Melt Up?

Summary

Doug Casey’s Take – “Melt Up?” (June 3, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Matthew Smith and renowned speculator and author Doug Casey discuss the extraordinary run-up in markets and whether we are currently in a “melt up” scenario—a frenzied surge before an inevitable crash. They dissect the scale and psychology of recent financial gains, the unprecedented speculation in tech and AI, and what this means for the broader economy and prudent investors. The conversation covers topics from AI’s real impact, the riskiness of digital accounts, to the enduring value of tangible assets like gold and silver.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Are We in a Market “Melt Up”?

[00:02–03:26]

• Doug Casey acknowledges a market melt up is underway, emphasizing unprecedented surges in large-cap stocks, particularly those related to AI.
• Quote: "These numbers are so huge, they're becoming incomprehensible." (Doug, 01:03)
• Examples: Case study of Nvidia and others doubling and tripling valuations in days and weeks.
• Matt: Compares the current rally to the dot-com bubble, noting the scale now makes the earlier era feel "really small."

2. The Proliferation of Wealth and Option Mania

[03:26–07:05]

• Doug discusses how market booms are creating new "centimillionaires and even billionaires."
• Quote: "At some point I’ve got to believe that some righteous God of hellfire will smite the unworthy and melt the market down." (Doug, 04:44)
• The prevalence of options trading and same-day expiries signals the market's casino-like atmosphere.
• ETFs now outnumber individual stocks, leading Doug to describe this as an “all kinds of bizarre things. Top of the market as far as I think it’s…”

3. Sideline Cash and Implications

[07:12–10:07]

• Discussion about the trillions in money market funds, mostly in government paper.
• Matt underscores how much money could "move into the market" if FOMO kicks in.
• Doug opines that government and agency securities in money market funds add complexity and risk.

4. The Bubble Cycle and Top-Calling Challenges

[09:25–12:06]

• Referencing past bubbles (dot-com era, discussions with Bob Proctor), Doug warns the market can always run further than expected.
• Both observe that even astute analysts are often amazed by irrational exuberance’s length.
• Quote: "Once again, I feel like we're at the edge of the precipice...nobody else seems to feel this way. So that’s one of the many bells ringing." (Doug, 11:39)

5. Mining, Gold, and Oil Stocks—The Overlooked Sector

[12:06–16:10]

• Matt feels paralyzed—gold and mining stocks seem “so cheap,” yet he hesitates to invest more.
• Quote: “We’re playing in the dirt with literally the dirt.” (Doug, 13:10)
• Doug is convinced a “runaway bull market” in mining and oil stocks is inevitable, noting how these stocks are now a tiny % of major indices.

6. Religious Fervor and Geopolitical Risks

[16:10–18:28]

• Doug connects market and commodity trends to persistent geopolitical risk, particularly involving religious extremism in the Middle East.
• The Israel-Iran situation is cited as unlikely to resolve soon, keeping a floor under energy prices.

7. The AI Surge & Data Center Buildout

[17:31–21:20]

• Matt shares research showing the construction of massive data centers globally—35GW underway in the US alone.
• Doug questions: "What kind of information could they possibly be putting together that has value?...Is it all marketing information?" (Doug, 18:59)
• Matt explains most of the buildout is driven by the need to train ever-larger AI models, with compute requirements expanding exponentially.

8. The Risk of Digital Wealth Disappearing

[22:09–26:15]

• Doug references a Washington Post article: a woman briefly lost all records of her life savings with Fidelity due to an IT snafu.
• Quote: “All of us, everything, all of our brokerage accounts, our bank accounts, everything. It’s all on computer. It can vanish." (Doug, 23:19)
• The crisis was only resolved because she had saved physical statements.

9. Tangible Wealth: Gold, Silver, and Real Estate

[25:33–34:09]

• Doug reemphasizes that only tangible assets—physical gold and silver, possibly real estate—are truly safe.
• Quote: “All I really trust is what I got in my own clammy little fingers.” (Doug, 25:47)
• Matt describes recent gold purchases. Both discuss practicalities—British sovereigns for portability, silver's eroded purchasing power.
• The devaluation of the dollar is highlighted: “Everything is going to become very inconvenient at some point in the future when the dollar starts rapidly losing value." (Doug, 33:36)

10. Inflation, The CPI “Lie,” and Lifestyle Changes

[34:09–36:42]

• Matt and Doug critique official CPI measurements, citing real-life price inflation.
• Reference to skyrocketing car prices; Doug reminisces about buying a Ferrari in the 1960s for $3,050 versus $50,000 for a basic modern pickup.
• Ferrari launches an electric vehicle due to regulatory pressure—Doug calls it an “embarrassment to the brand,” a symbol of the "fascist world" blending state power and business.

11. Living Well Amidst Uncertainty

[40:23–43:08]

• The conversation winds through travel plans, the challenges of modern life, and waiting to see how the “slow moving soap opera” of current events plays out.
• Doug sees the imminent IPOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX as “the bell ringing at the ultimate top of the market.”

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Memorable Quotes

• "These numbers are so huge, they're becoming incomprehensible."
  — Doug Casey, [01:03]
• "At some point I’ve got to believe that some righteous God of hellfire will smite the unworthy and melt the market down."
  — Doug Casey, [04:44]
• "We're playing in the dirt with literally the dirt."
  — Doug Casey, [13:10]
• "All of us, everything, all of our brokerage accounts, our bank accounts, everything. It’s all on computer. It can vanish."
  — Doug Casey, [23:19]
• "All I really trust is what I got in my own clammy little fingers."
  — Doug Casey, [25:47]
• "It’s all just imaginary… The dollar is an imaginary unit redeemable by nothing, by its issuer. It’s a fantasy. So, I mean, we're just kidding ourselves, frankly. So it's all dust."
  — Doug Casey, [30:55]
• "Everything is going to become very inconvenient at some point in the future when the dollar starts rapidly losing value."
  — Doug Casey, [33:36]
• "We live in a Mussolini's ideal fascist world."
  — Doug Casey, [37:07]
• “I kind of think that these three gigantic stocks, OpenAI and Anthropic and SpaceX…their bell's ringing at the ultimate top of the market, but who knows?”
  — Doug Casey, [42:49]

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Notable Timestamps

• [00:02–03:26] – Are AI and tech stocks a classical “melt up”?
• [04:44] – “God of hellfire will smite the unworthy” – discussion of market hubris.
• [07:12–10:07] – Explaining money market funds and latent market fuel.
• [13:10] – “Playing in the dirt” – lament about mining stock irrelevance.
• [23:19] – The Fidelity story: complete erasure of a customer’s existence.
• [25:47] – What does tangible wealth mean in 2026?
• [33:36] – The oncoming inconvenience of a depreciating dollar.
• [37:07] – Ferrari’s electric car: symptom of a “fascist world.”
• [42:49] – Potential market top: OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX IPOs.

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Practical Takeaways

• Diversify Beyond Paper: The risk of digital records—and thus digital wealth—evaporating is heightened. Store (and periodically download) hard copies of key financial documents.
• Value in the Unloved: Mining, gold, oil, and commodity stocks remain undervalued despite surges elsewhere; their time may come again.
• Inflation is Real: Ignore official CPI; real-world prices suggest a steeper decline in purchasing power.
• Physical Assets are King: Hold some tangible wealth—especially gold and silver—in your own possession.
• Be Wary of Mania: Tech/AI might still roar higher, but classic signs of a top (IPO frenzy, baffling valuations, investor euphoria) are present.

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Tone & Final Thoughts

Doug Casey’s tone is skeptical, irreverent, and tinged with historical perspective. The episode is peppered with wry humor, philosophical asides (about gods, the matrix, and state/corporate intertwining), and practical paranoia—the sense that for the prudent, what matters most is restraint, vigilance, and tangible assets.

The message for listeners: Prepare for volatility, maintain skepticism, and remember that in times of euphoric excess, history tends to repeat—or at least rhyme.

Transcript

[A]

All right, Doug, good morning. We're back. I want to talk to you about market action. What's going on in the markets these days? It seems like we were on a podcast. We were on Mario's podcast last week and he asked me this question, but he really should ask you. Are we in? Is this a market melt up that we're witnessing right now? I mean, we've heard about these things classically and you know, there was the bubble in the dot com, but that, that seemed more bubble than a market melt up. Is this a market melt up?

[B]

Yeah, and I don't keep my eyes glued to the screen, so I don't know if I'm the best person to ask, but I think the answer to it is yes. Because yesterday or the day before, Jensen Huang, who runs Nvidia, the world's largest country, by company, by market cap. What is it? Five, five and a half trillion? Something like that?

[A]

That's crazy. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So Wong mentions some company that had a. And here's another crazy thing, talking about the state of the market. He mentions this company, which is of course involved in AI. And I can't remember if it was a 200 million or 200 billion market cap when he mentioned it, but after he mentioned it, it went up 30%. And the fact that these numbers are so huge, they're becoming incomprehensible because as human beings, we're wired to think differently. Like, it used to be a joke where we talk about primitive people. You're not supposed to say that. There are no primitive people anymore. They say it's that a primitive person would count two, three, many. So when we start talking about anything that can't easily be expressed with at least Roman numerals, it's. They're talking about astronomical numbers which are,

[A]

which are meaningless, incomprehensible.

[B]

Incomprehensible. Yeah, they're literally incomprehensible. That's right. So answer to the question. Yeah, because there are a lot of companies that seem to go up hugely in a matter of days or weeks. And we're not talking about crappy little penny stocks where anything can happen, so. Right we are.

[A]

Yeah. There's one Micron was one I read about recently that I believe was valued at something like 30 billion. Something like maybe, maybe 60 billion. Some. Some number like that, like 18 months ago, and it's now valued at over 1.2 trillion. And it's gone up more than, you know, a thousand percent. It's. It's pretty extraordinary. I mean, and this shockingly Short period of time driven by, of course it's a, you know, they make memory. So it's driven by the AI boom or bubble, whatever you want to call it. I guess maybe it's both. But I mean those are just, those are shockingly huge gains. I mean it's, it does it, I mean it makes kind of the dot com era feel small, really small.

[B]

Yeah. And all of these gigantic gains are minting new centimillionaires and even billionaires by the score, by the hundreds, quite frankly. And what does somebody do when he comes into being ultra wealthy? And I understand some article yesterday, the journalist and I hate journalists and they're stupid and not well informed on the whole, said that, well, to be ultra wealthy, I guess that's different from being very wealthy or extremely.

[A]

Or just wealthy.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. Ultra, that must be the top category. It says you need 30 extra large, 30 million in order to make that. So it's probably reasonable because.

[A]

Well, that's the number that, that's, that's exactly the number you stated the other day when you were talking about what it is.

[B]

And it is, I think I read the article after I thought it because it just occurred to me that if you have about 30, you can do anything you want, go anywhere you want, consume promiscuously and it just doesn't make much difference. So at some point I've got to believe that some righteous God of hellfire will smite the unworthy and melt the market down. And I don't know if they're all going to be grubbing for roots and berries that might happen too. But yeah, I think we're living in a fool's paradise in the market. And it's more than that because it's not just all these crazy stocks are running up to ungodly numbers making their owners ultra wealthy. It's that everybody is trading options today. And you know, it's funny, when I first started getting involved in the stock market after I got out of college, I was trading options and options were strictly over the counter. They weren't listed. You had to have a specialist broker, which I had, I remember his name, Ed Byerson. And he used to prowl the over the counter market. And this is interesting, before there was an Internet and any of this stuff and we used to sell options on, on various stocks, but now everybody, there's options on everything and everybody's buying even this.

[A]

The same day expiry expiration.

[B]

Yes, same day expiration. It's a gambling casino. It's completely crazy. And I understand that, I understand this, but how do you separate fact from rumor? Well, I guess you can if you research it. But there are as many ETFs, exchange traded funds as there are publicly traded stocks. Well, that's bizarre.

[A]

I think there's actually slightly more. Well, I did look this number up a while ago. I think there's slightly more actually ETFs than there are stocks.

[B]

Yeah, I mean this isn't the category of it is said. So this is crazy. It's like every stock can have its own etf, only own shares of it. This is all kinds of bizarre things. Top of the market as far as I think it's.

[A]

You think it's the top though? Do you think it's done or do you think it could still run further from here?

[B]

Well, you know we were talking earlier about how much money is money market funds. And money market funds is like capital waiting to go someplace else. Generally go someplace else. And the number I think you came up with was 7.8 trillion.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Okay. And I thought a lot of that would be in commercial paper of corporations. But then you looked it up and it turned out like 85% of it is government paper, government agency paper, only 50% is commercial paper. So I was a little bit surprised because I thought that everybody would be reaching for yield because when the average gulag out there goes to put money in a money market fund, you presume since they think that all of these things magically nothing can go wrong with them, would go for the highest yielding one. Therefore you go for commercial paper, maybe even crappy commercial paper, but only 15% in commercial paper. But still that would work out to about some, about a trillion dollars of commercial paper. So

[A]

this is all money that's sitting on the sidelines that could conceivably be moved into the market, you know, by people who get the fear of missing out.

[B]

Yeah. On the other hand, it could melt down. I don't mean just the commercial paper side of it, but as the government spends more money and interest rates go up, which they are have been doing. And the trend is in motion and will do for lots of reasons. Maybe the government is going to get into trouble some of these government agencies, because it's not all T bills. So it's agency paper which is a little bit more complex.

[A]

It could be mortgage backed securities and stuff like that, right?

[B]

Yeah, stuff like that. That's kind of semi government paper. I think these, I think the money market funds are full of not just T bills but semi Government paper of various types.

[A]

So clearly, like, this is going to end badly. This, this boom and, you know, is going to end in a bus, dude, you have to expect at some point. But the big question is, is it now?

[B]

Is it? Or.

[A]

Or is it? Yeah, or, or, you know, because at any, you know, the last year of any of these crazy bubble markets, like if you go back to, you know, early 2000 again, you know, the market looked like it kind of was peeking out in 1998, even at points, and certainly in 1999 again. And then, and then, you know, it still kept going and it had huge gains. And even the early part of 2000, that just made you feel like a fool if you got on the sidelines in 1999, as I did.

[B]

Well, I know when I used to go to the New Orleans conference, and I think I've been to that as many years as any living person has, quite frankly. One thing, one of the highlights of my. And I'm going this year for the last year, it's unseemly after a certain point to be wandering around these conferences. I mean. But anyway, one of the reasons that I like to go is to see old friends. And one of the old friends that we always sit down and have lunch and chew the fat for a few hours is my friend Bob Proctor. And, you know, there have been times in the past when Bob Proctor has been, you know, like the shining star in the newsletter investment advice industry. He's very smart guy, very sound. We agree. We agree on everything. Almost everything in principle, philosophically in that. And you know, he watches charts. I mean, he's a chartist. And there have been times in the past when Bob thought the world was going to come to an end, as I always do too, And it hasn't. So, you know, all kinds of smart guys are constantly amazed. Yeah, look, almost anything that can happen eventually will happen, and that's going to include a magic, magically bad market meltdown and. Yeah, well, once again, I feel like we're at the edge of the precipice. And one reason I feel more confident now than ever is that almost nobody feels out there in stuff. I read and I read a lot of stuff. It's a waste of time, frankly. I should be reading classical literature instead. But anyway, nobody else seems to feel this way. So that's. That's one of the many bells ringing.

[A]

Well, so still though, like, there is that we focus on are mining stocks, gold stocks, stuff like that. You know, these things are really, really cheap right now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But you know I've like, you know I'd say like my portfolio probably peaked out in late January and since then it's pulled back and I've taken. Yeah because of worry about the straight up remove stuff. You know I've moved more to cash and it's probably know hasn't if I would have put it into the NASDAQ it would have been smarter I guess you know because of the way that's or micron. But you know it's, it's. The market's in this weird period where even though these things look so cheap now they look so cheap. The gold stocks in particular like I'm hesitant to deploy more money but is that. Am I making a big mistake by doing that? I mean should. These things are so cheap, you know they're going to go, they're going to go up. I mean they have to go up from here. Am I, should I. Should I be more invested?

[B]

You know we should be embarrassed. We really should Matt. But here we have, we have open AI and anthropic and SpaceX. They're all going public in the weeks to come at trillion dollar Trillion dollar plus market caps. And a trillion is too big a number to contemplate frankly. And what are we doing? We're playing in the dirt with literally the dirt. Yeah, we're talking about, we're talking about companies that have $10 million or $20 million or $50 million market caps. That's not even a rounding error on just one ipo. And it's the whole mining industry which, which is so I and I'm kind of surprised. I mean look, we've had some of these crappy little stocks that have gone 10 to 1 in the. In the last few months and that's pretty good because you know if you invest a reasonable amount and there's no point in buying this crap unless you buy a reasonable amount, hey you've made a lot of money enough to buy a expensive car, maybe buy a house on any of these things but they're still just crappy little $20 million market cap companies which is nothing. I'm of the opinion that once again we're going to get a runaway bull market in mining stocks. There's lots of reasons we've discussed the past it's going to happen. And the same thing in oil stocks which are really cheap. Here's a number. In 1980 which was the peak of the oil market. Previously oil stocks were 30% oil and natural gas and related of the S p. Today they're 4%. Nobody cares about them. And you can get fat dividend yields on most of them, but nobody wants them. Even with oil at a new, what I think is a new equilibrium level at about $95, maybe it'll go less because production costs of oil depending probably about $60 industry wide. So, okay, it's a good businessman's return at $90, $95. I think it's going to go higher for political reasons. This thing with Iran and Israel ain't going to go away. Can't go away because now these, these people hate each other. I mean, the Israelis are. I understand a lot of the Israelis in the government are religious fanatics. I mean, I listen to stuff from Chabad.org which I don't know if you listen to that. There's no.

[A]

I listen. I mean, I see sometimes their emails. Yeah, yeah. I got on their list after you recommend, after you suggested it. Not recommended.

[B]

I, I can't help myself. And you know, somebody with a really, really Jewish name. I'm trying to. They all have really, really Jewish names. Some rabbi is talking about some obscure elements of the Talmud and they take this stuff really seriously. And I know that the Mohammedans take this stuff really seriously. And a lot of the Christians here take this stuff really serious. Like Pete Hegseth. I mean that prayer that he gave at the prayer thing.

[A]

Samuel, Samuel L. Jackson's prayer, he copped

[B]

it from Samuel L. Jackson. This is, this is bizarre stuff. Jackson makes this stuff up for Pulp Fiction and Pete Hegseth thinks it's real and he does a rip a rap on it. This is, this is nuts. I mean, further proof that we, we live in the matrix that all this, none of this stuff is real. It's all made up,

[A]

it's confusing. That's for sure. Real or not, I don't know. But. So this AI bubble, though that's happening, you've brought up before all these data centers that are being built like an unfathomable number of them. So you asked me to do some just digging on it just to see how much is building and where is any other country in the world doing it. And we looked around and it was like the US has under plans like 35 gigawatts of build out happening now, which you told me a gigawatt is like what one nuke plant produces.

[B]

Typical. That's a typical nuke plant. That's a gigawatt. That's right. Yeah.

[A]

So they're doing 35 of those right now. And then. But you look around the world and you know, Europe's got 10 underworks. And then the Asia Pacific region's got like 25 under in the works. So it's happening globally, it's not just in the us it's happening everywhere.

[B]

Yeah, and listen, I've, I read a lot and I listen to a lot of stuff and I'm trying to figure out this is us. There's gonna be somebody that's gonna say, this is really a stupid question. How can you be so naive to ask such a stupid question? But oftentimes stupid questions are only stupid because everybody's afraid to ask them because they don't want to look naive. And I can't figure out what these. Not just one giga center, which covers acres, acres and acres of ground full of CPUs and computers and God knows what, but there are hundreds of these damn things. And it seems to me that a data center to be useful would be processing how you can rearrange atoms for a new medical drug or something of that nature. Some scientific, some technical breakthrough. But that's not what these things are about. What kind of information could they possibly be putting together that has value? Is it all marketing information so they can pedal Chinese to you? I don't think there's that many people that want to buy so many gimmicks that you need trillions, trillions of dollars invested in these giant data centers just to pedal that stuff to you. That's camp. I'll be all of it.

[A]

So it's not that it seems like the biggest effort with it is they're trying to birth their AI. God, they're trying to. So, and the, you know, research I did about it, essentially most of these, these most capital intensive, you know, highest energy consuming data centers, the most capital intensive use of these things is to train the Frontier AI models. These are, you know, ChatGPT 5 or Gemini Ultra or any, any of these new ones that come out, you know, the new version of it. And each, apparently, each new generation requires five to 10 times as much compute as the last generation required. So to build a model that costs between 100 million to over a billion dollars in compute just to do it, to have that process that takes maybe a couple of months of it just computing constantly for that time period to produce this AI model. And it just seems like the effort is just trying, you know, better and better AMI AI models. And ultimately they get the one, you know, the one that's got all the answers.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, an AI God. Oh, incidentally, I didn't mention this to You. When we were talking privately, for your birthday present, I bought you a God for your dog, Atlas. I threatened to get that because every, every, everybody, everything needs a God to worship. And Atlas, your dog, a boxer, also, I feel he needs a God. So I bought him a metal replica of a dog. So awesome. Give that to you for your birthday, and you can give it to Atlas. Kind of a. What do we call that? Re. Gifting. Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Well, he's a good dog. He is a good dog. He deserv. Deserves a deity.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah. So we all. We all need a God. But one reason I think this is going to end badly is reading the WaPo Washington Post yesterday. There was an article which I forwarded to you about a woman who. We should put the reference up there so people can read it. They don't think we're making this stuff up. A woman hasn't Has a. All her accounts, her life savings, it says, with Fidelity. And she goes on her computer to do something, and her account with Fidelity no longer exists. Doesn't exist. None of her stuff. All her money's gone. Gone. And she calls Fidelity. Somehow, I don't know if she would. Was talking to an AI or somebody in India. It didn't explain this in the WaPo article. And they said, well, why are you calling us? You don't have an account with us. It had all vanished. Vanished. All of her money gone. And so she calls other numbers. Got a different AI, different Indian. Maybe she even got, you know, some. You know, some cubicle DWELLER in the U.S. i guess that's what happened. It explains it in the article. We should post that article so people see that we're not making this up. And it took her. I think it said it took her about two weeks to finally, like an investigative reporter, find some proof that they could go down a rabbit hole that she really had money with them. And every. All of us, everything, all of our brokerage accounts, our bank accounts, everything. It's all on computer. It can vanish. Just like it did for this poor woman.

[A]

Right. It completely deleted the record of her existence. So she would call and talk to him and say, no, no, I'm sorry, ma', am, you must. You must. Maybe your account is with Schwab or something. You know it's not with us, Right?

[B]

Yeah. And. And of course, everybody's account is with. I mean, one of these really big companies. Fidelity or Schwab or the Citibank or. Yeah, there's not many of them. I mean, they're all being consolidated. It seems to me, this is an accident waiting to happen. It is.

[A]

And I guess what saved her is that she had some statements that she downloaded and saved on her computer and then kind of use that getting in contact with someone who took her a little bit more seriously and started to kind of reverse engineer, you know, what happened. And ultimately did have a happy ending. Right. I mean, her account was, yeah. Rediscovered.

[B]

Yeah, she, she went back to status quo ante. But, but this ought to be a, a lesson for us in general, so that the only thing that you really own, frankly, is perhaps the house that you occupy, although it's not really yours, because if you don't pay your, your real estate taxes, you'll find out who really owns your house after a year. And the only thing that. So maybe you own the house that you live in. And other than that, when it comes to money, all that you can really rely on is your gold and silver

[A]

coins in your physical possession, right?

[B]

Basically, yeah. Basically, yeah, that's right. I mean, I, I have, I have some gold and silver stored with offshore entities that I trust personally, but really, all I really trust is what I got in my own clammy little fingers, because it could happen. I mean, all these stocks and all that, it's, it's a moving paper fantasy, especially now, where everybody's trading options and doing crazy stuff they don't understand. That's what it is, it's, it's all a floating abstraction, a moving paper fantasy. It's gotta end badly. It is.

[A]

And like the, that reality, plus the digital world we live in today, I think manifested in this woman's story, I think just shows, shows so clearly how, like, easily stuff can be lost and how lucky. Like, I mean, I guess there's, you know, there was a resolution to her situation, but it was not easy to resolve, and it was, you know, it took. If she would have been like, I mean, what about with your normal bank account, if you just lose access to your funds and then you have to go to Wells Fargo and prove, no, no, I had an account with you. You know, you don't know me, but I trust me. You know, I can imagine trying to work that, work through that, to get there with them. It just seems impossible.

[B]

Giant, soulless organization, they have no record of your account. What are they going to believe? You? You're nothing but a voice on the

[A]

phone, and there's nothing like. It starts with your name. I need your name, your phone number, and I have to verify stuff. And if there's nothing here, there's nothing what can I do? Those customer service people can't do anything with you. So I think it's a good reminder to download statements of all your accounts, make sure you have copies of them, because it did work in her case.

[B]

Well, better than that, oddly enough. Before we got on the phone today, I did a commercial with Nick Giambruno and Rick Rule about Battle bank, which is this new bank which I put money in, I don't know, three or four years ago, something like that. It's a new bank like EverBank, which I think a lot of listeners might hear. So anyway, Rick and Frank are running this thing and I deal with one of these giant banks and I hate these people. I hate them. They're an adversary. You know, I'm not a customer to them. I'm a. I'm a digit, a meaningless nuisance to them. And by transferring my account to Battle bank, where I know the management and the management. Anyway, I think everybody ought to do that and find that commercial. Rick raps really well talking about what Battle bank is going to do. And I have a few words about it too. So.

[A]

Yeah, and I, I think they're, you know, you can't go there and just open an account yet. I think there's still like, still in a rollout phase with adding people. But I mean, as I'm, I'm on the back of the wait list and I haven't gotten my invitation yet to open my account.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This shows. The. Shows what a great shareholder I am. I, I don't even know. I mean, look, you put money into a private company, even if it's a. I think a good private company, it's. It's like it vanishes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What's going on? Yeah.

[A]

And I, I know the people there, too. You think I should, I should send some emails and see if I can get moved up the wait list myself.

[B]

Anyway, I think they, I think they have scores of thousands of people on the wait list. And so how do you unload all those people? But you don't want to deal with some giant digital impersonal institution. You really don't.

[A]

No. And be subject to random policy changes that really affect your life.

[B]

And these people are not your friends. They're actually your enemy. So anyway, I haven't still opened my account with Battle bank, but because I did a commercial for them, sure, they'll wrap me up higher on up the wait list.

[A]

I mean, it's a great sign that they are open, they are opening accounts, they are making progress. I mean, we were Wondering for a long time because it was delayed so long for them to get the sign off from the Feds to open up. So it's great that they're there and nice to have some real competition in the marketplace for the first time in a long time.

[B]

Yeah. And I got a feeling that finally, I think gold and silver and oil and look, all the commodities have reached new equilibrium levels, frankly. And the stocks that produce those commodities are still very, very cheap. Nobody wants them for all kinds of reasons we've discussed in the past. I think that'll change radically. Well, it already has for some of these stocks, but not many of them. And I'm going to need a proper bank when I dump these shares eventually to put.

[A]

You buy CDs or something.

[B]

Yeah, of course, the money is just digits issued by the US Government, which is. It's all. It's all just imaginary. I mean, the dollar is an imaginary unit redeemable by nothing, by its issuer. It's a fantasy. So, I mean, we're just kidding ourselves, frankly. So it's all dust. Well, none of it really matters, I suppose.

[A]

I bought another 5 ounces of gold yesterday, so like in the, in the tangible world front, so I get opportunities occasionally to buy stuff that's for sale around here from private sellers. So picked up another 5 ounces.

[B]

That's fantastic.

[A]

Yeah, I don't really have a lot of choice over what exactly they are. These are philharmonics, which are beautiful, you know, but, you know, not. Maybe not the one I would have chosen myself directly, but happy to have it regardless.

[B]

I think. I think my favorite gold coin is probably the Canadian Maple leaf because it's 0.999 pure, unlike the US eagle, which is only 0.9 pure.

[A]

I think the Philharmonic is, is 4, 9. So also, I think.

[B]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's good. So anyway, the other thing that I prefer is the British sovereign. And why. Because the British sovereign, which is 0.23 something of an ounce, is the world's. Still the world's most common and most widely recognized and traded gold coin. And also it's smaller than an ounce, which means that you can cross borders with it and probably not be interrogated,

[A]

but it looks like. It looks like you got some nickels in here, you know, or something, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Whereas if you got some big fat round gold thing kind of draws a

[A]

lot of attention also just the fact that just the denomination being, you know, with gold prices being 4, 500 bucks an ounce, I mean, you know, if you wanted to buy something with it directly, it just gets really tough.

[B]

It's just too expensive. Something worth $5,000. I mean you can't go down to

[A]

your, you're not going to the grocery store.

[B]

Yeah, of course you can't even do that with a 1 oz silver coin anymore either. It's $75. You know, it's.

[A]

Yeah, but this says more about the dollar than it does about those metals, I think.

[B]

Yeah, it's. Everything is going to become very inconvenient at some point in the future when the dollar shots rapidly losing value. Because it's one thing for Argentines or Zimbabweans to dump their local currency for dollars, but now when the dollar loses value and billions of people have dollars stored under their mattresses, literally in many cases, this is, this is going to be mass chaos.

[A]

Well, are we in that period yet where because inflation has been, you know, you have to ignore the real the CPI because that's CP lie some. But I mean inflation has been crazy since. If you just look at post 2019. I mean I think it's lost half of its value. Basically everything is, you know, 50% higher than it was then. I mean so we're getting to that point now. I know we're not in the, you know, in the deep when it starts to, when it, as it ramps up, but it's pretty serious already. The destruction of purchasing power.

[B]

Yep. It's greatly underestimated by the cpi. I mean look, always, I always think about this, always having been a car guy. A brand new Ferrari typically was available back in the late 60s for 15 to $20,000. Today you can't even buy a basic Ford F150 pickup truck for less than $50,000. I mean this is crazy.

[A]

Did you see Ferrari's new electric car?

[B]

Insane. And apparently the reason why Ferrari has come out with this really dumpy ugly. It looks like a gumball. I mean it's so totally non Ferrari. And they want $650,000 from this electric car. It's, it's just insane. But the reason is that the European Union has mandated. At one point they were mandating that every car has to be electric by 2035. And then they determined that's just too crazy even for us. But now I think the rule is that every manufacturer at least 10% of their products have to be electric or some kind of ridiculous.

[A]

Not 10% of what they sell, but 10% of what they have available because they aren't going to sell those things.

[B]

No, of course. And it's crazy. So so Ferrari, which is a very successful company at this point, had to spend, they say, billions putting together this crappy car, which I, I mean, if I was given one, sure, I'd take it. Why not? But who's gonna buy one? Certainly not the kind of person that buys Ferraris.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I would take it if it's given to me, but it's, it's kind of an. It's kind of an embarrassment to the brand. You know, it's kind of. I mean, it was like a former chairman said.

[B]

Yeah. And it's a further sign. Oh, yeah. And an ex chairman. You're right. You're about to say they should take

[A]

the badge off of it. It was just such a shame. It was so embarrassing to the brand. Right?

[B]

Yeah. An ex chairman says, I. I wouldn't buy this car. It's. It's an embarrassment. So that. It's a further sign of the fact we live in a, in Mussolini's ideal fascist world. As I've said before, fascist is a word that Mussolini coined to describe the melding of the state and corporations. And here we have the state telling Ferrari what it has to. Of all companies. I mean, it's not a car that the common man owns, frankly, or can even buy. If you walk into a Ferrari, you

[A]

can't even buy one. You have to be like a legacy buyer. Right. To even get access to them, you

[B]

have to be a legacy buyer that has come up their value chain buying some kind of used car. Yeah. They won't sell you a Ferrari. It doesn't matter how much money you have unless you can show that you're not going to buy it and flip it or. I mean, it's, it's crazy. Further sign that we're at the top of the bubble, frankly.

[A]

Yeah, it's terrible. It's an embarrassment. I'm.

[B]

I'm glad I owned a Ferrari way back when, when they were just fun used cars. Which.

[A]

Which one did you have?

[B]

I had a 250 GTE, which is the model.

[A]

What year was that?

[B]

I believe that. That. That Ford basically stole the design for their original Mustang fastback in 1965. It was really a 250 GTA just made into a Mustang, but it had a V12 engine and, you know, and it was, it was an excellent car. And I bought that car in Milano, Italy, in 1967 for. I remember I bought it for $3,050 back then. No, I wish it was one of those.

[A]

Oh, I said gt. Oh, not gt.

[B]

Yeah, that's a gtb. And those cars are. Oh, you can't touch one for less than probably $5 million now.

[A]

Oh, let me check mine, right?

[B]

GTE, which is a two plus two touring model, but even though it was a touring model back in those days, I guess you can still do it. I took it to both the autodrome of Paris Molleri and Monza in Italy for a couple of driving schools in each place run by the Swiss Auto Club. And that was a lot of fun. Nothing like. Nothing like being a rich young guy driving around Europe in your Ferrari going.

[A]

Until you get into a car accident in it.

[B]

Until I got into a car accident, which kind of changed my life. So anyway, God punishes me, I'm sure.

[A]

Yeah, it's getting too good for you, Doug. Love you down.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. Yahweh. Figured I better tighten it up a little bit for this guy.

[A]

All right, well, anything else you want to talk about today, Doug?

[B]

No. Wrap it up. No, all's well. It's a beautiful sunny day here in. In Virginia, and it's getting cool down in Uruguay.

[A]

It is. Started off sunny, now it's gloomy here, you know, going into winter.

[B]

That's the way it is. Listen, there's something to be said for following the summer, frankly.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just not as the idea of my going back to the States for the summer would be, you know, planning a trip in my rv, because I don't have a. I don't have a house on the water like you. So I just, like, I have to think logistically how you do that with the dogs and kids and how you make it work.

[B]

No, that's. That's right. You got dogs and kids. I still got dogs, but I got people in Uruguay that stay there and take. But, you know, you can do, like, with your RV, you and Jan can do like a Route 66 across the US where you, you know, go through the highways and byways and sample the collapse as the culture is collapsing around you. Interesting to observe.

[A]

Yeah, I don't think Route 66 is. It would be pretty interesting to drive it these days. So that's really collapsed from its peak.

[B]

It'll be more like a dystopian Cormac McCarthy.

[A]

Exactly. Yeah. Usually we just spend it in national parks and forests, but when we would go back.

[B]

There's too many people in. In these places.

[A]

There is now. There really are now. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, you know, with the economy going down, I like, from what I hear, some of these RV parks are a lot less full than they used to be. So I don't know, maybe it'd be better.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, God, I can't wait to see how this all pans out. I mean, it's just a slow moving Soul Bopper, so.

[A]

And it is very. Been very slow moving lately. And I think it's been, you know, especially with the markets, it's like in this like limbo land. Even though the market's hitting all time highs, you know, it's really just a few stocks that are driving that. So it's kind of like most things are just kind of like you said, with like the commodities hitting a new equilibrium.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So they're just where they are and they're not moving much. And that's, I'd say it's the same of the gold stocks.

[B]

Well, that's right. And I, I kind of think that these three gigantic stocks, OpenAI and Anthropic and SpaceX, are. I kind of think that their bell's ringing at the ultimate top of the market, but who knows?

[A]

It'd be a good sign. All right, Doug, we'll leave it there for now. And we'll be back Friday with questions from subscribers to Crisis Investing.

[B]

Super. Thanks, Matt.

[A]

All right, see you then. Bye.