Consumer prices may also go up at 10% per year. Or more. And given the trends now in motion, the dollar may not exist at all, in its present form, when today’s newborns reach 65.
I asked a few AIs about the value of the dollar before the Federal Reserve was established.They agreed on this: "The value of a dollar in 1900 was roughly equivalent to what it was in 1800; in fact, the dollar's purchasing power increased by approximately 33% over the course of the century due to general deflationary trends in the latter half".
Maybe the crooks and spectators in DC should work on ending the Fed instead of printing more money to buy votes.
Totally agree; however, that will never happen for all the political crooks are in bed together with their agendas to self promote their personal financial positions as opposed to the country and the citizens of the country. We citizens must always strive to realize and understand the direction that these crooks are driving our country and it’s economic agendas and hopefully stay a step in front of them!!!!
Bill misses an important aspect of the "Stock Market". It is NOT a monolithic single entity, even if you buy an S&P500 index fund. The stock market is more like a forest, with young saplings competing for sunlight among mature trees and large old ones that are beginning to rot at the core. If you buy a "sapling" and hold until it is rotten and falls over, you'll have nothing. But if you, at least annually, review your holdings and ask "do I still want to own this tree (company)?" and prune the mature investments and look for younger, more vigorous ones (or speculate on the promising sapling), you will make satisfactory returns. I used to own GE and Boeing (decades ago). They had good runs, but lost their way. I rolled that into Microsoft and Apple after the 2008 crisis, and rode them up. Now I am taking some of that and putting it into energy as it seems historically cheap now. Sometimes I think Bill does not understand wealth creation, although he talks about it all the time.
I congratluate you on your success, but I feel like I've read reports over the years suggesting that most investors don't even match the indexes. If you're doing a couple of points better, it's probably time to open up a fund--or at least a newsletter.
Thank you. I have done OK in the stock market, but only about 10% of my assets are there. I am a retired farmer, and buying land was far and away the best investment I ever made - about 10x over 25 years + 5% earnings (now 2,5% as I am renting it out to a neighbor). I also have 5% in precious and industrial metals, and I do rental real estate through private equity - apartments, senior living facilities, student housing and the like.
You might be surprised. A neighbor about 4 miles to the south of me started an LLC to bring wind farms to our area. He found an engineering company to design the farm and work on getting land leases, then worked on selling the project to a company that would build it. I served on the board of managers for the project, which brought in 300 million in tax base to our county, adding revenue for schools and roads as well as lease payments to landowners. When we go to investor meetings for our various other investments, I always see other farmers there. It's those DFL guys over in Minnesota that like to stand in front of the USDA office with their hand out!! LOL. I am renting my ground to a young man and mentoring him in the business of crop production. He has been raising cattle since he was 14, but now at 30 is making he first major expansion into crops, He knows how to run all the equipment, but the economics and risk management of crop production are different from cattle.
I’m surprised in a good way! I’ve got some neighbors in West Virginia who seem to do well with beef cattle. I just like the peacefulness of their presence—and the occasional cheeseburger, of course.
Yes - part of our rent is a quarter beef every year. He raises grass-fed, corn-finished beef. Good flavor and juicy. And our most recent student housing investment is a property redevelopment at WVU! I'm always amazed at what a small world it is.
I like mid-stream MLP's - mostly pipeline companies that charge a fee to move gas and liquids and pay 6 - 8% tax deferred distributions (caveat - unless you buy them through an ETF there are K-1's to deal with at tax time). I also like holding the larger integrated companies like SHEL, XOM, COP, and CVX, which all trade at reasonable valuations and pay 3-5% dividends. I used to hold Bill's XOP recommendation, but swapped that out for my own basket of companies that I like.
Billy you disappoint again. This dribble coming from the man who made over 100MM from stocks! Trump could solve cancer and you would write "Trump now putting Doctors and cancer treatment centers out of business". You have simply become ridiculous. Why do I stay? Easy, I find your prose better than what the Sunday funny papers use to be and I am killing it with Toms strategy. Personally, I think that billionaires giving back to fund these accounts is amazing. Even if the make mgmt. fees etc. it is still in the interest of the newborn. So how about saying something nice about our wonderful President once in awhile.
You know, change up the story. I know I am asking the impossible, but hey, the good lord said "Ask and you shall receive".
I would be much happier if the billionaires paid their fair share of taxes…no carried interest.. at 15 percent…no loans instead of income….I could donate more if I wasn’t paying 30 percent…
2026 is going to be a horrific year for the U.S. If Trump doesn't change, the U.S. is going to sink into a depression. China is forsaking the US$ and other countries are re-balancing their central banks to hold less US$ and more Yuan, gold, silver, and even the EU. It is going to be beyond imagination for us lowly peons. China, Russia, Iran, Mexico, Brazil (you get the picture) are moving away from the US$ and the western financial system. The derivatives market in the West is over $300T (yes with a "T") in value. It is going to crash big time. America can continue to go around being the Big Bully and threatening sanctions, tariffs, and military action but the World is learning to deal with that and quickly. American hegemony is going, going, going and no one including this ol' man trust America's government. Didn't have to be this way but that is what happens when empires expire.
The simple fact is this nation can no longer get the next guy to buy our Treasury's debt. In fact we can't even get our own citizens to buy anything, but T bills. Turning over a 50 trillion debt with weekly T-bills is just silly. China and Russia have the US Treasury just where they want them. Its difficult to be the "Big Bully" on the block if you are broke.
Agreed. And the funny thing about it is that our politicians drove the BRICS into looking for alternative systems. Little Marco Rubio, as Donnie once called him, even stated that if these countries develop alternatives the US sanctions will be ineffective.
Cartero, couldn't agree more. Our governments going back a couple of decades have had only one strategy - Be a Big Bully. No developing partnerships or helping countries grow and prosper - just carry a Big Stick! Now that strategy has failed and no one in Washington has a clue about anything different. One would think but money, money, money is the only thing Washington cares about for themselves. This is not ending well as deficits continue to spiral upwards and upwards. There are those that seem to "like" the tough man stance but it isn't working and won't. Guess that is what delusion and narcissism does to the elites. Doesn't have to be this way but, unfortunately, that is what is coming down. They would rather go down in flames than admit they were arrogant and stupid. Merry Christmas!
This was a question that I think is equally a two answer question, I personally think we will see both precious metals and oil/gas/energy stocks/ETFs increase in nominal dollar price! These particular investments hopefully will outpace the real inflation/devaluation of the US dollar that is currently much greater than reported by government reports! Keep an eye on the DYX and we will see how these aforementioned investments correlate to the it’s movements!
Yup, pretty much nailed it today, Bill. Unfortunately, I wish I had the opportunity to say this much more frequently.
So, why is Trump doing this? My thought is that Trump has determined that much of the American public is addicted to government action; that is, being involved in our lives. He wants to show he's doing something, so he comes up with these ideas of giving "back" to the American people, whether it's tariff checks, or this seed funding at birth, etc. The Democrats are doing stuff like this all the time, so he's trying to usurp their mojo. To some extent, his ideas are to get the American people to take part in the American dream by giving back, whereas the Dems are just giving stuff away as welfare. Somewhat of a difference in emphasis between the two parties. The negative is that the Democrats will double down on their freebies whenever they have the power to do so. A never-ending cycle.
The Dims may double down but both teams excel at deficit spending. In fact, the Repugs actually ran up a bigger debt this century and Ronnie Raygun actually really got this party started by almost tripling the national debt.
Gold is a store of value, not an investment. Now it is prudent to own gold to sidestep the debasement of fiat currencies. But an ounce of gold doesn't buy any more now than it did in 1880. An ounce of gold is usually roughly the cost of one month of semi-skilled labor. Today, that's about $25/hr to earn an ounce of gold per month.
So what does your 1880 US $ now buy you? In 1964 I built a house in Mexico. I even considered burying $12,500 Mexican Pesos ($1000.00 US in those days) in the wall.
Equivalent gold would have been 28 ounces in 1964. Plus you could buy ounces of gold in Mexico then.
$12,500 1964 Mexican Pesos don't even exist today. $1,000 US $ might buy you $100.00 in goods today. 28 oz. times $4000 = $112,000 seems like the way to go to me.
Yes, using government inflation statistics, $1000 in 1964 would be a little over $10,000 today, with 3.34% average inflation over 70 years. Gold has averaged 7.1% over that same time period, and I would guess that's a better measure of *actual* inflation over that period. Also, in 1964 the gold price was still fixed and attached to the dollar, and was already beginning to come under pressure from deficit spending. The mid to late 1960's would have been a historically good time to buy gold, along with the late '90's.
Bad seed indeed. Mr. Bonner is being very kind today in his seed money commentary. I’ll keep my bet on his Dow-Gold ration thesis. The Dow to gold ratio needs to hit close to 5 to plunk any sizable amount in the stock market. Since most tots will have a long investment timeframe, and it's “free” money, stick the money in SPY and let it ride. That was Buffet’s advice some years for the average investor. I would put the money in treasury bonds, and hold them until maturity.
It may not happen. No one can predict the future but with this growing debt and the rate of increase, are there any other solutions. Until both parties decide to balance future budgets and a method to reduce the debt, what else can they do?
When a republican administration and congress does not take any steps to begin the path to a balanced budget, hope dwindles. Inflation even at 2 percent. The have-nots—most households-continue to fall behind and more tax credits and outright payments are seemingly being used to get votes. I don’t see but one Rand Paul, and perhaps he has few “disciples.” Renaming the Defense Department the War Department tells me what’s ahead.
I waited 15 years to implement my plan to buy silver ahead of what has happened recently. Sadly, after my Dad's recent death my insane siblings decided to drag me (As trustee who did everything to care for my extremely ill parents over 14 years while they did absolutely nothing) through the court system (My parents were not even remotely wealthy people) at the very time I should have been buying silver. This over course took up my time 24/7 and wasted 3 years of my time trying to defend myself against libel and slander. Now the lost opportunity cost is in the multiple 7 seven figures! No good deed goes unpunished!
Even though I have been waiting a very long time to buy stocks because they horribly over-valued, I am seriously thinking of at least buying some energy stocks as a hedge against the massive inflation, and massive devaluation of our cash savings. God help us! If the blow up that should have happened a very long time ago does not happen very soon, I may have o option left other than to gamble on over-priced assets.
I asked a few AIs about the value of the dollar before the Federal Reserve was established.They agreed on this: "The value of a dollar in 1900 was roughly equivalent to what it was in 1800; in fact, the dollar's purchasing power increased by approximately 33% over the course of the century due to general deflationary trends in the latter half".
Maybe the crooks and spectators in DC should work on ending the Fed instead of printing more money to buy votes.
Totally agree; however, that will never happen for all the political crooks are in bed together with their agendas to self promote their personal financial positions as opposed to the country and the citizens of the country. We citizens must always strive to realize and understand the direction that these crooks are driving our country and it’s economic agendas and hopefully stay a step in front of them!!!!
Bill misses an important aspect of the "Stock Market". It is NOT a monolithic single entity, even if you buy an S&P500 index fund. The stock market is more like a forest, with young saplings competing for sunlight among mature trees and large old ones that are beginning to rot at the core. If you buy a "sapling" and hold until it is rotten and falls over, you'll have nothing. But if you, at least annually, review your holdings and ask "do I still want to own this tree (company)?" and prune the mature investments and look for younger, more vigorous ones (or speculate on the promising sapling), you will make satisfactory returns. I used to own GE and Boeing (decades ago). They had good runs, but lost their way. I rolled that into Microsoft and Apple after the 2008 crisis, and rode them up. Now I am taking some of that and putting it into energy as it seems historically cheap now. Sometimes I think Bill does not understand wealth creation, although he talks about it all the time.
I congratluate you on your success, but I feel like I've read reports over the years suggesting that most investors don't even match the indexes. If you're doing a couple of points better, it's probably time to open up a fund--or at least a newsletter.
Thank you. I have done OK in the stock market, but only about 10% of my assets are there. I am a retired farmer, and buying land was far and away the best investment I ever made - about 10x over 25 years + 5% earnings (now 2,5% as I am renting it out to a neighbor). I also have 5% in precious and industrial metals, and I do rental real estate through private equity - apartments, senior living facilities, student housing and the like.
Well done! I wish more farmers were in your situation.
You might be surprised. A neighbor about 4 miles to the south of me started an LLC to bring wind farms to our area. He found an engineering company to design the farm and work on getting land leases, then worked on selling the project to a company that would build it. I served on the board of managers for the project, which brought in 300 million in tax base to our county, adding revenue for schools and roads as well as lease payments to landowners. When we go to investor meetings for our various other investments, I always see other farmers there. It's those DFL guys over in Minnesota that like to stand in front of the USDA office with their hand out!! LOL. I am renting my ground to a young man and mentoring him in the business of crop production. He has been raising cattle since he was 14, but now at 30 is making he first major expansion into crops, He knows how to run all the equipment, but the economics and risk management of crop production are different from cattle.
I’m surprised in a good way! I’ve got some neighbors in West Virginia who seem to do well with beef cattle. I just like the peacefulness of their presence—and the occasional cheeseburger, of course.
Yes - part of our rent is a quarter beef every year. He raises grass-fed, corn-finished beef. Good flavor and juicy. And our most recent student housing investment is a property redevelopment at WVU! I'm always amazed at what a small world it is.
What energy stocks are you looking to invest in ?
I like mid-stream MLP's - mostly pipeline companies that charge a fee to move gas and liquids and pay 6 - 8% tax deferred distributions (caveat - unless you buy them through an ETF there are K-1's to deal with at tax time). I also like holding the larger integrated companies like SHEL, XOM, COP, and CVX, which all trade at reasonable valuations and pay 3-5% dividends. I used to hold Bill's XOP recommendation, but swapped that out for my own basket of companies that I like.
Billy you disappoint again. This dribble coming from the man who made over 100MM from stocks! Trump could solve cancer and you would write "Trump now putting Doctors and cancer treatment centers out of business". You have simply become ridiculous. Why do I stay? Easy, I find your prose better than what the Sunday funny papers use to be and I am killing it with Toms strategy. Personally, I think that billionaires giving back to fund these accounts is amazing. Even if the make mgmt. fees etc. it is still in the interest of the newborn. So how about saying something nice about our wonderful President once in awhile.
You know, change up the story. I know I am asking the impossible, but hey, the good lord said "Ask and you shall receive".
In any event, thanks for the comedy!
I would be much happier if the billionaires paid their fair share of taxes…no carried interest.. at 15 percent…no loans instead of income….I could donate more if I wasn’t paying 30 percent…
sounds like left wing propaganda. 65% of income tax comes from those making over 1mm
2026 is going to be a horrific year for the U.S. If Trump doesn't change, the U.S. is going to sink into a depression. China is forsaking the US$ and other countries are re-balancing their central banks to hold less US$ and more Yuan, gold, silver, and even the EU. It is going to be beyond imagination for us lowly peons. China, Russia, Iran, Mexico, Brazil (you get the picture) are moving away from the US$ and the western financial system. The derivatives market in the West is over $300T (yes with a "T") in value. It is going to crash big time. America can continue to go around being the Big Bully and threatening sanctions, tariffs, and military action but the World is learning to deal with that and quickly. American hegemony is going, going, going and no one including this ol' man trust America's government. Didn't have to be this way but that is what happens when empires expire.
The simple fact is this nation can no longer get the next guy to buy our Treasury's debt. In fact we can't even get our own citizens to buy anything, but T bills. Turning over a 50 trillion debt with weekly T-bills is just silly. China and Russia have the US Treasury just where they want them. Its difficult to be the "Big Bully" on the block if you are broke.
Agreed. And the funny thing about it is that our politicians drove the BRICS into looking for alternative systems. Little Marco Rubio, as Donnie once called him, even stated that if these countries develop alternatives the US sanctions will be ineffective.
Cartero, couldn't agree more. Our governments going back a couple of decades have had only one strategy - Be a Big Bully. No developing partnerships or helping countries grow and prosper - just carry a Big Stick! Now that strategy has failed and no one in Washington has a clue about anything different. One would think but money, money, money is the only thing Washington cares about for themselves. This is not ending well as deficits continue to spiral upwards and upwards. There are those that seem to "like" the tough man stance but it isn't working and won't. Guess that is what delusion and narcissism does to the elites. Doesn't have to be this way but, unfortunately, that is what is coming down. They would rather go down in flames than admit they were arrogant and stupid. Merry Christmas!
This was a question that I think is equally a two answer question, I personally think we will see both precious metals and oil/gas/energy stocks/ETFs increase in nominal dollar price! These particular investments hopefully will outpace the real inflation/devaluation of the US dollar that is currently much greater than reported by government reports! Keep an eye on the DYX and we will see how these aforementioned investments correlate to the it’s movements!
Ol’ Man said, “2026 is going to be a horrific year for the U.S. If Trump doesn't change, the U.S. is going to sink into a depression.”
Looking forward to Dec 22, 2026 and see if he was right. 🍿🍿
The road to a Depression was being built long before Trump ever ran for President.
Yup, pretty much nailed it today, Bill. Unfortunately, I wish I had the opportunity to say this much more frequently.
So, why is Trump doing this? My thought is that Trump has determined that much of the American public is addicted to government action; that is, being involved in our lives. He wants to show he's doing something, so he comes up with these ideas of giving "back" to the American people, whether it's tariff checks, or this seed funding at birth, etc. The Democrats are doing stuff like this all the time, so he's trying to usurp their mojo. To some extent, his ideas are to get the American people to take part in the American dream by giving back, whereas the Dems are just giving stuff away as welfare. Somewhat of a difference in emphasis between the two parties. The negative is that the Democrats will double down on their freebies whenever they have the power to do so. A never-ending cycle.
The Dims may double down but both teams excel at deficit spending. In fact, the Repugs actually ran up a bigger debt this century and Ronnie Raygun actually really got this party started by almost tripling the national debt.
Rather that $1,000 why not 1/4 oz of gold?
At least there would be some certainty as to the value over time.
Gold is a store of value, not an investment. Now it is prudent to own gold to sidestep the debasement of fiat currencies. But an ounce of gold doesn't buy any more now than it did in 1880. An ounce of gold is usually roughly the cost of one month of semi-skilled labor. Today, that's about $25/hr to earn an ounce of gold per month.
So what does your 1880 US $ now buy you? In 1964 I built a house in Mexico. I even considered burying $12,500 Mexican Pesos ($1000.00 US in those days) in the wall.
Equivalent gold would have been 28 ounces in 1964. Plus you could buy ounces of gold in Mexico then.
$12,500 1964 Mexican Pesos don't even exist today. $1,000 US $ might buy you $100.00 in goods today. 28 oz. times $4000 = $112,000 seems like the way to go to me.
Yes, using government inflation statistics, $1000 in 1964 would be a little over $10,000 today, with 3.34% average inflation over 70 years. Gold has averaged 7.1% over that same time period, and I would guess that's a better measure of *actual* inflation over that period. Also, in 1964 the gold price was still fixed and attached to the dollar, and was already beginning to come under pressure from deficit spending. The mid to late 1960's would have been a historically good time to buy gold, along with the late '90's.
Easy! They can print the money, but they'd have to buy or steal the gold.
Bad seed indeed. Mr. Bonner is being very kind today in his seed money commentary. I’ll keep my bet on his Dow-Gold ration thesis. The Dow to gold ratio needs to hit close to 5 to plunk any sizable amount in the stock market. Since most tots will have a long investment timeframe, and it's “free” money, stick the money in SPY and let it ride. That was Buffet’s advice some years for the average investor. I would put the money in treasury bonds, and hold them until maturity.
CD. you may wait to buy any "good" stocks until we have the forthcoming gold to dollar revaluation.
Yes, and Mr. Bonner is honest in saying it’s been a long wait for him.
It may not happen. No one can predict the future but with this growing debt and the rate of increase, are there any other solutions. Until both parties decide to balance future budgets and a method to reduce the debt, what else can they do?
When a republican administration and congress does not take any steps to begin the path to a balanced budget, hope dwindles. Inflation even at 2 percent. The have-nots—most households-continue to fall behind and more tax credits and outright payments are seemingly being used to get votes. I don’t see but one Rand Paul, and perhaps he has few “disciples.” Renaming the Defense Department the War Department tells me what’s ahead.
Thank you Bill!
Wonderfully astute and on target as usual!
Checked precious metals in poll. I could be wrong if world governments cut their spending 50% next year. Yeah right!
Not selling any of my precious metals investments....THANKS TOM!!!!!
Buying into the energy catch-up theme....
I waited 15 years to implement my plan to buy silver ahead of what has happened recently. Sadly, after my Dad's recent death my insane siblings decided to drag me (As trustee who did everything to care for my extremely ill parents over 14 years while they did absolutely nothing) through the court system (My parents were not even remotely wealthy people) at the very time I should have been buying silver. This over course took up my time 24/7 and wasted 3 years of my time trying to defend myself against libel and slander. Now the lost opportunity cost is in the multiple 7 seven figures! No good deed goes unpunished!
Even though I have been waiting a very long time to buy stocks because they horribly over-valued, I am seriously thinking of at least buying some energy stocks as a hedge against the massive inflation, and massive devaluation of our cash savings. God help us! If the blow up that should have happened a very long time ago does not happen very soon, I may have o option left other than to gamble on over-priced assets.
Dan; Not to be too critical, but your poll is missing the obvious answer...Donald J. Trump
Thanks for the tickle! Ali
...young folks everywhere are turning to the market; they have nowhere else to go.