Mixed Messages

It is not every day that we get invited to join a secret White House policy meeting. Naturally we were thrilled to find out what the honchos were planning. We pass along the conversation to you.

Tuesday, April 1st, 2025

Bill Bonner, crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary II

Day two of our trip passed without incident. The ship is full, so the restaurants and bars also tend to be full.

Meals are eaten communally. That is, we sit at big tables and are obliged to talk to other travelers. We are not normally very sociable. But we almost always like people when we get to know them.

So far, we have met a librarian from England, a history teacher from Portland, Oregon, and a couple from Seattle. All of them were polite and well spoken. (We avoided touchy subjects — politics… religion… sex… and the decline of the late, degenerate empire.)

Meanwhile…

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We seem to have been inadvertently added to a very special chat group. President Trump convened a pow wow to talk about his plan for a new currency.

On the call was Fed chief Jerome Powell, Treasury head Scott Bessent, J.D. Vance, Elon Musk and a lesser cast that we don’t remember. For an unknown reason, perhaps it was a mistake, we were included.

It is not every day that we get invited to join a secret White House policy meeting. Naturally we were thrilled to find out what the honchos were planning. We pass along the conversation to you…from memory.

Scott Bessent: Mr. President, we’ve got a couple of problems. Even with the great work that Elon is doing, federal spending is still higher this year than it was in Biden’s last year. We’ll end up with another $1 trillion deficit — at least. And we have the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) forecasting a lower GDP. We know that our policies will create a Golden Age, as you say. But it won’t happen overnight. And we have some important elections (mid-terms) coming up before voters see the gilt. 😕

Donald Trump: Don’t worry. The tariffs will take care of it. Beautiful word, ‘tariffs.’ The Fed is going to cut rates. And what with the tax cuts, and lower price of oil, we’re going to see growth like we’ve never seen before. 🔥💯🇺🇲

Jerome Powell: Mr. President, this may not be the best time to cut rates. We’re looking at elevated volatility and stubbornly persistent inflation. I think we should hold rates steady for a while. Besides, if we cut rates now it’s likely to signal that we’re not serious about fighting inflation.🤔

Donald Trump: Look, don’t worry about inflation. It’s going to go down tomorrow. Liberation Day. And we’re switching out of the dollar soon anyway. Nobody will care what the inflation rate is, because the dollar will be history.💪✊👍

Jerome Powell: What?🤯

Donald Trump: Didn’t anyone tell you? We’re going to introduce a new electronic currency. It will be called the Trump. And we’ll convert all of that federal debt…what is it, up to $20 trillion now?…to Trump notes. We’ll pay off every penny in Trump notes. No more debt. Then, we’ll have a solid currency that everyone will trust. When we need more money we’ll just print up some more Trump Notes. No more borrowing. No more debt. And if the Fed doesn’t go along…I’ll rain down Hell on it.

Jerome Powell: Excuse me?

Donald Trump: You heard me. Houthis, Hamas, Iran — I’m going to bomb the crap out of them all. And I’m going to have some bombs left over…for the Fed, Canada, campus protesters, law firms that resist me…Rachel Maddow…Thomas Massie…I’m going to get that son-of-a-b!&@#…Hell is going to break loose on all of them…and any of these countries that try to get around our tariffs…or try to get together to fight back. I’ll bomb them too.

Elon Musk: Maybe we should back off some of this bombing talk. People are getting restless. And aggressive. They don’t like your policies so they attack my cars. 🚙🔥

Donald Trump: We’ll get even with them. They’re terrorists. We’ll round them up and deport them.✈✈✈

Elon Musk: But they’re US citizens. You can’t deport them. Where would you send them?

Donald Trump: I’ve got a deal with Budele…Dubele…whatever his name is in El Salvador. We pay them $10,000 for each one and send them them as many prisoners as we want. . And once you declare them terrorists, you don’t have to deal with liberal courts and the judges Obama appointed. Judges…Democrats…reporters…Canadians — they’re all terrorists. We’ll deport them all.

Elon Musk: But it’s happening all over the world. Those damned Chinese are selling more cars than we are. And we can’t deport Europeans from Europe…or deport people for not buying our cars.

Donald Trump: No, but we can bomb the hell out of them.💣💣💣

Scott Bessent: Bomb Europe?

Donald Trump: Why not? They’ve been ripping us off for decades. They should have spent a lot more on their own defense. And they’ll be sorry they didn’t. It’s time we got even with them. Bomb them all. But we won’t have to. I’ll talk to them. We’ll make a deal. And if they don’t go along, we sanction them, tariff them, and bomb them. And maybe I’ll decide not to bomb them…or not to tariff them.

J.D. Vance: With all due respect, Mr. President, the strategic importance of this opportunity can’t be overstated. This is our opportunity to bomb the Hell out of Europe — the snobby, snooty leftist parasites. And we should nuke Greenland. Those bastards gave me a very ‘cool’ reception last week…ha ha. 💣🚀💣

A young, unidentified female voice: Yeah, and if it weren’t for us, they’d be speaking German.

Jerome Powell: Well, actually, many Europeans do speak German.

The meeting continued.

But we had to drop out. We had a dance lesson.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

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Market Note, by Tom Dyson

There are currently over 13,000 ETFs in the world…but only a tiny percentage of them offer any exposure to gold or gold mining. These charts, from Callum Thomas at Topdown Charts, show how gold’s ETF exposure has dwindled over the years. Central banks maybe buying massive amounts of gold but the message from these charts is clear. ETF buyers (retail investors) still have almost no exposure. That’s okay. They’ll come around eventually…when the price is far higher.