By Doug Casey
July 14, 2025
Matt Smith: All right. Good morning, Doug. Lots happening these days. I'd love to get your take on-I think starting with the Epstein case. Case closed, apparently. What do you think? What's going on?
Doug Casey: Well, where to start on this thing? It's so ultra disappointing, so embarrassing, and so serious that it's hard to figure out where to begin. But it's been obvious to me, from watching these things, that this could only end very, very badly. And it's shameful the way Bongino and Patel-who made a point of saying how honest they were and how they were going to reform things-have just backed off and said there's nothing there.
And then this woman-Bondi. That was equally inexplicable. She says she's got all this stuff on her desk, ready to go, and it turns out she doesn't have it after all. There's clearly corruption here. It's very bad.
And it occurred to me how similar this might be to the famous Dreyfus case in France, around the turn of the 20th century. I became, to use a French phrase, a cause célèbre, and overturned the government. This has got the potential to do the same thing.
Matt Smith: One of the things I was thinking about with the whole thing is: what does it take to make these people, who have impeached themselves publicly recently by making claims about evidence that existed-and who have been champions for this cause, for transparency around this for so long-but again, some of these people have now publicly impeached themselves, like Pam Bondi and others, to make this kind of U-turn?
It is such a drastic U-turn, it implies something really scary to me. Because I don't think you do this for self-gain. I don't think you can be bribed into destroying yourself like this. I think fear is the only thing that could possibly motivate someone to do this.
So there is something they've been exposed to that is so scary to them that they are willing to destroy their whole sense of identity-their reputation-over it. Fear is the only thing I can even imagine that would do it. And it's got to be fear that probably most of us have never experienced.
I try to put myself in that role, and I think maybe the fear of watching my children be brutalized in front of me might make me do this. But other than that, I just can't imagine it. I really can't imagine. So I think the implications are actually pretty frightening.
Doug Casey: Yeah. I don't see how Bongino in particular can live with himself. It's like overturning his whole persona. Everybody knows these people are lying. The question is: why are they lying?
Fear, of course-I think you're right. Because no amount of money would do it. These guys have plenty of money. Bongino and Patel can't be doing it to maintain their crappy government jobs. They don't need that. They don't need money.
By doing this and discrediting themselves, Patel and Bongino are going to be marked men for the rest of their lives. Public frauds.
What's going on? What are the secrets that somebody is trying to hide? Could it be that Trump himself is implicated with what Epstein was doing? Or are there so many high government officials and billionaires that are so heavily involved in really disgusting things that it would overturn all credibility in the US government and the US power structure?
This is a big deal.
Matt Smith: Yeah, I think it's a really big deal. And I think it shows what we're really dealing with here. Because I don't know what exactly would be revealed by revealing all the Epstein stuff, but the motivation of the people who are willing to destroy themselves in order to cover it up implies something insidious, something dangerous, something scary-probably something beyond our comprehension.
Doug Casey: It must be that. And haven't these people thought this out a little bit? It's really simple. Patel and Bongino-I don't know anything about Bondi-but if you double back like this, it's obvious that you're being intimidated or lying. What did they think was going to happen?
So it must be that they're being threatened on a really serious level. That's the only thing I can figure.
Matt Smith: That's the only thing I can figure too.
So, the other thing-I have basically just a whole list of random news items. I think maybe they're connected, maybe they're not connected, but I think they're interesting. I want you to comment on them.
The second one is that the US Army Corps of Engineers is active today in essentially rebuilding a whole bunch of Israeli defense structures.
You know, it's not just that we're sending weapons. It's that that we're actively involved. The US Army Corps of Engineers is actually rebuilding infrastructure to accommodate the Israeli Air Force's new refueling aircraft and helicopters, as well as constructing new headquarters for their 13th Naval Commando Unit, and numerous other projects. This is costing billions of shekels, and it's all according to official documents from the US Army Corps of Engineers published online.
Doug Casey: Well, perhaps this relates in some way to the Epstein scandal. Why is Israel, in effect, being turned into the 51st state-and treated even better than a state? The money that's being directed there-couldn't the Army Corps of Engineers be helpful to the Carolinas or Texas instead?
Israel is getting a lot more attention than actual states in the US. This is frankly criminal. Look, I've never been anti-Israel per se. It's just another nation-state. I understand why the Jews started it, and all that. I get it, and I've always been sympathetic, especially since I'm not sympathetic to the Muslim world. But this? What's the matter with Trump? He looks like he's under Netanyahu's thumb.
Maybe it ties into the whole Epstein thing. Because apologists for Israel-like Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro-are rabid. They're frothing and drooling at the mouth when anything is said that might possibly be counter to Israel's interests. Wait a minute-who are they working for? What's going on here?
Matt Smith: And in addition to that, we have Trump's announcement that we'll be sending more weapons to Ukraine.
Doug Casey: Yeah. Got to continue the war. A pointless war. It should be completely obvious to everybody that Russia is going to win.
Instead of ending the war Trump is making it much worse. Everyone has forgotten the reason they invaded is because they were provoked.
Trump is continuing the war at great expense. Young men are getting killed and maimed pointlessly. It's crazy. You can't justify it. You can't rationalize it. Just like you can't rationalize attacking Iran-a country on the other side of the world that's never done anything to the US-just because it helps the Israelis. This isn't our problem, but we've made it a much bigger one by getting involved.
There are lots of other problems in Trump world. Like the fact that there have been no indictments handed down, and there should have been by now. There have apparently been no investigations on anything, although I've heard they're supposed to be starting something on Comey.
It looks like DOGE is dead or dying. Musk has quit in disgust. That was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Trump regime.
Matt Smith: Well, maybe it goes back to our first point: that there's something out there scaring the hell out of enough people that they're willing to do things that shock us all, perhaps.
And incidentally, my friend from Ukraine-she lives in Kyiv-told me that a lot of the recent Russian attacks there have targeted recruitment centers. These are the conscription centers, and apparently, there was a lot of praise among some people in Kyiv over that. But some officials came out and denounced it as treasonous to be happy about the destruction of those recruitment facilities.
Just a side note, but it shows what happens to a country in a state of war. It becomes a very dangerous place to live.
Doug Casey: Yes. The rumors have been floating around for some time that it's not just recruitment-they're actually sending out press gangs to round up anyone who looks like good cannon fodder on the front lines.
And with the nature of warfare now, "cannon fodder" is the right term. With drones advancing in technology almost weekly, if you're a soldier on the front lines you're dead meat.
Matt Smith: Yeah, it's awful.
The next thing that stood out to me-among everything else that's happening-was this big press announcement today by the former governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem. And this is great news: apparently now, in TSA it's no longer necessary to take off your shoes.
Doug Casey: That's good. It means flying won't be quite as degrading. But I suppose you're still going to have to take off your belt and everything else.
Matt Smith: Yeah, and still go through screening. And if some alarm goes off, or you're randomly selected, you still get the pat-down by some agent of the state. So yeah-it's still not good. But this is what's being trumpeted as progress, I guess, for the American people.
The other thing that seems totally unrelated-but I think it's noteworthy-is that over the weekend, there was this incredible anti-gringo sentiment. Really, riots or protests in Mexico City. And I don't know if these things are organized-it seems like most of these big groups are organized by someone, you know, Soros types to sow discontent-but it just shows that the world is becoming a lot less friendly and a lot more risky across the board.
And I don't know if you saw any of those signs, but they were saying things like "Kill a gringo," "Gringo go home," all that kind of stuff. Pretty nasty environment.
Doug Casey: Apparently this was all in Mexico City. I've been to Mexico City a couple of times in recent years, and it never struck me that there were a lot of gringos there. If you want to find gringos in Mexico, you go to San Miguel de Allende-full of gringos-or better yet, down to Cabo, which is absolutely full of them. No protests there. Why in Mexico City, of all places? Who could care enough about a few gringos running around in a city of 15 million? It doesn't make any sense.
Matt Smith: Yeah, it doesn't. But I think it's just another sign-like, I don't think these big movements are organic. Just like BLM wasn't organic. Just like Antifa seems inorganic. It seems to me there's another effort to divide people, to create conflict.
And this is one that-at least for Americans living abroad-you have to be aware of. You have to be aware of it. You'd think, of all people, Mexicans could see the comedic irony in "Gringos go home" when the US is full of tens of millions of Mexicans.
Doug Casey: I know. Don't these people have any self-awareness at all? Which, of course, leads me to believe that there's some group that's trying to create chaos. And I think you were getting into this. The fact that foreigners, Canadians and certainly Europeans, really don't want to come to the US anymore.
It feels like an unfriendly place. Your electronic devices might be searched, you could be forced to unlock them and show what's there. And if they don't like it, maybe they'll do something to you. Maybe they'll throw you in a prison for a few days while they sort your papers out.
This has happened to several Canadians already, which seems really out of line. Everything considered, if I were a foreigner, I wouldn't want to come back to the US.
In fact, as an American, I'm not sure I want to go back to the US. The summer's still young, and things could still get wild and woolly.
Matt Smith: Yeah, I'm not going. And with the new requirement-if you're applying for a particular type of visa, I think it's just a visitor or educational visa-you now have to unlock all your social media accounts.
And in the statement, as I understand it, it didn't just say list all your social media accounts-it said unlock them. Which makes me think that Palantir is already hard at work and has probably identified you and all your accounts, and they just want to make sure it's all visible. And if you don't fully disclose, they can drop you into a Kafka-esque nightmare, where they accuse you of not disclosing everything, and now you're really in trouble.
And there's this other thing going on-this hasn't gotten national news, and I don't know why, because it's a huge deal-there are coordinated attacks on ICE agents by armed, masked, body-armored, well-armed, apparently leftist groups that are unhappy with the deportation agenda.
You can just see this escalating in wild ways as it continues. And the budget for ICE grew 800% in the "Big Beautiful Bill." It's now something like nearly $75 billion-up from around $8 billion.
Doug Casey: That's a gigantic increase in budget. And even that is dwarfed by the $200 billion increase in the military budget. Further proof that the "Big Beautiful Bill" is just a tax-and-spend bill. That's really what it is-and it's not in any way improving the freedoms of the average American.
I wonder if Michael Yon could be right when he says that many thousands of the illegal migrants are actually surreptitious military agents who can be activated at the right time. It'd be shocking to imagine there wouldn't be some of them in there. If you run an intel agency somewhere and you see an opportunity-"Hey, now's our chance to slip some in"-you'd almost be abdicating your duty not to do it.
Matt Smith: If, for instance, I were running a foreign intel agency and I wanted to create chaos in the US, I might tell some of my guys already here to track down ICE agents-not hard to find-and assassinate them. At that point, the US government would have to strike back. And since they don't know who did it for sure, it becomes a dragnet and a lockdown for everyone. That's a good way to do it.
Doug Casey: Yes, agreed.
Matt Smith: Another thing, for years there've been these citizenship-by-investment programs. And I think you were really the instigator of a lot of that thinking. These programs let you essentially buy a passport as a backup option.
But now they're under a lot of scrutiny. These passports are potentially losing their ability to travel visa-free to the EU and the US. They're considering proposals like mandatory 30-day residency requirements and other changes to try to assuage the concerns of larger state blocs.
I think these programs are dead. I don't think they'll work anymore-if they ever really did. They just won't work now.
Doug Casey: Yeah. I think the idea of, in effect, renting a citizenship so you can travel-is flawed. Every passport says right on it that it's the property of the issuing government. It's not actually yours. It can be taken away at any time.
These rental-country options were okay when there were only a few and it wasn't a big deal. But now it is a big deal. There are a lot of them out there. And you've got to admit, many of these microstates, like all those tiny Caribbean countries... why are they recognized as real governments? Like, come on. They have the same votes in the UN General Assembly as the US or China or the EU? And I speak as someone who doesn't believe in nation states.
Not that the UN serves any useful purpose. In fact, it's a negative influence and should have been disbanded years ago-just like NATO.
Travel documents that you buy issued by these countries-they're going away. I still think everyone ought to have a second or third passport or citizenship, but getting one from these little Caribbean microstates? That's on its way out. You're probably just wasting your money.
Matt Smith: Maybe with a country like Turkey, where they still have a program-it's more expensive, but at least it's a bigger state with some real heft. They can't be bullied around the way a place like St. Kitts can.
Doug Casey: That's right. Turkey is a real country. You're right-they can't be pushed around.
Matt Smith: So maybe that's still a valid option. But if nothing else, getting a legitimate residency outside your home country-I think the imperative is growing. And if you don't have one, I'd do some work to get it. Some of them are easy to get. Mexico, for example.
Although, I'm personally a little concerned about the spreading anti-gringo sentiment there.
Doug Casey: The US government is a problem everywhere.
I noticed you're not at your usual station for our calls. So-where are you today?
Matt Smith: I'm in Brazil today. I'm in São Paulo. Just wanted a little warmer weather, a bigger city environment, better shopping. I can get my full blood panel done here-which I like to do regularly for preventative health-for about $150. It costs me over $2,000 to do the same thing in the US. And it's easier to do here than in Uruguay.
It's cheap, too-very affordable for that kind of stuff. And the cuisine in Brazil is different from the Spanish-speaking countries, which is a nice change as well. We had Peruvian last night and Thai for lunch yesterday. I mean, I love Uruguay-it has many redeeming qualities. A broad palate is not one of them. You know, they like certain things, and you don't get much that survives beyond that very well. So that's also kind of a-well, it's a good opportunity. Not that it matters that much, but it's nice to have when you can get it.
The other thing-this relates to the economy. I listened to you talk on another podcast about the economy and the state of things, and what could happen from here. One thing of note-it's not hugely substantial-but the M2 money supply, which just means the money supply continues to be printed, although there are lots of ways to measure the money supply.
And, you know, these are US numbers, and you can't trust any government numbers. But officially, the money supply continues to grow-19 months in a row now-still expanding. That means there's still inflation. According to the official numbers, it's expanding at 4.5% year-over-year, which isn't terrible, but still, we grew the money supply by 30% during COVID. So yes, this is better-but I think it's a sign that inflation is the only way they think they're getting out of this game, economically.
One of the things they asked you was: Is there any way out? Is there any way out of the economic troubles the US faces? And I'd just like to ask you the same question.
Doug Casey: Well, if I were the president of the US-in other words, if I were Trump-what would I do to stop the country's decline?
It would take radical action to reduce the size of the government. Trump is not doing that. The action he should take would be devastating to large parts of the economy-the parasitic parts.
Is it possible to pay off the national debt without destroying the value of the currency? Yes, but I think they want to pay it off with pocket change by making the dollar worthless. I think that would be the worst alternative. But it's the one we're following.
Matt Smith: Yeah. That seems to be the path.
Doug Casey: Listen, I've said in the past that I'd consider something as radical as defaulting on the national debt. And people say, "Well, how can you do that? The banks would fail. Insurance companies own a lot of bonds. It would be a daisy chain of problems. People couldn't get their money out of the banks because the banks wouldn't be there," and so on.
Well, I suppose. But I always like to look at the bright side, as you know. And the bright side is, if you defaulted on the national debt your children and grandchildren can avoid becoming indentured servants to pay it off.
Default on the national debt-and yes, I know it sounds outrageous, ridiculous, un-American, all those things-is going to happen one way or the other. But if you defaulted on it, all the real wealth in the world would still exist. The factories, the farms, the businesses, the technologies-they're not going to vanish just because the creditors are stiffed. Governments do it all the time because they're essentially criminal enterprises. And it would punish the cronies who've been enabling the State, with its wars and gifts to the political class.
The currency at that point would shift to a commodity like gold, maybe supplemented by Bitcoin. All the real wealth would still be there. It would be a boon for the average guy..
Matt Smith: It would mostly punish-well, isn't most of the debt now not even owned by foreigners? Maybe it's 50/50? About half foreign-owned, half American entities-banks, insurance companies, pension funds?
Doug Casey: I think the breakdown is overwhelmingly domestic, not foreign.
The people who own US government debt have, in effect, been financing the terrible things the US government has been doing. They're codependent with it.
One of the reasons to default on the debt: it would punish the groups that have enabled all the terrible things the US government has done. So yeah, we'd be freeing up the next generations. We'd be punishing the people who have been financing the US government.
It would also enable taxes to be radically decreased, because at the same time you'd have to abolish lots of government agencies.
As outrageous as it sounds, if you defaulted on the debt honestly- insofar as any default can be "honest"-as opposed to gradually and dishonestly through currency debasement, it's the better option. I once had a collection of worthless currencies and defaulted government bonds. They make interesting decorations.
So that's my solution. But this is all just academic speculation. They're not going to default on it overtly.
Matt Smith: Yeah, I think the argument against defaulting honestly is that it would really hurt a lot of Americans too-pension funds, retirement accounts, insurance companies, and so on.
And so the argument for doing it dishonestly is that you avoid the pain for people here and now-by putting the burden on future generations.
But that's a lie, because the truth is the standard of living has been destroyed in America. The middle class is shrinking dramatically. People are suffering. And the amount of inflation they need at this stage is way higher than this four and a half percent.
And we're going to get much higher inflation than this in order to get out of it. I mean, my best guess is you'd have to devalue the dollar-effectively, compared to something like gold-by about 90% from here, just to have any chance of inflating your way out.
And in that case, everyone in the here and now gets destroyed anyway-including the retirees, the people with pensions, insurance companies, and everything else. Isn't that true?
Doug Casey: Yes, it is. But worse things have happened.
Look at what happened to Germany during World War 2. Look at what happened to Japan during World War 2. Their real wealth was actually destroyed-obliterated and burned down. That wouldn't be the case in the US.
It's hard to do this gradually, on a gradient. This is a mistake I think Milei has made in Argentina. He should have defaulted on the Argentine national debt, because it's not nearly as central to the standard of living of the average Argentine as the US national debt is to Americans and the world at large.
He should have done that. He didn't. Now he's stuck with an albatross around his neck. But I don't want to nitpick with Milei, because he's made tremendous improvements. Still, that would have been my suggestion.
Is there any way out of this thing gradually? Well, I guess it's possible-but you'd have to radically cut back US government spending and abolish a lot of agencies. That would allow you to cut taxes, which would generate more money to pay off the debt. But like I said, I'm against paying off that debt at this point.
Matt Smith: And you'd have to radically increase the growth rate of the US, too, at the same time.
Doug Casey: Right. Well, you would-by getting rid of regulations and by eliminating the debt service. Of course, the economy would grow and expand.
But at this point, it's funny-foreigners are still investing in the US, as risky as it is. That's because it's the best place they can think of. Other places have even more problems than the US. Europe, for example, is a genuinely sinking ship. I still think the European Union is going to break up-catastrophically.
I wouldn't put a nickel into Europe right now as a long-term investment.
Matt Smith: I can't recall the exact statistics, but there's some measure of the amount of assets owned by foreigners in the US, and that number has been going down substantially over the last few months. They've been pulling capital out of the US-maybe out of concerns about what Trump might do, or other things.
So they are finding other places to put it. Maybe it's in gold. Maybe it's in their local markets. I don't know.
I mean, European stocks have gone up recently. So it seems like that shift is happening. The US is no longer the go-to destination for travel, for investing your money. Those things are degrading over time, aren't they?
Doug Casey: Yes. And it's no longer the beacon of freedom that it once was. People are very suspicious of it now. Foreign governments and institutions don't want to hold the hot potato of US government debt denominated in dollars.
On top of that, citizens don't want to keep their capital in their own countries either, where they're subject to the depredations of their governments.
So, if you're a productive person or a productive company-where do you go in the world?
I think the options are becoming more and more limited.
Matt Smith: Yeah. I don't know where they're putting that capital, but the foreign outflows are definitely happening.
We've been putting it in gold. And gold, as we speak, is around $3,350 per ounce-very close to its all-time high. But as you've pointed out, if the dollar were to be redeemable at a fixed rate with gold, it would need to be priced at $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, even $50,000 an ounce.
Who knows what the number is?
Doug Casey: Wouldn't you say that in order for us to inflate our way out of the debt, whether or not we eventually fix the dollar to gold, we'll end up in the same place?
Matt Smith: Exactly. If we were to inflate our way out of the debt, that would necessarily mean gold would have to rise compared to the dollar-to that kind of level.
Doug Casey: I think so.
Even though gold is reasonably priced right now relative to everything else-you're right. The one thing I think is certain is that the average guy-the people in the lower classes, the middle class, even part of the upper middle class-they're the ones who are going to be hurt.
It's not the guys really at the top who are going to get hurt. They have the political connections. They get the money first. They're wired in. They're going to do fine. As the dollar is inflated out of existence, it's going to hurt the average American. There's no way around it.
Which is why default would be better. It would cause real losses. It would cause some bank failures, and who knows what the knock-on effects would be-but the piper must be paid at some point.
Matt Smith: And another bright side of defaulting on the debt is that people would say, "God, I've got to cut back on living on credit. I've got to cut back on consumption. I've got to start producing things and building assets." That's what causes a boom-when people say, "Enough of this lying around. I've got to start doing something."
Doug Casey: I'm all for that. But it's unlikely to happen that way, because of the way the government is going-but that's what should happen. It would be better after, admittedly, a period of chaos. The markets have to be cleansed of ingrained distortions.
Matt Smith: What do you think of Trump's tariff ideas? He said something yesterday about putting a huge tariff on copper. Did you hear that?
Doug Casey: Yes, and copper went up about 10% or 15% overnight. I haven't checked the copper stocks I own to see if they've responded yet. The problem is that Trump is acting like a schizophrenic. He's completely unpredictable. Many of the things he does are just totally irrational-almost psychotic.
It makes it impossible for businessmen to plan. He can change things overnight-this or that-and your whole plan goes out the window.
Matt Smith: Yeah, it's impossible. The guy's turning into a disaster, I'm afraid. It's not just that he's an egomaniac. It's not just that he can never admit he made a mistake. He's turning into a megalomaniac.
Doug Casey: I'm a bit afraid of the guy-and I say that as someone who was glad he won instead of Kamala.
Matt Smith: Yeah. My gladness in that regard is definitely fading, because now we're looking at what Trump did versus our fears of what Kamala might have done. She's inept-maybe she wouldn't have done much at all. I don't know.
Still, if I voted-which I don't-I probably still would have voted for Trump. But at this point, we're comparing fears of Kamala with the actual realities of what Trump is doing, and it's not great.
He talks about wanting to bring back manufacturing to the US, especially under this BBB bill-not "Build Back Better" but "Big Beautiful Bill." They're both triple-Bs, ironically.
Doug Casey: Funny coincidence.
Matt Smith: Yeah. The bill is mostly focused on military-related things. But it becomes impossible to plan any kind of new manufacturing when the price of copper might go up 500%. How does that work?
You can't rebuild America if you can't even build a cost structure to plan around.
Doug Casey: Of course, Trump would say, "Well, we can mine copper in the US."
Yes, we can-if we can find a big enough copper deposit, then raise billions to develop it, and understand that it'll take 10 years before cash flow starts-if it ever starts.
Matt Smith: Well, I heard our buddy Frank Giustra is looking for great projects in the US to help support this. Frank is smart, and it's good that he's focused on it.
But even then, it takes a long time to turn anything around.
Doug Casey: Exactly. And who wants to make a multi-billion dollar investment when chaos could overturn everything tomorrow morning?
One of the key components to real progress is the rule of law-stability. Without stability, you can't plan or build anything meaningful.
Matt Smith: Yeah, I agree entirely.
It's a wild time. And when you look at all these seemingly unrelated factors together-what's your overall impression?
Doug Casey: We're in for tough times. I really think so.
I still believe there's a possibility of a genuine civil war in the US-not like the "unpleasantness" from 1861 to 1865. It's not going to look like that. It's going to be more like an informal guerrilla war.
Matt Smith: And we might be seeing early signs of that already, with these targeted attacks on ICE agents.
Doug Casey: Entirely possible. Like I said, if I were a malefactor running a foreign intelligence agency-one of the many countries that don't like the US and want to weaken it-that's exactly the path I'd take.
Matt Smith: Yeah, I agree.
Okay-so with that, just a reminder: we have our Plan B Uruguay conference coming up in October. If you don't have your residency yet, or you don't have a backup plan in case things go south-like certain historical periods we've referenced in the past-you might want to check out that conference.
You can learn more at crisisinvesting.com. There's a link at the top called "Plan B Uruguay"-check it out and see if it's right for you and your family.
Doug Casey: And I'll add-since the seasons are opposite here in the southern hemisphere-when it's cold and snowy in the US, you can escape to South America, where it's warm and balmy.
Matt Smith: That's right. October is actually a very pleasant month in Uruguay. A great time to be there.
Doug Casey: Absolutely.
Matt Smith: All right, we'll leave it there for today, Doug.
Reprinted with permission from International Man.