In this episode of The Wrap with Chris Whalen, Chris breaks down the 777 Partners bankruptcy — a sprawling collapse touching insurance, reinsurance, soccer clubs, and airlines that he says is a preview of how private credit ultimately unwinds: slowly, messily, and with fraud along the way. He explains why the contagion risk to insurance matters most for ordinary people, since firms like Apollo, Brookfield, and Blue Owl use insurance balance sheets to fund private credit strategies, leaving annuity and life policyholders exposed. Chris also digs into United Wholesale Mortgage, arguing the real problem wasn't the Two Harbors hedge but years of cash extraction and overvalued servicing assets — and what Oaktree's $1.5 billion rescue means now that "the grim reaper of Wall Street" is in the building. On markets, he describes a manic tape where cycles no longer exist, questions whether AI valuations survive Chinese competitors offering the same functionality at a tenth of the cost, and wonders whether Kevin Warsh will finally let the market take a hit. He then makes the case that the cooler CPI print is masking a genuine inflation problem: diesel is up roughly 35% since February, key industrial chemicals and LNG capacity was destroyed in the Iran conflict, and those input costs are rippling into food, housing, construction, and packaging. Finally, Chris explains why he thinks the gold and silver bull markets remain fully intact, and what the Byzantine Empire taught him about what happens when gold runs short.Thank you to our sponsor, Monetary Metals. Learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/THEWRAP/Links:    The Institutional Risk Analyst: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/ 777 Partners blog post: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/post/theira879 Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rcwhalen    Seeing Around Corners book: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/product-page/seeing-around-corners-achieving-success-in-business-and-life-hardcoverUse the code TheWrap2026 for 25% off your first year of The Institutional Risk Analyst https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/plans-pricingTimestamps:0:00 - Intro1:37 - 777 Partners bankruptcy: what the demise of private credit looks like3:56 - Does this accelerate the slow-motion train wreck?5:45 - Contagion risk to insurance: annuities, life policies, and private credit balance sheets7:36 - United Wholesale Mortgage, Mat Ishbia, and the Oaktree rescue10:44 - Oaktree, the "grim reaper of Wall Street," and stress in mortgage lending11:00 - DSCR loans and the rental-property workaround12:13 - Monetary Metals: earn a yield on your gold13:22 - Markets at records: "the numbers are too big"15:20 - The Warsh Fed: will bailouts end?16:05 - AI valuations, the price war, and Chinese competition17:36 - Inflation beneath the surface: input costs are exploding18:08 - Diesel up 35%, heating oil, chemicals, and the fall squeeze20:02 - Food prices, farmers, and the Iran war fallout22:39 - Spillover into housing, construction materials, and packaging24:19 - Gold's run higher and Chinese buying25:13 - Silver: a commercial trade, and the supply problem26:44 - The WGA precious metals top 25 list28:14 - Lessons from Byzantine monetary history29:38 - Parting thoughts: private credit surprises, the Middle East, and the midterms30:39 - Closing

Jim Rickards returns for a wide-ranging macro conversation on a world where geopolitics and economics have fully merged. He lays out the US–Iran standoff as a global game of chicken — Trump betting Iran's economy breaks first, Iran betting the midterm elections break Trump first — and explains why he thinks Tehran holds the stronger hand, why regime change was always a fantasy, and how a handful of drones a week is enough to keep the Strait of Hormuz bottled up. From there he turns to gold: how he used Jim Rogers' 50% drawdown rule and fractal scale invariance to call the bottom, why central bank buying puts a floor under the market, why gold works as a deflation hedge as well as an inflation hedge, and why he stands by his $10,000 target. He also dismantles the popular "debasement trade" narrative, explains what Kevin Warsh's less transparent, market-following Fed means for investors conditioned to expect a rescue, and walks through the unwinding of the Japanese yen carry trade — which he calls the most important story in the world right now, and the one most likely to make 2027 messy. The episode closes on the darker side of AI: increasingly sophisticated voice-cloned scams aimed at older Americans.Thank you to our partners Augusta Precious Metals — To learn more, visit https://juliabuysgold.com/ or text “Julia" to 35052Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/More about Rickards: Rickards is a New York Times bestselling author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis and several other best-sellers, including The New Great Depression, Aftermath, The Road to Ruin, Death of Money, The New Case for Gold, Sold Out: How Broken Supply Chains, Surging Inflation, and Political Instability Will Sink the Global Economy, and his newest book MoneyGPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy. An investment advisor, lawyer, inventor, and economist, Rickards has held senior positions at Citibank, Long-Term Capital Management, and Caxton Associates. He is also the Editor of Strategic Intelligence, a widely-read financial newsletter. Links:  http://www.jamesrickardsproject.com/ https://x.com/RealJimRickardsVisit CallFort.io  or download the app https://apps.apple.com/us/app/callfort/id6752949954Timestamps: 0:00 – Intro: welcome back, Jim Rickards1:04 – Geopolitics and economics have merged: chokepoints and economic warfare3:30 – The US–Iran game of chicken: what each side is betting6:13 – Regime change isn't happening — and why killing leaders backfired10:42 – Lost credibility and the Iran–Oman deal the US wasn't part of14:41 – The midterm clock, and how Iran keeps the Strait closed17:23 – [Sponsor: Augusta Precious Metals]19:04 – Gold's drawdown: the Jim Rogers 50% rule and fractal math24:04 – Why gold goes much higher — and the $10,000 call25:03 – What's driving gold: central banks, deflation, flat mine supply31:15 – Why the "debasement trade" narrative is wrong33:00 – Inside the primary dealer world and the old Fed35:00 – Kevin Warsh, killing the dot plot, and a whole new Fed38:16 – [Sponsor: Monetary Metals]40:03 – The Fed's only real job — and what Friedman got wrong44:13 – The yen carry trade: the most important story in the world48:55 – The petrodollar, Japan's Treasuries, and the Bessent bailout51:43 – Why currency defenses always fail, and why 2027 gets messy52:50 – AI, sophisticated scams, and the Callfort app59:10 – What's next: climbing Kilimanjaro

Michael Howell, CEO of CrossBorder Capital, an investment advisory firm, and author of Capital Wars, returns to explain why the global liquidity cycle peaked in late Q3/early Q4 of last year — and what that means for the rest of 2026. His core argument: money is fungible but finite, and a booming real economy is now pulling liquidity out of financial assets, which compresses P/E multiples even as earnings look fine. That puts us in what he calls the speculation phase: rising bond yields, strong commodities, pressured crypto, and low-quality equity returns where index gains mask widespread underperformance. He also pushes back hard on the popular "debasement trade" explanation for gold, arguing the real driver is the People's Bank of China injecting liquidity to devalue the yuan internally while holding it steady externally — with Chinese retail locked out of crypto and the Shanghai Gold Exchange now setting the marginal price. On the bond side, he lays out how the Treasury is quietly monetizing through front-end issuance and buybacks — private-sector QE under Treasury direction — a strategy that works until it doesn't, with Japan's move from 50bps to nearly 3% as the cautionary tale. His bottom line: range-bound Wall Street, no bonds, gold and silver on weakness, and watch commodities for the first sign the boom is ending.Thank you to our partners Augusta Precious Metals — To learn more, visit https://juliabuysgold.com/ or text “Julia" to 35052Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/Links:  Website: http://www.crossbordercapital.com/ Twitter/X https://x.com/crossbordercapSubstack: https://capitalwars.substack.com/ Book: https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Wars-Rise-Global-Liquidity/dp/30303929020:00 The call: range-bound market, own gold0:20 Welcome back, Michael Howell1:19 Two pools of money: markets vs. the real economy2:30 The liquidity cycle has peaked3:20 What this phase looks like4:48 Why a booming economy is bad for stocks5:22 The P/E multiple is where liquidity shows up6:34 Late cycle, explained7:38 Augusta Precious Metals9:29 Global liquidity vs. the world business cycle10:45 Atlanta Fed nowcast near 6%11:54 The K-shaped economy is global12:45 Monetary inflation vs. Main Street inflation14:45 Speculation now, turbulence next15:15 The cycle map17:55 Monetary Metals19:49 Gold: it isn't the debasement trade20:30 It's China: PBOC liquidity22:15 Why gold and not crypto23:14 Inside the PBOC balance sheet25:00 Yuan gold and the 27,000 line26:15 Bond yields track nominal GDP27:40 NGDP at 7-8% vs. a 4.7% ten-year28:18 Treasury QE: funding at the front end30:20 Who's actually buying the debt?30:51 The beach ball under water32:35 The two-year note leads the Fed34:30 The 2022 analogue36:00 Why MOVE matters more than VIX37:08 Treasury buybacks and the volatility cap38:30 Margin debt and the 2026 range call39:31 Parting thoughts: commodities as the warning40:30 Gold, silver, and the ratio to watch

In this episode of The Wrap with Chris Whalen, Chris breaks down the week across mortgages, rates, and precious metals. He opens with United Wholesale Mortgage, explaining why he believes Matt Ishbia should resign after the company hedged the balance sheet of an acquisition target it didn't own and never won — a misstep that produced a six hundred million dollar loss and forced a rescue from Oak Tree on onerous terms that leave common shareholders at the back of the line. Chris contrasts that with Rocket's standout quarter and lays out his broader housing view: investment banks hold this market together until the IPO fees are booked, then step back, setting up a potential correction next year and a general decline in home prices of ten to twenty percent by 2028. From there the conversation turns to the return of financial repression — short-end yields pushed down while the long end reacts to deficits and inflation — and why, with debt approaching forty trillion, he considers Fed independence a fiction and the Treasury the dog to the Fed's tail. Chris also unpacks the Bank of Japan's thirty-day repo with the Fed, why it lit a fire under gold and silver, and David Kotok's idea of using euro-denominated US credit default swaps to benchmark gold. He closes on taxing wealth over income, the erosion of fiscal credibility, and his gold book research into thirteen hundred years of Byzantine monetary stability.Thank you to our sponsor, Monetary Metals. Learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/THEWRAP/Links:    The Institutional Risk Analyst: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/  Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rcwhalen    Seeing Around Corners book: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/product-page/seeing-around-corners-achieving-success-in-business-and-life-hardcoverUse the code TheWrap2026 for 25% off your first year of The Institutional Risk Analyst https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/plans-pricingTimestamps:0:00 — Intro1:08 — Why Matt Ishbia should resign from UWM2:30 — The Oak Tree rescue and what it means for shareholders3:31 — Mortgage earnings: PennyMac, loanDepot, Rocket4:23 — Is UWM going to be sold?5:43 — Health of the broader mortgage industry6:50 — Seven percent rates and where volume is coming from7:30 — What the Fed does next, and the long end8:20 — "Misery on the eights" — is the timeline accelerating?9:20 — Housing correction: 10–20% by 202810:40 — The return of financial repression12:00 — Why the Treasury benefits, and the shift to T-bills13:06 — "The Treasury is the dog, the Fed is the tail"13:40 — The dollar, foreign central banks, and gold reserves14:20 — The Bank of Japan repo transaction explained15:14 — What Warsh does if the FOMC wants a hike16:30 — Inflation, diesel exports, and the energy squeeze17:34 — David Kotok on benchmarking gold with credit default swaps18:40 — Why fiscal fear flows into gold19:30 — How far away is a US debt restructuring?21:04 — Taxing wealth instead of income22:42 — What cutting the deficit would actually do to rates25:15 — Back to the BOJ: why it forced gold and silver higher28:00 — What if Japan doesn't take the bonds back?28:48 — Foreign central banks are selling Treasuries29:47 — Does the US care about gold the way the rest of the world does?32:10 — Bessent and the K-shaped economy33:12 — Housekeeping: viewer question episode33:50 — Parting thoughts

Dr. Marc Faber editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, returns to argue that we are witnessing the first phase of the piercing of the greatest global investment mania. He explains why central bank money printing has inflated asset prices far beyond economic reality — enriching asset holders while ordinary people face a cost of living he estimates is rising 7–12% a year, not the official 3–4%. Faber walks through the cracks already visible: collapsing commercial property values, falling home prices, meme stocks and SPACs that never recovered their 2021 peaks, a narrowing market advance, the semiconductor unwind, and the speculative blow-off in Korea. He argues the 10-year Treasury should yield at least 6.5%, that the Fed should have been hiking rather than cutting, and that the US may already be in recession. With interest costs on federal debt above $1 trillion a year, he says more money printing isn't a choice but an inevitability — and warns that bubbles typically end with the revelation of a massive fraud. His advice is blunt: this is not a market for making money, it's a market for losing the least. He makes the case for broad diversification across cash, bonds, precious metals, and real estate, explains why he refuses to own index funds, shares why Thailand is his largest position, and closes on gold, hyperinflation, and why he thinks the price should already be far higher.Thank you to our partners Augusta Precious Metals — To learn more, visit https://juliabuysgold.com/ or text “Julia" to 35052Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/Links:The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report: https://www.gloomboomdoom.comTimestamps:00:00 Intro: Marc Faber returns01:06 The macro picture: money printing and record wealth inequality03:33 Why capitalism made the world rich, and who got left behind05:21 The stock market is in the sky, but ordinary life isn't06:58 First signs the investment mania is being pierced07:35 Why printed money doesn't lift everything at once09:55 Commercial and residential property prices roll over10:45 Meme stocks, SPACs, Mag 7 and the semiconductor unwind11:30 Korea: the biggest bubble nobody's talking about12:15 The missing link: a massive fraud is coming13:48 Nominal vs real: how money printing masks the damage14:45 Real inflation is 7-12%, not 3-4%15:49 Where rates should be: 6.5% on the 10-year16:27 Government debt, $1T interest, and why the deficit can't shrink17:56 The situation is hopeless18:39 Where Faber puts his own money20:20 More money printing is inevitable21:27 Assessing Kevin Warsh at the Fed22:33 The Fed should have hiked, and the US is already in recession23:23 Intervention and the death of free markets25:52 The contrarian bond call and the case for diversification28:17 The government has become the mafia28:42 Why a debt crisis is unavoidable29:55 Sell early, but where do you hide?31:34 Thin ice: why ordinary people are forced to speculate31:59 Affordability at the worst level ever32:25 The passive investing problem35:10 Index concentration vs the other 493 stocks36:13 Lessons from 1987: down 21% in a single day37:26 One year from now: a lot of people will lose a lot of money38:35 Hong Kong war stories: the traders who lost everything40:11 The contrarian buy: Thailand, the failed state41:30 Food self-sufficiency, safety, and life in Asia43:56 Where to find his work45:11 Gold, and why he says it should already be $100,00046:07 Hyperinflation, Zimbabwe, and central bank role models

Mickey Maini, founder of Solstice Laboratory, makes his debut on The Julia La Roche Show. In this episode, he lays out the thesis behind his new book The Entropy Trap: financial systems, like all systems, require energy to hold their shape, and as complexity rises and trust decays, the energy needed to maintain order climbs until the system transitions into something new. He argues we're between two systems now, sitting in the third of five stages — control — one policy misstep away from fracture. Maini explains why the Fed's real job this decade is defending collateral rather than setting rates, why three stresses (geopolitics, debt, and innovation) are compounding rather than merely adding for the first time in decades, and why the honest tell on AI is the credit market rather than the equity market. Along the way: what central bank gold buying is actually signaling, his scenario range for gold, the US-China choke point war that will determine who writes the next system, and why the trader who made $100 million in 1929 lost it all while the one who ignored prices did fine.Maini began in investment banking, then scaled an emerging-markets conglomerate from $100 million to over $5 billion as its CEO, then taught at one of Asia's leading public policy schools. Today he runs his family office and Solstice Laboratory (solsticelabs.com) - an independent research lab in Dubai that applies physics to markets and geopolitics, studying the moments when systems stop moving in cycles and change state.Thank you to our sponsors: Kalshi - download the Kalshi app and use code JULIA to get $10 when you trade $10. http://kalshi.com/r/JULIA Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/Links: The Entropy Trap book: https://www.amazon.com/Entropy-Trap-Physics-Knows-Markets/dp/B0H1ZP7NZX/ref=sr_1_1Substack: https://solsticelaboratory.substack.com/Website: https://solsticelabs.com/Timestamps: 0:00 — Intro and welcome: Mickey Maini, The Entropy Trap1:58 — Order is rented, and the rent just went up2:40 — The five stages: print, spend, control, fracture, force4:24 — 1973 economically, 1938 militarily, 1978 for the Fed6:24 — What tips us from control into fracture9:02 — Why every Fed intervention buys less time than the last13:00 — The Fed's next decade: defending collateral, not setting rates15:42 — Indonesia 1998, and why the models stopped working17:10 — Indonesia had surgery. The US took morphine.20:44 — Three stresses that compound: geopolitics, debt, innovation25:00 — Gold as money's ground state, and what central banks are signaling27:10 — The scenarios: $8K–25K, base case $10–15K30:31 — Livermore, Baruch, Kennedy — who lost it all and who won34:30 — The tell on AI isn't equity. Watch the Oracle CDS.36:00 — 75% of US growth is one trade38:03 — Five to seven years to a new system, the next two the toughest39:04 — China settles in gold. The US builds stablecoins.41:35 — Velocity of stress: the master signal, and why it hasn't turned50:42 — What the dashboard is flashing right now53:04 — Don't own long bonds. Invest in yourself.

In this episode of The Wrap with Chris Whalen, Chris joins Julia La Roche to argue that Kevin Warsh has a credibility problem: he's holding rates, avoiding confrontation with a divided board, and saying almost nothing, while the bond market does the tightening for him with the ten-year near 4.7% and mortgages headed toward seven-plus. Whalen's prescription is blunt — take back last year's cuts with two quarter-point hikes, consider a surprise August move, raise margin requirements, and keep shrinking the balance sheet, because Treasury is the dog and the Fed is barely the tail. From there the conversation ranges across a coming diesel and fertilizer shortage nobody in Washington will discuss, gold's role as real money in Asia versus a paper price in the West, and Whalen's own portfolio, from Annaly and Rhythm Capital to Flagstar and roughly a fifth in precious metals. The back half turns spicy with Tom Gober's new guest post on life insurers: private-credit-controlled annuity writers reinsuring liabilities offshore without posting enough assets behind them, hidden by state secrecy laws and rubber-stamped by ratings agencies that were never working for you. Plus PennyMac's bad quarter, George Gleason's construction-lending model at Bank OZK, and mailbag questions on SpaceX and mining stocks.Thank you to our sponsor, Monetary Metals. Learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/THEWRAP/Links:    The Institutional Risk Analyst: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/  Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rcwhalen    Thomas Gober guest article: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/post/theira874Seeing Around Corners book: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/product-page/seeing-around-corners-achieving-success-in-business-and-life-hardcoverUse the code TheWrap2026 for 25% off your first year of The Institutional Risk Analyst https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/plans-pricingTimestamps:0:00 — Intro: no, the show isn't being cancelled1:52 — Warsh's first pressers: three dissenters and a chairman who says nothing5:42 — How Warsh gets credibility: take back last year's cuts7:20 — Trump stays quiet on Warsh — plus a coming diesel and fertilizer squeeze8:46 — Is the economy finally slowing? The fading power of deficits10:22 — "Treasury is the dog, the Fed is the tail"11:30 — The case for a surprise August hike and less forward guidance12:56 — Gold, Keith Weiner, and the permanent backwardation thesis15:38 — Gold as bank capital: pledging metal as repo collateral16:37 — Whalen's book: Annaly, Rhythm, miners, energy, Schwab, Flagstar19:41 — PennyMac's ugly quarter and why it drags the whole mortgage group down21:23 — Bank OZK vs. the big banks on commercial real estate23:19 — Tom Gober's guest post: is your life insurer actually solvent?27:00 — Offshore reinsurance, secrecy states, and why ratings won't save you29:36 — Mailbag: SpaceX below IPO price — buy more or bail?31:53 — Mailbag: miners vs. metal, GLD/GDX vs. SLV/SIL35:13 — What's next: mortgage earnings, the bank 50, and the gold book

Danielle DiMartino Booth breaks down a contentious FOMC meeting where new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh held rates steady over three dissents, arguing the "good family fight" reflects a real fault line between district bank presidents and governors rather than idle disagreement. She reads Warsh as deliberately dismantling forward guidance, pushing the Fed to stop acting as the market's referee, and leaning toward a trimmed-mean view of inflation while insisting the 2% target stays non-negotiable. Beneath the policy debate, she sees an economy propped up almost entirely by the top 10% and the AI investment boom, with mounting cracks underneath: widening CCC high-yield spreads, bankruptcies at 15-year highs, record apartment concessions on luxury units, softening wage growth, and falling freight demand across trucking and ocean shipping. Her core worry is that if the top of the K "stutters" — as the AI bubble deflates or the wealth effect fades — the pain trickles down onto an already-struggling bottom half, and she's positioning around gold as credit conditions tighten.Thank you to our sponsors: Kalshi - download the Kalshi app and use code JULIA to get $10 when you trade $10. http://kalshi.com/r/JULIA Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/Links: Danielle's Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/dimartinobooth Substack: https://dimartinobooth.substack.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DanielleDiMartinoBoothQIFed Up: https://www.amazon.com/Fed-Up-Insiders-Federal-Reserve/dp/0735211655Timestamps: 00:00 — Intro and welcome00:35 — Immediate take on the FOMC hold with three dissenters; Warsh's "robust discussion" and four questions02:42 — Is it a deeper split? Waller standing with Warsh; district bank presidents vs. governors03:48 — Why strategists are throwing a "hissy fit"; abandoning forward guidance, Fed stepping back as referee05:01 — The 2% inflation target described as non-negotiable05:47 — Did it make sense to hold? The five shocks, "team transitory" slip, trimmed-mean inflation07:13 — Is the door open for a September hike?08:53 — Kalshi prediction-market odds for September (53% hike / 45% hold)09:57 — Market reaction; NASDAQ's late-day fall off a cliff11:52 — Why the FOMC minutes may be the real story12:20 — Economy assessment via alternative data: waste-management volumes, GDP, Indeed wages14:38 — How inflation should really be measured; P&G, purchasing power, World Cup hiring16:09 — Cracks emerging: CCC high-yield spreads, 15-year-high bankruptcies, apartment concessions18:52 — The K-shaped economy, the wealth effect, and international travel as a bellwether21:01 — Does she agree with the hold? Her public call for a hike21:52 — The bond market has done the tightening for the Fed22:11 — The move in gold vs. Bitcoin, and what it signals about credit23:07 — More breakage coming in credit; distressed debt exchanges as "polite" Chapter 1124:29 — What investors are missing: truck stops, ocean freight, inventory restocking, Austria/BMW29:32 — What she's watching into September; tax refunds, World Cup aftermath, the top of the K32:25 — Parting thoughts

In this episode of The Wrap with Chris Whalen, Chris breaks down why the stablecoin boom may be running out of road — giving the Clarity Act less than 50/50 odds and arguing it could strip the yield out of coins, force issuers offshore, and turn the survivors into banks. He makes the case that stablecoins are little more than "prepaid gift cards," lays out why he's bullish on gold and silver as central banks and China chase physical metal, and warns that real inflation — measured by commodity inputs like energy and sulfur (up 150% since the Iran war), not the CPI — is closing in on double digits. Whalen also sees the 10-year Treasury pushing past 5% and mortgages settling into a "higher for longer" 6.5–7%, flags the mortgage sector as the earnings story to watch, takes aim at Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy, points to safer places to find yield, and keeps circling back to one unsettling parallel: today looks a lot like the 1920s, right before the party ended.Thank you to our sponsor, Monetary Metals. Learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/THEWRAP/Links:    The Institutional Risk Analyst: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/  Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rcwhalen    Seeing Around Corners book: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/product-page/seeing-around-corners-achieving-success-in-business-and-life-hardcoverUse the code TheWrap2026 for 25% off your first year of The Institutional Risk Analyst https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/plans-pricingTimestamps:0:00 – Intro 0:45 – The Clarity Act: will it kill stablecoins? 3:34 – Do stablecoins have any real use case? 5:17 – Why we may need fewer banks — and more insurers 8:22 – Do stablecoins actually create Treasury demand? 10:16 – Chris's next book: gold 12:20 – Gold's pullback and the bull case for silver 16:37 – Goldman's $4,900 target & John Paulson on gold 17:53 – The BLS quietly redefines inflation 19:40 – A 2% target, a 6% deficit, and 5% yields 22:07 – Why mortgage earnings are the story to watch 24:29 – Affordability, home prices & the blue-state squeeze 26:42 – Why it all rhymes with the 1920s 28:44 – Viewer Q&A: the real double-digit inflation 32:12 – MSTR yields, Saylor & where to find safe income 36:28 – Closing thoughts: the mortgage shakeout ahead

Financial commentator Chris Irons, also known as Quoth the Raven on X and author of the popular QTR Fringe Finance substack, returns to the show with a sobering assessment of markets he says are at or above the highest valuations in history — propped up by a passive bid, options-driven flows, and ten mega-cap names carrying everyone's retirement. Irons explains why he's stepped back from active trading permanently, why he believes the SpaceX IPO's $2 trillion ask may have marked a top in AI euphoria, and why Kevin Warsh's inflation-fighting promises will crumble the moment equities fall 10-20%. He shares where he's finding opportunity — including his early psychedelics call that's crushed the market this year, emerging markets, and beaten-down gold miners — and warns that the most underappreciated risks lie in stablecoins, crypto leverage, private credit, and regional banks. His bottom line: a sharp deleveraging is coming, the Fed will fold at the first sign of discomfort, and gold could hit $7,500 or higher after the next round of money printing.This episode is sponsored by Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/ Links: X: https://x.com/QTRResearchSubstack: Viewers/listeners of The Julia La Roche Show get 80% off an annual subscription of QTR's Fringe Finance https://quoththeraven.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=7c8478df&utm_content=207295644Timestamps:00:00 Introduction and welcome back 00:57 Big picture: Fed stuck between a rock and a hard place 03:18 Out-of-control fiscal policy and the "sovereign Ponzi scheme" 05:41 Private equity repackaged in insurance wrappers (2008 echoes) 06:30 SpaceX IPO as a possible top signal for the AI bubble 07:38 Why Chris stepped back from active trading permanently 12:01 "Being right vs. making money" 13:15 Life after trading: clarity, priorities, and more content 14:45 Diagnosing the market: passive bid, gamma squeezes, and index distortion 16:35 The case for equal-weight (RSP) over cap-weighted S&P 18:30 Michael Burry's AI build-out vs. dot-com comparison 21:10 Opportunities: the psychedelics thesis and how it played out 27:00 Gold and miners: buying the pullback, $7,500 gold scenario 30:45 What to expect from a Kevin Warsh-led Fed 34:36 Should inflation even be the Fed's mandate? 36:04 Arbitrary prices and permanently distorted markets 37:45 The vocal track analogy: too many plugins on the economy 40:10 Why active trading is impossible in a headline-driven market 41:27 Most underappreciated risks: stablecoins, Tether, and crypto contagion 43:30 Corporate fraud, private credit, regional banks, and subprime auto46:01 Closing thoughts and subscriber discount