“What’s Going on in America?” He Asked.
“What’s going on in America?” the waiter asked.
Falling out of touch with everything that’s going on in the US is easy when you’re traveling through a place like Albania. You turn off and tune out the incessant noise.
This particular waiter and I got to chatting at an open-air, seaside sushi eatery in Saranda, Albania (more on Albania next week). He was in Boston once, he told me. Before COVID. Visiting a cousin.
“I loved America. Everything is so big. So much to do. So much to buy! But it has changed, no? Is it the same America I remember? I’d really like to go back.”
“I haven’t lived there since 2018,” I told him.
And then I lied: “But I’m sure it’s the same.”
He smiled, assured, then strode away to seat a German couple that had just walked in off the promenade.
What’s going on in America?
It’s a great question.
It’s a circus.
One day tariffs are 10%, the next day they’re on pause. Three days later, the rate is 145%, then 245%. Then we’re willing to cut a great deal. Come on down—you’re the next contestant on The Price is Right!
Prices in Weimar Germany didn’t change as often as America’s sitting president changes his mind on tariffs. He has single-handedly created a vortex of fear and loathing on Wall Street, on Main Street, in the Treasury market, and in the currency markets.
He’s changing his mind more frequently than a teenage girl changes clothes. And his treatment of friend and foe alike has the entire world convinced that America is no longer a country to be trusted.
I know some people will be livid that I’m talking about Trump this way…
But I believe Trump’s latest moves could have a different aim… and you can read my full report about that right here.
This isn’t a Red/Blue issue for me. Back in the day, I called out Obama plenty of times for his budgetary stupidity and the debts he was racking up.
One day, Trump will be gone, but America will continue on, and it will have to deal with the rest of the world based on the ramifications of Trump’s actions today.
Thing is, based on those actions, the rest of the world will never look at America the same.
They will rightly wonder: Is this the America we knew before Donald Trump? Or is this the America that elected Donald Trump twice, and is there a risk that a newer, meaner, and more nationalist Donald Trump rises to power?
Countries have an obvious need to protect themselves from the vicissitudes of a government with the power the US wields, particularly when the US is wielding that power with such willy-nillyness (probably not a word, but it is now).
That means building strong alliances elsewhere in the world, just in case. It means countries are backing away from holding US dollars because there’s the very real risk that A) the US government uses the currency as a truncheon to impose its desires on the world (as it has done in recent years), and/or B) the US government purposefully decides to kill the value of the dollar and throw away reserve currency status because the administration thinks that’s the path to rebuilding America’s manufacturing sector.
These actions by other countries will have an impact on Americans.
We like to think they won’t.
We like to assume that America is Muhammad Ali, capable of taking down any challenger, and that America is a lone wolf that doesn’t need the rest of the world for anything.
Both are wrong assumptions.
And they play through the dollar.
If the rest of the world moves on from the dollar, then the value of the dollar plunges globally. Demand for US debt plunges globally. That, in turn, causes a storm of knock-on effects that hits America’s capacity to function financially.
That’s not to say the US fails.
Governments are exceedingly proficient at protecting their self-interests, and they always find a way to do so, even though it always means—100% of the time—that the population is screwed in the process.
The dollar is now in deep dookie—a situation I’ve been warning about for years.
This moment is why I was telling readers 15 years ago to start stacking gold. It’s why I moved more than 40% of my largest six-figure retirement account into Swiss francs several years ago. It’s why a quarter of all my wealth is in various forms of gold. It’s why I own bitcoin and why I add to that position every single week, regardless of bitcoin’s price.
What I’m saying is that if you’re not actively preparing for the financial reset that is destined to roll across America, then you are passively preparing for financial catastrophe that is destined to hurt so many unprepared Americans as the reset plays out.
What’s going on in America?
The reckoning.
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