For the Sake of Our Money, Scott Bessent Needs to Shut Up |
It doesn’t reflect well on a treasury secretary when the price of gold goes through the roof. As I explained in October (“Gold Is Booming and That’s Really Bad News”), it means people expect higher inflation and are losing faith in the stock market along with the overall health of the economy. In such moments, Wall Street longs for a steady hand at the helm. Instead, they get Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hurling insults in every direction and giving every impression that he’s about to have a nervous breakdown.
Bessent previously enjoyed a reputation as the sole grown-up in Trump’s Cabinet. But at Davos last week, Bessent engaged in a frantic sort of MAGA minstrelsy, or possibly he converted under duress into a true-believing thug. I’m not sure it matters. But the more Bessent shoots his trash-talking mouth off, the more the dollar’s value falls and the higher the price of gold rises. Probably the best thing Bessent could do right now—for himself, for the dollar, and for your 401(k)—is to shut the fuck up.
I predicted in late October that a stock market crash was imminent. It didn’t happen, and as I write this the S&P 500 is rising. But a lot of experts still say some sort of correction is coming. Rising gold prices reflect that belief. Wall Street refers to the gold market as a “debasement trade”—the debased object being the dollar.
An ounce of gold rose in price Monday morning to $5,100 per ounce, up from $4,000 per ounce three months earlier. For comparison’s sake, when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, an ounce was priced at $20.67, or about $850 after inflation. That was enough to hurry California........