The US dollar’s purchasing power is expected to deteriorate by 7.5-8% annually, making current 5% interest rates on US Treasuries insufficient for private savers and foreign governments.
The US government’s $36 trillion on-balance sheet liabilities and $100 trillion off-balance sheet liabilities are manageable but worsen by $4 trillion annually, making inflation the only way to reduce their net present value.
The gold-silver ratio is psychologically relevant short-term but irrelevant long-term, as it’s based on relative abundance and production costs, not impacting relative prices.
In a silver bull market, majors like Pan American Silver may yield 4-6 fold returns, while penny dreadfuls could offer 20-40 fold outliers but require extensive research.
Rick Rule recommends confining US dollar maturities to 1-3 years to avoid losing purchasing power and holding them only for liquidity needs.
Diversification and liquidity are essential for investors to protect themselves from potential currency devaluations.
Investors can protect assets from potential government confiscation by buying physical gold and storing it outside the US.
Rick Rule emphasizes personal responsibility in financial decision-making, highlighting the need to focus on savings, safeguarding savings, and investing prudently.
Investors should utilize free resources like the Rule Classroom and Sprat Wealth Management to learn about natural resource investing and access a wide range of mining stocks.
The US dollar’s value is expected to decline but not collapse entirely, making it relatively well-performing compared to other fiat currencies.
Central banks worldwide are reducing short-term interest rates while long-dated bond yields rise to decade-highs, posing risks to economies with high debt-to-GDP ratios, particularly Japan at 300% with a 3% 30-year bond yield.
In May 2025, gold deliveries are 700% higher than May 2024, with large quantities of 100 oz bars disappearing into physical vaults, suggesting significant demand and potential market impact.
Gold mining stocks like GDX and GDXJ are undervalued compared to gold price, with P/E ratios as low as 6-9, presenting a buying opportunity as earnings grow faster than analyst predictions.
In 1933, US President Roosevelt closed banks for two weeks, causing a 100% stock market increase in the following months as people feared losing access to gold.
BRICS nations, led by China, could hypothetically create a new gold-backed currency, allowing electronic conversion to gold to address trade imbalances.
The US government could potentially announce a new gold-backed dollar overnight, with temporary restrictions on converting old dollars, benefiting those holding gold.
Artificial Intelligence will dramatically change the labor market, making certain individuals 10x more productive, with those mastering prompt engineering gaining a significant advantage.
AI enables one-person businesses to thrive by handling tasks like tax returns, websites, and sales inquiries, reducing the need for large teams.
Investors should identify companies achieving the largest cost savings and productivity increases from AI adoption, particularly those with large workforces or databases.
From 2000-2011/12, gold saw 300-400% returns while the S&P 500 had negative returns, demonstrating gold’s potential as an alternative investment during stock market stagnation.
If large cap stocks like Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel, Google, and Facebook pause rising, investment managers may shift to gold mining stocks for momentum, cheap valuations, and growing earnings.
John Rubino takes the cake out of the oven.
The dollar’s bull trend since the 2008 financial crisis follows a four-year cycle of higher lows and highs, with a potential break below 8910 signaling a bear trend.
A weaker dollar could create commodity inflation and boost exports, but it’s problematic for consumer goods and correlated with commodity price increases.
The $15 trillion in global dollar-denominated debt makes a strong dollar crippling for economies, potentially leading to system implosion if deemed too strong.
The Biden administration’s sanctions on Russia and asset freezing undermined the dollar’s reserve currency status, while Trump’s tariffs aim to reestablish dominance.
The 2023-2024 recession presents opportunities for millennials and Gen Z to buy homes at lower prices, but may lead to more money printing and deficit spending.
The AI investment bubble peaked in Q1 2025, contributing 1.2% to GDP growth despite a 70% YoY increase, with subsequent cutbacks impacting the economy.
Systemic erosion of trust in government, media, and financial institutions reached a peak during Biden’s presidency, with reports of potentially 400,000 fake payroll jobs in 2024.
The economy has been weaker than reported, with a disparity of 1.25 million jobs disappearing in 2024, leading to bad decisions by the Fed and capital markets.
China’s $26T in corporate debt denominated in US dollars makes them reliant on the US to avoid a debt crisis, with ongoing trade negotiations involving 30% tariffs on Chinese goods.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (2013-2024) invested $1T in 150 countries, but 80% are now in financial distress and close to defaulting on loans.
China hit a demographic wall in 2020, leading to declining birth rates, deflationary pressures, and a potential real estate crisis and debt crisis.
The Triffin Dilemma exposes how the reserve currency issuer’s monetary policy has far-reaching effects on the global economy, creating a paradox where domestic and international needs often conflict.
Globalization and technology have intensified the Triffin Dilemma, making the world more interconnected and increasing the impact of the reserve currency’s fluctuations on international markets.
The Federal Reserve’s rapid interest rate hikes to combat inflation are causing a surge in dollar demand, potentially signaling underlying issues in the global economy.
The US faces an inflation problem while other countries struggle to obtain dollars for their foreign trade deficits, illustrating the real-world manifestations of the Triffin Dilemma.
Monetary policy emerges as a blunt instrument with unforeseen knock-on effects both domestically and globally, highlighting the complexity of managing a reserve currency in an interconnected world.
The secular bull market in gold is driven by emerging market demand in Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai, with central banks buying over 1,000 tons annually for the last three years.
Gold’s public participation phase, characterized by rising prices and increased media interest, is the longest phase in a bull market but has not yet reached the mania levels seen in the 1970s and 2011.
Family offices hold just 1% in precious metals, indicating a massive underinvestment by Western financial investors, potentially driving the next stage of the bull market.
The 2020 report forecasted a base case price of $4,800 for gold by 2030, with an inflationary scenario reaching $8,900, based on historical comparisons and monetary models.
Gold is monetarily attractive at 40% of US equity market cap vs. 37.1% long-term average, but far from the 160% seen in 1980, suggesting room for growth without reaching mania levels.
Central banks have bought over 1000 tons/year since 2022, absorbing 1/3 of annual production, while China’s true gold holdings are speculated to be 5000+ tons, significantly more than the official 2200 tons.
Gold’s negative correlation with stocks and bonds makes it an excellent diversifier, especially with elevated debt levels and inflation volatility, potentially replacing bonds in portfolio allocation.
Silver is currently undervalued compared to gold, with a gold-silver ratio near 100, and could see a price spike due to increased investor demand and industrial use, particularly in the solar industry.
Emerging market demand for gold is a secular driver of the bull market, with countries like Poland viewing gold as a “trust anchor” unaffected by technological vulnerabilities.
Gold plays a crucial role in the internationalization of the Chinese renminbi and bilateral agreements between China and BRICS nations, potentially reshaping global financial dynamics.
A weak US dollar is expected, as the administration aims to protect its reserve currency status while simultaneously weakening it, a challenging balance with significant global implications.
Satire.
British propaganda during World War I, particularly the exaggerated Belgian atrocity stories, became a model for future propaganda efforts, including those of Nazi Germany.
The American media, especially the Times, Herald Tribune, and Henry Luce’s magazines, acted as volunteer propagandists for the interventionist agenda during the Cold War, employing calculated deceptions and censorship.
Hollywood was subtly infiltrated by British propagandists during World War II, permeating American culture and manufacturing consent for foreign intervention.
Classical liberals like Richard Cobden and Frederick Bastiat opposed standing armies and war, viewing them as destructive to freedom and economic progress.
Herbert Spencer, influential in the US, considered warfare retrograde and attributed wars to the uncurbed ambition of the aristocracy seeking taxes and tariffs.
Ludvig von Mises directly contradicted Heracitus, stating that “peace, not war, is the father of all things.”
Ralph Reiko of the Mises Institute endorsed historical revisionism as crucial for countering state war propaganda and foreign policy claims.
William Graham Sumner warned in 1899 that the US had abandoned laissez-faire liberalism for empire, leading to war, debt, taxation, and lavish expenditures.
The US government’s first propaganda agency, the Committee on Public Information, was established in 1917 to promote American involvement in World War I through nationwide repression and censorship.
The Truman administration’s campaigns for an international presence relied heavily on media cooperation to succeed in launching a global interventionist agenda.
The global monetary system is approaching its end of life, with increasing stress potentially leading to unforeseen outcomes that could end eras.
Understanding the monetary system’s component parts like debt and fractional banking is crucial, requiring active information-seeking beyond mainstream media.
A 100-year pivot is occurring, representing a once-in-a-century change in financial, political, and monetary systems.
The stability of the monetary system will increasingly impact how assets trade, necessitating a broader understanding beyond individual stocks and bonds.
Gold’s resurgence as a central financial asset and the potential collapse of the US dollar as the global reserve currency are no longer zero probability possibilities.
Gold demand is driven by price-insensitive buyers seeking a physical asset in limited supply, while rising bond yields signal investors wanting to own less debt at current prices.
The petrodollar system, a 50-year alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia, is shifting due to changing interests, with China becoming a better customer for Saudi oil exports.
China may hold US treasuries in offshore locations like the Cayman Islands to divest without causing market disruption, while lessening reliance on the US dollar as a reserve currency.
The US dollar’s exorbitant privilege as the world reserve currency has benefited the US, but a shift to a competitive monetary system will impact the US standard of living.
GoldRepublic offers physical gold, silver, and platinum that is fully insured, allocated in top-tier vaults, with no paper promises and full transparency.
Grant Williams suggests devoting time to thinking about the potential consequences of unthinkable events like a US breakup or civil war, as they are no longer zero probability possibilities.
Williams emphasizes the importance of distilling knowledge from information, as wisdom helps act in periods of uncertainty by making fewer mistakes and entertaining unlikely outcomes.
Williams believes the future will be very different from the past, and understanding how influential investors think can provide valuable insights.
Investors must move from a “get rich” to a “stay rich” mindset in response to the profound shifts in the global financial landscape.
To prepare for big picture changes, Williams suggests reading history to understand likely outcomes and entertaining implausible scenarios to gain perspective on potential ramifications and uncertainties.
The 40-year bond bull market ended with a 50% drop in TLT (long-term US debt ETF) since September 2020, signaling the start of a global western debt crisis and the end of the US hegemony’s funding mechanism.
A debt crisis leads to devaluing debt and the dollar, with the US facing an unprecedented situation as rising interest rates inversely decrease bond valuations.
The UK’s September 2022 debt crisis, triggered by a stimulatory budget, resulted in rising yields, a pound collapse, and a Bank of England bailout for pensions, foreshadowing similar events in the US.
41% of US home lending and 36% of subprime auto loans are being declined, with banks suddenly stopping lending as securitized debt instruments lose demand, despite being crucial for pension funds.
Western housing markets are set to correct, with the potential for pensioners to outnumber workers 8 to 1, leading to heavy taxation on younger generations to support retired boomers.
Australia, having skipped the GFC due to Chinese ore demand in 2009-2012, now faces devastating interest rates over 6% for the first time in decades without a meaningful correction.
Gold, the last sound money in a world of debt collapse, is expected to see a near parabolic rise as big money flees to it during the crisis.
The 60/40 portfolio is no longer viable as bonds lose stability and upside compared to equities, necessitating new investment strategies.
The US military faces austerity measures and staff cuts as it loses its unique overdraft privilege in the global financial system, relying more on NATO allies for funding.
Moody’s downgrade of US debt from AAA to second tier signals the beginning of a major debt-based collapse in America due to mismanagement by those at the top.
The West is becoming a repressive police state, with banks acting as state spies against individuals, actively working to disempower people from achieving financial freedom and self-reliance.
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