“Americans Aren’t Concerned About Day-to-Day Markets”

Idiots, morons, nitwits, boneheads, blockheads, muttonheads, and the Mayors of Simpleton.

Also Scott Bessent.

So there I am, sitting at an al fresco bar near the beach, downing a sugar free Monster energy drink whilst watching the sun set and scrolling through the news of the day… when I come across Scott’s Stupendous Statement of Stupidity.

To wit:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Americans looking to retire aren’t concerned about day-to-day markets, dismisses concerns about a potential recession.

I’m gonna go way out on a limb here and say that Señor Scott is wrong.

Now, what I really want to say is a string of high-powered George Carlin words that will have the censors beeping my language.

But… Rated G this dispatch will remain.

Regardless of the verbiage I use, Bessent’s comment is just flat-out stupid, tone deaf, and something only a billionaire would say because they are so detached from the financial reality of the 99.999% of Americans lower on the wealth scale.

Americans looking to retire are absolutely, positively, 100% concerned about day-to-day market dives; such as the epic dive that was still happening this week, until Trump reversed course on tariffs, now pausing most of them for 90 days. An autoworker with $500,000 saved for retirement and looking at retiring in, say, June was looking at a portfolio that could have lost about $100,000, or 20% of its value. And that worker was not likely saying, “Yippie kai yay! Bring on the stock-market destruction.”

Losing that kind of wealth right when you’re running up to retirement is—I guarantee—not a shoulder-shrug moment. I interviewed many people in similar situations when the tech-bubble burst a quarter-century ago… and many more again when the Global Financial Crisis slammed the soon-to-retire in 2007, ’08, and ’09.

Every last one of them was distraught at what had happened to their retirement wealth. Many ended up working longer instead of retiring to the comfort they expected.

It’s a George Carlin moment in which a whole shootin’ gallery of spicy words are flying about with white-hot intensity and gut-level worry as Worker Bob and Worker Jane are suddenly forced to reevaluate their retirement plans.

Suddenly, June isn’t looking so copasetic anymore and maybe they’ll have to work another one to three years to—hopefully—recoup what the Tasmanian Tariff Devil has torn away.

But let’s move on to what’s really going on, and how you can protect yourself.

This is something I talked about quite frequently about with attendees of International Living’s Fast Track Europe conference last weekend, along Portugal’s fantastic Algarve coast.

Team Trump wants zero-percent interest rates… and until midweek, seemed hellbent on crashing the market in order to get them.

I first started warning months back that this was the goal, before any of this was on anyone’s radar. So let me run through the Team Trump rationale:

1. Impose the craziest of tariffs on everyone and every penguin in the world. Doesn’t matter if you’re a friend or a foe or a band of seabirds on an uninhabited island north of Australia. YOU WILL BE TARIFFED (based on some simplistic formula ChatGPT spit out)!
2. Foment investor fear to such a degree that it drives trillions of dollars away from the stock market… with the idea that those trillions will instead find refuge in the market for US Treasury bonds.
3. If so, then the sudden spike in Treasury demand will push Treasury prices up, and in the upside-down world of bonds, rising bond prices means falling bond yields.
4. Push down market-based yields far enough so that Fed is forced to sharply cut the Fed Funds rate, the interest rate that determines mortgages, auto loans, etc. It’s also the rate that helps determine the interest rate applied to new-issue Treasury bonds.

And that—#4—is an important plot point in this horror story.

See, Uncle Sam has about $9.2 trillion in Treasury paper that matures this year. That’s 25% of America’s existing $36.7 trillion in national debt, the single largest year of debt maturity in US history—by a moonshot!

But Uncle Sam, as you know, is poor.

Barren pockets filled with holes, not coins.

He has nowhere to dig up $9.2 trillion.

So, he has to refinance that maturing debt.

Right now, that debt carries an interest rate in the 2.5% range, give or take.

But based on Treasury auctions this year, Uncle Sam would have to pay between 3.8% and 4.8%, depending on the new bonds’ maturity dates. (Treasury auctions are where Uncle Sam sells his new debt to competitive bidders who are the ones who determine the interest rate.)

You should also know that America already pays about $1 trillion a year in interest payments. But new Treasuries representing 25% of America’s entire debt load—and which are carrying interest rates more than a percentage point higher… well, that just exacerbates the pain of annual interest costs and hastens the arrival of The Reckoning to Come.

Thus, Trump’s desire to destroy Wall Street and the retirement dreams of workers who were so close to hanging up their lunch pail for good.

If he could force interest rates down sharply, the Treasury Department could refinance that $9.2 trillion at more favorable rates.

Which, honestly, kinda sounds like a good deed: King D to the rescue! Saving America from the debt monsters in the forest.

But something very interesting was happening earlier this week, which likely forced Trump’s reversal… Investors were not fleeing out of stocks and into US bonds.

In fact, some of the largest holders of US bonds—including likely China and Japan—were dumping them onto the market… forcing interest rates on US bonds higher.

US bonds were no longer being seen as a safe haven from a falling stock market… Trumpworld’s plan was not working.

Buying America’s debt became toxic.

It’s a high-stakes gamble that seems to have backfired…

The stock market rebounded quickly when Trump announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs—but still did not reach the level it was at before Trump first announced tariffs… And then started sliding again…

More volatile times are ahead—because investors are not going to find certainty in the on-again/off-again world of Trump tariffs.

Many looking to retire don’t have that kind of time.

So, they’re looking at a lesser-quality retirement lifestyle.

The process of attempting to get interest rates to 0% (assuming that actually happens) is creating such global animosity toward America that friendships Uncle Sam needs for any number of reasons have been destroyed. They will not be quickly rebuilt.

And, so, we come to the advice I gave to so many people who stopped to talk to me in the Algarve: Get out of the dollar.

Own bitcoin, gold, and Swiss francs.

This is my rote response, I know. But when the doctor tells you to take the full course of antibiotics, you don’t take one pill and call it quits.

I will, however, add a new twist here: During the conference, I met up with the folks at Moneycorp. I’ve never used them, and I didn’t really know their business model, but it turns out they offer what I think is a pretty cool option… sell dollars for Swiss francs (they do the conversion at favorable rates) and just let the francs hang out in your Moneycorp account.

No need to open a Swiss bank account. No need to ask your local bank if they’ll buy francs for you. No need to buy a Swiss franc ETF (unless you’re investing through an IRA).

Just convert dollars to francs online at Moneycorp, and keep them in your account at no cost. To me, it’s a great way to easily build franc exposure into your portfolio. (Note: If you sign up for a Moneycorp account with the link above, IL may receive a referral fee. But I don’t personally benefit from this recommendation. I just think it’s a really cool way to buy, own, and hold francs easily and efficiently.)

Too many in Washington, DC these days are nincompoops, boneheads, muttonheads, and Scott Bessent.

You gotta protect yourself where you can from muttonheads on the loose.