A (17:01)
Have no idea what's happening in reality. Well, we got a glimpse of that, we got a reality check earlier today and again, very little discussion. Because they're talking about the war, right? This is, you know, Trump doesn't want anyone talking about the economy now cuz it's that lousy. And as the economy gets worse, they'll blame it on the war, right? That's, that's the beauty, right? You have a scapegoat. But so Q4 GDP rose 0.7% annualized. Annualized, right. It's not 0.7% on the quarter. That's four times the quarter. Right. We always annualize it. So we barely grew. Now we've got all of the numbers for 2025, Donald Trump's first year as president, when he pulled off this miraculous turnaround, when we went from the worst economy in American history to the greatest economy, GDP was up 2.1%. That's it, 2.1. How is that an economic boom? By what measure are you bragging about 2.1? Especially since 2.1 is lower than any year that Biden was president. The low water mark for Biden for a year of GDP growth was 2.5. That was the worst we got under Biden and Trump is 2.1. So we're worst. We've done worse. Trump did worse in his first year than Biden did in any of his four years. So I mean, riddle me this Batman. If we had the worst economy in history under Biden and the economy now is worse than it was under Biden, well then what does that mean about the Trump economy? Obviously it's the worst economy in history now it's not the worst economy in history, even though it's worse than Biden's economy. Because we didn't have the worst economy in history under Biden, we had a bad economy. We just have an even worse economy now under Trump. In fact, if you look at GDP growth in 2024, that was Biden's last year it was 2.8. So Trump was handed an economy that grew at 2.8 and under his watch it grew at 2.1. That is a huge decline. On what basis did he orchestrate a massive turnaround and a historic boom? Obviously it only exists in his mind now. I don't really put much stock in any of these numbers. I thought the economy was weak under Biden. I didn't really put any stock in the GDP numbers cuz I thought they were inflated by a too low deflator and the same thing under Trump. But this is really all you got. This is the scorecard. Cuz if Trump wasn't talking about gdp, what the hell is he talking about? Based on what measure is he claiming that we have a booming economy? There's nothing, there is no evidence of this economic boom. I went over my last podcast, how few jobs. We created like 150,000 jobs during Trump's first year as president. In contrast, during Biden's last year we created like 2.2 million. So we don't have a boom in the jock market, we don't have a boom in the GDP growth. Where's the boom? The trade deficit didn't improve, right? It's just as bad as it was and the budget deficits are bigger. They're bigger now. The budget deficit in 2025 and now 2026 are going to be bigger than the budget deficits that Trump inherited from Biden. So he's a bigger spender, a bigger deficit spender. We have a weak economy, we have rising inflation. All of this is going to undermine the dollar and it's going to lead to higher gold prices. It's just that investors have to start looking beyond the immediate effects. Oh, you know, rates are going to go up, inflation is going to be higher. So maybe we won't get the rate cut as soon as we think. Right. The Fed meets next week and they're obviously not going to be cutting rates next week, but we're, we're going to end up getting all the rate cuts and then some because the economy is going to be weak for two reasons. The war is going to weaken it, and it was already weakening anyway, despite the war. So rising deficits, rising energy prices, and falling housing prices. Despite the fact that, you know, Congress just passed some housing affordability bill, the Senate passed this bill, which of course, whenever Congress passes a bill, if you want to know what the effect of the bill is going to be, just look at the title. And it's the opposite. So if the bill is designed to make houses more affordable, if it's the housing affordability bill, then you know that the consequence of the bill is to make housing less affordable, to make it more expensive. And that's probably what's going to happen because that's pretty much how Congress works. In fact, one of the things that they do in the bill is they limit the ability of larger companies to buy single family homes. Most likely that's going to result in fewer homes being constructed because these bigger companies were about the only ones that could afford to buy them. So you'll have less construction and you'll have fewer rental homes on the market because, you know, these corporations are buying the houses and they're renting them. And there are a lot of people who want to rent a house because they can't afford to buy a house. So renting is a better alternative. And for a lot of people, it's not even about the money. It's about the convenience where if you rent a house, you know, you can leave if circumstances change. If you gotta move, you don't have to worry about selling your house. You just, you know, tell your landlord you're leaving. Right. Maybe you might have a penalty to break the lease early, or maybe you could wait it out. But usually the longest your lease is gonna be is a year, but it could take a lot longer than that to sell a house. So there's a lot of reasons that people like to rent, but this is going to cut down on rents. But of course, if the government really wanted to make housing more affordable, they would stop subsidizing Americans for buying it. That's part of the problem. The government artificially stimulates home demand. How do they do that? By guaranteeing mortgages, by providing down payment assistance, by providing generous tax deductions for mortgage interest, the government is fueling demand for homes. That's helping to push the price up. But they're also leaning on supply with regulations, tariffs and other things that are causing homes to be more expensive to build. And again, everybody is excited that were getting rid of all the illegals. And there's some pluses there, but there's also some minuses because a lot of those illegals were building homes. And if they're not here to build homes, who's gonna build them? Now you might say, well, we'll just get some Americans, okay, But they're gonna want a lot more money. That's why they're not doing those jobs now, because the illegals were doing them cheaper. So if they have to hire Americans and they gotta pay them a lot more money, well, that increases the cost of construction and that increases the price of a home. Right? So homes become more expensive. But I think we're on the verge of a big drop in housing prices. And that's also going to weigh on the economy, because if housing prices drop 20, 30% and a home is the biggest part of a lot of people's net worths, and now that evaporates. There's a big reverse wealth effect there. But also when home prices drop and you have leveraged homeowners, we already know what they do. They don't pay their mortgage. And now what does that do? That imposes losses on the banks, on Fannie and Freddie, which means on the US taxpayer. So we've got that coming. We've got a real estate bubble that is now starting to lose air. Look at the numbers. Look at the supply of homes on the market. And nobody could buy them because the prices are too high. Prices have to give, they have to come down. And in a weak economy, they will come down because people are gonna start losing their jobs. And when you lose your job, you can't make your mortgage. And rates are moving up. Mortgage rates are now backing up again, despite Fannie and Freddie buying A bunch of mortgages. And by the way, the mortgages that they just bought because Donald Trump ordered them to spend 300 billion buying mortgages, they're underwater on those mortgages now because yields have moved up. That's like a big investment in the bond market. And now bond prices are collapsing because yields are rising. But the other thing too that I think is gonna weigh on the economy is the war. Because the odds of this war going as planned. I mean, when does anything go as planned? Especially when the government does it. Like the government can't do anything. The government doesn't do a good job of delivering the mail. You think they're gonna do a good job with a quick win in a war with Iran? Not on your life. Look, I don't believe anything the government tells me about this war right now. How great it's going. Everything is perfect. I don't believe that for a second. And it's not because I just believe everything Iran says. No, I'm sure the Iranians lie too. But I know that American politicians lie. I mean, they especially lie about war. They lie to get us into war, right? Weapons of mass destruction. Oh my God, we gotta go into Iraq because they have these weapons of mass destruction, right? That was all a lie. But Trump lies about everything. I mean, how do you know when Trump is lying, right? His lips are moving. Everything he says is a lie. Now. I don't even know if he realizes it or not right now. If you say something that's not true, but you believe it's true, then maybe it's not a lie. If Trump says we got a great economy and he actually thinks it's a great economy even though it's a lousy economy, well, is he lying or is he just delusional? I mean, Donald Trump has a inflated opinion of himself. And now given the fact that he almost got killed, and he may look at himself as, I'm here by the grace of God, God has a mission for me. I'm like a prophet now. So he may have an even higher opinion of himself given the fact that, that he didn't die. He just happened to turn at the right moment and the bullet grazed his ear instead of going into his head. But so there's a lot that has been going into the President's head. So I don't know how much of it is a lie or how much of it is just complete delusion. But what bothers me is that even if Trump is delusional, how can all of his cabinet be? Cuz they're all saying the same thing. They repeat all the same talking points. They gotta know that this stuff isn't true. And what about all the pundits that I see on Fox News or whatever, the Republicans? They're all talking about this economic boom, this economic miracle. What's miraculous about 2.1% economic growth? I mean, Biden performed a bigger miracle, and every year it was president. In fact, in 2021, I think GDP was up about 6%. Now, of course, that's not Biden. That was the reopening of the economy after Covid. But forget about that. 2022, 2023, 2024. I mean, Biden had a 2.9% year in there. I think after 2021, we had 2.9, 2.5, and 2.8. And that's the worst economy ever, according to Trump. Trump comes up with a 2.1, and he's got the greatest economy ever. Says who? Says Trump. But then all of his staff echo the same thing. Well, as this war rages on and it doesn't come to a quick end, that's going to be a negative. I mean, a lot of Americans already don't support the war, but, you know, a lot of Republicans do. They give Trump the benefit of the doubt on anything. So the war is very unpopular with Democrats. It's also unpopular with independents, but Republicans still like it because, you know, they believe everything Donald Trump does. But as the war continues and gas prices continue to move up and food prices continue to move up, the war is gonna be a lot less popular. And, you know, I don't know how easy it is to win this war because if we're not gonna have ground forces, and that president is like, look, we're not gonna send our troops into Iran if all we're gonna do is drop bombs and fire missiles. Yeah, we can cause a lot of damage. We can destroy a lot of buildings. We can kill a lot of people. But I don't know if Iran's gonna surrender. And, you know, they win the war just by surviving, right? Just by standing up and like, hey, look, see, we're tough. We're still here. And I kind of think the longer they can tough it out, I think the better they look. I think they might start winning over more allies in the Gulf region as the war becomes more and more disruptive to commerce. And, you know, who knows how long they can keep the Straits of Homouth closed. But I think a lot of things are going to go wrong that the president did not anticipate because it Always does. This is why we shouldn't have started this war. There was no reason, there was no urgency. We didn't have to do it. Trump decided to do it. Now, I don't know. Did Israel twist his arm? I mean, I don't know. How could he let Israel twist his arm? You know, I mean, I thought it was the other way around, right? I mean, don't we, you know, have a bigger say, you know, in Israel, you know, than Israel telling us what to do? But whatever, we got the war. And when you're promised this quick victory and everything's gonna be great, you know, Trump doesn't understand the idea of under promising and over delivering. He over promises and then can't possibly deliver. And so this is going to weigh on the economy. So we got stagflation, right? We got recession. We could easily go into recession. If you look at Q4 of last year, this is before the war. The economy was lousy before Trump started a war. So imagine how much worse it's gonna be with the war and with the impact of. On prices that were going up anyway. Of course, yes, now Trump can blame the rising prices on the war. They would have gone up anyway. Now they're just gonna go up even more, and not just because of oil, but because of the bigger budget deficits that are gonna be won, that are gonna be run to pay for the war. And the more money the Fed is gonna print to monetize that debt. And as interest rates are rising, right, that's pushing up mortgage rates. That's making all interest costs go up, including the interest that the government has to pay on the national debt. So not only does the government have to pay more money to fight the war, it has to pay more money to finance the war. And not just the war, but to roll over all of its existing debt. We have almost 39 trillion now in the national debt. Almost 39 trillion, right. So 40 trillion. What, a couple months we'll be at 40 trillion. But we've got to constantly refinance all this debt, and all of that is getting more expensive. Meanwhile, the government has to start paying back the tariff taxes that it collected illegally. Now, you know, I guess, you know, they dodge a bullet in a way because some of the companies don't want to ask for a refund that they're legally due because they're afraid that Trump is gonna retaliate against them. That's the kind of power he has. Companies are afraid to ask for a tax refund that they are legally entitled to because they're afraid of retribution by Donald Trump. Now, do you wanna live in that kind of country where private citizens are in fear of. Of the president and what the president might do, how he might abuse his power to punish people that do things that are perfectly legal but that he doesn't like? Or maybe it's not. They're worried about being punished. They're just worrying about losing favor with Trump because they know in America today, if you wanna get something done, you gotta make a deal with the big guy, right? You gotta kick up, right? You gotta kiss ass. If you want something, you need Trump. This is like Banana Republic style, where everybody's palm's gotta get greased. So maybe these companies are worried that they don't wanna fall out of favor with Trump because they need favors from Trump. But that is not a free market economy. That is not capitalism. I don't want the government doing favors for anybody. I want the government staying out. I want the free market to work. That's why, you know, Donald Trump is not a free market guy. He is probably the furthest away from a Ronald Reagan Republican as any Republican in my lifetime. Yet the MAGA crowd thinks he's like another Ronald Reagan. They think, you know, he's the Tea Party. He's not. He is everything the Tea Party revolted against. The problem is, a lot of the Tea Party people are maga. They don't even realize because Trump's got an incredible personality and he talks a good game. He says all this stuff that he knows is gonna resonate. He's a great marketer. And he hammered in on very good points about the underlying weakness in the economy, the weakness in manufacturing, the corruption in government, all the things that I've been talking about for years. Trump set him on the campaign trail, except his policies are the opposite of what I would do. His policies don't solve the problems that he is correctly pointing out. They make them worse. That's what all the MAGA don't seem to understand. And that's what a lot of the Republicans that support Trump don't understand, that the policy doesn't match the rhetoric and he's not delivering on his promises. In fact, one of his promises was no wars. I mean, that one is pretty clear. I mean, I thought I was very disappointed in Trump's economic policy, but at least I said, okay. At least he's not starting any wars. Well, there goes that, right? He's lost that. Now we're involved in a war that we really can't afford. We have serious economic Problems that need to be addressed. The last thing we need to do is complicate that by starting a war. Now you can be optimistic that, yeah, this war is gonna be great. Yes. How many times have we heard that before and when has it been true? And I don't think Trump is gonna be the exception to the rule. He's the rule. This is. Future presidents are gonna look back and they're gonna be criticizing this war just like Trump criticized the Iraq war or the Afghanistan war or, or any of the stuff that we failed at in the past that's got nothing against our military. This is just what happens. This is just how it works. So the gold and silver traders are missing the forest for the trees. They are looking at a very short term impact on higher rates, higher inflation, leading to a tighter Fed and missing the bigger picture that a weak economy and bigger budget deficits are going to actually have an easier Fed and a weaker dollar and an environment that is extremely bullish for gold and silver. In fact, look at all the other commodities that are going up now, right? They're catching up. Look at oil, look at agriculture, and everything is finally moving. Gold was moving first. Now it's taking a break. Money is starting to move into some of these other commodities. If you recall, I was telling my audience how I was putting a lot of money into energy stocks because I had so much in gold stocks. And I got in on those before any rally because I knew it was coming. I knew this was going to be a major commodity bull market. And I knew that the laggards were going to catch up while the leaders take a breather. The leaders were the precious metals, gold and silver. They're taking a breather. And some of the other commodities are now on the move, but they're all gonna be going up in unison. And in fact, one other thing that's happened as gold has failed to rally, which has disappointed some people who own gold. Bitcoin has caught a bid. Bitcoin finally got back above 70,000. In fact, earlier today, I think it got almost to 74,000, 73,900. Couldn't hold that rally. As we're speaking, I'm speaking we're down around 7,100, but we're still, I mean, 71,000. Excuse me. So we got to 73,900 and change on the high. So we're above 71,000. Because I think some people when they sold some gold or moved out of gold, they thought, okay, maybe we'll buy bitcoin. I think the main Reason that bitcoin is not tanking is because Michael Saylor keeps buying it. Right. He's the big buyer propping up the market. But again, this is a dead cat bounce in bitcoin. I think, you know, there's a little bit of a spark in it now because, you know, gold and silver are not going up. But I think the catalyst for the next leg down in bitcoin, and it should be a big leg, will be the move up in gold and silver. And I expect that almost any day. I mean, I think you could just see gold up 2 or $300, silver up 10 bucks in one. Just. It's just going to happen. It's just going to happen. The selling is going to be exhausted and something's going to happen. There'll be some catalyst and off to the races. You know, maybe the dollar will break, maybe the bond market will break. Something is going to happen and the market's going to fly. Now, I think a lot of people think what we need is a quick resolution to the war and that that'll make gold and silver go up, and it probably will. The way the market is trading right now, if Iran just surrendered, right, and oil prices came down tomorrow, I think gold and silver prices would go up there, too. But I think that the war dragging on is even more bullish for gold and silver. Not that I'm rooting for the war to drag on. I'd like it to be over. I don't want more people to die. I'd rather have the war come to an end, But I think that that's probably not gonna happen. But I also think that while the war ending right now would be bullish for gold and silver, it continuing to rage on or wage on indefinitely is even more bullish. Trump keeps saying, oh, this is not a forever war. Well, we'll see, we'll see. And of course, nothing lasts forever, but they last for a lot longer. And if we end up having troops on the ground, which I think is the only way we could win. Right. If Trump holds onto the idea that it's regime change and we're getting rid of the current regime and we're replacing it with somebody else, I don't see how we're gonna succeed in doing that with missiles and bombs. And by the way, what happens when we run out? Yeah, I know we can order more and the companies can build more, but how long does that. I don't know. How many of these bombs we got, how many of these missiles we got? Right. Because we're Obviously shooting a lot of them right now. And as Trump said pretty soon there's not much left to destroy. Once we get all their real buildings, I don't know, they're hiding underground. I don't know what the deal is but how long are we gonna keep on bombing? But this thing can go on and the markets are going to figure this out. So right now you've got the head fake, you've got traders that don't understand. We did have a big rally in gold and silver so there was some profit taking. Gold and silver mining stocks were way up on the year and so they were ripe for a pullback and the war provided that catalyst. But it's a shakeout. The week longs are being shaken out. It's just an opportunity as far as I'm concerned. I haven't sold any of my, my mining stocks. I haven't bought more yet personally cause I have so much. But you know, if they fall, if we get a bigger decline I'll have to do it, you know, even though I'm so loaded up I'll buy more. I mean if the market's gonna give me that kind of a gift, you know, who am I to turn it down? But right now you know, prices are still up, you know, on the year. And while I think they're cheap, right for me they're not cheap enough to buy more given that I'm overwhelming a gold and silver. But if I was underweight gold and silver mining stocks I would be adding to my position right here. And if I didn't have any, oh I would be a big buyer, right. If I was just on the sidelines and I wasn't in the market I'd be like oh this is my chance, I'm buying this dip. And don't worry if the dip doesn't it gets bigger, who cares right? You've got a great opportunity to establish a position. If you've been sitting on the sidelines and missing this whole rally, what are you waiting for here? You got another opportunity. Yes. It's not as good as that you bought a year ago or two years ago but it's better than someone who bought a month ago or two months ago. And if you wait a couple more months, who knows how much higher prices could go. So again I like my gold fund, the Euro Pacific gold fund, Epgix, you can buy that no load at any discount broker. Go to my website@europact.com e u r o p a c.com to get the information on my gold fund in fact, you can get information, prospectuses on all five of my funds. They're all going down right now. Stocks are going down, the dollar's going up, emerging markets are going down. I think there's lots of opportunities because the positive momentum is gonna continue despite being disrupted by this war. And to me, this is a negative for the dollar, it's a negative for the us It's a negative for dollar hegemony, it's a negative for our position around the world. And even though the dollar has rallied, this is not a huge rally. This is not the type of rally that we would have had in 1990s, 2000s when we're going in into wars. This is a very muted rally in the dollar. And it had already been falling, so just there was some short covering there. So it's not an impressive rally. I think the dollar's reign as the primary reserve currency, as the safe haven is over. I think the crown has been passed to gold. And I think you're gonna see that continuing in this year as we get deeper into this war and as the traders start to react to the bigger picture rather than what's happening right in front. And in the meantime, again, we got another weekend. I still think that you wanna be long gold going into Sunday regardless. Even if oil goes way up, there could be this big move. And the big move is more likely to start in Asia, I think, than it is in the US and why not on a Sunday when Americans are still enjoying the weekend and not paying attention, while it's Monday in Asia and they could be buying. So don't wait for Monday. Go to the Shift Gold website and fill up your cart with gold and silver. You know, the phones have, you know, calmed down so you can talk to a representative now. A lot more, you know, a lot easier than a few weeks ago when things were kind of hectic. But that kind of tells you it's a better opportunity now that it's not as frantic. People were rushing to get in and now we've had a pullback. But the fundamentals, given the fact that we're now at war, are even better for gold and silver than when we were at peace. So you got better fundamentals and lower prices. So what are you waiting for? Buy your gold and silver this weekend. Anyway, I will be back next Friday for another Shift Gold market wrap. In the meantime, if you're not currently a subscriber to this YouTube channel, hit that subscribe button. Now we're almost at 50,000. I gotta get to 50,000. So then I can try to get to 100,000, which is still a fraction of the 620,000 we have on the main YouTube channel. And when you go there to watch my last podcast, if you're not a subscriber there, make sure and hit the subscribe button there as well. Bye for now and enjoy your weekend.
