From the creators of The Daily Reckoning, I.O.U.S.A, Empire of Debt and The Daily Missive
From the creators of The Daily Reckoning, I.O.U.S.A, Empire of Debt and The Daily Missive
December 3, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
A conversation with Shad Marquitz & the Grey Swan 2026 precious metals forecast.
January 13, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
Sunday night, Powell addressed the probe head-on in a video post — a rarity. He accused the White House of using cost overruns in the Fed’s HQ renovation as a pretext for political interference.
The White House denied involvement. But few in Washington believed it.
What followed was bipartisan condemnation of the investigation. Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen co-signed a blistering rebuke, warning the U.S. was starting to resemble “emerging markets with weak institutions.”
January 12, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
January 9, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
January 14, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
Today’s chart of inflation reflects an eerily similar path to the 1970s. The last CPI reading ticked back up 2.7%. If prices today continue to track those of the 1970s, the next wave of inflation could see prices rise higher and faster than during the 2021/2022 bout.
Yesterday, gold notched another new record high of $4647. Its slimmer, svelte cousin, silver, set a new historic high of $92. Both monetary metals are reflecting the market fear that once inflation gets started, it’s very difficult to contain.
January 13, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
January 12, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
January 9, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
Interest rates are coming down, emboldening consumers to take on more debt.
The latest data highlights a central feature of the real economy. Americans no longer manage savings and income but credit cards, HELOCs, and mortgages in an effort to keep up appearances.
Day-to-day expenses, health insurance, housing, car payments and tuition will continue to plague Americans throughout the year ahead of going to the polls in November.
January 8, 2026 • Lau Vegys
Roughly 70–80% of global silver supply comes as a byproduct of mining other metals—copper, lead, zinc, gold. This means that even if silver prices doubled tomorrow, production wouldn’t automatically increase unless mining of those other metals ramped up too. You can’t just “decide” to mine more silver.
Layer China’s export controls on top of all that, and you’re looking at a supply profile that’s unusually tight—and unusually vulnerable.
January 8, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
The High Yield Bond Distress Index measures levels in the junk bond market, including liquidity, market functionality, and how easily companies can borrow.
A reading this low signals extremely healthy borrowing conditions for high-yield issuers. It’s also where we would look for distress in the corporate AI build out debt issuance.
And if the high yield bond market isn’t worried yet, stock market pullbacks are likely to be short and shallow – and will likely play a role in a midyear “crack-up boom.”
January 7, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
In late December, just days before the controls took effect, silver in Shanghai traded near $78 per ounce, while the COMEX closed closer to $72. A six-dollar gap.
Normally, that spread would collapse almost instantly. Traders would buy cheap metal and sell it at a higher price until the prices converged.
Since January 1, 2026, that hasn’t happened.
Physical silver inside China carried a premium that paper markets couldn’t erase.
At the same time, London’s bullion market slipped into what traders call “backwardation” — buyers willing to pay more now than later, a classic signal of supply stress.
This is what it looks like when settlement frictions appear.
January 7, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
The U.S. dollar is being dethroned from the global monetary system in real time.
While many have pointed out – correctly – that the buck is still the global trading currency of choice, the rise of gold for savings is the real story here… even with Dollar 2.0 digital assets rebooting global finance.
Following gold’s 60% rally in 2025, we expect gold’s uptrend to remain intact.
January 6, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
This is the confidence paradox in motion.
The legitimacy of the action remains contested. The legality may be debated for years. Yet capital immediately priced the outcome as useful.
Pundits on Fox Business immediately began explaining the complexities of processing “heavy, sour” crude oil that the refineries in Texas and Louisiana used to be tooled up for, versus the “light, sweet” variety the shale boom gushed forth.
January 6, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
History is clear. The “warmth of collectivism,” as New York City Mayor Mamdani wants you to believe, doesn’t come from a healthy economy. Maybe from, burning books and buildings… but not from building a prosperous society.
January 5, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
The entire process of reviewing forecasts and then issuing new ones has made us more intensely focused on our purpose. We’re not actually trying to “predict the future” to parody the disdain with which so many lazy media pundits would dismiss our approach.
Rather, we’re examining trends in the news cycle and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. What signals are coming through stronger than the nauseating cacophony of Washington and Wall Street, amplified by legacy and social media alike?
There are years when markets feel confusing because they are volatile. And there are years when they feel confused because the old explanations no longer work.
January 5, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
To start the year, the U.S. government didn’t bother with a hangover, rather it continues to spend so profligately that if we compared it to a drunken sailor, we’d have to apologize to the sailor.
Closing out 2025, America managed to rack up over $38 trillion in “official” debt. Looking at debt relative to GDP, it’s back over 121%.
January 2, 2026 • Addison Wiggin
The Grey Swan is not the invention of artificial intelligence. It is the moment the public understands that incentives have changed.
Network economics reward different behaviors than factory economics. Platform states operate by different rules than welfare states. Coordination outruns legislation. Culture lags technology. Conflict follows the gap.
In Financial Reckoning Day, we described how systems adapt when fiscal choices narrow. The Age of Intelligence represents that adaptation in software and silicon.
By the end of 2026, most people will recognize that machines now think alongside humans in logistics, finance, and planning. Some jobs disappear. Others appear. Output improves faster than consensus expects. Politics argues. Markets enforce discipline.
