Mike Maharrey

The Federal Reserve has a $34.5 trillion problem. And the problem is growing. Yes, I’m talking about the national debt. How is the debt the Fed’s problem? It hamstrings the Fed’s ability to fight price inflation. In a recent interview, Crescat Capital macro strategist Tavi Costa told Kitco News that soaring debt levels could ultimately render…

Did you know Thomas Jefferson and many other prominent Founding Fathers predicted our current economic problems? No, they didn’t have a crystal ball. They didn’t need one. All they needed was an understanding of money and human nature. The founders recognized the “evils” of paper money…

Big money managers are starting to jump on the gold bandwagon as inflation worries grow. Over the last few weeks, gold held its ground despite headwinds including a strong dollar and rising bond yields. Geopolitical tensions have supported safe-haven buying but it appears a new player is entering the market – hedge funds

Americans throw away millions of dollars in coins every year. That’s because American money is junk. But that wasn’t always the case. In an article published by the Wall Street Journal, Reworld, a Pennsylvania waste management facility, claimed that Americans toss about $68 million worth of coins every year.

Indians are known to have a love affair with gold. India ranks as the number two gold-consuming country in the world behind only China. But Indians are also pretty fond of silver. In fact, India is the world’s biggest silver consumer.
And Indian silver demand is surging.

After moderating credit card spending in January, American consumers pulled out the plastic yet again in February. Credit card balances surged, driving overall consumer debt up by another $14.1 billion – Americans now owe $5.05 trillion in consumer debt, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve.

Gold has surged to record highs of over $2,350 per ounce, and there is reason to believe this bull run has plenty of legs left. Gold dipped below $2,000 for the last time in mid-February. Since that time, it has gained nearly 18 percent. But despite the rally, a lot of investors in the West have not jumped on the bandwagon – yet.

Many American founders warned us about paper money. Thomas Paine summed it up best: “The evils of paper money have no end.” In an 1814 letter to Thomas Cooper, Thomas Jefferson was prophetic. “Every thing predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper.”

Gold broke another intraday record on Monday. This continues the gold bull run that has been ongoing for several weeks. But there is something else happening that’s quite unusual. Treasury bond yields are also rising. As gold was setting records on Monday, yields on the long end of the Treasury curve were also rising.

Holding fiat currency is risky business and that’s not going to change any time soon. Currency risk is one of the factors driving the recent rally in gold and silver. It’s no coincidence that the recent gold and silver rally started as the U.S. ramped up threats to seize Russian dollar assets. However, using the dollar as a foreign policy hammer is just…

Economics once again defied the will of politicians — this time in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Minneapolis City Council wanted to help out Uber and Lyft drivers, so it passed an ordinance setting a minimum wage for drive-share drivers where companies such as Uber and Lyft must now pay their drivers a minimum of $1.40 per mile

You’ll often hear precious metals investors talk about the gold-silver ratio. So, what is it, and why does it matter? The gold-silver ratio tells you how many ounces of silver it takes to buy one ounce of gold given the current spot price of both metals. In other words, it tells you the price of gold in ounces of silver.

The Fed created the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank last March. The program was set up so banks could easily access cash “to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors.” The bailout was a sweetheart deal for banks

Gold has garnered a lot of attention in the last few weeks with its record-setting run. Since the end of February, gold is up nearly 7 percent and set an all-time record of $2,195 an ounce along the way. This is really good news for silver. That wasn’t a typo. I meant silver. I’ve been arguing that silver is drastically underpriced for quite a while.

Price inflation is like the gum on the bottom of your shoe that you just can’t scrape off. Or maybe it’s like a movie theater floor after a big premiere. It’s sticky. And that’s a problem. The CPI data for February wasn’t anything to panic about. But nobody is throwing a party either.

Can you borrow your way to prosperity? American consumers are certainly giving it the old college try. Consumer debt surged once again in January, rising by $19.5 billion, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. On an annual basis, consumer debt rose by 4.7 percent to a record $5.04 trillion. The jump was double the projection.

Central banks took up where they left off in 2023, adding more gold to their stockpiles to kick off the new year. Globally, central banks increased their gold reserves by a net 39 tons in January, according to the latest data compiled by the World Gold Council. There were no notable sellers in January.

The United States enjoys the privilege of issuing the world’s reserve currency. But it increasingly uses that privilege as a hammer to shape foreign policy. Could Americans end up feeling the blows from that hammer? Economist and the author of Currency Wars Jim Rickards thinks that’s already happening.

Silver demand is expected to hit 1.2 billion ounces this year. That would rank as the second-highest annual silver demand on record. Record industrial demand for silver is expected to drive overall silver offtake this year, according to an article in the latest edition of the Silver Institute’s Silver News.

During a recent interview aired on 60 Minutes, the Fed chairman said it was time to have an “adult conversation” about the national debt and conceded that the U.S. government is on “an unsustainable fiscal path.” Powell said, “We’re effectively borrowing from future generations,” and that it is time for us to put a priority on “fiscal sustainability.

According to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, prices rose by 3.1 percent over the last year. Based on my own experience at my local shopping center, that seems low. And it may well be. There are reasons to doubt the accuracy of CPI data. According to a recent report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) weak response rates…

The commercial real estate market continues to deteriorate in this high-interest rate environment, putting stress on the banking system. The dollar amount of bad commercial real estate loans has ballooned beyond the loss reserves held by big banks to cover them as more and more borrowers struggle to keep up with payments.

Chinese gold demand kicked off 2024 with a bang. Wholesale gold demand set a record in January. Meanwhile, assets under management by Chinese gold ETFs reached an all-time high. China ranks as the world’s top gold consumer, and Chinese demand has a significant impact on the global gold market.

The bank bailout program established by the Federal Reserve in the wake of last spring’s banking crisis is scheduled to shut down on March 11. Then what? There are a lot more questions than answers. For instance, will the Fed blink? And if it doesn’t, how will the end of the bailout ripple through the financial system?

The federal government’s budget deficit was “only” $21.93 billion in January. That was a significant improvement over the $129 billion shortfall recorded in December. The smaller deficit was primarily due to increased government receipts thanks to a big drop in tax refunds. But the Biden administration is still spending like a drunken sailor.

Russia has reportedly used gold to evade currency restrictions put in place as part of economic sanctions levied in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. Under the sanction regime, Russian banks are prohibited from importing dollars or euros into the country, enforced by locking Russia out of the SWIFT network

With gold prices skyrocketing in their local currency, Egyptians are turning to silver to protect their savings from skyrocketing inflation. According to a Reuters report, surging prices and a weakening currency have driven the price of gold to record high levels. In order to protect their wealth, many are turning to silver as a more affordable alternative.