January 6, 2026
Gold and silver are currently on the rise, while the US dollar is falling. Let me unveil that for you. This trend is a direct consequence of current economic policies and concerns about the debasement of currency. If interest rates are cut and the dollar weakens against real goods, then gold and silver naturally become attractive investments. These forces are unlikely to abate, potentially continuing into 2026, as all precious metals have been demonstrating upward momentum.
There's a strong emphasis on the historical performance of these precious metals. I have written about them in my books as early as 2012 and 2017, highlighting their consistent role during periods of economic uncertainty. Many people watching this channel, who have held their gold and silver for many years, are finally seeing some really good returns overall. It's always this exaggerated fashion. People lose faith in the currency when it gets debased, and then everybody rushes in.
However, a word of caution is also issued. Silver, in particular, has seen a parabolic rise, making it "very, very cautious" to chase at its current levels. The daily Relative Strength Index (RSI) indicates that silver has moved into "overbought territory." So, be careful and be mindful of that. If you're going to say, "oh, I'm going to chase this thing up to 100, and 150, and 205,000" as I've been told before, just be careful. Hopefully, you got in when I was talking about this thing back in my early videos in 2011. Hopefully.
The underlying fundamentals for silver are also highlighted. Silver prices versus the world's largest producer show that production isn't keeping up. The demand is there, and silver is in so many different things. It is being used as a commodity. A lot of gold, yes, it does get bought for jewelry, but in many cases, it's getting put in a vault somewhere, so it's a very different circumstance. It is being used, gold, but silver even more so. When you don't have that production, you start to have that supply and demand problem that's good for prices.
For gold, robust central bank demand is a key driver. The World Gold Council forecasts continue robust central bank gold demand for 2026. Central banks are buying it up, potentially exceeding a thousand tons for a third consecutive year. That is a big demand right there. Of course, countries like India buy a lot of that gold, which basically continues to keep the price elevated. However, there's a large number of speculators in the gold and silver markets right now, and that means watch when it goes up because it can absolutely come back down, not to zero, but the point is that these things can move and make you a little bit seasick.
Ultimately, the argument for real assets like gold and silver is tied to currency debasement and inflation. What have I said since my first book? I've said this over and over and over again, that watch what happens with gold. It starts to rise when there's inflation. So, you have inflation, you have gold rising, and then you have silver follow behind it in a more exaggerated fashion. I talked about that in both books, talked about it a hundred times on my videos. Here we are today, watching the same pattern repeat. Given the rising national debt and ongoing inflation, if they keep debasing it, you better have your money outside of cash and you better be invested. Of course, real assets are where you want to keep your money during difficult times. Not 100% perhaps, but you definitely want to have exposure.
The Federal Reserve is doing something they haven't done really many times before, and that is cutting interest rates when there is no admitted recession, no crisis, no depression. Here we are watching them cut rates, watching them begin quantitative easing, stopping the quantitative tightening. It's all happening right now. However, Fed Minutes revealed persistent inflation concerns, dampening early 2026 rate cut hopes. The odds, when you look at them on the CME Fed Watch tool and on Pauli Market, are all saying no cut in January. If it's no cut in January, the market has already priced that in, and so we need to watch and be careful. That's why there was some struggle going into the end of the year. It wasn't so Santa Claus-y after all.
The minutes from the Fed's meeting back in December indicated significant division among the policymakers regarding the timing and the pace of interest rate reductions. This is something that we got to be watching, we got to pay attention to, it's going to evolve. But at the end of January, we are going to get the data, and that is going to be critical for what happens in the coming days after that.
Current economic conditions reflect the consequences of these policies, or the lack thereof. Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates, you're looking at these being exceptionally high compared to what people are used to. Now many have that locked in low, but what does that mean for sales and all the jobs around it? You see, this is something that when easy money comes in, you have more sales. You had brokers and real estate agents and good structural workers and tradespeople all surrounding the real estate industry, and now they aren't doing much because the markets are slow. Even if they're not coming down like with single-family homes, the markets are super slow, and that means generally activity drops, and you have other people that are going to be suffering as a result of this. So, if we're not going to get those cuts, if we're not going to come down even further, then this has a knock on or domino effect.
Consumer price index, this is the CPI, and you could see this being extremely high for people. They are not used to this. When we can see that interest rates are increasing, they would be a burden to the average person, and even those in the upper middle class, we're seeing that as well. This is something that goes all the way through. You can feel these reverberations, whether it is in here. The condo market has been this bad in over a decade. We're also seeing the pinch when it comes to many consumer products. A lot of companies have been talking about people cutting back. This means recession. So, what does that mean? Why am I even giving this information? It tells you that we are having a real slowdown. Inflation is going to pick up.
The speaker notes that while current quantitative easing and a few rate cuts could "boost everything up," what's coming next, we really don't know. A major concern is the national debt, with Janet Yellen warning that the 38 trillion national debt is "testing a red line" that economists have feared for decades. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, what is it, 38 or is it 42 or is it, you know, 58? The point is we have a concern. We have a big concern. While the debt has been rising, we have seen inflation going up, and we have seen the currency going down. How do you pay back this impossible debt? You keep debasing it. If they keep debasing it, you better have your money outside of cash and you better be invested. That is the most important thing.
The current economic environment is proving particularly challenging for small businesses. Small business owners say that they're being crushed by rising costs. Shop rents are climbing, and products are more expensive to put on retail shelves. Simultaneously, cash-strapped Americans are spending less as they swap their pricier local goods for cheaper options at Walmart and Amazon. This is something that really when the small business gets hurt, you start to see that having an effect on the wider economy.
This is just further into that, and it's telling us that we have a problem because when you have a slowdown, you get a recession. When you get a recession, you get an even bigger slowdown because of all the companies saying, "uh-oh, we're in a recession, now it's time to fire people," and that could be the risk.
Further compounding the issue, more than half of small businesses, 58%, said that they were planning price hikes to help pay for the tariffs. And whether it's the tariffs or not, they are increasing their prices, so people are going to feel the squeeze. Don't ever mistake it. Look, ADP said small businesses are cutting 120,000 jobs. They are cutting jobs left, right, and center because they can't keep up.
A key disparity exists between these struggling "mom and pop" businesses and large corporations. The Walmarts of the world, the Amazons of the world, they could afford it because they're sitting on cash piles of billions and billions of dollars, and they're earning interest on that. Small mom and pop, they don't have this. They don't, and so they're suffering as a result of it.
The impact of this downturn is visible in the physical landscape of retail. 8,200 stores permanently shuttered in 2025. Over 8,000 stores, all right? And a lot of that, hey, it's probably redundant. It's probably a lot of retail that we don't need, the JCPenney's and the Sears, like how many of those department stores do we need? It doesn't matter. Those stores employed people, and those people, now they are in dire straits.