldn’t be more clear: American debt management has reached its checkmate moment.

There are no good moves left.

If the Fed allows rates to go higher to “fight inflation,” this will crush everything but the USD in its wake—from stocks and bonds to BTC and yes, even gold–temporarily.

But eventually, higher rates just hit a wall of Fiscal Dominance wherein the rates become too high for even Uncle Sam to pay its own debt.

As a result, more dollar debasing QE inevitably follows, as we saw in the wake of Powell’s attempt at Higher-for-Longer in 2022 and 2023, after which gold ripped to all-time-highs in the years (and liquidity) that followed.

Alternatively, if the Fed uses extreme liquidity for extreme YCC (which it always ends up doing), this just “saves” its bond market at the direct expense of its currency, which leads, once again, to yet another tailwind for gold.

The Dollar (and Gold’s) End-Game is Clear

What all of these broad strokes ultimately point to is this: The dollar’s mathematical end-game is weaker not stronger; which means gold’s end-game is stronger not weaker.

This is not only a consequence of the hard math of debt, it is the very goal of a now desperate DC which is increasingly in favor of a weaker rather than stronger dollar to achieve its “Hamiltonian” new direction of allegedly making America “great again.”

As for this new direction, Treasury Secretary Bessent all but confessed this in a recent WSJ op-ed, and even Trump, knowingly or unknowingly, said the “Hamiltonian” part out loud when bragging about returning to the “policies of 1870 to 1913.”

But just what is this “Hamiltonian” new direction?

Going Hamiltonian

In a nutshell, it boils down to Hamilton’s 1790 version of building a then emerging American productivity base via extreme protectionism and hence otherwise unfair tariff practices.

This effectively meant that foreigners rather than Americans would pay for America’s own growth (or post-civil war re-growth).

Such protectionism made sense when America was an emerging nation in the 1790’s, or seeking to re-build its economy after the U.S. civil war ended in 1865.

But as America celebrates its 250^th national birthday in 2026, this return to Hamiltonian thinking looks a tad more desperate than innovative.

Since the U.S. outsourced American manufacturing to China under the WTO deals of 2000 and 2001 (nod to Clinton), a country once known for manufacturing became an outsourced nation of factory lay-offs and extreme financialization rather than domestic manufacturing.

This was a disaster.

Rather than open China’s market as a great “purchaser” of American widgets, the WTO deal, with the complicit support of American CEO’s seeking cheaper labor and higher personal incomes/margins, simply opened China up as the greater manufacturer of American widgets.

Now the Trump white house seeks to reshore American manufacturing and labor, which on its face, is more than reasonable and very much needed.

Hamilton in 2026?

But here’s the rub: Reshoring is expensive. And the U.S. under Trump, unlike Hamilton’s 18th-century America, is staring down the fatal barrel of $40T in public debt.

This is a debt figure which must surely have Alexander Hamilton rolling in his Manhattan grave.

In order for DC to re-shore American manufacturing in such a debt backdrop, it will need a weaker dollar to both inject the needed capital as well as compete in a trade war which requires a weaker rather than stronger dollar for its export advantages.

On the other side of the Hamiltonian (i.e., protectionist) camp in DC are the classic neo-liberalist or globalist policy makers who prefer free flows and free trade to get the lowest prices on goods for American citizens.

Naturally, cheaper TV’s made in China or Japan are nice for American shoppers at Walmart, but it’s hardly much of a trade-off to haver cheaper TVs in American living rooms at the expense of millions of laid off workers in the U.S. rust-belt.

Make the Dollar Weak Again

Thus, for Trump and/or Bessent to make American manufacturing “great again,” a weaker dollar is not just a debate, it’s essential policy.

The problem is a weaker dollar helps DC, but the dollar debasement and inflation required to re-shore and re-build American productivity will hit Main Street hard in the gut via a dollar so diluted (and unsupported by equivalent wage hikes) that not even a comically bogus CPI scale will be able to hide the inflation metastasizing throughout America.

This means DC will need another way to pay for its Hamiltonian schemes than just protectionism and dollar-debasement gone wild.

The Golden Option

They will need another asset to monetize this ambitious project of American re-shoring. As Bessent himself hinted, it’s time to “monetize the asset side of the American balance sheet.”

To me, at least, this means it’s time to monetize the 260 million ounces of allegedly U.S.-held gold still priced at roughly $42.00/oz.

Such a revaluation of U.S. gold holdings (aided by the Venezuelan gold handed to Uncle Sam via the Bank of England) to market price would remove the embarrassment of more “QE” headlines and a too-rapid dollar debasement.

In short, such a gold revaluation would buy the USA something it desperately needs: Time and money.

From “Enemy” to Asset of Last Resort

But any re-valuation of U.S.-held gold would certainly do a lot more for the U.S. balance sheet if gold were marked to market at a higher rather than lower market price.

This places the U.S. at not only an historical decision point, but also an historical turning point as to its traditional view on gold.

Ever since the U.S. left the gold standard in 1971, gold was, as Volcker famously said, “America’s enemy.” After all, rising gold was an open middle finger to a post-71, nothing-backed dollar.

This early need to fight the golden “enemy” explains why the COMEX and CME tricks to legally price fix gold and silver began in earnest (along with the Petrodollar scheme) directly after the dollar decoupled from gold in August of 1971.

It was essential that rising gold be controlled to avoid humiliating the Greenback.

But 55 years later, the “exorbitant privilege” of the USD’s global hegemony is now stumbling under the self-inflicted wound of too much debt, a distrusted and weaponized IOU and a petrodollar in open shift in the wake of the Iranian fiasco.

As a result of these changing facts, and after decades of exporting US inflation to the rest of the world, the increasingly diluted and unloved dollar is no longer just the world’s problem, it’s America’s problem as well.

Which means that what Bessent and Trump (as well as Judy Shelton) are subtly suggesting is that gold is no longer our “enemy.”

Instead, and quite ironically, gold is now one of America’s last options to de-deficit at least a portion of its fiscal nightmare.

Rather than Repress Gold, Let It Run

Or stated even more simply, it is now in the USA’s best interest to let gold run rather than to price fix it lower on a COMEX which has lost both its gold and credibility as China and Hong Kong move from paper-based exchanges to physical precious metal exchanges.

Gold at $4,000/oz., for example, won’t help the USA de-deficit nearly as much as it could if gold were at $17,000/oz., $20,000/oz or higher (in fact much higher) in the years to come.

And if you are wondering why central banks are stacking more gold than USTs today, it’s partly because that is precisely where they see gold heading: Much higher…

If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to most shipping and the routes into and out of the Red Sea remain restricted, crude could be closer to $200 by the end of next year.

But the real impact will be on product prices.

Gasoline could rise above $7 a gallon and diesel above $9.

That would have serious consequences for the U.S. economy, particularly with more than $100 trillion of debt and a financial system that is already highly leveraged.

The first stage could be a correction in the S&P 500.

A 6% to 8% correction is expected before the traditional year-end rally, which could take the index toward 8,500.

But with recession and some of the excesses in the financial system exposed, the S&P 500 could fall toward 5,000. Base-metal prices would also decline.

That would put the U.S. economy into recession next year.

The next phase could be even more difficult.

The expectation is that the Federal Reserve will begin stimulating more aggressively in the fourth quarter of 2027. That would mark the beginning of a strong inflationary period extending into 2030–2032.

During those years, equity and base-metal prices could rise sharply. The S&P 500 could reach more than 10,000, while copper could reach $28,000.

But those figures need to be measured against the dollar.

If the DXY falls by half, an S&P 500 above 10,000 or copper at $28,000 would represent much less in 2026 dollars.

This is one reason physical gold becomes so important in the outlook.

The recommendation is to use stock-market rallies to reduce equity exposure and buy physical gold held outside the banking system.

“On every rally in the stock market, it will be prudent to liquidate and to buy physical gold.”

The period after 2030 could then bring a major crash in asset values. A monetary reset is expected during this phase, potentially involving a cryptocurrency linked to U.S. government debt.

China is moving in a different direction.

Its RMB and gold trading facilities in Hong Kong have been expanding. The expectation is that China could announce a currency backed by the gold held by its citizens and government, potentially as early as 2028.

The estimates presented put Chinese private gold holdings at around 25,000 to 27,000 tonnes, with government holdings potentially adding another 25,000 tonnes.

This leaves two very different monetary possibilities:

• A currency backed by government debt

• A currency backed by gold

For investors, the issue is ultimately purchasing power.

If oil rises toward $200, inflation accelerates, the dollar loses half its value, and financial markets eventually suffer a major correction, nominal prices will tell only part of the story.

Physical gold provides a way to hold wealth without depending on the continued strength of the dollar or the banking system.

KEY INSIGHTS

00:17 – 01:27 | Oil could reach $200 a barrel

Restricted shipping through Hormuz and the Red Sea could push crude toward $200, gasoline above $7, and diesel above $9.

01:28 – 02:56 | Recession could hit in 2027

The S&P 500 could rally toward 8,500 before falling toward 5,000 as recession exposes financial excesses.

02:57 – 03:52 | Inflation returns through 2030–2032

Fed stimulus could trigger a strong inflationary period that continues into 2030–2032.

03:53 – 04:31 | The dollar could lose half its value

The DXY could fall by 50%, changing the real value of rising equity and commodity prices.

04:32 – 05:18 | A major asset crash could follow

The period after 2030 could bring a major decline in asset values and a new monetary reset.

05:19 – 06:11 | China prepares for a gold-backed yuan

China is expanding its RMB and gold trading facilities in Hong Kong and could move toward a gold-backed currency.

06:12 – 06:35 | Physical gold becomes the protection

Physical gold held outside the banking system is presented as protection against a major decline in asset values and currency weakness.

“Gold is money and all else is credit.”

The dollar was once defined by the amount of gold behind it. In 1879, $1 represented 23.22 grains of gold. After the gold price was fixed at $35 an ounce in 1934, that fell to 13.714 grains.

And today? The equivalent is around 0.11 of a grain.

The pressure on currencies is now showing up elsewhere, too. Japan is a good example.

Japan depends on oil and LNG from the Gulf. Shipments from America’s strategic petroleum reserves have helped replace part of that supply, particularly for it. But those reserves are now being depleted.

Thus, Japan is facing three pressures at the same time:

• Higher energy costs

• Rising bond yields

• An enormous debt burden

The situation brings back memories of the 1970s. During the 1973–74 oil crisis, Japanese consumer price inflation eventually reached between 25% and 30%.

It has also been a major source of capital for the U.S. and other G7 economies, including the U.S. Treasury market.

If Japanese institutions begin selling foreign assets to meet funding needs at home, those investment flows could start moving in the opposite direction.

That would put more pressure on bond markets.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield is already moving higher after breaking out of its previous range.

Higher oil prices could add to that pressure. More expensive energy would feed into consumer prices, while higher inflation would make it harder for bond yields to come down.

And this is where the argument returns to gold.

China has spent decades preparing for a world in which the dollar plays a smaller role.

Since 1971, it has steadily built up its gold holdings, while recent measures have strengthened the connection between the Hong Kong gold market and the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

The free movement of gold between mainland China and Hong Kong would be important if China were to move toward a yuan backed by gold.

Russia could potentially take a similar path. But the G7 has far less room to return to a gold standard because doing so would require major cuts in government spending at a time when their economies are already under pressure.

That leaves the United States with two choices:

Protect the dollar and let the economy suffer OR protect the economy and let the dollar weaken.

Neither choice comes without consequences, and this brings us back to J.P. Morgan’s point.

When currencies are built on expanding credit, their value depends on confidence in the system behind them. Gold does not carry that same dependency.

KEY INSIGHTS

00:00 – 01:09 | Gold reveals the dollar’s long decline

The dollar’s gold equivalent has fallen from 23.22 grains in 1879 to around 0.11 grains today.

01:09 – 03:03 | Japan faces a new oil crisis

Depleting U.S. strategic petroleum reserves could leave Japan facing higher oil costs, a weaker currency, and rising bond yields.

03:03 – 04:18 | Japan’s debt problem could spread

Rising funding costs may force Japan to reduce its overseas investments, with potential consequences for U.S. Treasuries and other G7 bond markets.

04:19 – 05:19 | Oil could push inflation higher

Higher energy prices could feed into consumer inflation and put further pressure on bond yields.

05:19 – 06:41 | China is moving closer to gold

China is strengthening the connection between its Hong Kong and Shanghai gold markets as it prepares for a world where the yuan plays a larger role.

06:41 – 07:46 | Why the G7 cannot simply return to gold

A return to a gold standard would require major cuts in government spending at a time when economic weakness could demand more stimulus.

07:46 – 08:21 | America’s two choices

The U.S. can protect the dollar and risk the economy, or support the economy and accept further weakness in the currency.

Stick to the Essential

Antoine de St. Exupery famously (and wisely) wrote that the “essential is invisible.”

In philosophical matters pertaining to the art of living, this phrase has great depth.

But in matters pertaining to market risk and economic forecasting, it will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with our views that the “essential lies in the bond market.”

As bonds fall in trust, demand and hence price, their yields then rise.

And these yields (the highest in decades) represent the true cost of sovereign debt, which we all know is beyond sustainability.

At $40T in comical, mismanaged and criminally negligent public debt, the last thing the USA needs today are rising yields at the long end of its sovereign bond market, especially with over $8T of those bonds facing a re-fi (at a much higher rate) in the next 12 months.

Right now, America pays $3B per day on just the interest expense of its public debt.

As I’ve said countless times: Spiking yields and hence spiking debt costs are like shark fins to policy makers drowning in a debt-storm of their own doing.

The collision of these rising yields and rising debt levels mathematically means more currency debasement will be engaged to inflate away Uncle Sam’s increasingly grotesque bar tab.

This also means gold’s anti-fiat role as a store of real rather than fiat value/money is just beginning to stretch its legs.

So, how do we know what’s coming for gold in such a global monetary sea-change?

That’s easy. In fact, Japan’s yen and the Fed’s Warsh just told us so.

What the Yen’s Summer Collapse Really Means

As for the yen, it just reached its weakest levels against the USD in four decades.

This Japanese currency fall is the direct result of decades of extreme money printing, repressed interest rates and a debt/GDP ratio that waters the eyes.

(Sound familiar?)

Japan’s latest finance minister (they come and go like melting snowflakes) tried to save their yen with $73B worth of currency support (thanks to a massive Japanese sale of USTs).

But that strategy clearly failed.

Equally unsuccessful was Tokyo’s attempt to raise interest rates to a whopping 1% in June (the highest levels seen since the 1990’s).

This was pathetic, especially given the fact that for my entire market career, Tokyo ran zero to even negative rates.

The Carry Trade Is Over

Of course, at zero to negative rates, Japan became THE go-to lender for the global shadow banking and corporate elites, who would happily borrow yen for nothing and then convert those yen into trillions of dollars for massive leverage in the S&P and NASDAQ.

The fancy lads called this the Japanese “carry trade.” It was an absolute boon for American stocks.

But folks, the Japanese banks are now cutting off that free money spigot.

The carry trade (which saw its first hiccups in August of 2024) is now over, and the ripple effects are swelling into tidal waves racing toward your 401Ks.

The Market Pain Is Just Beginning

If you haven’t already noticed, the NASDAQ just saw its worst July in decades, which had a lot to do with all the selling of tech stocks by Japanese firms, which are now bringing their money home in order to desperately yet realistically exploit the biggest currency arbitrage in decades.

After all, when the yen is at historical lows, what better time than now for Japan to cash in on stronger dollar-based stocks?

Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t be worse for American stocks and bonds, as Japan’s actions don’t exist in a vacuum.

When the BoJ raises rates and the carry trade ends in a backdrop of hedge funds closing their levered stock positions, those same masters of the Wall Street universe have no choice but to buy back yen to close their credit obligations.

In order to get this cash, those same fund managers (and many large corporate C-suites) must also sell a whole lot of U.S. stocks and USTs.

We are talking lots and lots of them.

This translates to a perfect storm of Japanese and global hedge funds simultaneously selling risk assets at the apex of an undeniable market bubble.

This is serious.

Not only will criminally negligent and AI-over-exposed tech stocks feel the selling pain, but an equally massive sell-off in USTs is converging this summer.

This means falling bond prices and yes, you guessed it: Spiking yields.

Ouch.

Once again (and as seen in March of 2020, fiscal year 2022, or Liberation Day of 2025), stocks and bonds are falling together rather than hedging each other’s risk.

As warned for years, the classic 60-40 stock-bond portfolio couldn’t be more useless as a modern risk hedge.

This is because bonds are no longer a safe haven in a backdrop of such an unprecedented and unsustainable sovereign debt profile.

This profile, of course, poses a problem for wordsmiths at the Fed, and Kevin Warsh’s words are worth translating from spin to reality.

Warsh Enters a Broken Stage

Unlike the Volcker era where U.S. public debt was measured in billions rather than trillions, Warsh, like Powell, can never fight inflation via rate hikes for the simple reason that DC’s bar tab can’t afford higher rates.

Any rate hikes to allegedly “fight” openly misreported inflation eventually just forces the Fed to expand/print more debased and mouse-clicked dollars to pay down the rate hike.

This is a nation within a fiscal dominance trap which renders any so-called anti-inflationary rate-hike policy inherently, well: Inflationary.

The parabolic rise in U.S. M2 money supply speaks for itself:

It was thus hardly any nail-biter that no rate hike was announced in July.

Translating Fed-Speak into Common Sense

What I found more entertaining, however, were the Fed Chairman’s platitudes at the press conference which came immediately after the announcement of unchanged rates.

In particular, I was fascinated by the following Warsh comments, namely:

“The FOMC, by a 9 to 3 vote, decided to maintain the target range of the Fed Funds Rate of 3.5 and 3.75%.”

“The economy is showing impressive resilience.”

“Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.”

Hmmm…

As always, one must congratulate these Fed lords for their impressive ability to effectively say the sky is green and the grass is blue with such confidence and regularity that it almost seems true.

What Warsh didn’t say is: 1) that inflation far outpaces the Fed Funds Rate; 2) the “impressive resilience” of our economy ignores record credit card delinquencies and car-loan repossessions which outpace the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, or the lowest reported reading ever measured at the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index; and 3) that we’ve seen over 15 months of consecutive downward revisions of his so called “job gains.”

In short, and with the calm (and haircut) of a media prompt-reader, Warsh managed to say three fictions in less than 30 seconds without changing expression.

This spin is nothing new at all to those familiar with Fed-speak.

By itself, it cannot explain why the DOW then fell by 1000 points and yields on the long end of the curve went moon-bound following the Warsh press conference.

Warsh Said the Quiet Part Out Loud

Such open and violent market reaction came from something else which Marsh said, and it’s worth repeating here because it amounts to a subtle confession of what we’ve been warning with blunt consistency, namely that the Fed will eventually lose control of the bond market.

Specifically, and at the beginning of the Warsh press conference, Warsh was directly asked why nine FOMC members (Warsh among them) did not vote to raise rates.

His response was nothing short of astounding when one reads between the lines:

“Rates are higher today than they were 42 days ago. Markets have made decisions because we stepped back in part from trying to influence those. Market judgements have moved up on what nominal rates are across the Treasury curve… Markets are reacting in real time. Monetary policy matters not by just what we say, or even what we do…These prices we see in financial markets is one of the many ways in which [monetary policy] effects the real economy”

Translated into real-speak, what Marsh really said boils down to this: “Rates are rising without the Fed having to raise them because the markets no longer trust our IOUs and are setting a risk premium of their own, which is outside our control.”

This is scary. But it’s also no surprise at all.

The Fed is Losing Control of the Bond Market

Eventually, the bond market itself (and not the Fed’s rate or balance sheet policies) will determine bond yields and hence debt pricing.

And that pricing (as measured by boring things like bond yields) is ripping fatally and uncontrollably north.

This rising cost of debt, driven by distrust of weaponized and over-indebted IOUs, in conjunction with massive waves of more sellers (think Japan above) than buyers of Uncle Sam’s debt, will only get worse.

This also means that stocks supported by cheap debt will tank, and bonds unloved by the world will do the same.

The Only “Solution” is Worse than the Cure

Unless, of course, the Fed steps in to control those yields with trillions of direct or indirect QE to purchase these objectively unloved bonds.

But this inevitable and essential “solution” for our openly dying bond market comes with a fatal cost—namely continued currency debasement as Uncle Sam sacrifices (debases) his ever-expanding dollar to save (pay for) his ugly IOUs.

This sacrificing of paper money to save over-stretched bonds is the oldest and most desperate trick in a long history of once-great nations facing a debt crisis and hegemonic turning point.

It All Comes Back to Gold

The bond market is indeed everything, and what it is telling you far more honestly than the American Fed or Japanese BoJ is that your fiat money is consistently losing absolute purchasing power in plain sight.

This explains why a deliberate fire-sale in precious metals was unleased early in 2026 to allow the whales to accumulate real money (gold) while the masses stare at their tech positions (and losses).

As usual, Main Street is the last to get the memo on gold. They got shaken out with price manipulations and price headlines while the smiling whales bought the world’s most important asset at a discount.

This also means that if you measure your wealth in paper currencies rather than physical gold, you are being robbed in equally plain sight.

The Whales, of course, don’t care, and they don’t want you to know.

A ceasefire is announced → Negotiations resume → Markets react → Attention moves elsewhere.

But some conflicts have consequences that reach well beyond the battlefield. Iran War is one of them.

Rather than viewing it as an isolated dispute, it is placed within a much larger change taking place in international politics. China, Russia and several other countries are increasingly challenging a world order that has long been led by the United States.

Napoleon is often credited with saying, “Let China sleep; when she wakes, she will shake the world.” Whether or not he ever said those words, China’s growing influence has become one of the defining developments of this century.

Within that framework, the conflict involving Iran takes on greater significance.

Iran occupies a strategic position at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest energy corridors. Much of the oil exported from the Gulf passes through this narrow waterway before continuing toward Europe and Asia.

The Strait of Hormuz is only one link in the chain. Oil leaving the Gulf also passes through the Bab al-Mandab Strait before reaching the Suez Canal and international markets.

Control over these routes has consequences far beyond the Middle East. Any prolonged disruption would affect energy supplies, transportation costs and industrial production, eventually feeding through to the global economy.

The outlook assumes that the conflict is far from settled.

Negotiations have continued, but there are doubts that Washington will accept the conditions outlined in the proposed Memorandum of Understanding. In this framework, the current pause is viewed as temporary rather than permanent.

That matters because prolonged conflict comes at a cost for both sides.

For the United States, one concern is the growing strain on military resources. The war has required substantial use of missiles and drones at a time when replenishing those inventories is becoming more difficult.

The pressure is not limited to defence.

Many American refineries were built to process sour crude oil from the Gulf. If emergency supplies continue to decline, the concern is not simply higher oil prices but tighter supplies of the products refined from that crude.

Diesel, jet fuel, gasoline and fertilisers all depend on those supply chains.

Recent price movements illustrate how quickly those pressures can appear. Sulphur, an important ingredient in fertilizer production, has risen sharply. European natural gas prices, heating oil and U.S. diesel have also moved higher since the conflict intensified.

The quoted price of a barrel of oil tells only part of the story. What matters just as much are the products inside that barrel and how disruptions work their way through the wider economy.

Higher energy costs would arrive at a time when the global financial system is already carrying record levels of debt.

That combination sits at the centre of the outlook.

Global debt reached approximately $368 trillion last year, covering governments, households, corporations and financial institutions. According to the figures presented, the United States accounted for around $104 trillion of that total.

The figures also point to a growing dependence on debt.

For every dollar of economic growth generated in the United States, around $4.50 of additional debt was required. For the rest of the world, the ratio was considerably lower.

Debt alone is not the concern.

Attention is also drawn to the growing use of leverage throughout the financial system. Credit spreads remain close to cycle lows, consumer loans continue to be packaged into securities, and private credit has expanded rapidly over recent years.

The comparison is not exact, but the parallels with 2008 are difficult to ignore.

Then, highly rated securities concealed risks that many investors failed to recognize until markets began to unwind. The concern today is that leverage has once again become deeply embedded throughout the financial system.

Whether those vulnerabilities result in a crisis cannot be known in advance.

The expectation presented here is that 2027 will bring recessionary conditions, prompting another round of monetary and fiscal stimulus to support economic activity.

The comparison is drawn with the years between 1978 and 1982, when inflation accelerated alongside rising interest rates. This time, monetary policy, higher energy costs and rising food prices are expected to reinforce one another, placing additional pressure on governments, businesses and consumers.

At the same time, the U.S. dollar could weaken if confidence in the existing monetary system continues to erode.

These conditions also raise questions about what comes next.

The United States may seek to strengthen its financial system through stablecoins or another digital currency linked to government debt.

China, meanwhile, continues to expand its gold and yuan infrastructure, reinforcing the role that gold could play within the international monetary system.

This brings us to gold.

THE REFUGE THAT GOLD PROVIDES

Periods like these have historically increased the importance of liquidity, purchasing power and financial security.

Within this outlook, physical gold is valued for the liquidity it can provide when needed… and for its ability to preserve purchasing power through periods of inflation and monetary instability.

Wars and financial turmoils can’t always be avoided. Preparing for them begins with holding real wealth.

KEY INSIGHTS

00:00 – 01:35 | The world order is changing

The conflict involving Iran is presented as part of a broader shift from a U.S.-led world toward a multipolar system shaped by China, Russia and other nations.

01:36 – 04:05 | Why the Strait of Hormuz matters

Control of key shipping routes could influence global oil flows, regional security and the balance of power in the Middle East.

04:06 – 06:07 | The hidden cost of the oil conflict

The greater risk may lie inside the barrel, as shortages and rising prices for refined products work their way through the global economy.

06:08 – 08:10 | A financial system built on debt

Record debt levels, growing leverage and similarities to 2008 raise questions about how resilient today’s financial system really is.

08:11 – 09:58 | Inflation and the next monetary reset

Higher energy and food prices, rising inflation and competing monetary systems could define the years ahead.

09:59 – 10:35 | Gold remains the refuge

Physical gold is presented as protection against inflation, currency weakness and financial instability.

For many investors, that looks like the end of the rally. But corrections like this have always been part of silver’s story.

Truth is:

Its biggest advances have almost always been interrupted by sharp corrections.

But what makes this correction different?

One measure receives particular attention: the gold-to-silver ratio. It compares the price of gold with the price of silver. When the ratio falls, that means silver is outperforming gold.

The challenge is that most investors react to price. As the saying goes,

Assets that have fallen out of favour attract little interest, while those making headlines quickly capture everyone’s attention.

We can see that pattern in the way many people look at gold. Its performance is often judged by starting the chart in 1980, when it reached $850 an ounce, while overlooking its rise from just $35 in 1971.

Silver deserves the same perspective. Despite this year’s correction, it has still more than doubled over the past few years. Looking only at the recent pullback overlooks the much larger move that came before it.

That becomes even more relevant today.

Stocks remain near record highs. Bonds continue to struggle with inflation. Governments around the world are carrying debts that become harder to repay every year.

At the same time, central banks continue to accumulate gold, and major financial institutions are recommending much larger allocations than they were only a few years ago.

Even JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has warned investors to “brace yourself” for an economic hurricane.

So, “What should investors do with the rest of their portfolio?”

Gold should still make up the majority of a precious metals holding. But with the correction reaching over 50%, silver now deserves a larger allocation than before. That’s why Egon’s advice is to buy silver with both hands.

The path is unlikely to be smooth. But if the longer-term trend unfolds as expected, today’s prices may eventually look very different.

KEY INSIGHTS

00:00 – 01:18 | Silver’s correction creates opportunity

The recent pullback has strengthened the long-term case for silver despite its well-known volatility.

01:19 – 01:57 | Silver could outperform gold

A falling gold-to-silver ratio could allow silver to rise two to three times faster than gold.

01:58 – 03:46 | Most investors buy at the wrong time

Investors often ignore precious metals when prices are low and become interested only after strong rallies.

03:47 – 04:19 | Silver’s long-term case remains intact

Investment demand, industrial demand, and market fundamentals continue to support silver.

04:20 – 05:50 | Where else can investors turn?

Growing risks in stocks, bonds, debt, and paper currencies are strengthening the case for precious metals.

05:51 – 06:34 | Gold and silver protect wealth

Physical precious metals are presented as a way to preserve purchasing power through monetary uncertainty.

06:35 – 07:32 | Gold first, silver second

Gold remains the core holding, while silver offers greater upside for investors who can tolerate its volatility.

Below, we look at the converging signposts screaming from the tech/AI sector and the equally obvious (yet deliberately downplayed) signals from a precious metals market entering a watershed turning point.

How the Whales Do Their “Magic”

As warned for years, and more recently here at the precious metals symposium in Florida, the insider whales (central and commercial banks, the BIS, the IMF and the shadow banking canyons of Wall Street) are clever little magicians.

They have a devious talent for manipulating (and destroying) the retail plankton by having the masses focus on their right hand while quietly gut-punching them with a banker’s hidden left hand.

Another Classic Tech Pump-n-Dump

Take, for example, the recent headlines from the tech sector in general and the AI rabbit hole in particular.

Despite a Fed-driven S&P which is historically over-valued by literally EVERY core valuation metric, all eyes of late had been salivating over the SpaceX IPO (trading at 100X revenues) and the Wall Street meme (and gambit) that AI will save the world.

This all-too familiar mania has been nothing short of hysterical—and for all the wrong reasons.

Behind this percolating, unprofitable and VC-funded madness lies (as always and as per usual) a cadre of over-levered banks sending/lending the markets at warp speed toward yet another debilitating credit (and then equity) crisis.

As warned in September of 2025, there’s much more to the AI “Great Dumbing” than just a wholesale slaughter of blue- and white-collar jobs.

In fact, a massive, contagious and AI-driven stock and bond bubble lies beneath the headlines which, with a little help from an equally toxic private credit and private equity threat, will soon send the global financial markets into yet another historical liquidity crisis.

As warned last year, the reckless over-investment by the Magnificent 7 “tech giants” (which comprise 1/3 of the US stock market cap) into the emerging AI mania “would soon move from over-bought to massively over-sold.”

AI: Hiding the Shameless Beneath the “Norm”

The nature of this over-concentrated mismanagement almost defies belief, as the AI bubble is driven by circular financing sins which deserve no redemption.

NVDA, for example, which makes the microchips that drive AI, invests billions in AI startups, who then buy AI chips back from NVDA, pushing its valuations moonward.

Microsoft, Google and Amazon are no less shameless.

Microsoft, for example, will place billions into OpenAI, who then sends that same money right back into Microsoft.

Google equally invests hundreds of billions into Anthropic, who then sends those same billions back into Google’s AI infrastructure. Amazon, playing the same game, tosses equal capital levels to Anthropic, who in turn invests that money straight into Amazon’s cloud servicing coffers.

These “magnificent” tech giants then have the gall to report AI-driven “revenue growth” on what is little more than an insider puff-job, the equivalent of me “investing” (giving) my son $1000 and then asking him to return the cash and calling that my “growth model.”

This Familiar Movie Doesn’t End Well

This, of course, is madness, and we (along with Apollo Research) are reminding YOU that there is in fact NO sign that the tech sector is making any real money at all from AI, other than from the companies selling to each other.

This incestuous pattern is eerily reminiscent of CISCO selling routers to dot.com startups in the late 90’s, which were funded by VC companies who were themselves funded by CISCO.

And we all remember how that -78% NASDAQ movie ended…

As of 2026, we now see a Mag-7 which has, with the help of those ever-wise TBTF banks in NYC, levered trillions into an AI gambit under the assumption that AI will make them more profitable in much the same way those same pre-08 banks thought ABS-packaged sub-prime mortgages would never fail.

And we all know how that -57% S&P movie ended too…

What’s even scarier, and not making the headlines today, is that those same banks have also seen that movie before. (Remember “Margin Call”?) After sending global markets to their knees in 2008, those same banks then issued themselves their highest bonus levels in history…

As for today, banks like Goldman Sachs are giving the retail plankton “research reports” on how undeniably significant technology like AI will save the world and the S&P.

Meanwhile, those same banks, and most notably the ever-clever JP Morgan, are quietly dumping their AI credit (junk bonds?) at a steady pace—you know, like profiteering rats leaving a ship before it sinks from their own lending practices.

Elon’s Bond Woes…

Folks, this is bad. But the hidden bad (as well as credit risk) doesn’t end in the oh-so magical AI sector. Elon’s SpaceX bonds are yet another tech-driven credit bug looking for a windshield.

Just after going public at a $1T valuation, SpaceX issued over $25B in bonds, and as of this writing, those bonds have already lost 10%.

We know that bonds are “boring” (and hence easily ignored). But as warned for years, the bond market is everything, and this latest credit signal from SpaceX is simply staggering in its implications.

Why?

Because those AI and SpaceX bonds (like those sub-prime ABS mortgages of the 2008 era) are likely part of your third-party-administered 401K and pension plans –just ticking away like a bad-debt time bomb as you read this.

From Crappy Bonds to Solid Gold

If the foregoing disconnect between media hype and hard math wasn’t bad enough, a far more lasting sea change in the global monetary system is unfolding right before our collectively closed eyes.

As the media and tourists/speculators (i.e., plankton) in the precious metals trade haggle over “peak gold” and decry short-term bear corrections in an otherwise obvious and misunderstood gold bull market, the big whales are calmly stacking metal in a deliberately manipulated fire sale as retail investors panic in the fog of daily price action.

Same Tricks, Different Asset

But again, this magic trick of blinding the plankton with hype/fear while the insider whales feast is nothing new.

The big banks from Wall Street to Hong Kong, as well as the central banks from Brazil to China, know that a UST and USD sinking under the weight of a 7% current accounts deficit and $3B/day in interest expenses on its $40T debt pile is no longer the world’s neutral collateral in actual practice.

This explains why there are more sellers than buyers of USTs.

And this explains why sovereign bond yields are the highest in decades.

This explains why central banks now hold more physical gold than USTs.

This also explains why the COMEX has been seeing two years of physical gold (and silver) flying out its doors faster than $#!T through a goose to meet foreign delivery demands. This equally explains why central bank gold stacking has increased by 5X since Biden weaponized the USD in 2022.

Finally, this fully explains why Q1 of 2026 saw central bank gold stacking reach its highest pace in history, and why central banks net-purchased 41 tons of gold in May alone.

Love or Hate Em’—China Sees the Bigger Picture

And no one foresaw this incremental and now exponential decline in USD and UST hegemony better than the Chinese.

The PBOC just completed its 20^th straight month of net gold-stacking, with a 15-ton purchase of gold in June.

Meanwhile, China imported more than 700 tons of the metal in the first 5 months of 2026 and over 14,000 tons since 2015.

Such farsighted preparation and strategic thinking (rather than flag-waving hopium) also explains why China’s largest bank, ICBC, along with four other major commercial banks, recently announced an end (effective July 24) of the paper trade (levered price fixing) of gold in favor of physical metal only—thereby undercutting (and giving a subtle middle-finger to) the paper-based farce of the NY COMEX exchange.

As the former head of the Shanghai exchange warned an overconfident West in 2014, soon China (with a partner in Hong Kong), rather than New York or London, would set the gold price, and this price will slowly become much fairer, and exponentially higher, when based on physical bars rather than paper claims.

In fact, much of that US gold is heading straight for China (see below), a nation that is essentially “de-paperizing” the gold market.

This obvious yet ignored direction of the golden “puck” also explains why Chinese citizens now invest more of their money into gold ETFs than stock ETFs.

In short, while Americans are being seduced by their “experts” into tech tops and scared out of gold-buys, the farsighted Chinese are encouraging their citizens to load up on real money rather than bad credit.

In short, each of the foregoing (and entirely media-ignored) signals confirm that China sees the longer-term direction of a gold-based monetary system(rather than gold-backed currency) far better than a debt-corned and media-misinformed West.

Rock Beats Paper

In this 2026 backdrop of trade, currency and now “hot” wars, China (and many other far-sighted nations and banks inside and outside of the BRICS+ coalition) are effectively loading their monetary guns with golden rather than paper bullets.

In other words, physical gold is no longer just another “asset,” “commodity,” or “metal” to compare against stocks, bonds or other “sectors.”

Gold is mathematically and objectively becoming the de facto global reserve asset and trusted collateral in a world now marked by an undeniable distrust in each other in general and the USD/UST in particular.

Building Their Arks Before the Rain

Stated even more simply, the central banks and central planners are preparing for a new monetary system which no one at FOX News, the WSJ or CNBC wants the US “plankton class” to see or understand.

As usual, the whales are quietly stacking precious metals in a self-made fire-sale while the retail plankton decry current price volatility as if gold were just another tech stock.

For now, and as warned even at gold’s highs in January, volatility can continue. Prices never move in a straight line, and bearish corrections are typical of secularly bullish turning points to shake out the minnows to enrich the bigger fish.

But for those who see the bigger picture (and direction) for gold, the question is not whether one times a bottom or waits for the perfect entry (a total mug’s game).

The real question is whether or not you see this generational turning point in the global monetary system and are building your golden ark before or after the rain?

Based on the signals above, the rain has already started, and the big boys are now busily building their arks. They are not looking at gold’s paper price today or tomorrow, but at gold’s physical and exponentially higher price, direction and role in the many years ahead.

Such knowledge confirms that if you grasp the history and math of gold, and posses the patience of an investor rather than a trader, this broke(n) world is literally handing you the greatest asset (and buy signal) in a generation—and one which will ensure and protect generations of wealth in the years to come.

This is not a “gold bug” fable but historical fact.

Period.

Our thesis of a remonetization of gold may seem bold at first glance, which makes a clear conceptual framework all the more important. Those waiting for the reintroduction of a classical gold standard will be disappointed: Governments have no incentive to voluntarily relinquish the fiscal and monetary flexibility that the fiat regime offers them. Rather, what is meant is a process in which gold regains monetary relevance. Not necessarily as money in the strict sense, but certainly as the ultimate reference asset for value, trust, and settlement.

This remonetization does not occur by decree, but through function; not through revolution, but through evolution; not a sudden fanfare, but a steadily rising crescendo. Paradigm shifts often creep in through customs, certainties, and economic necessities. Gold is not moving to the center of the system. Rather, driven by fiscal exhaustion, geopolitical fragmentation, and dwindling institutional trust, the system is moving toward gold.

What connects the following six vectors is a shared underlying structure: At each of these junctures, gold regains a key role as a store of value and a safe haven. Not all vectors will become reality simultaneously or in their entirety, but several parallel channels should suffice to sustainably strengthen gold’s monetary relevance.

The six vectors

Vector I: Reserve Function & Sovereignty

Ever since the freezing of Russian reserves in 2022, it has become clear to many market participants that fiat reserves carry not only market risk but also political risk. Gold is the only major reserve asset without issuer risk. Repatriations in Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, and most recently France underscore this trend.

Vector II: Private Remonetization

Not only governments but also institutions are rediscovering gold as a store of value. Pension funds, family offices, insurance companies, and sovereign wealth funds have often held only minimal gold allocations to date. Even small shifts away from the global bond market could trigger enormous demand. Gold is thus evolving from a tactical allocation to a strategic liquidity reserve, from a “satellite” to a “core” investment.

Vector III: Accounting & Recapitalization

Gold functions not only as a reserve but also as an accounting lever. Since 1999, the Eurosystem has regularly valued gold at market prices; the resulting revaluation reserves effectively act as equity. In the US, too, the debate over revaluing gold reserves is gaining traction. In highly indebted countries, gold can thus become an instrument of silent recapitalization.

Vector IV: Anchoring Through Gold-Backed Bonds

Gold-backed government bonds could strengthen confidence and lower financing costs. Proposals such as those by Judy Shelton show that what is at stake is not a new gold standard, but a credibility standard. The difference between an unsecured government bond and a gold-backed one is similar to that between a promise and a pledge.

Vector V: Western Central Banks as Buyers

The major gold buyers in recent years have come primarily from emerging markets. The next phase could begin if Western central banks with low gold holdings—such as Canada, Japan, Australia, or the United Kingdom—replenish their gold reserves. Even moderate target reserves would generate demand equivalent to one year’s worth of mine production.

Vector VI: Digitalization

Tokenization could solve gold’s historical transaction problem. Gold-backed tokens combine physical scarcity with digital transferability. This positions gold as a competitor to fiat payment systems and CBDCs. The key factor remains whether ownership rights, backing, verifiability, and insolvency resilience are robustly structured.

The vectors described do not operate in isolation. A rising gold price improves central bank balance sheets, facilitates policy reassessments, strengthens the appeal of gold-backed bonds, and increases interest in tokenized forms of gold. It is precisely these feedback loops that make remonetization not a single event, but a self-reinforcing process.

Remonetization is taking shape

We are by no means the only analysts pointing to the possible evolution of the monetary system. Zoltan Pozsar had already elevated the debate on a new world monetary order to a new level in 2022 with his article “Bretton Woods III,” against the backdrop of sanctions on Russian currency reserves. He concluded his remarks with the following forecast: “From the Bretton Woods era backed by gold bullion, to Bretton Woods II backed by inside money (Treasuries with unhedgeable confiscation risks), to Bretton Woods III backed by outside money (gold bullion and other commodities).”

There is no question in our minds that we are irrevocably on a journey toward a new global (monetary) order. It will require an internationally recognized anchor of confidence. For several reasons, gold appears to be predestined for this role:

• Gold is neutral – it knows neither flag nor ideology and is thus free from geopolitical manipulation.

• Gold has no counterparty risk – unlike any claim or digital account entry, it exists independently, without relying on the promise of a third party.

• Gold is liquid – with a daily trading volume of around USD 330bn, it ranks among the world’s most liquid assets.

• Gold cannot be multiplied at will – gold reserves have been growing steadily by around 1.8% per year for decades. This geologically determined supply discipline is the fundamental difference from any fiat currency.

The composition of global currency reserves shows how far remonetization has already progressed. For decades, US Treasury bonds formed the backbone of official portfolios. Since the global financial crisis, the trend has reversed: The share of US bonds held by foreign central banks is declining, while gold is gaining significantly again. Despite significant purchases, emerging markets still hold considerably less gold than Western institutions.

What Connects the Six Vectors: Feedback Loops

As different as these six vectors may seem, they share a common underlying structure. In every case, gold regains monetary significance precisely where the existing system relies on trust, the quality of collateral, or political neutrality. Gold is not becoming more relevant because it has been modernized. It is becoming more relevant because the weaknesses of the alternatives are becoming apparent.

Feedback instead of addition

The key point is that the vectors do not act in isolation but reinforce one another. The cycle reads like a self-reinforcing engine:

• Accumulation (Vector V) and private demand (Vector II) drive the gold price.

• A rising gold price improves central banks’ balance sheets (Vector III).

• Improved balance sheets reduce political resistance to gold-backed bonds (Vector IV).

• Gold-backed bonds legitimize gold as a reserve asset (Vector I).

• A higher, legitimized gold price makes tokenized gold products more attractive (Vector VI).

• Tokenization, in turn, increases demand – and closes the loop.

This positive feedback loop is the actual catalyst. Once a critical mass is reached, the process accelerates on its own. Remonetization is thus not a binary event but a gradual phase transition. It can begin with reserves, gain traction through private portfolios, become politically relevant through balance sheet logic, and open up new areas of application through technological innovations. Those waiting for one big bang will overlook the crucial point: Systemic turning points are not heralded by decrees but by changing practices.

An Overview of the Vectors

Arguments against the concept – and why we remain convinced

However, there are also factors that argue against the remonetization of gold. The following structural objections deserve serious consideration:

• The cash flow argument: Gold generates no current income. As long as government bonds are considered risk-free, the institutional incentive remains limited. Counterargument: It is precisely this status that is eroding – see Vector III.

• The systemic risk argument: An erratic rise in the price of gold would destabilize the debt-based monetary system. Political resistance to this stems not from a conspiracy but from rational politics of interest. Counterargument: An orderly process like the Eurosystem model is in any case more attractive to policymakers than market chaos – the question is not if uncontrolled, but when controlled.

• The substitution argument: Gold could lose its collateral function to other assets, such as Bitcoin or tokenized commodities. Counterargument: Complementarity is more likely than substitution (see the Bitcoin discussion in Vector III).

What would have to happen for the remonetization thesis to fail? Three scenarios are conceivable:

• Significant debt reduction through real economic growth or fiscal consolidation

• Substantial geopolitical détente with the lifting of all sanctions and a return to multilateral cooperation

• A technological breakthrough in CBDCs that renders gold obsolete as an anchor of trust

Each of these scenarios is possible on its own. However, it is extremely unlikely that they would occur in combination. Remonetization would fail only if several secular trends were to reverse simultaneously.

The burden of proof has shifted

The real flaw in the current debate lies in what is considered normal. Over half a century of fiat regimes has clouded historical memory: The unbacked paper money system is now regarded as the norm, while gold is seen as a relic. Historically speaking, it is exactly the opposite. The past 54 years are the anomaly, and 5,000 years of monetary history are the proper frame of reference.

The burden of proof, therefore, does not lie with those who consider a gradual remonetization plausible. It lies with those who claim that a historically unique fiat regime will be able to function permanently without resorting to monetary anchors.

Back to the monetary future – this is also the title of the 20^th-anniversary edition of the In Gold We Trust report 2026. It is not a nostalgic throwback. It is the sober realization that the history of money is longer and more cyclical than a single political cycle. Gold is not returning because it romanticizes the present. It is returning because the present can no longer keep its promises.

The shadow gold price

Should gold return to the center of the monetary system, the question of price consequences inevitably arises. An exact valuation is, by nature, impossible, but analytical approximations at least give us an idea of possible orders of magnitude. The best-known concept is the so-called shadow gold price.

The shadow gold price refers to the theoretical gold price at which the base money supply would be fully backed by gold. In other words: The shadow gold price is the price level at which a return to a fully backed gold currency would be mathematically possible. We do not consider such 100% backing of M0, as is sometimes advocated, to be necessary; it would currently imply a gold price of USD 20,900 per ounce. During the era of the gold standard, the market forced central banks to maintain coverage ratios between one-third and one-half, which corresponds to a current gold price between USD 7,000 and USD 10,400 per ounce.

Let’s take it a step further and look at the global level. The international shadow gold price corresponds to the gold price that would result if the central bank gold reserves were to cover the money supplies of the leading currency areas – the US, the euro area, the UK, Switzerland, Japan, and China – weighted by their share of GDP. The result reveals the extent of monetary expansion: With 100% coverage of the broad money supply M2, the gold price would be just under USD 250,000; even at a moderate 25%, it would be over USD 60,000.

“Every single money or currency has gone to zero in history.”

The current monetary system is heading toward the same fate.

Since the U.S. ended the dollar’s link to gold in 1971, currencies have already lost about 99% of their value against gold. The remaining decline could happen much faster than the first 99%.

Governments usually describe inflation as rising prices. But that’s the wrong way to explain it.

Inflation begins when governments borrow beyond their means, run persistent deficits, and create more money. As each unit of currency loses purchasing power, it takes more of it to buy the same goods and services.

During the 1970s, the United Kingdom experienced several years of double-digit inflation.

Between 1974 and 1979, inflation averaged 15.7% a year and reached 24.2% in 1975. It was a clear example of how quickly purchasing power can erode once governments lose control of their finances.

The same pattern has appeared repeatedly over the centuries.

One of the earliest examples was the Roman denarius.

Around 180 AD, the coin contained almost 100% silver. By about 280 AD, its silver content had fallen to almost nothing. The denarius was no longer a silver coin but one made largely from base metals.

It later happened in France during the early 1700s, in the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, in Zimbabwe, and in Yugoslavia.

The effect becomes clearer when wealth is measured in gold rather than paper currency.

A typical house in the United States cost about $6,700 in 1926, when gold traded at just over $20 an ounce. That worked out to 327 ounces of gold.

A hundred years later, a similar house costs about $514,000. In dollar terms, the price has increased sharply. In gold, however, it has fallen to about 126 ounces.

The same comparison can be made with a cow.

Looking back about 5,000 years, the amount of gold needed to buy one has generally remained between half an ounce and one ounce. Unlike paper currencies, cows cannot be manufactured. They take time to raise and represent a tangible asset.

That is why measuring wealth in currencies that lose purchasing power can give a very different picture from measuring it in gold.

“We’re going to have two devastating events hitting us in the next few years. They have already started.”

The first to get hit is the purchasing power of paper currencies.

Next are financial assets. According to Egon, decades of debt expansion and money creation have inflated stocks, bonds, and property.

One measure of those valuations is the Buffett Indicator, which compares the value of the stock market with the size of the economy.

Today, the U.S. stock market is valued at more than twice the country’s annual GDP. According to the transcript, that level is unlikely to be sustained for very long.

Another way to view the market is by measuring stocks against gold.

In 1980, the Dow Jones Index and the gold price were both around 850, giving a ratio of one to one. By 2000, that ratio had climbed to about 45 as stocks outperformed gold over the previous two decades.

Since then, gold has outperformed the Dow, bringing the ratio down to around 12 today.

If the ratio returned to one, both the Dow Jones Index and the gold price could stand at 10,000. That would represent a decline of more than 90% in the Dow when measured against gold.

Large losses become much harder to recover from.

A portfolio that loses 90% of its value requires a 900% gain simply to return to where it started. After the decline between 1929 and 1932, the Dow Jones took twenty-five years to recover its previous peak.

Neither trend guarantees a particular outcome.

But if both continue to unfold, preserving purchasing power may become increasingly important in the years ahead.

Gold and silver have been the exceptions because they cannot be printed or manufactured. For that reason, they remain central to any discussion about long-term wealth preservation.

KEY INSIGHTS

00:00 – 02:25 | Why currencies eventually lose purchasing power

Why every paper currency has eventually failed, the end of the gold standard in 1971, and why inflation begins with the decline in the value of money.

02:26 – 03:21 | The long history of currency debasement

How the Roman denarius, together with examples from France, Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe and Yugoslavia, illustrates the recurring consequences of excessive debt and money creation.

03:22 – 06:28 | Measuring wealth in gold instead of paper currency

Why houses, currencies and even cattle tell a different story when wealth is measured in gold rather than paper money.

06:29 – 08:08 | Two disasters already underway

How continued currency debasement and decades of money creation have led to rising inflation and an asset bubble across stocks, bonds and property.

08:09 – 10:55 | Measuring stocks against gold

How the Buffett Indicator and the Dow-to-Gold Ratio suggest that U.S. equities have become historically expensive relative to gold, and why the ratio could continue falling.

10:56 – 13:15 | Wealth preservation in an era of declining purchasing power

Why recovering from large investment losses can take decades, and why the discussion concludes by focusing on preserving wealth through gold and silver.

At a glance, it appears that stocks have created the real wealth, while gold has simply kept pace with inflation.

Matthew Piepenburg argues that this conclusion depends on how wealth is measured.

Since the fourth quarter of 2021, the S&P 500 has gained roughly 60% when measured in U.S. dollars. Measure the same index in gold, however, and it has lost around 40%.

The result changes because the value of the dollar has changed. If the currency used to measure financial assets steadily loses purchasing power, returns expressed in that currency can tell a very different story from returns measured in gold.

The same question extends beyond stock markets. It also appears in the way central banks manage their reserves.

For decades, U.S. Treasuries served as the world’s primary reserve asset and the preferred form of collateral across the financial system.

Since 2014, central banks have steadily reduced their holdings of U.S. Treasuries while increasing their purchases of physical gold. The freezing of Russian reserves in 2022 accelerated that trend.

Many still hold substantial dollar reserves, but they are adding gold at a much faster pace than before.

Annual central bank buying now stands several times higher than it did before 2022, with countries such as China, Poland and Kazakhstan continuing to add to their reserves.

At the same time, foreign ownership of U.S. government debt has continued to fall.

Debt remains at the center of the story.

Global debt has continued to rise while interest rates remain far higher than they were for most of the past decade. Financing that debt has become increasingly expensive, placing growing pressure on public finances.

History suggests that governments carrying debt on this scale rarely rely on austerity or widespread defaults. More often, they respond with monetary expansion, allowing currencies to lose purchasing power over time.

That is the environment in which gold continues to attract long-term demand.

Unlike government debt, gold is no one's liability. It cannot be created through monetary policy and has served as trusted collateral across centuries of monetary change.

Short-term price movements will always attract attention, but the broader question remains the same: “As debt continues to grow, what happens to the purchasing power of the currencies used to service it?”

KEY INSIGHTS

00:00 – 03:19 | Looking beyond the gold price

Gold’s recent correction, long-term performance, and why measuring returns in gold can tell a different story than measuring them in dollars.

03:20 – 05:35 | Gold replaces paper collateral

The steady rise in central bank gold purchases and the declining role of U.S. Treasuries in global reserves.

05:36 – 06:57 | Debt changes the outlook for gold

Record government debt, the limits of higher interest rates, and the long-term effect of currency debasement.

06:58 – 08:59 | Gold’s place in the monetary system

Gold’s role as a store of purchasing power while debt and money creation continue to expand.

09:00 – 10:29 | Measuring wealth in real terms

Why gold offers a different perspective on wealth than paper currencies during periods of monetary change.