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Posted on 04/21/2026 10:15:35 AM PDT by delta7
U.S. Fiscal Situation Continues to Deteriorate In just the past week, the debt and deficits of the United States took further blows as spending increases, falling revenues, and geopolitical hostilities tightened the funding vice.
Distractions vs. Long-Term Trends Even if you're primarily a precious metal investor, you've likely been distracted by war headlines for the past few weeks. Over that same time, however, other long-term headlines have surfaced that will greatly impact gold and silver over time. You may have missed them, so, for this week's post, let's recap.
Monthly Treasury Report – March Deficit Let's start with the latest monthly statement from the U.S. Treasury. The U.S. government has now reached the midpoint of its fiscal year, so comparisons to last year are easy to make. First, here's the report for just the month of March. The monthly deficit was $164B or about $5.3B per day.
Fiscal Year-to-Date Deficit And at the midpoint of FY26, the total deficit thus far is about $1.17 Trillion:
Putting the Scale Into Perspective First, I'll remind you that $1.17T is a BIG number. For scale, 1.17T seconds adds up to 37,076 years! Keep that in mind when you contemplate the U.S. spending 1.17T more dollars than it took in over the course of just the past six months.
Comparing FY26 to FY25 Next, you might add up the total deficit spending over the first six months of FY25. If you do so, you'll notice that FY26 is actually an "improvement" as the total first half deficit last year was about $1.31T. Woohoo! That means that the FY26 deficit is actually $140B lighter than FY25.
The Role of Tariff Revenue Unfortunately, that difference can be almost entirely attributed to "customs duties" (tariffs) of $166B. Without that revenue source, FY26 is trending just as poorly as FY25, which ended with a total deficit of $1.775T. Ooof.
Supreme Court Ruling on Tariffs Which leads us to headline number two...: Because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the imposition of Trump's tariffs were unconstitutional, the U.S. is set to begin refunding some of the collected revenue this week. Ooof ooof.
Warning from Hank Paulson Which leads us to headline number three. Do you remember Hank Paulson? If that name sounds familiar it's because he was U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during The Great Financial Crisis of 2008. Anyway, ole Hank has been out of action for years. Since he retired in 2009, we've barely heard a peep from the guy as he has focused upon education and philanthropic efforts. Until last week, when suddenly he appeared on Bloomberg to warn that a major crisis in treasuries (government deficit funding) is coming....
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Gold Price Performance USD
Change Amount %
Today -104.05 -2.16%
30 Days +405.41 +9.20%
6 Months +759.77 +18.76%
1 Year +1,402.32 +41.15%
5 Year +3,025.85 +169.61%
20 Years +4,174.24 +656.69%
- 13:15 NY Time
Just to clarify, the manner in which Trump imposed some of the tariffs was deemed unconstitutional. Reapplication using a different law appears okay.
Not really a gold bug, but gold has been very good to me.
Gold is the Money of Kings
Silver is the Money of Gentlemen
Barter is the Money of peasants and
Debt is the Money of Slaves
“Do remember, all goods and services priced in PMs have never, ever been lower....Gold and Silverbugs are unscathed.”
Do goldbugs and silverbugs ever use their gold and silver to buy stuff?
That not really how it works. Gold and silver are there to preserve wealth. While it IS money, it is there to be converted for the local currency AFTER a financial crisis.
But as a kid, I absolutely used silver to buy stuff.
To clarify further, he can no longer impose tariffs of 100 or 200 percent on the whole world for an indefinite period. He is now limited to a much lower rate and tariffs have to be imposed piecemeal and are time limited.
Both Gold and Silver went down significantly today (Gold down 2.8% and Silver down 5%). IMHO, both are still inflated, but Silver has been inflated to speculative levels (up 130% in the past year).
Appreciate the clarification.
“.Gold and Silverbugs are unscathed.”
As long as they ignored your advice to buy silver at $121¹
“Do remember, all goods and services priced in PMs have never, ever been lower...”
They were priced lower three months ago. Socrates fails again!5
Gold is the Money of Kings
Silver is the Money of Gentlemen
Barter is the Money of peasants and
Debt is the Money of Slaves
Well said.
“Debt is the Money of Slaves”
Trump was not a slave.
“Gold is the Money of Kings”
Just don’t hide it in your mother’s basement.
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