Posted on 08/16/2025 9:42:10 AM PDT by delta7
From Von Greyerz Gold, Zurich Friday, August 15, 2025
In an informal yet compelling conversation, two veterans of the precious metals space -- Egon von Greyerz and James Turk -- bring needed financial and historical perspective to evolving (and eerily foreseeable) cracks in the global financial system.
They reminisce upon a discussion they enjoyed nearly 15 years prior. Not surprisingly, much of what was discussed and warned about then (currency debasement, trapped banks, dangerous credit expansion, and rising gold) is playing out dramatically in real-time today.
... Dispatch continues below ...
Turk, having equally foresaw the U.S. dollar's direct march off a debt cliff, admits that the system has kept itself precariously afloat longer than he expected in 2011. Timing issues, however, do not prevent the cracks now widening with each passing headline.
Turk and von Greyerz then share direct experiences and lessons of the 1970s (markets falling under banking disasters, massive inflation spikes, and currency-based counterparty risks) at a time when the United States was the greatest creditor rather than greatest debtor.
They remind, as Churchill noted, that the further one looks back, the further one can see forward. Unfortunately, almost no policy-makers today possess such historical wisdom. Even fewer understand the fragility (and eventual demise) of a global financial and banking system underpinned by bad credit rather than sound/real money: gold and silver.
Turk and von Greyerz address as well the risks and opportunities regarding cryptocurrencies, which they remind are precisely that: "Currencies" and NOT money. Turk sees cryptos as a stepping stone toward digital/tokenized gold moving between parties. Each agree that bitcoin, whatever its near-term moves, is more of a NASDAQ asset than anything even closely resembling gold as a store of value.
The bond market, also addressed with sober concern, is described as broken. This leads directly to a "fiat scare" in which stocks could be "saved" only via more currency-destroying liquidity. This, von Greyerz and Turk confirm, only makes the case for physical gold and silver all the more obvious. Von Greyerz further reminds that, unlike prior historical lessons in stock, bond, and currency implosions, the modern crisis today (as evidenced by Turk's Fear Index) is not local but global, and hence all the more destabilizing.
In this watershed backdrop of escalating debt, currency, and geopolitical risks -- all of which exceed the IQs and policy options of current global leadership -- the topic of gold revaluation as a temporary "fix" is raised. Turk makes a case for an inevitable (hardly near-term) return to the constitutional money that President Nixon jettisoned in 1971. Both share larger concerns of weakening rather than strengthening global leadership, rising trends of political repression and social instability, and, perhaps most tragically, escalating war risks.
In such a backdrop, physical precious metal ownership outside of such a compromised financial system makes more sense than ever.
The discussion is 46 minutes long can be viewed at the von Greyerz internet site here:
https://vongreyerz.gold/egon-von-greyerz-james-turk-past-lessons-of-future-disaster
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