Note: Recorded December 7, 2025 at GoldRepublic's headquarters as part of the 15-year anniversary series "The Future of Gold." Published on 20 May 2026.
"You know, 81 years after the the start of the Breton Woods conference, which was the start of the dollar system... we entered the big reset." - Willem Middelkoop [00:02:05]
"Printing money is practically irrelevant without velocity. Velocity is the turnover of money." - Jim Rickards [00:07:04]
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"It's impossible to do good market economic analysis today without blending in the geopolitical. They're really merged. They're really two sides of the same coin." - Jim Rickards [00:09:13]
"Something we consider almost natural state of things is everything except natural state of things. This is relatively new." - Edin Mujagic [00:20:08]
"If you are successful in preventing forest fires, you're really making sure that the forest will die out because by preventing forest fires you're preventing the cleanup that is needed once in a time." - Edin Mujagic [00:32:01]
"You'll never default on a debt in a currency you print because you'll just print the money. But that's just another way of defaulting." - Peter Schiff [00:39:04]
Speakers & Credentials
Marlene: Host/Moderator for GoldRepublic Global.
Willem Middelkoop: Author, founder of the Commodity Discovery Fund, and originator of the "Big Reset" concept regarding global monetary systems.
Peter Schiff: Chief Economist and Global Strategist at Euro Pacific Asset Management, known for his Austrian economics perspective and strong advocacy for gold over fiat currency.
Jim Rickards: Economist, lawyer, investment banker, and author specializing in global macroeconomics, currency wars, and geopolitics. Former consultant to the US intelligence community and negotiator during the LTCM bailout.
Edin Mujagic: Chief Economist at OHV Vermogensbeheer, monetary historian, and author focusing on central bank policy and inflation.
1. Executive Summary
The global economy is currently navigating a profound structural transition, characterized as a "Big Reset," signaling the slow dismantling of the post-Bretton Woods, dollar-dominated system.
Geopolitical fragmentation is accelerating, with the speakers emphasizing that analyzing macroeconomic trends is now impossible without factoring in the "three-handed poker game" between the US, Russia, and China.
The panel sharply debates the true cause of inflation and the relevance of central banks. While some argue the Fed’s money creation is the root cause of systemic rot, others contend that lack of velocity renders the Fed largely irrelevant, pointing instead to commercial bank activity.
A major looming risk is a sovereign debt crisis, not defined by hard defaults, but by severe currency debasement and inflation as heavily indebted nations print their way out of obligations.
While short-to-medium-term forecasts suggest severe market corrections, debt crises, and potential regional conflicts, the panel maintains a cautious historical optimism that this painful unwinding will eventually lead to a more stable, potentially gold-backed monetary era by the late 2030s.
2. Chronological Table of Contents
[00:01:20] The "Big Reset" and the Macro Landscape
[00:03:34] The US Dollar Privilege and Global Imbalances
[00:07:04] Velocity of Money vs. Fed Money Printing
[00:08:06] Geopolitics, The Opium Wars, and the Fentanyl Crisis
[00:09:43] The US-Russia-China Geopolitical Triangle
[00:11:02] Historical Cycles and Monetary Evolution
[00:15:07] Gold, Crypto, and the Trump Administration
[00:18:30] The Debate on Private Money vs. Currency
[00:26:01] The Paradigm Shift of 2008 and Failed Recovery
[00:31:29] Central Bank Intervention and the "Forest Fire" Analogy
[00:33:03] Predicting the Next Crisis: Subprime Warnings vs. Black Swans
[00:44:01] Systemic Risks: Stablecoins and Commercial Paper
[00:46:56] Market Closures and the Illusion of Liquidity
[00:48:52] Treasury Yields, Inflation, and the Price of Gold
[00:54:04] Historical Defaults and Hyperinflation in Yugoslavia
[00:58:16] Central Bank Credibility and Inflation Forecasting
[01:01:51] Stock Market Forecasts and the AI Capital Expenditure Bubble
[01:06:40] The Resilience of the Euro and Dollar Dominance
[01:17:17] Historical Optimism and the Timeline for a New Era
3. Detailed Thematic Summary
The Big Reset and the End of the Fiat Era
The Post-Bretton Woods Unwinding: Willem Middelkoop argues that the global economy is currently undergoing a "Big Reset," a structural process moving the world away from the post-Bretton Woods dollar system, a transition that began roughly 81 years ago [00:02:05]. Edin Mujagic supports this, noting that monetary systems operate in deep historical cycles, and the current iteration—an unbacked fiat standard—is highly unnatural when viewed on a long timeline. He likens the entire history of money to a 24-hour clock, pointing out that our current unbacked fiat system only started at 11:45 PM [00:19:17].
The Burden of the Dollar Hegemony: Peter Schiff outlines how the US dollar's reserve status creates massive global imbalances. The US is able to consume far more than it produces by exchanging newly printed fiat for tangible goods, relying on foreign nations to subsidize American consumption by reinvesting those dollars into US assets like bonds and real estate [00:04:11]. He predicts that when this system inevitably fractures, it will cause immense economic pain for the US but offer profound relief to the rest of the world, whose capital will no longer be siphoned to support American deficits [00:05:44].
The Debate Over Fed Power vs. Velocity: Jim Rickards challenges Schiff’s focus on the Federal Reserve, arguing that raw money printing is practically irrelevant without velocity (the turnover of money). He notes the Fed printed $10 trillion with little initial inflation because the velocity of money is actively declining [00:07:04]. The real driver of the economy, Rickards argues, is commercial bank lending, particularly within the Eurodollar system, making the Fed a secondary actor [00:25:20].
Geopolitical Fusion: War, Trade, and Sanctions
Economics and Geopolitics are Inseparable: Rickards asserts that modern economic analysis is impossible without deeply integrating geopolitics. He draws a direct historical parallel between the 19th-century Opium Wars—where Britain aggressively pushed opium into China to balance a trade deficit—and the modern fentanyl crisis, suggesting China is utilizing synthetic opioids as a form of asymmetric "payback" for historical grievances, contributing to over 100,000 American deaths annually [00:08:06]. Schiff pushes back, arguing the fentanyl crisis is a self-inflicted wound caused by draconian US drug laws that eliminate legal supply chains and quality control [00:13:29].
The Three-Handed Poker Game: Rickards frames current global geopolitics as a "three-handed poker game" between the US, Russia, and China—the only powers that truly matter. In 1971, Nixon allied with China to isolate the Soviet Union. Today, Rickards argues the US must execute the exact opposite strategy: pivoting to ally with Russia in order to contain a rising Communist China [00:09:43]. He views the Trump administration as slowly feeling its way toward this necessary realignment and advocates for the removal of anti-Russian sanctions, which he claims always boomerang on the issuer [00:10:34].
Sovereign Debt Crises and the Mechanics of Default
Inflation as the Chosen Default: Middelkoop identifies sovereign debt as the next major trigger for a global crisis, pointing to dangerously high debt levels in Japan, France, the UK, and the US [00:37:19]. Rickards clarifies that nations borrowing in currencies they print (like the US or Japan) will not technically default; they will simply print the money to pay their nominal debts [00:38:24]. Schiff counters that aggressive money printing is simply a stealth default via inflation, as creditors are repaid in drastically debased currency. For instance, if a European investor buys US Treasuries and the dollar loses half its value against the Euro by maturity, they have suffered a 50% real loss [00:40:11].
The Debt-to-GDP Metric: Mujagic points out that inflation is a necessary tool for highly indebted nations. He cites France, whose debt-to-GDP ratio hit almost 150% in 2021 but fell to 117% over a few years—not because they paid off debt, but because high inflation aggressively diluted the real value of their obligations [00:41:39]. The panel agrees that a debt-driven economy cannot survive high interest rates, making inflation a structural requirement for governments, regardless of what central banks claim in public forecasts [00:52:12].
Systemic Vulnerabilities and Unknowns: When predicting the exact catalyst for the next crash, Rickards argues it will be an unforeseen black swan, contrasting with the highly predictable 2008 subprime crisis. He points to Stablecoins as a massive unacknowledged risk, describing them as unregulated money market funds heavily invested in commercial paper. In a panic, if everyone demands dollar redemptions simultaneously, the illiquid backing of these coins could trigger a massive, cascading run on the shadow banking system [00:44:01].
The Tech Bubble, AI, and Asset Deflation
The AI CapEx Bubble: Rickards predicts significant downward pressure on major stock indices by 2026, specifically targeting the AI sector (Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle) for a potential 30% drop [01:01:51]. He argues that the hundreds of billions currently driving US GDP through fixed-asset investment in AI data centers will face severe energy bottlenecks. Because these facilities cannot secure enough electricity, cutting-edge chips will sit idle and become obsolete before they are turned on, resulting in massive, imminent corporate write-offs [01:04:03].
The Necessity of Creative Destruction: Reflecting on the aftermath of 2008, Mujagic utilizes the "Forest Fire" mental model. By aggressively intervening with zero-interest rates and QE to stop the economic pain of the financial crisis, central banks behaved like rangers putting out every small forest fire. While this looked successful in the short term, it prevented the necessary cleansing of deadwood (zombie companies and bad debt), virtually ensuring that the eventual structural fire will be catastrophic and economy-destroying [00:32:01]. Schiff agrees, stating that had the market been allowed to clear in 2008, the ensuing recovery would have been much stronger, instead of the anemic 2.2% compound growth seen between 2009 and 2019 [00:30:02].
The Reference Vault
4. Data & Figures
Data Point
Value
Context
Timestamp
Duration of Current Monetary Epoch
81 Years
Time elapsed since the start of the Bretton Woods conference and the dawn of the dollar system.
The "Forest Fire" Theory of Recessions
Developed by Edin Mujagic to explain the catastrophic long-term effects of central bank intervention. In nature, small forest fires clear out deadwood and underbrush, ensuring the long-term health of the ecosystem. If park rangers aggressively extinguish every small fire, the deadwood accumulates until an uncontrollable inferno destroys the entire forest. Economically, when central banks intervene at the first sign of a recession (slashing rates to zero, implementing QE), they prevent the necessary "clearing" of bad debt, malinvestment, and zombie companies. This guarantees that the inevitable crisis will be systemic and devastating, rather than a healthy, cyclical correction. [00:32:01]
Milton Friedman's "Pluck the String" Theory vs. Phase Transitions
Jim Rickards contrasts Friedman's classic economic model with the reality of the post-2008 world. Friedman argued that an economy acts like a plucked guitar string: if you pull it down hard (a sharp recession), it will snap back violently with above-trend growth before returning to its natural baseline (e.g., the 16% real growth from 1983-1986 following the deep 1981 recession). Rickards argues that 2008 was not a plucked string, but a "phase transition" or paradigm shift. The economy went down sharply but never returned to its previous trend line, settling instead into a permanently lower, depressed growth trajectory (2.2% from 2009-2019) due to structural damage and central bank interference. [00:26:16]
The Geopolitical Three-Handed Poker Game
A strategic framework utilized by Rickards to explain global power dynamics. In a three-handed poker game, if you don't know who the sucker is, it's you—because the reality is always two players secretly allying against the third. Applied geopolitically, only three nations matter: the US, Russia, and China. Nixon successfully played this game in 1971 by allying with China to bankrupt the Soviet Union. Today, the US is failing the game by pushing Russia and China together. The optimal macro strategy for the US is to reverse the Nixon playbook: ally with Russia to isolate and contain China. [00:09:30]
The Illusion of Fiat Default
A critical distinction regarding sovereign debt crises for nations that control their own printing press. When a country borrows in a foreign currency (like Argentina borrowing in USD), they face "hard default" when they run out of reserves. However, Peter Schiff and Jim Rickards explain that nations like the US or Japan will never technically default on their bonds. Instead, they will simply expand the money supply to pay the nominal obligations in full. This is a "stealth default," where the bondholder receives 100% of their money back, but the currency has lost 50-90% of its purchasing power due to the inflation required to print it. [00:38:24]
6. Anecdotes
The Leopard Seal Attack in Antarctica
Jim Rickards relays a recent trip to Antarctica where his zodiac boat was attacked and sunk by an 800lb leopard seal, requiring an emergency rescue. He shares this story directly following Peter Schiff's complaints about over-regulation and big government, using the life-threatening encounter to humorously point out that while a world with zero government and zero regulation sounds ideal in theory, it is also a completely untamed environment where you can be abruptly "sunk" by wild forces. [00:06:26]
The Treasury Department's Blind Eye in 2007
In September 2007, Jim Rickards met with a senior Bush administration Treasury official to explicitly warn them of the impending 2008 collapse. Rickards practically laid out the playbook: order hedge funds to dump their derivative data into a secure IBM server so the government could map the systemic contagion and identify weak links like Lehman Brothers before the panic hit. The official refused, stating, "We're the Bush administration... we don't intervene." Rickards uses this anecdote to highlight the lethal combination of ideological blindness and systemic ignorance at the highest levels of government right before a massive predictable crisis. [00:34:16]
Surviving Hyperinflation with a Septic Tank of Gasoline
Jim Rickards shares a story from a Serbian friend who survived the brutal Yugoslavian hyperinflation of the 1990s. When fiat currency became utterly worthless (printed with 11 zeros) and hard currencies like gold or Euros were impossible to acquire, his friend drained his home's septic tank, cleaned it, and filled it with gasoline bought with rapidly dying local currency. Gasoline became the ultimate "hard asset." Rickards uses this to illustrate human adaptability during a currency collapse: when the official system dies, humans will rapidly invent and back their own parallel, tangible money systems. [00:55:27]
Bilderberg and the Survival of the Euro
Several years ago, amid widespread panic from elite economists (Roubini, Krugman, Stiglitz) that the Eurozone was collapsing and countries like Greece were leaving, Rickards was invited to brief the head of the Bilderberg group at Rockefeller Center. Rickards calmly told the panicked leader that the Euro was fine, no one was leaving, and the currency bloc would actually expand. He was proven exactly right. He uses this anecdote to warn against getting sucked into the emotional "vortex" of currency panic, reminding the panel that macro systems are remarkably resilient and that "the smartest people in the room" are frequently dead wrong during periods of volatility. [01:06:40]
7. References & Recommendations
Historical Events & Concepts
The Bretton Woods Conference: The 1944 gathering that established the post-WWII monetary order and cemented the US dollar as the global reserve currency. Referenced by Middelkoop as the system we are currently transitioning away from. [00:02:05]
The Opium Wars: 19th-century conflicts where Britain forced opium into China to balance trade deficits. Rickards uses this as a direct historical parallel to China's current involvement in the US fentanyl crisis. [00:08:06]
Nixon's 1971 Pivot to China: President Nixon's diplomatic strategy to ally with China to pressure the Soviet Union. Rickards cites this as the masterclass in the "three-handed poker game" of geopolitics. [00:09:43]
The 1933 and 1971 Gold Defaults: US historical actions restricting or ending gold convertibility. Schiff references these to prove the US has a track record of defaulting on its core monetary obligations when politically necessary. [01:12:45]
Closure of the NYSE (1914): The New York Stock Exchange shut down for five months at the outbreak of WWI. Rickards cites this to debunk the myth that modern markets cannot or will not be frozen during a crisis. [00:47:45]
Geopolitical Entities & Institutions
The Federal Reserve (The Fed): The US central bank. The central focus of debate; Schiff views it as the architect of inflation and systemic risk, while Rickards views it as a largely irrelevant puppet show compared to commercial banks. [00:25:20]
The Eurodollar System: The network of offshore US dollar-denominated deposits at foreign banks. Rickards points to this shadow banking network, not the Fed, as the true engine of global liquidity and money creation. [00:25:25]
BRICS: The geopolitical bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) actively seeking to de-dollarize and build alternative financial architecture. Middelkoop warns of rising, inevitable conflict between BRICS and NATO. [01:21:46]
Bilderberg Group: An annual, secretive conference of North American and European political and financial elites. Rickards references briefing their leadership to highlight the panic among elites regarding the Euro's survival. [01:06:40]
People
Paul Volcker: Former Federal Reserve Chairman who famously crushed inflation in the early 1980s and advised Nixon to close the gold window in 1971. Mujagic shares a personal anecdote that Volcker regretted the decision because it was subsequently abused by politicians. [01:16:04]
Milton Friedman: Nobel laureate economist. Rickards critiques his "pluck the string" theory of business cycles, arguing it failed to predict the permanent economic damage caused by the 2008 crisis. [00:26:16]
Sam Altman: CEO of OpenAI. Rickards dismisses him as an unimpressive promoter rather than a true technologist, using him as an avatar for the overhyped and overcapitalized AI sector. [01:03:42]
Companies & Assets
Stablecoins (Tether/USDC): Digital tokens pegged to the dollar. Rickards warns they are effectively unregulated, opaque money market funds holding risky commercial paper, making them a prime trigger for the next financial panic. [00:44:01]
Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle: Leading tech companies heavily invested in AI infrastructure. Rickards forecasts they will face a massive 30% drawdown as energy bottlenecks render their massive data center CapEx investments obsolete before they can be utilized. [01:02:17]
Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM): A highly leveraged hedge fund whose 1998 collapse nearly took down the global financial system. Rickards, who negotiated the bailout, uses it as an example of unforeseeable black swan events. [00:33:22]
Books & Publications
"The Big Reset" by Willem Middelkoop: A foundational book on the transition away from fiat currency. Acknowledged by the panel as pioneering the concept and terminology of a global monetary reset. [00:01:45]
"Money GPT" by Jim Rickards: Rickards' recent book analyzing the intersection of artificial intelligence, capital markets, banking, and military strategy. [01:03:08]
8. The Bottomline (by AI)
The global financial architecture is rapidly approaching a structural breaking point, driven by unsustainable sovereign debt and the weaponization of the US dollar. Prepare for massive volatility by 2026, driven not by a predictable credit cycle, but by unforeseen liquidity shocks in shadow banking (Stablecoins) and massive corporate write-offs in the overcapitalized, energy-starved AI sector. For capital allocators, the defensive posture requires hard assets (gold) outside the fiat system, as heavily indebted Western governments are structurally mandated to choose currency debasement and stealth inflation over politically toxic hard defaults.
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French Debt-to-GDP 2021
150%
France's peak debt-to-GDP ratio before recent high inflation periods.