Transcript

Trump Fed Feud Sends Gold and Silver Soaring

From Peter Schiff · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 1 min · 10,037 words · 73 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Trump Fed Feud Sends Gold and Silver Soaring", an episode of Peter Schiff published January 12, 2026 (1 h 1 min, about 10,037 words). It mentions 7 people, works and ideas, including Shift Gold, Europe Pacific Asset Management, Peter Schiff, europac.com, Exxon Mobil.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Shift Gold, Europe Pacific Asset Management
  2. – 50:00: Peter Schiff, Shift Gold
  3. – 1:00:00: europac.com, Shift Gold

Notable quotes from "Trump Fed Feud Sends Gold and Silver Soaring"

  • The day in the markets anyway is precious metals, gold and silver. In fact, I did a shift gold market wrap on Friday to talk about the big week that the precious metals had.…
    about Shift Gold · at
  • Get involved other than opening up a separately managed account with Europacific Asset Management is to buy my gold fund, the Europe Gold Fund, EPGIX.
    about Europe Pacific Asset Management · at
  • It, too. email them the link and say, Hey, you got to listen to Peter Schiff because you're not hearing this stuff any place else, right? But anyway, so Donald Trump was…
    about Peter Schiff · at
  • Brokerage firm. You can get all the information on my mutual funds at europac.com europac.com or call up europac.com.
    about europac.com · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Companies & orgs

Products & tech

  • GDX — Product · 1 mention
  • GDXJ — Product · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you're up half a million in soybeans and the next boom, your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your vent. Are you with me?

The revolution starts now. Sto, we have to pass the bill so that you can uh find out what is in it.

TURN THOSE MACHINES BACK ON. You are about to enter the Peter Shift show. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth. The Petership Show is on.

I don't know when they decided that they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.

Your money, your stories, your freedom. The Peter Shift Show. Welcome to a live episode of the Peter Shiff Show podcast. It is Monday just after the US stock markets have come to a close and once again the big story of the day uh in the markets anyway is precious metals, gold and silver. In fact, I did a uh shift gold market wrap on Friday to talk about the big week that the precious metals had. And here we are one day into this week and it's even bigger. Silver today was the superstar. It closed up $5.30 above $85.854 I think is about where it settled. And interest day, we almost got to 86. We were above 85 uh 90, which means that silver was up more than $6 on the day.

That is a huge move. Again, when I first started buying silver for myself and for uh clients, silver was under $5 an ounce. Today's move was greater than the entire value of the commodity when I first started to buy it. In fact, I remember when silver got above $5. I remember thinking, "Oh, this is big. We've broken above $5." Right now, we have, you know, uh it's going to go higher, you know, and yes, you know, it's now a lot higher above $85. The prior record before this day, the record that Silver set a few weeks ago, I think it was maybe the day, you know, the day after Christmas, right? Boxing Day Eve, whenever. I think that's when it happened. Silver got above 83. Didn't quite make it to 84, but it got to 83 and change. That was the record until last night when it broke it, and then it broke it again uh during our time zone.

Uh same thing with gold. Gold also hit a new record high today. At one point it was up about $120 an ounce, which dollar-wise I believe is the biggest gain ever for gold. Now, it's not the biggest percentage gain, uh, but dollar-wise, it is. I've never seen gold up $120. I've seen it up a hundred, and that was recently. Prior to, you know, this, you know, last couple of months, I had never seen that. Um, but now I've seen 120. It didn't close up 120. It closed up about $90, just below 4600. The high gold almost got to 4630, but it closed around 4598, but the prior high before this uh was 4440ish, right? It was somewhere below 4450. So we blew through that uh and set new records. So we closed today not only at record highs in both gold and silver, but we closed above the prior all-time record highs. So the charts look phenomenal and of course the fundamentals look even better than the charts assuming that you understand the

fundamentals. Now gold and silver mining stocks also had decent days. You know, I think they were up the GDX, let me take a look. I think it was up three and a half% or so, 3.4%. GDXJ up three and a half%. But that's nothing. Again, these stocks should be up so much more. It's just that investors still don't appreciate the significance of what's happening in gold and silver. They're still much too cautious. They're worried that maybe this is some kind of bubble. They're waiting for the market to drop. Well, while they're waiting for gold and silver prices to come down, they are going to keep going up. Now, at some point, investors are going to have to wake up to this reality and what it means for the earnings of mining stocks.

And these mining stocks ultimately are going to have to catch up. And they have a long way to go to catch up. Don't wait. right? Take your positions. Now, again, uh my favorite way for people to get involved other than opening up a separately managed account with Europacific Asset Management is to buy my gold fund, the Europe Gold Fund, EPGIX. Uh and I've been pounding the table or my desk, what I got over here, uh to buy this, you know, pretty much all last year. Uh because I saw the breakout and none of this is surprising to me. All that surprised me is that it's taken so long. And it is somewhat surprising that so few people see the significance. You know, I was watching on CNBC today, and again, I watch that so you guys don't have to, but I I watch it just so I can see what the mainstream media is telling the public. And despite this big move in gold, there was very little discussion.

There was some discussion of it uh because it couldn't be avoided. But you know, I was watching this morning and one of the anchors there uh mentioned gold. This is the first time she mentioned it and she said, "Oh, gold is up a bit today. Nothing significant, right? Up a bit. It was up $115 when she said that. That's not a bit. That's a big move." And given that it was the largest dollar move in the history of gold trading to just dismiss it as saying, "Well, nothing significant." It is significant. This entire gold rally is significant. The problem is the mainstream financial media and the mainstream financial industry has no clue what it means. Again, to me, it's just like when the subprime market blew up. And I knew the significance of that because I had been anticipating it. I was short. I was telling people to get short. I knew that we had a housing bubble. And I knew the fuel for the

bubble was coming from mortgage finance. And I knew that, you know, the weakest link in a very weak chain was subprime. And that once subprime cracked, the rest were going to go. But mainstream uh Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, as clueless as they were to the true state of the US economy, and they didn't appreciate the literal house of cards that had been erected, when subprime cracked, they were like, "Nothing to worry about. Everything is contained, right?" Because they didn't they didn't appreciate it. They didn't know what to look for. So, they didn't know what just happened. But what's happening now in gold and silver is what I've been predicting would happen for a long, long time. It's finally happening. But it's happening for precisely the reasons that I said it would happen. Just like what happened with the mortgage market and the financial crisis. I didn't just get lucky. Everything happened the way I

said it would happen for the precise reasons that I said it would happen. Now, the only thing I didn't get right to an extent is how long it would take. And obviously, it's taken a lot longer than I would have thought or I did thought think uh more than a decade ago. I expected gold to hit 5,000 over 10 years ago. Now, it's probably going to hit 5,000 this month, but of course, I've adjusted my my target now because this problem has gone on for as long as it has because we've kicked the can down the road for that decade.

5,000 is not my target. We're going to 10,000, 20,000. We're going much higher. Had go gold gold gone to 5,000 in 2012 2013 had we had a dollar crisis and a sovereign debt crisis back then maybe we could have diffused uh the situation and we you know we would have already been on the upswing a long time ago. But no, the problem got much much worse than it was back then and and it just means gold is going to be a lot higher before this gets resolved. But what was the catalyst for this big move? Now, of course, I don't even think we needed a catalyst.

Pretty much every Sunday night, like clockwork, you get a big move up in gold and silver. Now, this is one of the biggest, maybe the biggest. Uh, but that's why I'm always telling people, you know, get your orders in. You know, I do these uh, you know, Shift Gold Friday market wraps that I say by Friday, by Friday night, by Saturday morning, Saturday night, Sunday morning, we're 247 at Shift Gold. Don't wait till Sunday night because that's when the Chinese wake up and they start buying gold and the price goes up. So, we don't even need a catalyst. I mean, the catalysts are already, you know, entrenched in place. So, gold and silver are going to go up. But there was some things that happened over the weekend that were particularly bullish for gold.

And in fact, they're probably more bullish than was reflected in the market. Certainly in the bond market, in the foreign exchange market, the dollar was down, uh, bonds were down, and stocks were down, but they finished positive, so they shrugged it off. Uh but gold and silver uh were the primary markets that reacted to the news. Uh but maybe there'll be a delayed reaction unless of course there's damage control and they walk the whole thing back which which they may do. But you know the chicken is is is out of the bag now or the cat's out of the bag. Um and so it's hard to really walk it back even though they may try but it's pretty much out there. So, the big news was that Jerome Powell came out on X with a little video that he recorded and he revealed that on Friday he had been served or the Fed had been served with a subpoena to get information on Pal because he is under criminal investigation before a grand jury. So, a

grand jury is being asked to return an indictment of Jerome Pal. Now, indict him for what? I mean, he's certainly incompetent, but then so are all the Fed chairman. Uh, but you can't indict somebody for that. I mean, other if you did, then that everybody'd be in jail, right? Uh, the reason they want to indict him is because they said that he testified falsely. Uh, so I guess he maybe lied under oath um and and um and said something to Congress and what he what he lied about apparently was the um the cost of the renovation of the Federal Reserve headquarters. And you know obviously this thing is a complete disaster. They spent like $2.5 billion dollar redoing uh this building.

I mean, they're not even building a new headquarters for scratch, right? They're renovating the one they've got and they're spending a fortune, which shouldn't be a surprise that they're reckless and inefficient with their money. I mean, that's par for the course in Washington. Again, if you're going to throw people in jail for wasting money, I mean, the whole city would be in jail, right? But what they want to do is they want to say you're saying that he said some things that weren't true. He lied, right? He lied to Congress. And so they want to indict him for that. Again, I mean, it's laughable because of course he lies to Congress. That's his job. His job is to lie. I mean, he can't tell the truth. I mean, for God's sakes, we can't handle the truth, right? He knows that.

All the Fed chairman know that they can't be honest. And so they they everything is is a lie. But it's not just the Fed chairman who lies. Whenever he goes to Congress and he testifies, all the Congress men and women, they're lying, too. It it the whole thing is lies. It's one lie after another. I mean, politicians are professional liars. Central bankers aren't any different. Donald Trump lies. He lies like crazy. He's probably one of the best liars there is, right? I mean, he rarely tells the truth, right? So, how is Trump talking about hypocrisy? He's trying to get pal indicted for lying when when when when when he tells lies every single day. So, the whole thing is laughable. You know, in fact, one of the things I don't care about him lying about is is is that I mean, that's that's like a little white lie. Who cares about the the money they're wasting that that there's much bigger fish to fry. He's lying about things

that are far more important than how much the elevators cost uh in in uh in in the Fed building. And by the way, look, there's a reason for this. The Federal Reserve always had the most expensive uh building in Washington DC. The the the way the Federal Reserve was created, again, the Federal Reserve is private. It's not a government agency. Now, they have a special, you know, tax regime. the the member banks are allowed by statute I forget the exact amount right but so I'm I'm close but they're allowed a return on their capital investment and I think it's 6% and there there's some uh ways that that can be changed but let's say 6% the Fed pays dividends of 6% of the profit that it makes running the Fed right open market operations all the things that it does it generates a profit and it's allowed by statute to distribute the profit to the banks that own the Fed private banks right this is

not the government but everything above that amount gets given or paid to the US government so it's effectively a 100% tax bracket right they're in the 100% bracket once they've met this this maximum distribution that they're allowed to So, what is the incentive of the Fed? I mean, do they have an incentive to keep costs down? Well, no. Because whatever they don't spend, they're sending to the government. So, it's all going to be gone. You know, if you were in the 100% tax bracket, right? If if you know, if you could write off 100% of your office decor, right? How expensive would your office be? Right? I I would spend everything that I was going to pay in taxes on my office to zero out my income, right? So, if I had a million dollars um left over, right, that I was going to have to pay 100% tax on, but I could take the million dollars and build myself a really fancy office. Hell, let's build the office. Cost me nothing.

Cost the government a million dollars. It's nothing out of my pocket. I'll spend the government's money all day long. So, that's what the Fed does. They don't care, right? It's not their money. It was just going to Washington. Who gives a damn? They're just going to waste it anyway. Just gets lost in the sauce. I mean, the budget is trillions and trillions of dollars. So, yeah, they have no incentive. Yeah, give me give give me the nicest bathrooms, right? Let me have more marble, whatever. They they don't care. This is not news that the Federal Reserve doesn't give a damn about spending the public's money.

Neither does anyone in Congress. Neither does the president. So obviously this has got nothing to do with it, right? It's all a pretense and Jerome Pal laid it out precisely in his video that he posted on X and I'm going to talk about that and the rest of the podcast on the other side of this commercial break. So stick around. We're coming right back. Every business is trying to figure out the same thing right now. How do we make AI actually work for us? The possibilities are endless, but guessing is expensive and waiting around is even worse. Because you can bet your competitors aren't sitting still.

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a pretense. Trump wants to get rid of Lisa Cook to replace her with a lackey. He wants the same thing with Pal. Now, Pal is already leaving, right, as Fed chair. But the problem for Trump is that Pal, even though his term is up as chairman, his term as FOMC member is not up. He doesn't have to leave the Federal Open Market Committee for, I think, a couple more years after that. Now normally when a Fed chair is not reappointed they they leave even if they have some time remaining remaining on their on their tenure they don't stick around right it's like you know generally they want to leave and go on the speaking cur speaking uh uh um uh what's the um circuit circuit speaking circuit because these guys make like a quarter million a pop to give speeches right uh so I think being an ex-fed chair is a lot more lucrative than being the sitting Fed chair. So, usually they're happy to get out and start, you know, parlaying uh

cashing in on their their their fame. Uh plus plus also it's probably, you know, a let down. You know, once you've been the chief, once you've been the big guy, you don't want to be an Indian, right? It's, you know, all right, I don't want to just be another member. You know, you're not in the limelight anymore. I get it, right? It's like, you know, if you've been president, do you really want to, you know, run for vice president? Although Trump might try to do that, right? So he can get the president to resign and then he could circumvent the 22nd amendment and uh uh arise to the pre presidency without being elected. But I digress there. But you get my point, right? So normally Pal would leave, but there's a chance that Pal is going to stay just to stick it to Trump. and not maybe just to stick it to Trump, but to defend what he maintains is the independence of the Fed because if he's still voting member, you know,

there are seven members who vote and so it's majority rule, right? The the Fed chairman doesn't have any more votes than anybody else. His opinion, you know, carries a lot of water, so he can sway votes, but it's one man or woman, one vote. And right now there are two uh Trump flunkies who vote. When Pal is replaced, there'll be three. But if Pal stays on the Fed, Trump may not control the Fed. He'll have three out of four. They'll always have to persuade one more person. But if if Pal leaves and uh Trump gets to appoint another guy or gal, now he's got four out of three.

He could he's in complete control of the Fed. So that might be what's at play here. Maybe Trump is trying to push Pal out by saying, "Look, you know, you go quietly. There's no criminal indictment here, right? Play ball." I don't know. Or maybe because Trump has, you know, upped the antie so much uh with the criminal investigation, maybe that has emboldened pal. Maybe he was going to leave and now he's like, "Screw it." Right? I ain't going anywhere, right? Jordan Belelfford style, right? I I ain't leaving. So, but this is all playing out in public now, right? Talk about airing your your dog dirty monetary laundry in public. This doesn't play out very well on the world economic stage, right? This big spat and pal said, "Look, this is pivotal here. This is coming down to are we going to have an independent Fed? Are we going to have a Fed where interest rates are set by the Federal Reserve independently based

on their judgment as to what the appropriate rate should be based on the circumstances based on what we think is right for the economy or is it going to be based on what the president wants to do right now? I don't like either of those. Right? They're both bad. I want interest rates set by supply and demand by the free market. I don't want the Fed doing it and I don't want the president doing it. But given a choice between the lesser of those two evils, I'd take the Fed, you know, over an elected uh president any day. uh and apparently so would the rest of the world that is you know using the dollar holding the dollar as a reserve currency. They would have more faith in the independent Fed than knowing that the Fed is controlled by whoever happens to occupy the White House. And as bad as Trump might be, and believe me, Trump would be very very bad to have his uh you know hand on on the printing press. But what if AOC becomes

president, you know, or man, you know, or Bernie Sanders or who knows, you know, pick your Democratic list? Uh uh what are they going to do when they troll the Fed, right? Because whatever powers Trump has, they go to the next president. It is horrible precedents to set. So you're sitting around and you're holding dollars and you're watching this, you're like, I I'm out of here. I got no confidence in this currency. This thing is going to be train wreck. Like look what happened you know to the Turkish lera you know when when when it becomes political when you make monetary policy uh political it's already political that I mean that's the other irony of this whole thing is that independence is already a pretense yet now we're disclosing that right the Fed has never truly been independent they just pretend behind the curtains it's all political everything they do is political but now it's not pretend

anymore now they're you know it's kind of out front Everybody now knows it. You can't like be in denial of this. And you know, I was watching on Larry Cuddlo's show today. Cuddlo discussing this controversy which rightly made gold up and silver go up. The dollar should have gone down more. Bonds should have gone down more. They were down, but they weren't down as much as they should have been. But um they're discussing. He's got Art Laugher on there and Steve Moore. Now, they're on all the time. None of these guys would criticize Trump for what he's doing. And in fact, they all to a man said, "Yeah, Pal's got to go. Pal's the worst. He's the worst Fed chairman. He's terrible. He's done all this bad stuff." So, Trump is right that we got to get rid of this guy. And maybe he's lying about this other stuff. But what they said is what really matters is how bad he is and how he's got to go.

Now look, I am not a big fan of Jerome Powell, although I'm warming up to him a little bit more recently. Um, but no, I'm not a big fan of POW, but compared to Greenspan, Bernanki, and Yellen, right, those those uh three, he's less bad than the others. The best Fed chairman of my lifetime was Paul Vulkar, but since Vulkar, Pal is number two. That's how low the bar is. Yes, Pal printed way too much money after CO, but you think Janet Yellen would have done anything different? You think Ben Bernaki? Of course not. The exact same thing. He didn't write that playbook. He just followed it. Now, yes, he was in denial about inflation. But again, they all would have denied it.

They they've been denying it for decades. Yes, he waited too long to raise rates, but at least he raised them, you know, and he raised them a lot more than people thought he should have, so at least he did that. Uh, and yes, he he cut them too soon, I thought. But, you know, again, so would everybody else. At least he raised them. Look, he did not um light that fire, right? But yeah, he he he fed it. He fueled it. He didn't start it. He walked into a very bad situation. That inflation that finally blew up. The seeds of that inflation were sewn long before he got the job. Yeah, he made it worse. No question about it. But so would any of the predecessors.

But when you look at the totality of what they did and the damage that they did, the other ones are worse. So it's not that this is guy it's so unprecedentedly bad. Oh, we just got to get rid of pal because yellen was so much better or Bernaki was so much better. They weren't. They were actually worse. Now comes to the replacement. I guarantee you this. Whoever Trump picks to replace Pal will be way worse. Right. Cuddlo and and Laugher and Steve Moore, they're saying, "We got to get somebody good in there, you know, we got to get rid of this horrible guy and put somebody good in there." Nobody good is even being considered for the job. We're never going to put somebody good in in in office. That's the last thing they want. In fact, the reason they want to get rid of Pal is because he won't play ball, because he won't cut rates enough.

That's the one thing he's doing good. He actually should be hiking rates, right? So, he's got that wrong, but at least he's not caving to all the pressure to cut them even more. What Cuddlo and the gang want is they want somebody in there who will do exactly what Trump wants. How is that good? That, you know, that's like, you know, I want to have a chaperone at the prom who's going to bring all the liquor and make sure the punch bowl is spiked to the max, right? that maybe that's what the the the the kids want, but not the parents. They they don't want that. Uh so you but but they can't criticize Trump for anything and they're behind him.

But this is the kind of stuff that's going on. This is so bullish for gold and silver. Even if they walk it back, who knows? Maybe we'll get a pullback in gold and silver if they walk it back, right? Uh but look, we're not going to stop making new highs. We are completely repricing these assets for a new world where the dollar is no longer the reserve currency. Gold is going to be the reserve monetary asset. Real money, the dollar's days as the reserve are numbered and the number may not be that large. Uh silver of course is going along with gold, but silver's got a lot of other supply and demand dynamics that are extremely favorable uh for the price of silver. But again, copper, uh industrial metals, zinc, nickel, lead, all going up. Platinum, palladium, the other precious metals, all on fire, right? Wall Street has no clue. Again, as far as they're concerned, this is a sideshow. It's the main event. They just

don't understand what's happening. They don't know what the show is. They're distracted by the sideshow. And of course, the other side show being crypto and Bitcoin. They're still fixated on that. Bitcoin was up a little bit today, but probably only because the NASDAQ ended up positive. If the market would have tanked, Bitcoin probably would have gone down with it. But Bitcoin is not much higher than it started the year. It's 91,000. It's no big deal. I mean, gold and silver have had much bigger gains so far in 2026. as Bitcoin, despite the fact that Bitcoin was down 6 or 7% last year when silver was up 140% or 150, whatever it was, gold was up 60ome percent, 65% or 4%. Um, but Bitcoin is getting ready to collapse because Bitcoin did not rise with gold.

There wasn't a big rush to Bitcoin as a safe haven the way everybody rushed into gold and silver. People got worried about the dollar. They didn't express that fear by grabbing Bitcoin. They couldn't care less about Bitcoin. They went for real money. They went for gold and silver. But, you know, another uh thing that happened over the weekend, there were actually three things over the weekend that I think were very uh dollar bearish and gold and silver bullish. The other was uh Trump's proposed cap and he he floated this horrible trial balloon uh you know during the campaign but now he's resurrected it is he wants a cap on a credit card interest rates of 10%.

right now. Apart from the fact that that would be unconstitutional, right? I mean, it's none of the government's business if one person or one company wants to make a loan to another person. It's not up to the federal government to decide what the interest rate should be. Now, I know various states, you know, they have usery laws, you know, but the federal government doesn't. And it it certainly has no right uh you know so if I want to borrow money and the cheapest loan I could find is 12% I got a right to borrow that money. The government can't say no you can't have that loan because then what I'm going to have to borrow it illegally from some loan who might charge me 20% or more right? You know because this credit card companies charge 20%. But anyway but the fact that the credit card companies charge 20%. Uh Trump says that's outrageous. the credit card companies are ripping off the people. They're gouging the people. So,

we need price controls, right? He didn't say price controls, but he did say that the greedy credit card companies are ripping people off. They're gouging people. And so, the government needs to protect them by setting a a maximum price. Well, that is exactly what Kla Harris said about grocery stores and supermarkets. She said that the supermarkets were gouging the customers. They were ripping the customers off and so we needed price controls. And when she said that, all the Republicans were out, aha, she's a socialist. She doesn't believe in the free market. She wants the government to set prices, right?

Well, how is that different from what Trump is proposing with credit card interest rates? It's the same exact rhetoric. They're ripping off the people. They're screwing the public. these greedy banks, these mean banks. We need the government to come in because capitalism doesn't work, right? We need the government to set the prices. We can't trust the free market. Yet, none of the people or very few of the people that were critical of Kla Harris are leveling the same criticism on Trump. I mean, not only is that being a hypocrite, but if you believe in capitalism and you don't think socialism works, then you can't just cherrypick.

If if you believe in price discovery and the free market and competition, then you have to believe in it. Either capitalism works or it doesn't. You can't say it works for groceries, but it doesn't work for credit cards. It either it works for everything or it doesn't work for anything, right? And the fact of the matter is it works for everything. The credit card companies are not ripping anybody off. Yes. Is a 20% rate high? Yeah, it's high. That's why I don't borrow any money on a credit card. And most people with good credit don't have a balance on their credit card for the specific reason that they can get a better deal someplace else.

The people who are running a balance on a credit card are doing because that's the best deal they can get in a highly competitive market and they're choosing to borrow at 20%. No one has a gun to their head. They don't have to do it. They could pay off their balance. They could stop buying stuff. Perish the thought, right? But they don't do it. They pay it. And it's not like they don't know. I mean, the credit card companies are very upfront. They tell you, you know, what the APR is, what your credit card rates are. Um, and those are the rates. Now, are people getting ripped off? Well, no, because there's a competitive market.

Think about it. I mean, one of the most competitive markets out there are credit cards. I mean, credit card companies are a dime a dozen. There's so many of them. So many banks, so many companies uh issue credit cards, right? I mean, there there's so many that you could theoretically apply for, right? And they're they're constantly running commercials, advertisements, right? They advertise everything, including what their interest rates are. So, how could you be getting ripped off when there's so much competition, right? The the the idea that the credit card companies are ripping you off would mean that they're they're earning exorbitant profits with these 20% interest rates. But if they really were, competition would get rid of those profits because somebody would say, "You know what? Come to me. I'll only charge you 18%. I'm not going to rip you off. Transfer your balance over here. I'm only 18%." Right? And if that

was still an obscene profit, another company would say, "Hey, look at me. I'm 16%. Transfer your balance to me. We're only going to charge you 16%." The fact that rates are 20% means that's it. You can't go down to 18 or 17 and make money because if you could, somebody would have done it, right? There's all sorts of other ways they compete too with, you know, bonus points and, you know, airline points or mileage or cash back or all kinds of stuff. And a lot of these companies too, they advertise transfer your balance and for the first year you'll get this low interest rate.

And there are people that constantly transfer their balance from one card to another to keep to keep the interest rate low. I mean, so there's all sorts of ways in such a highly competitive market to try to reduce your cost. But the reason the reason that credit card companies don't charge 16% or 15% is because they can't because they would lose money. That's why now the reason that they have to charge 20%. Is because a lot of the people that they loan money to don't pay it back. Right? So the ones that do pay back unfortunately have to pick up the slack for all the dead beats who don't. Right now the card companies don't know which of their risky borrowers are going to pay and which aren't. They try. They do credit checks. They do a lot of things.

But the problem is there's a lot of defaults and these are nonreourse loans, right? You don't pay off your credit card loan, they've got no collateral. They can't go and repossess all the crap that you bought. So, you know, and you go bankrupt, too. It's all discharged. They they've got nothing. They're totally unsecured. So, it's a risky business and it's a numbers game. But also, one of the reasons that the interest rates are so high is because there's a lot of uh regulations. There's a lot of bureaucratic red tape in the banking system and um so the credit card companies need to recoup those costs from their customers because the customers ultimately pay all the costs.

Right? Now, you would think Donald Trump would know that, right? You would think he would know something about businesses. After all, he's operated so many failed businesses. He should know how they work. But maybe that's why he doesn't understand how tariffs work, right? He doesn't realize that companies pass on tariffs to consumers just like credit card companies pass on the regulatory costs of running the credit card business. So what would happen if Donald Trump's idea became a law? What if there actually was a 10% cap on the interest that credit card companies could charge? What what would happen?

Well, the credit card companies would immediately reduce the credit limits on a lot of their customers and they would cancel the accounts completely of a lot of customers. Credit would be restricted. They would only loan money to people who they thought were going were going to pay back. they would have to dramatically reduce their their loss rates so that they could be profitable at just 10%. So that would mean that probably the majority of credit card customers would would lose their credit card access. And so now what? Okay, so now Donald Trump says, "We're going to make it illegal for your credit card company to charge you more than 10% when you borrow money." And the result is the credit card company won't lend you any money.

So, you used to be able to borrow at 20%, now the rate is 10%, but you can't borrow any money because nobody will lend it to you. So, now what do you do? Well, either you go without the credit or you go to another uh consumer lender. You see, not only is the credit card industry very competitive within itself, but credit card companies compete with other uh lenders to the consumer. I mean, look at all these buy now and pay later companies, right? They all compete with credit card companies. Uh, and of course, as I said earlier, lone sharks compete with credit card companies, right? I can go borrow money from a lone shark. Now, normally, if I can get borrow my credit card, I ain't going to go to the lone shark, right? Even though the lone shark doesn't have security, he could break my legs. He could kick the crap out of me, right? So, he's got that going for him. And the lone shark is probably going to charge me a lot more

than City Bank, you know? So, I'd rather borrow from them than resort to a lone shark. But the lone shark is still there, right, as a competitor. But the, you know, the payday lender. So, what's going to happen is if I can't borrow money for card company, I'm going to borrow money from my next best alternative, which will be worse than the credit card company. So, what Donald Trump will do is he will say, "Okay, you can't your credit card company can't charge you 20% anymore." Uh, because, you know, I passed this law because I care about you, right? I'm going to I care about the people. Uh, and I don't want them to be ripped off by the credit card companies. So, they they're not going to loan you money anymore at 20%.

Okay. So, now I go and I borrow money someplace else at 25%. So, what has been achieved? Donald Trump can pretend that he's done me a favor, but I'm actually worse off. I'm now getting ripped off 25%. Right, by somebody else. Now, what is Trump going to go after those guys, too? Right, and and put them out of business and make it so I so the only one who will loan me money is the lone shark, right? Because if you make it illegal to loan money, then the only person who could loan me money is a criminal, somebody who doesn't give a damn about the law, right? So, that's how everything goes underground. But again, this is more proof. Donald Trump doesn't understand the Constitution and doesn't understand economics. Why does everybody think this guy is such a genius just because he tells everybody he's a genius? You know, most geniuses don't have to repeat it constantly how smart they are, right? It's pretty

obvious uh that they're smart. But in the case of of Trump, you know, unless you're, you know, diehard MAGA, you know, the guy doesn't know what he's talking about when it when it comes to to most things. Now, also another thing that that he said over the weekend that I find very very problematic and especially too for the dollar. And this is not getting a lot of play in um in the mainstream media. And again, this is another reason why when you're finished listening to this podcast, you got to tell your friends to listen to it, too. you know, email them the link and say, "Hey, you got to listen to Peter Schiff because you're not hearing this stuff any place else, right?" But anyway, so Donald Trump was interviewed um by the New York Times, right? And he was asked a question and this related to foreign policy, right? But still still it it says a lot. But he was asked, you know, are there any limits to your to

your powers? Now, you know, I don't want to go over what else he did last week, specifically uh with, uh, restarting a form of QE by ordering Fanny and Freddy to buy a couple hundred billion of mortgages, uh, moving, you know, uh, taking over and say, and running, um, uh, um, um, No. Um, not a um, Venezuela, you know, saying we're running Venezuela. I'm in charge of Venezuela. Uh, they're the making it illegal, trying to pass a law so that large institutions are not allowed to buy single family homes. I mean, he had so many hairbrain bad ideas last week. I already discussed them on the uh, shift goal Friday market rap. So, that's a really good podcast, too, that I did.

So, go back and listen to that one, you know, right after you send the link of this podcast to your friends. Go listen to the Shift Gold uh market rap, Friday market rap. I have it on both my main YouTube channel and on the the Shift Gold YouTube channel. So, I heard all that nonsense that he said, right? But he was asked about this. Oh. Oh, yeah. and um Greenland. But some of the worst comments about Greenland, like we're going to go into Greenland and we're going to make him an offer they can't refuse. We're taking Greenland whether the Greenlanders want want it or not. Like like you know, like we're we're we're going to go in there and because we're the strongest guy on the block and and we're going to take what we want because there's nothing anyone can do, right? that I mean he's basically using the military might of the United States to basically say that might makes right and we could do

whatever we want because nobody can touch us. Nobody can stop us. Uh look at our military. Look at what we did in Venezuela. Look at how we came down and took the president or the leader of Venezuela. We could do that with any we want. Uh so you better play ball or or else you're going to you're going to suffer the wrath, right, of the United States. we're basically threatening he's threatening the entire world. So in this interview New York Times the the the reporter asked him is there any limit to your power and Trump said no the only limit is my own mind is my own morality meaning that we just have to trust his morals that he doesn't recognize any authority whatsoever that limits his power that his power is unlimited subject only to his own benevolence.

I mean, most kings didn't even have that kind of power. I mean, they had some kind of parliament, some kind of, you know, law that limited their powers. No, he believes in the absolute power of the president to do whatever the hell he wants and we should trust him with all his power because he's a nice guy, right? I mean, you know, there's an old saying about power, right? Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Nobody should be trusted with absolute power based on the fact that hey they got a conscience and will trust you to do the right thing. You know what Trump should have said is when they said is there a limit to your power? Oh yes of course there's the constitution. That's what limits my power. Yes. Trump answers to the constitution.

Right. And there's checks and balances. His power gets limited by Congress. His power gets limited by the Supreme Court. not his own conscience. Not, you know, we're not just supposed to be be hoping, hey, let's put somebody in office and hope they're a good person because they have unlimited power. We are not electing kings, right? This is a president here. That's another reason I objected to this whole big ballroom. I don't want to turn the White House into a palace. We don't call it the White Palace. It's a house, right? It's supposed to be modest, even though it's big, right? It is a house. The president is a president. He's not, you know, a king. He's not royal, right? He doesn't have, he's not noble. He's a commoner who happens to be the president for four years, right? But when you hear him say stuff like this now, somebody can say, "Well, Peter, you know, he didn't say his domestic policy, uh, you know, his

power were was unlimited." Well, he wasn't asked. Ask him the question. Let's see what he says because he clearly doesn't care about the Constitution. He thinks he can do whatever he wants. But what I think is significance about this admission uh on the part of the rest of the world is the rest of the world is going to be we got to do something about this. We got to take away this club that we have handed um uh America because the US dollar being the reserve currency and the world supporting that system where America gets to live beyond its means. We get this exorbitant privilege of consuming what the world produces and borrowing what they save and living beyond our means. We have this big military and supposedly we're the good guys, right? Our military force is a force for good, right? So if some bad person is going to invade an innocent country like Greenland, we'll protect Greenland. We'll use this

military that the world helps pay for by financing our deficits and our debt. We will use this military to protect you. We're the good guys. We're the good cops on the block. You've outsourced your military defense to America. That's part of the deal, right? You buy our bonds. You supply us with these goods. We have a big military, but you know what? We'll protect you with it, right? We'll keep you safe. That that's the deal. Well, now Trump is saying, "Uh-uh, we get to use this military for our own advantage. We are going into El Salvador." I mean, not El Salvador.

We're going into Venezuela, not because of drugs. That's all a pretense. Just like, you know, the the um the the the reconstruction of the headquarters is a pretense. Trump always comes up with a pretense. In fact, ridiculously, a reporter asked Trump about the the criminal investigation of Pal and he said, "I I I don't know anything about that. What are you talking about?" Like, like, "Do you really think that the attorney general or Bam Damn Bondi or whatever? You think they opened up this investigation without telling Trump? Of course not. I mean, he obviously told him to do. Why would they even think about this, right?

And Trump is like lying. irony of it that, you know, they're trying to indict Pal for lying and Trump lies to the reporter and claims he knows nothing about the whole thing. Oh, no. I I really, he's being investigated. I didn't know about that. I mean, who the hell would possibly um believe believe that, right? And of course, you know, they can pretty much indict anyone they want, right? You they say you can indict a ham sandwich. The only one they couldn't indict was me, right? They tried for years to indict me for using my bank uh to facilitate moneyaundering and tax evasion and they couldn't they couldn't find anything.

Not only couldn't they indict me, they couldn't indict anybody uh that works for the bank, any customers of the bank. Right? But I digress there. But I'm getting back to the main point I'm making uh with Trump. So Trump is saying we're going down um to Venezuela for the oil. They make no bones about that. We want the oil. Whether or not Exon Mobile wants to be part of it, who gives a crap about them? We want the oil, right? This is all about oil because we need the oil. It's strategically in our advantage, right? We're we we need oil.

We need to keep oil prices down. Venezuela's got a bunch of oil. We've got a big military. We're taking that oil. Anybody got any problem with that? It's what he's saying right now. Same thing with Greenland. We need Greenland. Why do we need Greenland? Well, it's strategic. We We like the real estate. We like where it is. We like the natural resources, the the the critical minerals that Greenland has. We need it for the empire, right? I want Greenland said Trump says, "I want Greenland for America." Right? And he said, "And if we don't take it, China's going to do it or Russia's going to do it." Which they've made no indication that they're going to invade Greenland. So, we're saying, look, we're going to invade Greenland before anybody else invades Greenland.

But basically, we're telling the world, we're using this big military that you help support against you, against a NATO member, right? We have this whole NATO organization, yet we're going to threaten, we're going to invade Greenland if you don't sell the country to us at, you know, whatever price. I mean, what kind of deal is that? Like, you know, it's like the mafia, right? make, you know, negotiating a deal, right? Making we're gonna make uh the uh the Greenlanders a deal they can't refuse, right? Because if they don't accept a deal, we're we're just going to come and take it by force and they're going to get nothing, right?

So, when Trump is saying this stuff, and then when he's asked, well, you know, what limits your power, doesn't say the Constitution, doesn't mention international law, right? treaties, arrangements with no in Trump's mind, the only thing that limits his power is himself. He could do whatever the hell he wants, right? That's what he's saying. That would scare the hell out of anybody. And so what I would think is we have got to diffuse this situation, right? How do you do that? You dump the dollar. You dump treasuries. you create an economic crisis in the United States that number one, Trump's popularity plunges, right? Because if the economy tanks, if inflation soarses, unemployment soarses, Trump can't do this. He needs political capital, the all the Republicans are shaking in their boots to defy Trump because he's he's got a lot of power to maybe influence their reelection, fund their um uh their

opposition. like he's trying to get rid of Thomas Massie, the only one of the only decent congressman we've got. Trump wants to get rid of him. Trump calls him a rhino. He's the only non rhino. Trump's the rhino. Trump's a socialist. He's a He's proposing price controls. He says corporations are greedy and they rip people off. Does sound like the defender of free market capitalism. Who's the rhino here? I mean, although what the hell is the Republic party now? Nobody knows, right? Trump has just completely uh redefined it. But if he loses if the economy is really tanking, then he's going to lose some of those, you know, political uh capital that he has uh and and and people will criticize him. But also, if we have a dollar crisis, if the dollar crashes, we can't afford the big military that we have. We can't pay the troops. They're not going to work for free. We have hyperinflation. Good luck, right?

They're not going to they're not going to work. And we're not going to be able to afford to supply our troops and uh and to maintain them and to and to and to maintain all the equipment, right? Our empire, the the American empire survives because the world pays us tribute in the form of these trade deficits they finance and our budget deficits. And you know when the world thought they were getting, you know, a good deal, they were getting a stable reserve currency, they were getting the protection of the US military, now they're getting a debase currency. And the US military is being weaponized against them. It's being held out as a threat. You better play ball and just pray that I that that I'm in a good mood and that I'm feeling a sense of morality or we're coming after you. we're going to invade you because we've got the biggest, you know, club on the block.

So, that's another incentive to disarm the United States. And the fastest way to do that is not militarily, but economically, financially. Hit the US where it really hurts in in the pocketbook, in the dollar, crash the dollar, buy gold, buy silver, dump treasuries. That's what's going on. That's what's going to happen. So, all this stuff is going on over the weekend. Again, the masses in the mainstream media have no clue what is going on here. You know, I'm telling you what's happening. I don't know now how much longer you have to get your financial house in order. But get it in order, you must. So, you got to buy gold. You got to buy silver. Buy it to shift gold. Get a T-old account because you may need that account in the future for transactions when nobody will accept dollars anymore because they they've lost too much value and they lose too much value on a daily basis. Get out of US stocks, get out of US bonds. The rest

of the world, those markets are cheap. They had a phenomenal year la last year, right? You know, my dividend payer strategy was up like 62% or more last year. Phenomenal return. This is not the end of it. It's the beginning. Over a decade of foreign stocks underperforming US markets has just turned around big time last year for a reason. And I think the outperformance is going to be even bigger this year because I think the US markets are going down. And as good as gold and silver did last year, it could do even better this year. And and the mining stocks, yeah, they went way up.

They can go up even more. So, you've got to get out of these overpriced US stocks and bonds and build a portfolio ASAP this week uh of foreign stocks and bonds. You can do it yourself by buying my mutual funds at your discount brokerage firm. You can get all the information on my mutual funds at europac.com europac.com or call up europac.com. speak to one of our adviserss and you can transfer your account to us, get taken away from the mainstream advisor, send it to uh Europeific Asset Management and we will build portfolios for you and manage them for you of foreign equities, bonds, mining stocks, you know, things that will protect you from inflation and dollar debasement because that trade is going to gain a lot of momentum in the weeks, months, and years ahead. But you don't want to wait because the longer you wait uh the the lo the less you're going to be able to buy with your depreciating dollar. So

the sooner you can get going the better. And again make sure to subscribe to my newsletter uh shift sovereign and we have a a paid letter to strategic assets. This is an opportunity to take advantage of. Yes, I feel bad about what's going to happen to the country and I wish there were I could do to stop it but I can't. But at a minimum, I can at least profit from it because something bad is going to happen. I can either lose money or make money. Given that I can't change the bad, I can at least change my own financial circumstances. And I can help you change your financial circumstances. And you can help your friends, you can help your family members or your neighbors by sharing this content uh with other people. And again, if you like the video, don't forget to give me a thumbs up. Uh leave a comment. And if you're not a subscriber to this YouTube channel and you're still listening, you better

be a subscriber because it's I've been talking for an hour. And if you're still here, the least you could do is subscribe. Bye for now.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Trump Fed Feud Sends Gold and Silver Soaring"?

In order: 0:00 Shift Gold, Europe Pacific Asset Management; 40:00 Peter Schiff, Shift Gold; 50:00 europac.com, Shift Gold.

What is mentioned in this Peter Schiff episode?

7 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Shift Gold, Europe Pacific Asset Management, Peter Schiff, europac.com, Exxon Mobil, GDX. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump Fed Feud Sends Gold and Silver Soaring"?

The episode runs 1 h 1 min; the transcript is about 10,037 words in 73 timestamped sections.

More from Peter Schiff

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.