Historian Mary Bridges, author of Dollars and Dominion, traces how the US built its financial empire starting after the 1898 Spanish-American War, when the dollar was second-rate to the British pound and even US soldiers in Manila had to cash paychecks at British banks at terrible exchange rates. She argues the empire was built not by grand strategy but by a messy fusion of profit-seeking Gilded Age capital, most notably the International Banking Corporation, chartered in Connecticut with a loophole allowing overseas branches when national banks were barred from them, and colonial government deposits and political favors, with the project only cohering once the Federal Reserve Act legalized foreign branches and National City Bank absorbed IBC. The real infrastructure of dollar hegemony, she says, was information itself: credit files, filing-cabinet libraries of trading intelligence, and the Fed’s near-total sponsorship of the bankers acceptance market, without which that market would not have existed.
The dollar started as a second-rate currency: In 1898 all US trade finance flowed through London, US soldiers in Manila cashed paychecks at British banks at bad rates, and traders had to expose trade secrets to British institutions with longer-standing British relationships.
IBC’s bizarre Connecticut charter: The International Banking Corporation got a state charter letting it print money, own banks, and build infrastructure anywhere outside Connecticut, kept a mail-drop sign in a Bridgeport insurance office, and opened branches in the Philippines, China’s treaty ports, and Panama by 1903 while national banks were legally barred from overseas branches.
Empire as a mess, not a plan: The founders were insurance money (Equitable Life held nearly 15% of the initial stock) and heirs like Edwin Gould and Alfred Vanderbilt; they were bad bankers who lost money, needed bailouts, and only survived through colonial government deposits and political favors, including a Philippine sugar-land scheme using prison labor and a colonial railroad that never got built.
Information had to be made: Bridges argues credit data was manufactured, not collected; National City ran foreign branches at a loss as a concierge-and-prestige play to win US corporate clients, while the real asset was wall-to-wall credit files on the international trading world, and the Manila folder itself comes from Manila hemp.
The Fed created the acceptance market: Bankers acceptances, modeled on the bill on London, were the original core of Federal Reserve design (buying government debt was considered beneath the central bank), and the Fed was the buyer of the overwhelming majority; without it the US market would not have existed, letting the Fed’s standards define legitimate paper.
Nomi Prins argues the Fed has been doing stealth QE since it ended QT in December 2025, growing its book by about $250 billion in six months because global demand for Treasuries is shrinking while US debt hits $40 trillion with roughly $1 trillion in annual interest payments, and she maintains her $6,000 gold forecast. She says the ECB has confirmed gold overtook US Treasuries as the world’s number one reserve asset, 45% of central banks are increasing gold holdings, and China has cut its Treasury pile from $1.3 trillion to $620 billion in seven years while buying gold instead, so the recent selloff is paper-driven distortion against a physical market that is undersupplied at current prices. Her advice is to ignore headlines: inflation settles near 3% rather than the arbitrary 2% target, the dollar’s DXY strength is artificial, M&A in metals is at 18-year highs and accelerating, and copper (headed to $7/lb) and uranium (72% of US processed supply imported from adversaries) are her other top plays.
Stealth QE is already here: The Fed stopped QT in December 2025 and has grown its balance sheet roughly $250 billion in six months by replacing long-end Treasuries, which Prins says it must do because global Treasury demand falls every day as debt reaches $40 trillion with about $1 trillion of interest due before the White House turns the lights on.
Gold has dethroned the Treasury: Per the ECB’s report, gold surpassed US Treasuries as the top central bank reserve asset as of year-end, 45% of central banks are adding gold, and the PBOC has slashed Treasuries from $1.3 trillion to $620 billion in seven years with another 5% allocation shift to gold still to go.
$6,000 gold, paper vs. physical: Prins keeps her $6,000 year-end gold forecast, saying the drop from $5,600 to $4,000 was paper-driven — GLD and SLV volumes doubled on headline days — while new mining supply versus demand sits at a multi-year low, meaning gold is undersupplied at current prices.
Copper and uranium squeezes: Copper held in while gold sold off, hit $6.71/lb in May, and she predicts $7 by year-end on physical shortage; the US imports 72% of processed uranium from Russia and its partners while a legislative ban looms over the 20% of US electricity that is nuclear.
De-dollarization payment rails: Beyond gold, she points to non-dollar settlement systems scaling from beta tests to physical use, including an Iranian system polished up to settle oil trade with China, with tankers that actually carried gold out of Iran when Western tankers could not flow.
Michael Pento of Pento Portfolio Strategies says he loaded up on gold and gold miners because oil’s fall from $120 to the mid-$70s cuts miners’ costs while they trade at severe discounts, and gold will take off at the first opening salvos of a recession, before the full liquidity crisis. His model shows disinflation, not imminent recession, with CPI falling from 4.2% toward 3%, no rate hikes this year despite two or three being priced in, and a rate cut more likely than a hike from new Fed chair Kevin Warsh, whose balance sheet has already grown about $200 billion since December. Longer term he predicts stocks crater 50%-plus when the credit bubble bursts, deficits jump automatically from over $2 trillion to nearly $6 trillion in recession, the Fed is forced to cap long-end yields Bank of Japan-style, inflation goes well into double digits, and that yield-cap moment is rocket fuel for gold.
Loaded up on gold and miners: Pento bought because oil’s plunge from $120 West Texas to the mid-$70s lowers extraction costs while miners trade at severe discounts in an unloved trade nobody is in; gold takes off at the first sign of recession, and he already sees hints in the household survey, which lost over half a million jobs and is negative for all of 2026.
60/40 is dead: He says the 60/40 target-date portfolio will send retirements into perdition because stocks, bonds, and real estate are all in a massive bubble, with equity market cap at 230%-plus of GDP, the Shiller CAPE over 40 against a record 42, and a coming decade of negative average returns with 30-80% swings.
SpaceX as bubble poster child: The SpaceX IPO at roughly 100x revenue means a century to recoup even with zero expenses, yet Wall Street is buying its 50-year debt at just 100 basis points over Treasuries — all downside, no upside.
No rate hikes, then yield caps: Two or three hikes are priced in but Pento bets on zero and leans toward a cut; the US borrows $24 billion every week just to pay over $1 trillion in interest, so the Fed must eventually cap the 10-year at 5-6%, crushing real rates — the elixir for gold.
Recession math and double-digit inflation: A recession takes deficits from $2 trillion-plus toward $6 trillion via automatic stabilizers plus helicopter money, over $1.2 trillion of AI capex borrowing in 2027 crowds out credit, everything first goes to correlation of one in an ’08-style liquidity flush, and then Fed monetization drives inflation well into double digits.
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