# Has The Fed Lost Control: Matthew Piepenburg on 5% Yields and the Debt Trap ## Метаданные - **Канал:** Kitco NEWS - **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvSybXcF8w8 - **Дата:** 12.05.2026 - **Длительность:** 58:29 - **Просмотры:** 50,779 - **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/50709 ## Описание Is the latest 3.8% CPI print just another energy-driven inflation scare, or is the $40 trillion U.S. debt trap finally springing? Matthew Piepenburg, Partner at Von Greyerz, joins Jeremy Szafron, Senior Anchor at Kitco News, to break down the massive disconnect between Main Street reality and Wall Street fantasy. As 30-year U.S. Treasury yields hover near 5% and real wages fall, Piepenburg explains why the bond market has taken control away from the Federal Reserve. They discuss the immediate spot price disconnect in precious metals, why physical gold is migrating East, and the "invisible tax" of inflation that is actively destroying the middle class. Finally, Piepenburg reveals the hard math behind a $20,000 gold target—arguing that gold is not in a bubble, but rather paper currency is in a terminal decline. Recorded May 12 2026 Follow Jeremy Szafron on X: @JeremySzafron (https://twitter.com/JeremySzafron) Follow Kitco News on X: @KitcoNewsNOW (https://twitter.com/kitconewsnow) ## Транскрипт ### Energy Shock Or Debt Trap [] Welcome back. I'm Jeremy Saffron. Uh if you turn on the mainstream financial networks this morning, the narrative is focused on one thing, an energy shock. But taking a look, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the consumer price index rose 6% in April and 3. 8% from a year earlier. The fastest annual pace we've seen since 2023. And look at that energy alone accounted for more than 40% of that monthly increase. But if you look past the gas pump, the bond market is telling a much bigger story. Look at this 30-year Treasury yields are hovering around 5%. Interest rate swaps are now pricing roughly a 70% chance of a quarter point Fed hike rather by April of 2027 as markets reassess policy under incoming Fed share Kevin Worsh. Now the market was banking on rate cuts instead. Investors are staring at tighter policy and for the middle class the pressure is already visible. real average hourly earnings just fell for the first time in over three years. So the question today is simple. Is this just another oil driven inflation scare? Or is this debt trap finally showing up in the official data? To break down, of course, what this means for your capital, we're joined by a KCO favorite of course, Matthew Pipenberg, partner at Von Grayers. Uh Matt, great to see you. Good to have you back. — Well, it's great to be back, Jeremy. I always look forward to these conversations and as always there's plenty to talk about. So it's great to be here. [clears throat] — I don't know how you keep up over there. But I'll tell you it's early mornings for us over here at Kinko News. And Matt, I mean I saw you last what Vancouver I think it was VRIC end of January. Um we were talking about this. I mean you called rising yields the shark fin warning in risk assets. Now today you know what I just said on that intro. I mean inflation's accelerating 30 years near five. the markets are kind of pricing a possible Fed hikes instead of cuts. Um, are we seeing the system debt trap you warned about or is this still an energy driven inflation scare the Fed can manage as we hear ### Bond Market Warning Signs [2:02] everywhere else? — I think it's energydriven acceleration but the destination the direction was set long ago and um, you know, I look at the I mean everyone knows I say it so many times the bond market is the thing. I know it's boring. I know bond yields are boring. It's fascinating to see the 10-year at 4. 46 and the DXY at 98 at the same time. And I think it's fascinating for so many reasons. I think the Fed is really losing control of the curve. And I think that's because the bond market speaks more honestly than the pundits. You know, I'm talking about the political pundits. I think, you know, there's so much that needs to be discussed here. and any topic could take hours but I look at what no one wants to see that I really believe that the post Bretonwoods world the rules or the order has ended. Uh you know there was a time post 44 when the Fed was very powerful uh when the dollar was powerful when the Fed really could like a dial control rates and control economies. I think that really began to disintegrate in 2020 uh with now with the government running 7% deficits to GDP. The Fed is no longer the main actor. The debt is the US Treasury is the main actor and the war has certainly accelerated some of these tendencies, but the sickness was there long before this latest new headache. I think one of the best ways to see that in the bond market is, you know, traditionally again in the post 44 Bretton Woods, you know, new world order with America, the Fed really could anchor or influence the long end of the yield curve, even though it only controls the overnight rate, the Fed funds rate. In the past, for most certainly during my career and for the last 80 years, but really says 44. When the Fed funds rate was up, all maturities were up. And when the Fed funds rate was down, yields on all maturities were down. But if you notice this year, we've had no cuts yet by the Fed. In fact, it was a very dovish mood pre-war. And yet, you know, as of March to April, the 10-year yield, it was fascinating. It went from under 4% to now over 4. 4%. And this was done with no rate hikes or no announced rate hikes. And this is what the fancy lads on Wall Street call a bare steepener. But what it really means is the bond market is now taking control of itself and the Fed has very few tools left. There's a risk premium that's alive and well and it's back. Um between 2015 and 2023 the premium was zero. Now, not just for the US Treasury, but certainly the US 10-year in particular, the world wants to see uh more yield for the risk. And the 10-year US Treasury is no exception. It's really trading like a banana republic uh sovereign bond now. And it's fascinating because that is the 10-year the sacred 10-year US Treasury, the most important 10-year bond. We can talk about boons and guilts and others, but it's actually behaving outside of the control of the Fed or the Fed announcements. And I think that's a dramatic sign. You can say the war accelerated this distrust of US IUS or government IUS in general, but for the 10-year to be getting this embarrassed is fairly convincing to me that that's a watershed moment. And I'll say in all fairness, the US Treasury that Bloomberg just came out with a chart a couple I was a week ago um that really sovereign bonds in the aggregate have had the worst five-year annualized returns in modern history and on record for the Bloomberg index, the Bloomberg markets that's been tracking this. That's a very compelling sign. Again, it's the bond market. It's boring, but to your point earlier, those rising yields are shark fins. They represent the cost of debt. when the cost of debt gets higher in a world that literally lives and breathes off debt whether that's at the private or the corporate or the national level uh things couldn't be more telling and I think more distressing for a system that's already I think radically changing not going to change not infuro but changing right in front of our eyes and again I know the bond market's boring but it's such an important indicator and it's screaming at us that there's pain ahead pain now ### Ten Year Sets The Rules [6:06] and pain to come — yeah I know we were laughing talk about that last time about you know you talked to about the bond market every once in a while you lose people but stick with us because I kind of want to focus on that 10 year I mean because that is the real benchmark for the system as you mentioned I mean the Fed controls the overnight rate but the 10 years where mortgages I mean corporate credit equity all of it right I mean it's all get repriced if the 10-year is now trading outside the Fed's preferred narrative does that mean the market just no longer taking instructions from the Fed as you kind of mentioned is the long end now setting policy for Washington. — Exactly, Jeremy. I mean, the bond market gets the final say, not uh the FOMC and 12 unelected officials in Washington DC at the Eckles building. I've been warning of this since about 2019. We saw that a little bit during the COVID crisis because of the massive fiscal spending and monetary policy expansion. But now with no movement in 2026 at all uh by the Fed and even the year opening with a dovish approach uh we've seen a massive move on the yields on that 10 year and that 10 year is as you said extremely important not just optically it is everything is derivative of that 10year certainly the direction of the dollar the directive rates overnight rates risk premiums in the broader Euro dollar markets and the derivative markets it's collateral you know like it or not love it or not the US dollar and the US Treasury still are part of the world reserve currency. They have that exorbitant privilege. But that privilege is weakening. I'm not saying that as a gold bug or as a gloom and doomer. I'm actually saying that as a former bond trader. I'm not alone. Uh far smarter folks than me on the bond desk see this. Jeffrey Gunlack sees this. — Uh some of the smarter guys in the room in equity see this. Grantham Dalio. Uh we all see this. So, this isn't a gold bug kind of scare tactic uh to warn about the Fed losing control of this so-called yield curve. Uh they don't really have it anymore. And that's because trust in that overindebted Uncle Sam, that overissued IOU from the US just isn't there. And it's been slowly that trust has been slowly dying since you know really I think co but it was accelerated during the uh 2022 and we weaponized the world reserve currency and we flow froze the FX reserves of a major power the dd dollararization the bricks movement all those things really happened uh post March in February of 2022 as I said at the time and I was not I was not alone it was a watershed moment for the dollar and US treasury and all of this is now playing out America and the USA is not winning a lot of hearts and minds geopolitically right now. But beyond the politics and the headlines and the armchair quarterbacking on the war and all the speculations, what's really happening behind the scenes is nothing new. It's the end of a credit cycle. It's driven by unsustainable debt level and the representation of that debt, the IOU from Uncle Sam, just isn't trusted and the market is saying, "We want more yield for your promises because we don't believe them anymore. You're too in ### Recession Versus Stagflation [9:08] debt, Uncle Sam. " uh you know to your point because we talk a little bit of gloom and we're trying to warn people from time to time but I mean on the other side Bloomberg Economics just put out a note this morning and they're saying that there's actually an undercurrent of cooling in the core CPI simply because consumers are pulling back on and I guess businesses lack pricing power right I mean if demand is weakening why wouldn't this end in a standard kind of recessionary demand destruction rather than that kind of currency crisis we warn about — No that's a fair point and that's when Think about it, dig deeper into what the implications are there. What is the what is DC saying and what are the markets saying don't worry about inflation because recession forces and deflationary forces and demand forces are so weak. In other words, the recessionary forces are strong. The middle class, the consumer, which is 70% of GDP is so weak they can't afford to buy things that will bring prices down. Is that supposed to be good news for the listener that don't worry about inflation? you're going to be so tapped out financially that your demand is going to sink so the CPI scale could come down a few bits. I mean, it's really I think a tragic way to be positive because all we're saying is hopefully a recession will take care of the inflation really. And we can talk about why I think we're in a recession, but that game has been played really since 2023. The jig is up. I think we're in a recession. Main Street is absolutely quantifiably being crippled while Wall Street in the top 10% of which I'm a member is enjoying has enjoyed the tailwinds of this Feddriven market. Um but you know again to get the CPI down because Main Street is crippled is hardly good economic news. I still see stagflation coming because no matter what uh happens on Main Street with demand and it's embarrassing. It's criminal what we've done to the middle class. It's criminal the level of wealth inequality uh we see in the US in particular that I've watched over the last 20 years. It's an insider trade and if you're not in the trade, you're not inside it and most Americans aren't. It's criminal. But the bottom line is no matter what happens on Main Street, which I really don't think politicians give too much of a hoot about, they need to save their bond market. And eventually, regardless of how stressed out or demand pulled down inflation could be on [clears throat] Main Street, the central banks and the Fed in particular are going to have to expand the balance sheets, become dovish at some point to save the bond market because the government runs on those IUs and they'll sacrifice the currency to do that. Whether that happens this month, next month, or the end of the year is irrelevant to me. That's the endgame. That's the direction. So that's inflationary and we will see a stagnant economy. Of course, they don't really seem to mind. They'll talk about it. They'll talk around it, but it's inevitable. That to me, that combination of a very, very accommodative central bank to save the bond market at the expense of the currency will mean stagflation, recessionary forces on Main Street, currency debasement from DC. It's a perfect storm for a perfectly ugly combination for the listeners, I ### Cantillon Effect And Inequality [12:08] think. — Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the for wage earners, I mean, this is food, this is rent, this is gas. negative real wages. I mean for the top percent you mentioned it is a volatility event kind of in sort inside of a portfolio that still owns equities and real estate and hard assets. Is this the core failure of the system? Policy makers socialize the pain through inflation then privatize the recovery through the asset inflation. — Well, it's the cantillian effect. It's an academic term but really what it means is inflation is not classbind or colorblind. when you the first consequences of a debasement of the currency or inflationary support from the Fed, the Fed put since we had since 2009 2010 just after the great financial crisis. All that QE which was supposed to be temporary became QE2 3 4 operation twist and unlimited QE. All that did all was really all that liquidity went straight into the stock market and the top 10% of the US has basically 90% of the assets in the stock market. So if you were a baby boomer with money when the QE kicked in and the support kicked in. Well, stocks and real estate went up. There was inflation. The correlation between QE and the stock market is literally one to one. You can see it on any chart. That's great if you already have a huge stock portfolio. got a loan and paid it off decades ago or years ago because at the time housing was cheap and mortgages were relatively affordable. So that inflation and assets like real estate and stocks benefited the top part of America. For the rest of America, including the younger generation who could never get into that inflation, all it's done is eat away at their wages and purchasing power. So they're not seeing that cantilian effect that's so positive for the ultra wealthy or the upper classes. Uh, and it leaves the lower classes angry and resentful in uh, fighting identity politics, as I've said many years, fighting race, fighting transgender, fighting left versus right. They're distracted while they're being robbed by the invisible tax of inflation, which is the intentional debasement of the dollar for Uncle Sam to inflate away his debt. This is nothing new throughout history. It's what all debt broke and desperate nations do at the end of a cycle. And I've said it many times. It's what Hemingway described as the permanent ruin of currency debasement and war after you've had the temporary prosperity of inflation when it went into the markets and went into real estate. Uh for many who had those assets, it was the best of times. Now it's very Dick and we're heading into the worst of times. Yeah. — And I think the worst of times are certainly felt by the Main Street indicators, by the jobs report, by the BLS labor report, and frankly just by the zeitgeist or the mood walking through Ann Arbor, Michigan, Cleveland, Ohio, or you know, outside of Martha's Vineyard, Greenwich, Connecticut, Palm Beach, or Park Avenue. There's a whole other America that's getting absolutely ### Hidden QE And Data Games [14:57] robbed right now. [snorts] — Yeah, well said. And you know, you kind of brought up a little bit of QE there and QT. I mean the Fed has ended QT and the New York Fed has begun reserve management purchases starting with 40 billion in treasury bills I think monthly with the pace expected to kind of stay elevated I think here and uh officials say this is not QE right I mean but for markets I mean reserves are reserves and liquidity is liquidity — so is the Fed really tightening if it's ending balance sheet runoff is it quietly buying bills just to keep this functioning what are your thoughts — yeah I love it when they say it's not really QE like it's not really inflation, it's transitory inflation. It's not really a recession. We've changed the definition midway into a recession. It's not really QE. It's just another uh I think lie. I mean, even the very CPI scale that we use to measure inflation. Again, everyone on Wall Street knows that's as I've said so many times as bogus as a 42nd Street Rolex. Again, this is another sign of the desperation of a of a regime or an empire or a system that's breaking down. Not ending, but breaking down, losing its hedgeimony. You have desperation, but one of the key symptoms is dishonesty. The very CPI scale itself is dishonest. The very term quantitative easing notion of modern monetary theory as a solution to solve a debt crisis with more debt paid for with money printed out of thin air. These are all dishonest things. And to call QE that's not QE is dishonest. We've had backdoor liquidity through the Treasury General account. by issuing more from the short end of the yield curve. We've had backdoor liquidity and bailing out the repo markets over and over again since 2019. There's plenty of liquidity for Wall Street, Jeremy, is what I'm trying to say. It's Wall Street socialism uh in main street feudalism. If you're on the inside, it's a great way to to frontr run this. If you're trying to make it, you're out of the party. And yeah, it's absolutely moral liquidity to come because we have no other solution. We're never going to grow our way out of debt at 120% debt to GDP. That's mathematically impossible. We've known that since the 1700s. Jeremy Gr, excuse me, John Gra Gresham or Thomas Gresham, excuse me. Uh, this has been known since the 1500s, the 1700s. Uh, it's nothing new in history. Uh, you debase the currency, get your way out of debt. It's an invisible theft and you inflate your way out. So, you need to run inflation higher than than interest rates. But the way the uh the thieves do this in DC is they just lie about the inflation rate. They tell you got real positive yields when in fact actual inflation is much higher uh than the rates. And that's running negative real rates to inflate away the debt. That's great for Uncle Sam. Again, that doesn't help the man on the street who measures his or her wealth in dollars that are melting right before their eyes. It's a very slow death by a thousand cuts of the purchasing power. And it's a slow form of robbery that eventually leads to social unrest and eventually leads to more centralized control from a government that's afraid of losing its powers. are more afraid of pitchforks uh than they are anything else, but they avoid that by distorting the data and inflating things out without really adequately reporting the inflation. It's again old is history itself. — Yeah. And I mean Matt, you keep coming back to that bigger point and I think the audience will appreciate it that the language itself has become dishonest. I mean QE is not called QE. Bailouts are called liquidity facilities. I mean financial repression is called stability now, right? Um, is that the final stage of of monetary hedgeimonyy that where the money still has power but cannot can no longer kind of described honestly what it's doing to preserve that power? ### End Of Dollar Privilege [18:30] — Well, it is it was as Hemingway said, it was temporary prosperity. Um, it was an exorbitant privilege as a French official said in the 70s and it was as John Connelly said the Treasury Secretary when we decoupled our currency your problem. We had this exorbitant privilege 55 years ago when we decoupled. The dollar was still the world reserve currency. It was the post44 dollar. It was the dollar that was part of the country that saved Europe from fascism with the help of the Soviets. It was the dollar of the New York Yankees, Clark Gable in the golden age. And it really was an exorbitant privilege for many decades. Um even after we decoupled from gold, we had that runoff effect of still being the world reserve currency. We could export our inflation. We could print as many dollars as we wanted. The rest of the world had to eat that sandwich because we created a petro dollar system which we can talk about. It's very important. It's a pillar to our exorbitant privilege where the world had to buy our oil or buy excuse me the world's oil including the Middle East oil in our currency. That's an amazing sponge for an otherwise debaseed watered down dollar that kept demand for the dollar global and universal and for many years absorbed that inflation beautifully wasn't good for the rest of the world was great for us again our problem our dollar your problem um and that worked for many decades we also have to remember that the pro the Saudis and the OPEC nations that were basically forced on this petro dollar at gunpoint also had to take some of their oil revenue and use it to buy US treasury. So, not only was there a great sponge for US dollars, there was a great demand for the US Treasury. That was an absolute win-win for the John Connley era, Nixon era, America. And for decades, that worked with some hiccups along the way. That too is coming to a painful and violent end right now for a number of reasons. So, that petro dollar is weakening. That six shooter of the petro dollar is still a gun, but it has less bullets now with the UAE pulling out of OPEC, etc. the world buying oil outside of the dollar at an accelerating rate. So, we're seeing in addition to our debt embarrassment, we're seeing a petro dollar system that's weakening. And of course, at the same time we created the petro dollar, we also added futures contracts through the CME and the COMEX because the biggest threat to the dollar after we decoupled was gold and silver. So, we created a permanent short legalized price fixing on the COMX and in the LBMA markets in London. that too since November of 2024 is getting weaker. It's not the end yet. It's not even the end of the dollar, but the combination of the COMX weakness, the LBMA weakness, and now the petro dollar weakness and war is just accelerating an historical template, which again has been repeated over and over for centuries. And it's hard for many very proud Americans, of which I am a still, despite it all a patriot, and I am an American. It's hard to see history when you're in it. It's like a fish. You don't see the water when you're swimming in it. But between the mechanizations at the comx, the failures at the petro dollar, the failures of our foreign policy, and most importantly, pre-war, the failures of our monetary and fiscal policies, the debt binge we've enjoyed, like children without chaperones for decades. Uh the karma for that is finally coming home to roost. We've just debased our dollar too much after 55 years post71 of spending without tears, deficits without tears, and lying to the world that monetary theory or money printing would save us from a debt crisis. It's a shameful policy and it really rests in the bathroom mirrors of our policy makers at the Eckles building and at the White House. Red or blue, they're all to blame. We can't blame the world on the fact that we've mismanaged our currency this badly. — Yeah. [snorts] Yeah. And you know, this is good. I was going to move on to gold, but I want to kind of stick on this. Tie these together for us. You know, the comx, the LBMA weakness, war risk, petro dollar weakness. If the old system depended on paper control of gold, dollar settlement for energy and treasury recycling, are we — seeing stress in all three legs at once? In other words, if oil exporters trust the dollar less, if physical gold is harder to source, and if paper markets can't cap price discovery the way that they used to, I mean, is that the real break in the post Brettton Woods order? — Well, those are great points. They're all legs to a stool and all of those legs are cracking and the weight of debt on top of that stool is ### COMEX Delivery Breakdown [22:54] adding more pressure to it. Absolutely. What we saw in 2024 and really into 2025 on the COMX, again, spend hours on it. It's very boring. Basically, the exchange in New York ran out of the metals. They couldn't make delivery. It was unprecedented. Uh both in gold and silver, what we were seeing with the ratio of demanded metals versus what was available was unprecedented. So, they were running out of the metals to manipulate. So, they had to use margin tricks to short or put a permanent or try to put a boot to the silver price in particular. So, the comx is losing credibility to the spymex and to the Shanghai exchange. So the flows and the trust and the metals are moving from west to east towards St. Petersburg and uh and Shanghai. So that part of our tool that worked for decades to keep the price of gold and silver from embarrassing the dollar again it worked for decades that really began to crack in 2024 and accelerate in 2025. So that was certainly a pillar uh that was cracking on the gold case because gold has now made a fool out of the dollar and it's going to make more of a fool of the dollar. The petro dollar again as I explained was so critical to absorbing US treasuries and US dollars that gave us tremendous power for half a century. That too is weakening and so at the same time that you're seeing petro dollar and comx cracks in the ice. The ice is getting thinner under those powers. You're just seeing uh a central bank that's expanded money balance sheet beyond recognition. But more important public debt at 40 trillion. Basically, the interest expense alone on our debt is now over a trillion dollars. When I was a young kid playing baseball, you [snorts] know, Ronald Reagan was president, Vulkar was at the Fed, and our public debt was 1 trillion. Now, the interest expense on our public debt is 1 trillion. It's an extraordinary evolution in just the last 40 plus years, while I've been uh growing up. So, uh these things are hard math. They're stubborn facts. You can use pundits to talk about stimulus or accommodation or quantitative easing or support. — You can use platitudes to hide math, but eventually the man on the street's going to feel it. Those of us who track markets can see right through this. — We're doing a good job with platforms like yourself to educate people more about these boring topics. They can feel it now. They can see it. But the public debt, the COMX cracks, and the petro dollar uh changes are all accelerating the hangover effect of living for years on too many martinis of easy money and deficit spending. It's the hangover is coming. It's here. We're literally seeing it right now. It's only just going to get worse, I'm afraid. — Oh, I hate terrible hangovers. Uh hey, Matt, I want to look at the board today and I'll get Louis to bring up gold prices because it's doing exactly what drives precious metals investors crazy. I mean, we get a hot CPI print, 3. 8% 8% gold and silver dipping today because the paper market immediately prices higher rates and a stronger dollar and then you just talked about that underneath that physical demand. We got the buying from the central banks. There is that exchange credibility kind of moving in the opposite direction. Is this — the real split now? Futures markets in New York and London still kind of trade on the Fed narrative while physical markets in Shanghai and elsewhere are starting to trade distrust in the system. Sure. ### Physical Gold Moves East [26:13] No, it's when you just look at the time zones between New York, London, and then uh Shanghai. Shanghai gets the last say of the trade, and they get the more physical medals at the end of the day, and then London wakes up in the morning to see what Shanghai did with silver or gold. U there's more physical metals now moving east and west. Doesn't mean that I can trust Shanghai or St. Petersburg not to do some tricks with the gold and silver prices, but they have a long-term interest in being a better broker, so to speak, than London or New York if they want to gain more trust among the bricks and other nations and many nations are leaving the fold of the West and the G7. But I think, you know, there will always be manipulation on paper exchanges is and there will always be tricks and government interests that are more powerful than even uh the man on the street or certainly even the man on Wall Street. But when you look at gold, uh, we again at Von Greers are completely indifferent to the daily price. We certainly didn't reach peak gold in 2025. We're in the very first innings because the fundamentals just haven't changed. The central banks, it's their 15th straight month of gold buying. Gold was up in, you know, 2024 and 2025 predominantly almost exclusively because of central bank buying. And that hasn't changed. The fears, the chaos around the world, none of this has stopped. If anything, what we saw in the Q1 of 26 was a fire sale to buy more gold, which is what many of our clients are doing. The central banks are still the major players. You know, gold production is still, you know, it's a limited supply. It's 3,800 tons last year and nearly half of that went to central banks. But I think for those who just think us commodity folks in general or gold investors in particular are just gloom and doomers or crywolfers, I understand that. I had that same view when I was a risk asset trader in the 90s and early 2000s. But let's just think about it. Since 2000, I was trading dot stocks, you know, on the NASDAQ. Gold is up 15 or 1580%. It's compounding annual growth rate since 2000 is 11% and it's been positive 75% of that time. When you compare that extraordinary number to aggregate currencies since 2000, they've lost 94%. they have a negative 10% annual growth rate and those currencies have only been positive 25% of the time in the last two and a half two decades 25 years. So look when you know since 1971 right after I was born US dollar versus commodities the dollar has fallen 99% versus gold 96% versus oil 89% versus copper I think 75 or 76% versus wheat. So folks, gold is not rising. Paper money is failing. And you know, look, these are math statements, not gold bug statements. US M2 went up 40% in two years during COVID and then thereafter another 30%. So, you know, the M2 gold price ratios are just beginning. We've seen nothing yet. Central bank reserves were 80% dollars and 10% gold years ago. Now the gold reserves have doubled at central banks and the U and the US dollar has gone from 80% to 56%. So and even with FX reserves, you know, the FX reserve assets are now greater in gold than they are in US treasuries. So we're not making this up. If you look at the signs and the flows, gold isn't going to replace the dollar, become a world reserve currency or back the dollar again. We can talk about why, but gold is more honest and more trusted than the IOU from Uncle Sam or the G7. And that's because we've blown that trust through decades of over overspending and mouse clicking money to solve the problem and put a band-aid on a knife wound. Um, but the data is extraordinarily obvious and again there are many ratios. Gold to Dow, gold to S& P, market price of official gold to foreign held US treasuries, gold reserves as a percentage of US debt, blah blah. We can go on and on of the data and the charts and they're fascinating but they're boring to most listeners and I understand that. But it's very simple. Cut through all the faguzzi fagazi of debt and fog and war and headlines and tariffs and comx. It's really simple. We're in debt beyond imagination. It's unsustainable. We've debased the currency to buy time, buy votes, and buy temporary prosperity and hand that permanent ruin to the man and woman on the street. It's absolutely ### Gold vs Money Supply [30:31] criminal. — Yeah. Uh you kind of brought up uh money supply there. Frame gold against it for us. not the price because if US M2 kind of exploded after CO and gold is simply marking down the purchase power of paper should investors stop asking how high can gold go and maybe start asking you know how much further can currency units be diluted I mean what does gold look like when measured against M2 and deficits and debt service instead of dollars — right that's exactly a key point Jeremy when people look at the gold price and when we were in Vancouver it was like it was just euphoric. The gold silver was just it was scary. It was it moved too fast. — And they were just how can gold be at 5,500? How can silver be over 120 or 100? This is crazy. This must be a bubble. This is madness. And I understood that. I certainly could understand that sentiment. Um, but I think what they were missing and what they didn't want to see, the cognitive dissonance was see is how can paper money, Canadian, Australian, American dollars have gotten this weak because it wasn't that gold and silver were in an irrational bubble. They were in a bull market because paper money is in a secular bare market thanks to our policy makers. So, and you can get into the M again way too boring M2 versus M0 money supply. is QE really go into the system and the velocity of money is QE really inflationary? It's a very boring debate. It's important, but it'll your eyes will glaze over on it. But the bottom line is you can't expand the Fed balance sheet to 9 trillion, expand credit at the banking system, and bring M2 money supplying without debasing the currency. And you can argue it five ways to Sunday, but we've printed too much money. We've added too much water to the wine of the US dollar, and we've debased it. is now it literally got a name the debasement trade officially on Wall Street. But you know an M2 money supply expands that dramatically in a period of such a short amount of time. Um you know again M2 uh to gold price I think the ratio is around 4. 6 now in the 80s it was as low as 2. 5. And believe me, I don't care when or how, whether they QT or go right to QE, whatever semantics they want to use, we're going to see more liquidity, more money printing, it's going to continue. So the ratio of M2 to gold is going to continue to compress, which means the gold price is going to continue to rise only because the money supply is exorbitant and uh and frankly fatal in terms of purchasing power for the US dollar or any paper currency. And again, that's we can look at the charts, we can do the math and good over the ratios, but I think we all feel it. We all see it. Gold stackers have never thought gold was going to become more shiny, more used for jewelry or more used for fillings. They just knew the paper dollar was killing itself. And even the Chinese with their yuan see it. But as what is it the Chinese book of war, art of war, su when they you know when your enemy is shooting itself in the foot, just let it keep doing it. So the US is its public debt levels exacerbated by the COVID policies which were well beyond necessary at a certain point and now exacerbated by war costs in a 1. 5 trillion budget for 27. China, which has a paper currency, just sits back and watches the US shoot itself over and over in the foot, the chest, and the elbow. And they're not going to have a better yuan, but they're going to have more gold in their trade settlements. And they are playing 3D chess while we dial up QE or QT or debate uh the Fed funds rate versus the long end of the curve. They're just watching us do what history has always done, watch nations uh destroy themselves with currency, debasement ### Silver Deficit Debate [34:11] and war. — Yeah. Hey, I'm looking at these numbers today on CPI and some of the manufacturing, too. I mean, I just want to talk about silver for a minute because obviously it has that massive structural deficit story, but it's also an industrial metal. If high interest rates finally break the economy and we go into a deep recession, usually manufacturing demand gets hit. What are your thoughts here? I mean, why wouldn't an economic kind of slowdown crush silver before the monetary thesis has time to play out here? Well, I mean that's certainly there are headwinds and tailwinds on any ocean trip. Whether you're heading, you know, east or west, north or south off of any peninsula, you'll see different currents and different winds. You could see demand, industrial demand uh for silver weakened at the same time that it's the supply and demand mismatch, which is really five years of a consecutive now at this point really a billion uh ounces of silver and a supply deficit after compounding at 200 million ounces per year. That supply and demand mismatch is extraordinary. That's stronger than even the down that even the impact of lower demand from the industry if we see a recession. I think the military uh needs alone uh for silver would still keep a natural demand despite a recession. It's not just US markets even if we have a global recession. You know, you're going to see in Asia and certainly in China with solar panels and EVs and again silver far more in use in the military. That's why we made it a critical minerals uh on the critical minerals list last year as we're wasting a lot of our missiles right now. They have to be rebuilt. The silver is still going to be a part of it. I think the demand for silver and the supply and demand mismatch will be greater forces bottom line than any industrial demand um slowdown in a recession. But certainly that can affect supply and demand. And certainly uh the paper exchanges can affect the price. But supply and demand, just like everything in the end, finally gets the last laugh. I'm not here to time it. Many in the silver space are far more bullish than I am. But I'm easily at $200 silver. And Egon is extremely bullish. And others who track the technicals and fundamentals aren't worried about trying to time this direction. They're just sitting back and letting the dollar shoot itself and letting the US paper money shoot itself. So, we're just patiently waiting for silver and gold. Silver will move in a beta trade to gold in a bull market. Gold's bull market is just beginning. So we're not really too worried about the timing. There are forces of course. You we've seen backwardization the futures market on silver with other indicators. It's very bullish on silver. We look at what stockg gen traders are doing. I talk to traders what they're doing. Their long-term play here is very bullish. But again, if you're a swing trader, a day trader, an arbitrageer, precious metals, best of luck to you. I'm no help to you. Uh we're long-term preservationist thinkers. We're long-term cynics on paper money. And that is Ray Dalio's point. If you understand economics and history, you'll have no problem gaining faith in gold um and silver. But certainly there can be headwinds and tailwinds as this process moves. None of these metals move in a straight line. But against the dollar, all commodities in general are just ripping in price because the dollar has gotten weaker. But gold and silver are commodities 90% of the time, but they're money 10% of the time. And we're in that moment right now where gold and silver are monetary metals uh at this particular turning point in history. So not only it's commodity profile, but silver and gold's monetary profiles are going to have a heck of a run in the next 5 years and already ### Main Street Inflation Reality [37:41] — Yeah. I was going to say because I mean we let's bring this down to kind of the street level again because again according to the BLS, right, food at home rose 7% in April. Beef specifically up 2. 7%. Meanwhile, real average earnings just fell. 3 from a year earlier. When Matt, when we talk about the debasement trade, is this the part that matters most to households? Not the gold price or even silver price, but I mean, the grocery bill and the paycheck that keeps failing to keep up. I mean, people are really feeling this, it seems like. — No, Jeremy, I remember it was I think it was 2021 was kind of as COVID was kind of peaking and slowly coming down. I remember Berkshire Hathway. I read their annual letter um and they literally had the price of they had like it was like two pages long of all the prices whether it was fuel, housing, toilet paper, groceries, tinfoil, uh literally anything you could imagine. It was all up in double-digit increases in price. And this is when uh Buffett was very worried about structural inflation and inflation instability, he called it. He was way ahead of the CPI. Bureau of Labor Statistics. What was amazing is you had two pages of just about everything you would have on a grocery list. Everything you'd have in your portfolio in terms of hard assets up double digits, 15, 20, 25%. And yet the CPI scale at the time said we're at 3% or 3. 3 year-over-year inflation. How could literally everything that American needs be up double digits in actual price, but our CPA CPI scale be completely wrong? Again, that's dishonesty because again, you could do a whole hour on the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the fiction writing that goes on in DC and that the Fed uses to misreport inflation. But to your point, the man on the street doesn't need a CPI scale or a PhD in applied math or statistical analysis from Wharton to feel inflation being much higher uh than what it's reported out of the official channels. Um, and I think this disconnect between reality and what feeling is another symptom of the dishonesty. But again, wages are not keeping up with even the CPI scale or the cost of living adjustment, which is often higher than the CPI scale, ironically. But wages aren't keeping up with the the pace of the melting currency and debasement. that that's what creates the working poor. Uh the middle class which is now I think Anthony Scaramucci had it was the aspirational that's what he called his parents' generation the middle class postwar the aspirational middle class. My children and this generation are in the desperational middle class. They don't see a chance for themselves to live better than their parents. That's the first time in many generations that things have gotten that bad. Again, it's not just a sentimental or an emotional uh sentiment. If you look at the University of Michigan, where I went to law school, their consumer sentiment indicator, they created that scale in I think 1973 or 74, maybe 72, but it's been around for decades. The sentiment on the University of Michigan scale is at its lowest reading ever. It's at the bottom 1%. Consumer sentiment at the University of Michigan is its lowest ever. And every single time since the 1970s that you saw sentiment at the bottom 1% like this, it was followed within months by a recession. So the disconnect between what's happening on the main street mindset, the mainstream experience and a ripping S& P is fascinating. It'll be something we'll be reading about generations ahead. It's absolute fiction. So again, I've joked many times cryptically you could have mushroom clouds over Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and the markets would kill still be ripping as long as the Fed was doubbish and accommodative and supportive. In other words, creating liquidity. So the markets are absolute fantasies disconnected and we could spend a lot of time on the markets too. But main street by sentiment indicators by non-farmal payrolls which lost 92,000 jobs. The 13 months of consecutive real-time revisions in employment. We saw zero job growth in 2025. We saw actual losses. We saw destru destruction of jobs. When you get outside of the BLS and you look at Gray and Christmas Challenger Gray or Macro Edge who give you more honest, we're losing more jobs now. So, we have a slowing economy, rising rates, and CPI inflation and wages not keeping up. That's criminal. Again, it's criminal. And it's math. It's not just my gut feeling or putting my finger in the wind to catch sentiment. It's literally quantifiable. And we continue this charade that it's all the fault of Putin or Iran that we're in this mess, some bad guy. It goes much deeper than that. It started a long time before this. — Yeah. Amen. And you know, this is good. ### Fed Driven Markets [42:27] I was looking at this report on this topic. Reconcile this contradiction for me because this is where the thesis kind of gets tested. I mean, we're arguing about debt currency systems that are kind of under severe stress. And I'm just reading this JP Morgan report out saying that, you know, prime mortgage balances are hitting record lows. Their clients are bullish and actively unwinding hes to kind of add risk into this volatility. I mean, is this just sophisticated money betting that the policy backs stop still works? Can equities and gold both be right here? Stocks obviously pricing liquidity, AI, optimism, — uh, and gold, I guess, pricing sovereign risk. Who gets stuck with the bank? — Well, look, again, you can think of the S& P as a hedge against inflation. if it's if the central bank is accommodative uh you can actually see again it's no longer a price discovery supply and demand driven uh S& P Dow and NASDAQ and I'm not again the first to suggest this it is a Feddriven market. It's no longer a dial it's a switch. If the Fed is dovish I'm bullish on the S& P. If the Fed is hawkish I'm net short because it's that simple. We've gotten it that distorted. Uh, and if the Fed wants to accommodate the markets, there is no dip that can't become a V-shaped recovery. If we're willing to print trillions of dollars, expand the balance sheet, and dump liquidity into the markets, if we're willing to do yield curve control and keep rates down, the S& P dragon slayers will buy back their own shares with cheap debt. You can always create keep the bubble alive, but you can't do it without killing the currency. So, it's running uphill in roller skates. It's a pirick victory, but yes, the S& P can rise if the Fed wants to effectively nationalize the stock market, which they really done since 2008. Uh risk on, risk off, dovish or hawkish. It's that sad. It's that simple. Uh to me, that's not that's not capitalism. Again, that's just a centralized market. We also have truthfully, if there's a war dividend, you can trade the war dividend. War typically feeds US markets. When there's conflicts overseas, we see massive capital flows into the at least the perceived relative safety of the US. Between 203 and 208 during the Iraq war, hundreds of billions of Middle Eastern dollars or assets rushed into US markets and the Dow rose steadily upwards. During the Vietnam War, where many of my family members were, the Dow gained 53% while people were dropping like flies in Laos and Cambodia and North Vietnam. Uh in World War I, the Dow nearly doubled. II it rose by 160% and then as soon as those wars ended that war dividend came crashing down. So you know again the combination of this temporary prosperity permanent ruin of war can create a little bit of a tailwind for markets. The central banks can certainly support a market. There is no market correction that the Fed can't save but not without killing the currency. So it's a pirick victory. Uh you could try to hedge inflation in a very risky stock market that's at all-time highs by literally every metric. You know, you look at the Buffett indicator with equities, the market cap to GDP. I think the bigger market equity and indicator or the bigger Buffett indicator is the fact that Bergkshire Hathaway is 360 billion in cash. — Again, these people aren't trying. Brilliant traders like Grantham and Buffett and Dalio aren't trying to time the market because it's a Fed driven market. They simply don't trust it anymore. They can't value it. They can't evaluate it. As Charlie Mccay says, valuation still matters. Price to book, price to earnings, all the things I learned in school don't matter if the Fed is supportive. But at some point, mean reversion returns. I can't time it. Nobody can. I do think the needle is in private credit and private equity in the private markets just like it was in '08. I can't time the day, but the signals will be that 10-year yield when it gets above 48. I' I'd be very bearish. And I'd be very concerned about leverage over leverage to try and get more yield, which is what Wall Street's doing. They don't learn a thing. They never do. — And when it gets close, you sure see a good headline to pop that tenure down a little bit. Uh, you know, speaking of which, one odd headline this morning perfectly kind of highlights how Wall Street operates. CME Group is developing futures tied to computing power and its CEO called uh compute now the new oil of the 21st century. Is is that useful innovation or another sign that Wall Street will financialize every scarce input while ignoring the foundational debt problems? — I mean, Jeremy, you've answered the question. I mean, come on. We all know that this is I mean it's becoming worse than a Vegas casino. They'll try and find any way to financialize and expand risk and appeal to that addiction to try and get more yield or more return in a world that doesn't give you much to speculate your way to safety. That's a very dangerous way to build wealth. It will be the best of times until it's not. I mean, I know even the Fed was going to do if you trust the Fed to do an investigation because a lot of folks are trying to package some of this uh private equity and private credit bad loans or illquid loans into assetbacked securities. Again, there's no shame in these people. They did the same thing with subprime mortgages in 2006, 2007, packaging horse crap and and putting it in tin foil and marketing as investment grade. uh they'll try anything to get someone to go farther on the risk branch for some kind of return. And for a while that'll pump until it dumps. And again, I've always said Wall Street will do this distribution phase where they'll use the retail investors as plankton for their own distribution liquidity. And uh if you're not an insider, you're probably not going to win on that. You'll catch the first few hours of the fund and you'll get the last hours of the headache. And uh again, this is nothing new. I've seen it so many times. Um, but you know, packaging ABS, uh, subprime crap is nothing new, but they're even private credit is taking out loans to match redemption requests. They're putting leverage on leverage, taking out more debt to pay for bad debt. And heck, you can even use Harvard, the great Harvard, its endowment has a massive uh, private credit illquidity problem, and they're taking out billions in loans because they can't get any liquidity on their crappy private credit. So, the smartest guys in the room, classroom, the smartest endowment is stuck in a debt trap, in a liquidity trap, too. Uh, this is not a time to be chasing tops and hoping for fantasy solutions. Yes, you can pick up dimes and quarters in front of this train, but I'm just not interested at this point, and I' I'd rather just sit back and watch gold and silver get the last laugh. — Yeah. [snorts] Yeah. Sounds like, you know, the risk has just been moved off balance sheets, renamed, — rated, and sold. Um, okay. Well, listen, our time always goes too fast ### Wealth Preservation Playbook [49:21] my friend. It always does. I could have talked to you forever. Let's wrap this up, but I guess we kind of laid out that macro challenge. I mean, real wages falling, inflation being sticky, yields rising, trust gone, as it appears, or at least weakening I should say. — Now, without giving personal financial advice, what is the practical wealth preservation playbook here? I mean how should people think about physical metal cash risk assets allocation but also liquidity and the emotional risk of buying after a major run — right no these are the important questions and I think obviously take gold and silver you already know my answer to that we think very strong and high allocations gold and silver that's obvious uh we're not alone even the big banks even Morgan Stanley UBS Goldman Sachs they're rep they're even in some cases more bullish on year-end price targets But we're not looking at the price, but their allocation levels are extremely expanding, which is fascinating of itself. In Switzerland, 20% gold and silver is a minimum. You know, 8020 gold and silver, 20% allocation. That's a minimum. Um, when you get beyond the obvious conviction, not bias I have uh for gold and silver that Egon and I have that all of us have at Von Greer. The other assets are what our grandparents told us. our grandparents who went through especially here in Europe who went through inflation, debasement, military crisis, distrusted governments. Um, you want an asset that can't be printed or mass-produced or paper claimed. You want hard assets. I think as Ronnie Sturfl said years ago, uh, we are heading into a commodity super cycle. You don't have to get the day right. You direction right. I think hard assets in general are a safer store of value and a longer term play if you're not a speculator but an investor if you do understand the direction of the hockey puck here. I think real estate in particular uh agricultural real estate massively important. These are important assets. Uh it's it's the hard assets that it's the things that can't be manipulated and claimed and debased that I think are the longer term plays. Obviously you want to have dry powder but dry powder for what? dry powder for when there's a mean reversion in this market if the markets aren't nationalized, but dry powder can be sucked away by inflation. So, I get that there's a real sense of no place to hide in an absolutely bloated bond market. It's a bug looking for a windshield and a massively over stock overvalued stock market. It's kind of hard to hide and wait for a mean reversion or hide in a safe value asset or a safe value stock. Of course, there's going to be speculation opportunities in tech. There always will be. But I think for the patient investor, I [snorts] would do what central banks are doing. I would save in in stores of value, commodities, and precious metals in particular. I would spend in fiat when you actually see a buy signal. I've always said if you go duck hunting, you don't walk out to a duck blind or row out in a boat and just point your 12 gauge into the air and shoot. You actually wait for a duck. And so sometimes the hardest thing is to do nothing. Once you've preserved your purchasing power and hard assets and precious metals, then you have to do what a patient sniper or a patient hunter does. Wait for your target. Don't just be shooting at every everything that moves. That's very hard to do when you're trying to get some type of return when you're stressed out and you're speculating like a gambler in a casino to get through the year. And I understand that pressure. I don't think speculation is the safest way to get it at this point in the S& P's history. In bond market's condition, I think it's a dangerous game. Now, we saw that slight correction on both silver and gold obviously at the you know Marchish uh it got frothy there for a moment and even though obviously it's a Kitco news audience and people understand debasement here we like metals but people also want to know and I'm curious what you think about this at what point does someone have too much gold or silver? ### How High Can Gold Go? [53:11] — Look, I think when gold is fairly priced um and I think and we didn't have time but I see I'm not alone. you look at where these ratios have been in the past, what the future price of gold looks like, whether it's with me or Pierre Lassand or Luke Groman or Frank Schustster and certainly Egon von Grier's or even Scott Bent. It is not at all unusual anymore to say gold will easily get to 20,000 in the next year over the next cycle. That's not because it's going to get shiner. It's that's because of the debasement trade. That's because actually the US for the first time has a vested interest in a higher gold price to run its deficits. Again, I'm not alone. I completely share that view that we actually unlike the Vulkar era where gold was uh to the dollar what son was to vampires. You know, Vulkar called it his enemy. But under the Scott Bent $40 trillion debt regime of America circa 2026, we actually need to revalue our gold. We need to see gold run. We need to revalue our certificates to push down some of our debt. We don't need to make a gold back dollar, but we need to monetize gold uh desperately. I think that will happen. I also just think the mean reversions in the markets. I think we'll see uh the as Pierre Lasan says a Dow gold ratio maybe not one but 2:1 and that would put gold at 17,500 very soon, very easily. That's not extreme anymore. Um, again I think even if you look at the uh gold ratio to public debt, Ronnie Sturfl, again I'm talking Ronnie Sturfla, Pierre Lan, Luke Groman, myself, we're not quacks. We're not just gold bugs. We're looking at the implied numbers if we wanted to have the same ratio of gold to public debt. We should have an implied gold price of around 30,000 over the next few years. That may seem extreme to many. Uh but when when Bitcoin went from $10 to 100,000, no one seemed to mind. It's going to be shocking when they see uh gold reach these prices again not because gold was in a bubble but because that's how sick and beaten down and distrusted uh US IUS and US paper money and other paper money systems have become that is to me very sober long-term play. So when you look at the short-term moves in the mechanizations in March or any price in gold and silver I do understand that if you're a trader that can break some hearts. Uh if you're an investor, uh the most important skill you need to have other than an understanding of history and math is basic patience. Like a good duck hunter. — Yeah, basic patience. I like it. And to your point, I mean, I feel like we had here at the studio a graphic on standby for a year that said breaking $2,000 gold and then, you know, here we are a few years later talking about five. So, uh I hear you on that one, man. All ### Closing Thoughts [55:59] right. Uh Matthew, always appreciate your perspective. Thanks for taking the time. been stress testing this thesis with us today. Of course, Matt Hypenberg is with Von Greer's. Great work out there. Fantastic year. Still some room to go. It feels like it's going to just it's going to be a busy one for you. — Well, very busy. We've got smart money, smart investors. They see the long blade. They see the direction of the hockey puck. And u you know, we we're very proud because we do have high conviction. Egon started this decades ago with a fundamental understanding of gold and history and money and he was buying gold at 300 and people were laughing at him at weddings. It's not an I told you so moment but it uh it feels good to at least say what we think. We're not constrained by a board of directors at a big bank anymore. we can actually say what we really think. And uh we're very proud even for those who aren't clients of ours who can't afford our minimums to talk as much as we can, not just about gold, but sound money and uh sound policy and what unound money and what unound policy means so that people can make their own decisions beyond just gold and silver. — Yeah, [snorts] education is a beauty. Uh all right, Mike, thanks for making the time. Appreciate your time. Thanks. — Thank you, Jeremy. — Cheers, Matt. And thank you for watching Kiko News. Now, I want to hear from you. What are you watching most closely right now? Is it the 30-year Treasury? Is it oil? Is it gold, silver, or the Fed's next move? Drop your thoughts in the comments below. I read as many as I can, believe it or not. And if you want real data behind the headlines, hit that subscribe button. I'm Jeremy Saver. We'll see you next time. Heat.