Dollars are backed by debt, which requires infinite economic growth to service. 

Without constant inflation to erode the debt’s value, transferring wealth from savers to the government and bankers, it all falls apart.

Without new borrowers to sustain current spending, it all falls apart.

Without a petrodollar system where the USD is no longer the world reserve currency, and other countries no longer are forced at gunpoint to use dollars, it all falls apart.

Just as a Ponzi scheme collapses when enough investors lose confidence in it, because there’s no underlying value and not enough new suckers to pay back previous waves of investors, the USD collapses under the same scenario.

And while I see the surface-level, superficial appeal of president-elect Donald Trump’s plan to replace the income tax with tariffs, there’s (at least) one very big problem. We’re in a country that, for decades, hasn’t had a manufacturing base, making the economic viability of the plan incredibly questionable. Even if it somehow worked, it wouldn’t solve the problem of the world’s largest economies being based on glorified, state-sanctioned Ponzi schemes.

Until we revert back to dollars that are pegged to something of real value, like gold, the scam will continue. And it’s gone on for so long that tremendous economic pain is now a prerequisite for weaning ourselves off of it. Just as a Ponzi scheme collapsing harms everyone unlucky enough to be involved, the unwinding of the petrodollar USD Ponzi will hurt every American and, indeed, people all around the world as it reels under the chaos of the realization that the dollar was hollow all along, and the line of new suckers to buy US debt has officially dried up.

With 10-year Treasury yields rising and major pressure on interest rates to go higher, the Fed and Trump are desperate to keep them low. But at $35 trillion, our debt bomb isn’t going away, and the deficit isn’t going anywhere. A heavier interest payment burden and QE are going to blow the USD Ponzi balloon bigger and bigger, so the only question will be when it pops.

Painful as the explosion will be, it’s unavoidable and necessary, and will only be more severe the longer the Ponzi goes on. Just as more investors get hurt, and more spectacularly so, when a Ponzi is able to grow larger, the US dollar collapse will be more painful the longer the can is kicked down the road. This reset will be an opportunity to go back to sound money, but as in the 2008 crisis, the same elites that caused it will try to exploit it as an opportunity to implement an increasingly centralized system that gives them even more control.

Unfortunately, we’re past the event horizon for the Ponzi. Past the point of no return. No amount of economic tinkering, even of the right sort and on a big-enough scale, from Trump or anyone else, can reverse or solve the problem without a major implosion causing terrible pain across the economy. Gold is one way to protect yourself from the fallout, but when it comes crashing down, no one will be immune to the effects of such a spectacular burst.

Early in the interview, Peter laments the possibility that the United States will decline economically. China is poised to surpass our economy as the dollar continues to weaken:

“I think the media is constantly writing China’s obituary. And I think they’ve got it wrong. Just like they downplay the significance of the problems in the US economy, they overplay the significance of the problems of the Chinese economy. I’m not saying it’s perfect over there in China. But I think they have a lot going for them that people are overlooking.”

Michael and Peter discuss the role of U.S. foreign policy– specifically having a military presence around the world– in driving up deficits and the debt:

“We’re all over the world. We’ve got our troops all over the world, but we can’t afford to deploy them. We can’t afford to provision them without borrowing money, and that is not sustainable. I mean, it’s going to crumble. I don’t think the world is going to pay an ever-increasing tribute to the United States to maintain this situation. I think it’s going to come to an end. Yes, it’s gone on for a long time, and our military has probably been part of what’s enabled it.” 

With tension in the Middle East ratcheting up this week, Peter delivers a masterful explanation of why wars are terrible for the economy. The temptation to inflate combined with the physical destruction of productive goods mean wars inevitably impoverish all involved:

“You’re more likely to debase your currency with a war, and it’s actually twofold, depending on how big the war is. Wars can result in the destruction of goods, and there’s a destruction of productive capacity. So, you have less supply of goods in a war. A lot of times, if it’s a big war, you have to produce ammunition and military hardware at the expense of civilian consumer goods. So, wars tend to reduce the supply of consumer goods but increase the quantity of money. Governments today don’t want to pay for wars. They don’t want to tell the taxpayer, ‘We’re fighting a war, so we’re raising your taxes.’ … And they go out and borrow, creating bigger deficits. So, the Fed has to print more money.”

The trio also discusses Peter’s opinions on investments other than precious metals, including stocks and crypto. He argues that Bitcoin highlights the difference between large institutional investors and retail investors trying to cash in on a trend:

“Bitcoin peaked out in November 2021, and priced in gold, it’s almost 40% below that peak. Despite all that money spent, all that hype, all those ETFs in the market, all that institutional buying. So that tells you something. It tells you there’s a lot of people that have been selling their Bitcoin into all the hype. And I think the people selling Bitcoin are a lot smarter and know a lot more than the people who have been buying it.”

Peter is optimistic for the future of gold. With no end in sight for the Fed’s money printing, there’s a distinct possibility that gold’s price could increase by many multiples over the next couple of decades:

“I think the potential is much higher because we’re going to print so much money. We’re going to have so much inflation that the dollar is going to lose a lot of value, and you’re really going to need a lot of dollars to buy gold. If gold can go from $20 an ounce to $2,600 an ounce, it can go from $2,600 to $26,000, or even to $100,000. There’s no limit because, again, gold isn’t changing—it’s the value of the dollar that’s decreasing.”

Halfway through the interview, Peter also drops some trivia about his wife, Lauren. Did you know she both sang and acted in a 2022 Bruce Willis film? Check out the full recording (starting at 38:30) for the details!