November 14, 2025
Peter opens this episode by walking listeners through what he sees as two diverging monetary stories: gold's quiet march higher after a period of consolidation, and Bitcoin's fragile plumbing that could amplify losses when the market turns. He frames these trends as a test of sound money versus speculative credit structures, and he ties the market drama back to politics and policy - including the Trump administration's embrace of crypto and the constitutionality of tariffs.
He starts with gold, arguing the metal is behaving like it did after it first cleared the 3,000 level and is now forming a base around 4,000 that will lead to higher prices - though many investors will be shaken out along the way:
This is very similar to the way gold behaved when it first broke through 3,000. Yes, it wasn't a line in the sand where gold didn't go below 3,000, but it didn't go much below 3,000 and eventually it took off and then went above 4,000. I think we're doing the same thing now. I think we're forming a base right around 4,000 and before you know it, we'll be at 5,000. But meanwhile, a lot of investors aren't going to own gold for that ride because they're getting shaken out now because they're getting so nervous.
He then shifts to the structural risks inside crypto markets, warning that Bitcoin's role as collateral in leveraged lending desks can turn a price decline into a cascade of forced sales that crater values:
And this is what's going on. This is gonna decimate this market. When the market starts to go down, all this Bitcoin that's being held as collateral is going to be liquidated. So instead of people selling their Bitcoin at a hundred thousand to buy a car, it's going to get sold out from under them at fifty thousand, probably less, you know, because even if it's fifty percent collateral, the lender isn't going to wait until the Bitcoin loses half its value to blow it out because then they're going to end up losing money. They won't recover enough.
He connects those technical vulnerabilities to political risk, noting that officials who back crypto will suffer reputational damage when speculative collapses happen, and he contrasts that with the administration's public boasts about the economy:
If you look at what's been going on in the economy, right, the negatives are really coming to the surface, you know, despite the fact, and again, Donald Trump on this 60 Minutes interview talked about how the U.S. economy is the strongest it's ever been. It was the weakest it's ever been a year ago when Biden was president and it went from the worst economy to the best economy. And it's the hottest economy in the world.
Peter then checks the data against the rhetoric, pointing to the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey as evidence that households feel much worse than the political spin suggests - a measure that has collapsed to levels not seen since the late 1970s:
Well, if you look at the actual economic data, it belies all of that bragging that's being done by Trump. We got the University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers that just came out. And not only were they much lower than expected at 50.3, a 6.2 percent decline from the prior month, and it's about 30 percent lower than it was a year ago when, you know, I guess when Trump first got elected, now he's been president for about a year, although not, he hasn't been president for a year, but it was a year ago that he got elected. But this is the second lowest level for consumer confidence going back to 1978. Second lowest.
Finally, he returns to a constitutional and institutional critique, arguing that tariffs are taxes and therefore must be handled by Congress - a point he says makes unilateral presidential tariffs unconstitutional and economically damaging:
I said from the beginning that the Trump tariffs are unconstitutional. I mean, it's really a no brainer. You know, if you know anything about the Constitution, you know, the power to tax is vested with Congress, specifically the House of Representatives, because all revenue bills have to originate there and tariffs raise revenue. I mean, and they're, the Constitution refers to tariffs as taxes. I mean, that's what they are.
This article was originally published on SchiffGold.com.