The Julia La Roche Show

Hosted by Julia La Roche

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Julia La Roche brings her listeners in-depth conversations with some of the top CEOs, investors, founders, academics, and rising stars in business. Guests on "The Julia La Roche Show" have included Bill Ackman, Ray Dalio, Marc Benioff, Kyle Bass, Hugh Hendry, Nassim Taleb, Nouriel Roubini, David Friedberg, Anthony Scaramucci, Scott Galloway, Brent Johnson, Jim Rickards, Danielle DiMartino Booth, Carol Roth, Neil Howe, Jim Rogers, Jim Bianco, Josh Brown, and many more. Julia always makes the show about the guest, never the host. She speaks less and listens more. She always does her homework.

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August 22, 2026Episode 40424 min

#404 Chris Whalen Answers Your Questions on the Fed, Rates & the Next Bailout

In part one of The Wrap's viewer question special, Chris Whalen takes on a full slate of audience questions about the Fed, the Treasury, and where rates go from here. He explains why Kevin Warsh and Scott Bessent have largely written off war-driven inflation as something monetary policy can't fix, and what it would actually take to change that posture. From there he walks through the plumbing most commentary skips: why shrinking bank reserves would push short-term yields down rather than up, how the Treasury can run its own version of quantitative easing through repurchase agreements, and why the Fed's mortgage-backed securities book — much of it now carrying an average life measured in decades — represents what he calls a study in hubris. He also fields the practical questions: whether long Treasuries are worth owning (his answer is no), where he'd park cash instead, what a 5% 10-year does to the deficit math, and how big the next crisis-era bailout would have to be. The episode closes on the yen carry trade, the limits of what Washington can do about it, and Whalen's expectation that nothing difficult gets attempted before the midterms. Thank you to our sponsor, Monetary Metals. Learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/THEWRAP/ Links: The Institutional Risk Analyst: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rcwhalen Seeing Around Corners book: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/product-page/seeing-around-corners-achieving-success-in-business-and-life-hardcover Use the code TheWrap2026 for 25% off your first year of The Institutional Risk Analyst https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/plans-pricing Timestamps: 0:00 — Cold open: shrinking reserves and the Treasury's repo plan 0:33 — Welcome + what this episode is (part one of viewer Q&A) 1:10 — How long will the Fed stay indifferent to inflation? 4:08 — Could we cut the Fed out of rate decisions and just use SOFR? 5:02 — Would you buy a 30-year bond at these rates? 6:35 — If the Fed shrinks its balance sheet, don't rates go up? 9:43 — What does "Treasury doing QE on the short end" actually mean? 12:30 — A word from Monetary Metals 13:56 — Can the Treasury handle 5% on the 10-year? 15:26 — T-bills — pros, cons, and better alternatives 16:25 — How big does the next bailout have to be? 18:48 — The yen, intervention, and the carry-trade squeeze 21:16 — The biggest macro story of the back half of the year 23:37 — Parting thoughts: Florida, earnings season, and UWM next week

August 18, 2026Episode 40351 min

#403 Harry Dent on the Everything Bubble — And the Only Safe Haven Left

Economic forecaster and bestselling author Harry Dent makes his debut on the show with one of the most aggressive bearish calls we've hosted. Dent — who built his reputation forecasting the 1980s–2000s boom and Dow 10,000 when almost nobody believed it — walks through the three long-term cycles he uses to map the economy decades ahead: the 39-year generational spending wave, the 45- and 90-year technology innovation cycles, and a geopolitical cycle. His conclusion is that the downturn that should have arrived in 2008 was smothered by roughly $31 trillion in stimulus, creating a bubble that now spans stocks, real estate, and even gold. He lays out what a full reversion looks like — a first-wave crash he thinks could be visible by October, housing down 60% in the middle of the country and more at the high end, and a path back toward the 2009 lows for equities — and explains why he believes long-dated Treasuries, not gold, are the only real safe haven. Dent also makes the case that the bust is not the enemy: it's where innovation and affordability come from, and where the millennial generation finally gets its shot. Looking past the washout, he sees India and Southeast Asia as the growth engines of the next four decades, China as structurally finished, and US tech as the thing to buy when it's on sale. Thank you to our partners Augusta Precious Metals — To learn more, visit https://juliabuysgold.com/ or text “Julia" to 35052 Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/ Links: https://hsdent.com/hs-dent-forecast/ 00:00 – Intro: Harry Dent makes his debut 00:59 – How demographics became his life's work 03:23 – The 45- and 90-year cycles that create bubbles 04:15 – Calling the 2007 top back in the 1980s 08:07 – AI is in its infancy — and that's when the biggest crashes happen 09:00 – India is the next China 10:28 – 2008 was 1930 all over again — and $31 trillion papered over it 13:08 – Anatomy of the everything bubble 14:30 – The average Ohio house down 60%. High-end down 70–80% 16:47 – The millennials who got priced out are the ones who win 19:12 – How far stocks fall: 90% on the S&P, 96% on the Nasdaq 22:20 – The first wave: 42% in 2.6 months 24:38 – "I was the most bullish forecaster on earth" 25:40 – Positioning for the first crash: SQQQ and sizing 27:06 – Why TLT and the 30-year Treasury are the trade after that 31:08 – The case against gold: it joined the everything bubble 34:21 – Which house should you sell? Not the one you think 39:15 – China's 22% empty real estate and the coming reckoning 45:00 – Nobody in a bubble sees the bubble because they're high on it 48:55 – Watch October

August 15, 2026Episode 40232 min

#402 Chris Whalen: Private Credit's First Big Unwind — and Why Insurance Is Next

In this episode of The Wrap with Chris Whalen, Chris breaks down the 777 Partners bankruptcy — a sprawling collapse touching insurance, reinsurance, soccer clubs, and airlines that he says is a preview of how private credit ultimately unwinds: slowly, messily, and with fraud along the way. He explains why the contagion risk to insurance matters most for ordinary people, since firms like Apollo, Brookfield, and Blue Owl use insurance balance sheets to fund private credit strategies, leaving annuity and life policyholders exposed. Chris also digs into United Wholesale Mortgage, arguing the real problem wasn't the Two Harbors hedge but years of cash extraction and overvalued servicing assets — and what Oaktree's $1.5 billion rescue means now that "the grim reaper of Wall Street" is in the building. On markets, he describes a manic tape where cycles no longer exist, questions whether AI valuations survive Chinese competitors offering the same functionality at a tenth of the cost, and wonders whether Kevin Warsh will finally let the market take a hit. He then makes the case that the cooler CPI print is masking a genuine inflation problem: diesel is up roughly 35% since February, key industrial chemicals and LNG capacity was destroyed in the Iran conflict, and those input costs are rippling into food, housing, construction, and packaging. Finally, Chris explains why he thinks the gold and silver bull markets remain fully intact, and what the Byzantine Empire taught him about what happens when gold runs short. Thank you to our sponsor, Monetary Metals. Learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/THEWRAP/ Links: The Institutional Risk Analyst: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/ 777 Partners blog post: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/post/theira879 Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rcwhalen Seeing Around Corners book: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/product-page/seeing-around-corners-achieving-success-in-business-and-life-hardcover Use the code TheWrap2026 for 25% off your first year of The Institutional Risk Analyst https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/plans-pricing Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:37 - 777 Partners bankruptcy: what the demise of private credit looks like 3:56 - Does this accelerate the slow-motion train wreck? 5:45 - Contagion risk to insurance: annuities, life policies, and private credit balance sheets 7:36 - United Wholesale Mortgage, Mat Ishbia, and the Oaktree rescue 10:44 - Oaktree, the "grim reaper of Wall Street," and stress in mortgage lending 11:00 - DSCR loans and the rental-property workaround 12:13 - Monetary Metals: earn a yield on your gold 13:22 - Markets at records: "the numbers are too big" 15:20 - The Warsh Fed: will bailouts end? 16:05 - AI valuations, the price war, and Chinese competition 17:36 - Inflation beneath the surface: input costs are exploding 18:08 - Diesel up 35%, heating oil, chemicals, and the fall squeeze 20:02 - Food prices, farmers, and the Iran war fallout 22:39 - Spillover into housing, construction materials, and packaging 24:19 - Gold's run higher and Chinese buying 25:13 - Silver: a commercial trade, and the supply problem 26:44 - The WGA precious metals top 25 list 28:14 - Lessons from Byzantine monetary history 29:38 - Parting thoughts: private credit surprises, the Middle East, and the midterms 30:39 - Closing

August 13, 2026Episode 4011 hr 0 min

#401 Jim Rickards: The Iran War, "Trump's on the Losing Side of That Bet," The Case for $10,000 Gold, and the Japanese Yen Carry Trade Unwind — The Most Important Financial Story in the World

Jim Rickards returns for a wide-ranging macro conversation on a world where geopolitics and economics have fully merged. He lays out the US–Iran standoff as a global game of chicken — Trump betting Iran's economy breaks first, Iran betting the midterm elections break Trump first — and explains why he thinks Tehran holds the stronger hand, why regime change was always a fantasy, and how a handful of drones a week is enough to keep the Strait of Hormuz bottled up. From there he turns to gold: how he used Jim Rogers' 50% drawdown rule and fractal scale invariance to call the bottom, why central bank buying puts a floor under the market, why gold works as a deflation hedge as well as an inflation hedge, and why he stands by his $10,000 target. He also dismantles the popular "debasement trade" narrative, explains what Kevin Warsh's less transparent, market-following Fed means for investors conditioned to expect a rescue, and walks through the unwinding of the Japanese yen carry trade — which he calls the most important story in the world right now, and the one most likely to make 2027 messy. The episode closes on the darker side of AI: increasingly sophisticated voice-cloned scams aimed at older Americans. Thank you to our partners Augusta Precious Metals — To learn more, visit https://juliabuysgold.com/ or text “Julia" to 35052 Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/ More about Rickards: Rickards is a New York Times bestselling author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis and several other best-sellers, including The New Great Depression, Aftermath, The Road to Ruin, Death of Money, The New Case for Gold, Sold Out: How Broken Supply Chains, Surging Inflation, and Political Instability Will Sink the Global Economy, and his newest book MoneyGPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy. An investment advisor, lawyer, inventor, and economist, Rickards has held senior positions at Citibank, Long-Term Capital Management, and Caxton Associates. He is also the Editor of Strategic Intelligence, a widely-read financial newsletter. Links: http://www.jamesrickardsproject.com/ https://x.com/RealJimRickards Visit CallFort.io or download the app https://apps.apple.com/us/app/callfort/id6752949954 Timestamps: 0:00 – Intro: welcome back, Jim Rickards 1:04 – Geopolitics and economics have merged: chokepoints and economic warfare 3:30 – The US–Iran game of chicken: what each side is betting 6:13 – Regime change isn't happening — and why killing leaders backfired 10:42 – Lost credibility and the Iran–Oman deal the US wasn't part of 14:41 – The midterm clock, and how Iran keeps the Strait closed 17:23 – [Sponsor: Augusta Precious Metals] 19:04 – Gold's drawdown: the Jim Rogers 50% rule and fractal math 24:04 – Why gold goes much higher — and the $10,000 call 25:03 – What's driving gold: central banks, deflation, flat mine supply 31:15 – Why the "debasement trade" narrative is wrong 33:00 – Inside the primary dealer world and the old Fed 35:00 – Kevin Warsh, killing the dot plot, and a whole new Fed 38:16 – [Sponsor: Monetary Metals] 40:03 – The Fed's only real job — and what Friedman got wrong 44:13 – The yen carry trade: the most important story in the world 48:55 – The petrodollar, Japan's Treasuries, and the Bessent bailout 51:43 – Why currency defenses always fail, and why 2027 gets messy 52:50 – AI, sophisticated scams, and the Callfort app 59:10 – What's next: climbing Kilimanjaro

August 11, 2026Episode 40042 min

#400 Michael Howell: The Liquidity Cycle Has Turned, Low Quality Returns for Stocks, The Real Driver Behind Gold

Michael Howell, CEO of CrossBorder Capital, an investment advisory firm, and author of Capital Wars, returns to explain why the global liquidity cycle peaked in late Q3/early Q4 of last year — and what that means for the rest of 2026. His core argument: money is fungible but finite, and a booming real economy is now pulling liquidity out of financial assets, which compresses P/E multiples even as earnings look fine. That puts us in what he calls the speculation phase: rising bond yields, strong commodities, pressured crypto, and low-quality equity returns where index gains mask widespread underperformance. He also pushes back hard on the popular "debasement trade" explanation for gold, arguing the real driver is the People's Bank of China injecting liquidity to devalue the yuan internally while holding it steady externally — with Chinese retail locked out of crypto and the Shanghai Gold Exchange now setting the marginal price. On the bond side, he lays out how the Treasury is quietly monetizing through front-end issuance and buybacks — private-sector QE under Treasury direction — a strategy that works until it doesn't, with Japan's move from 50bps to nearly 3% as the cautionary tale. His bottom line: range-bound Wall Street, no bonds, gold and silver on weakness, and watch commodities for the first sign the boom is ending. Thank you to our partners Augusta Precious Metals — To learn more, visit https://juliabuysgold.com/ or text “Julia" to 35052 Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/ Links: Website: http://www.crossbordercapital.com/ Twitter/X https://x.com/crossbordercap Substack: https://capitalwars.substack.com/ Book: https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Wars-Rise-Global-Liquidity/dp/3030392902 0:00 The call: range-bound market, own gold 0:20 Welcome back, Michael Howell 1:19 Two pools of money: markets vs. the real economy 2:30 The liquidity cycle has peaked 3:20 What this phase looks like 4:48 Why a booming economy is bad for stocks 5:22 The P/E multiple is where liquidity shows up 6:34 Late cycle, explained 7:38 Augusta Precious Metals 9:29 Global liquidity vs. the world business cycle 10:45 Atlanta Fed nowcast near 6% 11:54 The K-shaped economy is global 12:45 Monetary inflation vs. Main Street inflation 14:45 Speculation now, turbulence next 15:15 The cycle map 17:55 Monetary Metals 19:49 Gold: it isn't the debasement trade 20:30 It's China: PBOC liquidity 22:15 Why gold and not crypto 23:14 Inside the PBOC balance sheet 25:00 Yuan gold and the 27,000 line 26:15 Bond yields track nominal GDP 27:40 NGDP at 7-8% vs. a 4.7% ten-year 28:18 Treasury QE: funding at the front end 30:20 Who's actually buying the debt? 30:51 The beach ball under water 32:35 The two-year note leads the Fed 34:30 The 2022 analogue 36:00 Why MOVE matters more than VIX 37:08 Treasury buybacks and the volatility cap 38:30 Margin debt and the 2026 range call 39:31 Parting thoughts: commodities as the warning 40:30 Gold, silver, and the ratio to watch

August 8, 2026Episode 39936 min

#399 Chris Whalen: United Wholesale Mortgage's Disaster, Financial Repression Returns, Gold Breaks Out

In this episode of The Wrap with Chris Whalen, Chris breaks down the week across mortgages, rates, and precious metals. He opens with United Wholesale Mortgage, explaining why he believes Matt Ishbia should resign after the company hedged the balance sheet of an acquisition target it didn't own and never won — a misstep that produced a six hundred million dollar loss and forced a rescue from Oak Tree on onerous terms that leave common shareholders at the back of the line. Chris contrasts that with Rocket's standout quarter and lays out his broader housing view: investment banks hold this market together until the IPO fees are booked, then step back, setting up a potential correction next year and a general decline in home prices of ten to twenty percent by 2028. From there the conversation turns to the return of financial repression — short-end yields pushed down while the long end reacts to deficits and inflation — and why, with debt approaching forty trillion, he considers Fed independence a fiction and the Treasury the dog to the Fed's tail. Chris also unpacks the Bank of Japan's thirty-day repo with the Fed, why it lit a fire under gold and silver, and David Kotok's idea of using euro-denominated US credit default swaps to benchmark gold. He closes on taxing wealth over income, the erosion of fiscal credibility, and his gold book research into thirteen hundred years of Byzantine monetary stability. Thank you to our sponsor, Monetary Metals. Learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/THEWRAP/ Links: The Institutional Risk Analyst: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rcwhalen Seeing Around Corners book: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/product-page/seeing-around-corners-achieving-success-in-business-and-life-hardcover Use the code TheWrap2026 for 25% off your first year of The Institutional Risk Analyst https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/plans-pricing Timestamps: 0:00 — Intro 1:08 — Why Matt Ishbia should resign from UWM 2:30 — The Oak Tree rescue and what it means for shareholders 3:31 — Mortgage earnings: PennyMac, loanDepot, Rocket 4:23 — Is UWM going to be sold? 5:43 — Health of the broader mortgage industry 6:50 — Seven percent rates and where volume is coming from 7:30 — What the Fed does next, and the long end 8:20 — "Misery on the eights" — is the timeline accelerating? 9:20 — Housing correction: 10–20% by 2028 10:40 — The return of financial repression 12:00 — Why the Treasury benefits, and the shift to T-bills 13:06 — "The Treasury is the dog, the Fed is the tail" 13:40 — The dollar, foreign central banks, and gold reserves 14:20 — The Bank of Japan repo transaction explained 15:14 — What Warsh does if the FOMC wants a hike 16:30 — Inflation, diesel exports, and the energy squeeze 17:34 — David Kotok on benchmarking gold with credit default swaps 18:40 — Why fiscal fear flows into gold 19:30 — How far away is a US debt restructuring? 21:04 — Taxing wealth instead of income 22:42 — What cutting the deficit would actually do to rates 25:15 — Back to the BOJ: why it forced gold and silver higher 28:00 — What if Japan doesn't take the bonds back? 28:48 — Foreign central banks are selling Treasuries 29:47 — Does the US care about gold the way the rest of the world does? 32:10 — Bessent and the K-shaped economy 33:12 — Housekeeping: viewer question episode 33:50 — Parting thoughts

August 6, 2026Episode 39850 min

#398 Marc Faber: The First Phase Of The Greatest Investment Mania Is Being Pierced

Dr. Marc Faber editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, returns to argue that we are witnessing the first phase of the piercing of the greatest global investment mania. He explains why central bank money printing has inflated asset prices far beyond economic reality — enriching asset holders while ordinary people face a cost of living he estimates is rising 7–12% a year, not the official 3–4%. Faber walks through the cracks already visible: collapsing commercial property values, falling home prices, meme stocks and SPACs that never recovered their 2021 peaks, a narrowing market advance, the semiconductor unwind, and the speculative blow-off in Korea. He argues the 10-year Treasury should yield at least 6.5%, that the Fed should have been hiking rather than cutting, and that the US may already be in recession. With interest costs on federal debt above $1 trillion a year, he says more money printing isn't a choice but an inevitability — and warns that bubbles typically end with the revelation of a massive fraud. His advice is blunt: this is not a market for making money, it's a market for losing the least. He makes the case for broad diversification across cash, bonds, precious metals, and real estate, explains why he refuses to own index funds, shares why Thailand is his largest position, and closes on gold, hyperinflation, and why he thinks the price should already be far higher.Thank you to our partners Augusta Precious Metals — To learn more, visit https://juliabuysgold.com/ or text “Julia" to 35052Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/Links:The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report: https://www.gloomboomdoom.com Timestamps:00:00 Intro: Marc Faber returns 01:06 The macro picture: money printing and record wealth inequality 03:33 Why capitalism made the world rich, and who got left behind 05:21 The stock market is in the sky, but ordinary life isn't 06:58 First signs the investment mania is being pierced 07:35 Why printed money doesn't lift everything at once 09:55 Commercial and residential property prices roll over 10:45 Meme stocks, SPACs, Mag 7 and the semiconductor unwind 11:30 Korea: the biggest bubble nobody's talking about 12:15 The missing link: a massive fraud is coming 13:48 Nominal vs real: how money printing masks the damage 14:45 Real inflation is 7-12%, not 3-4% 15:49 Where rates should be: 6.5% on the 10-year 16:27 Government debt, $1T interest, and why the deficit can't shrink 17:56 The situation is hopeless 18:39 Where Faber puts his own money 20:20 More money printing is inevitable 21:27 Assessing Kevin Warsh at the Fed 22:33 The Fed should have hiked, and the US is already in recession 23:23 Intervention and the death of free markets 25:52 The contrarian bond call and the case for diversification 28:17 The government has become the mafia 28:42 Why a debt crisis is unavoidable 29:55 Sell early, but where do you hide? 31:34 Thin ice: why ordinary people are forced to speculate 31:59 Affordability at the worst level ever 32:25 The passive investing problem 35:10 Index concentration vs the other 493 stocks 36:13 Lessons from 1987: down 21% in a single day 37:26 One year from now: a lot of people will lose a lot of money 38:35 Hong Kong war stories: the traders who lost everything 40:11 The contrarian buy: Thailand, the failed state 41:30 Food self-sufficiency, safety, and life in Asia 43:56 Where to find his work 45:11 Gold, and why he says it should already be $100,000 46:07 Hyperinflation, Zimbabwe, and central bank role models

August 4, 2026Episode 39756 min

#397 Mickey Maini: What Physics Knows That Markets Don't — And Why the Next 2 Years Are the Toughest

Mickey Maini, founder of Solstice Laboratory, makes his debut on The Julia La Roche Show. In this episode, he lays out the thesis behind his new book The Entropy Trap : financial systems, like all systems, require energy to hold their shape, and as complexity rises and trust decays, the energy needed to maintain order climbs until the system transitions into something new. He argues we're between two systems now, sitting in the third of five stages — control — one policy misstep away from fracture. Maini explains why the Fed's real job this decade is defending collateral rather than setting rates, why three stresses (geopolitics, debt, and innovation) are compounding rather than merely adding for the first time in decades, and why the honest tell on AI is the credit market rather than the equity market. Along the way: what central bank gold buying is actually signaling, his scenario range for gold, the US-China choke point war that will determine who writes the next system, and why the trader who made $100 million in 1929 lost it all while the one who ignored prices did fine. Maini began in investment banking, then scaled an emerging-markets conglomerate from $100 million to over $5 billion as its CEO, then taught at one of Asia's leading public policy schools. Today he runs his family office and Solstice Laboratory (solsticelabs.com) - an independent research lab in Dubai that applies physics to markets and geopolitics, studying the moments when systems stop moving in cycles and change state. Thank you to our sponsors: Kalshi - download the Kalshi app and use code JULIA to get $10 when you trade $10. http://kalshi.com/r/JULIA Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/ Links: The Entropy Trap book: https://www.amazon.com/Entropy-Trap-Physics-Knows-Markets/dp/B0H1ZP7NZX/ref=sr_1_1 Substack: https://solsticelaboratory.substack.com/ Website: https://solsticelabs.com/ Timestamps: 0:00 — Intro and welcome: Mickey Maini, The Entropy Trap 1:58 — Order is rented, and the rent just went up 2:40 — The five stages: print, spend, control, fracture, force 4:24 — 1973 economically, 1938 militarily, 1978 for the Fed 6:24 — What tips us from control into fracture 9:02 — Why every Fed intervention buys less time than the last 13:00 — The Fed's next decade: defending collateral, not setting rates 15:42 — Indonesia 1998, and why the models stopped working 17:10 — Indonesia had surgery. The US took morphine. 20:44 — Three stresses that compound: geopolitics, debt, innovation 25:00 — Gold as money's ground state, and what central banks are signaling 27:10 — The scenarios: $8K–25K, base case $10–15K 30:31 — Livermore, Baruch, Kennedy — who lost it all and who won 34:30 — The tell on AI isn't equity. Watch the Oracle CDS. 36:00 — 75% of US growth is one trade 38:03 — Five to seven years to a new system, the next two the toughest 39:04 — China settles in gold. The US builds stablecoins. 41:35 — Velocity of stress: the master signal, and why it hasn't turned 50:42 — What the dashboard is flashing right now 53:04 — Don't own long bonds. Invest in yourself.

August 1, 2026Episode 39639 min

#396 Chris Whalen: Warsh Has A Credibility Problem, Gold's Real Signal, & Your Annuity May Not Be Safe

In this episode of The Wrap with Chris Whalen, Chris joins Julia La Roche to argue that Kevin Warsh has a credibility problem: he's holding rates, avoiding confrontation with a divided board, and saying almost nothing, while the bond market does the tightening for him with the ten-year near 4.7% and mortgages headed toward seven-plus. Whalen's prescription is blunt — take back last year's cuts with two quarter-point hikes, consider a surprise August move, raise margin requirements, and keep shrinking the balance sheet, because Treasury is the dog and the Fed is barely the tail. From there the conversation ranges across a coming diesel and fertilizer shortage nobody in Washington will discuss, gold's role as real money in Asia versus a paper price in the West, and Whalen's own portfolio, from Annaly and Rhythm Capital to Flagstar and roughly a fifth in precious metals. The back half turns spicy with Tom Gober's new guest post on life insurers: private-credit-controlled annuity writers reinsuring liabilities offshore without posting enough assets behind them, hidden by state secrecy laws and rubber-stamped by ratings agencies that were never working for you. Plus PennyMac's bad quarter, George Gleason's construction-lending model at Bank OZK, and mailbag questions on SpaceX and mining stocks. Thank you to our sponsor, Monetary Metals. Learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/THEWRAP/ Links: The Institutional Risk Analyst: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rcwhalen Thomas Gober guest article: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/post/theira874 Seeing Around Corners book: https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/product-page/seeing-around-corners-achieving-success-in-business-and-life-hardcover Use the code TheWrap2026 for 25% off your first year of The Institutional Risk Analyst https://www.theinstitutionalriskanalyst.com/plans-pricing Timestamps: 0:00 — Intro: no, the show isn't being cancelled 1:52 — Warsh's first pressers: three dissenters and a chairman who says nothing 5:42 — How Warsh gets credibility: take back last year's cuts 7:20 — Trump stays quiet on Warsh — plus a coming diesel and fertilizer squeeze 8:46 — Is the economy finally slowing? The fading power of deficits 10:22 — "Treasury is the dog, the Fed is the tail" 11:30 — The case for a surprise August hike and less forward guidance 12:56 — Gold, Keith Weiner, and the permanent backwardation thesis 15:38 — Gold as bank capital: pledging metal as repo collateral 16:37 — Whalen's book: Annaly, Rhythm, miners, energy, Schwab, Flagstar 19:41 — PennyMac's ugly quarter and why it drags the whole mortgage group down 21:23 — Bank OZK vs. the big banks on commercial real estate 23:19 — Tom Gober's guest post: is your life insurer actually solvent? 27:00 — Offshore reinsurance, secrecy states, and why ratings won't save you 29:36 — Mailbag: SpaceX below IPO price — buy more or bail? 31:53 — Mailbag: miners vs. metal, GLD/GDX vs. SLV/SIL 35:13 — What's next: mortgage earnings, the bank 50, and the gold book

July 30, 2026Episode 39535 min

Danielle DiMartino Booth: Nobody's Happy, Cracks Are Showing, & the Bond Market Already Tightened

Danielle DiMartino Booth breaks down a contentious FOMC meeting where new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh held rates steady over three dissents, arguing the "good family fight" reflects a real fault line between district bank presidents and governors rather than idle disagreement. She reads Warsh as deliberately dismantling forward guidance, pushing the Fed to stop acting as the market's referee, and leaning toward a trimmed-mean view of inflation while insisting the 2% target stays non-negotiable. Beneath the policy debate, she sees an economy propped up almost entirely by the top 10% and the AI investment boom, with mounting cracks underneath: widening CCC high-yield spreads, bankruptcies at 15-year highs, record apartment concessions on luxury units, softening wage growth, and falling freight demand across trucking and ocean shipping. Her core worry is that if the top of the K "stutters" — as the AI bubble deflates or the wealth effect fades — the pain trickles down onto an already-struggling bottom half, and she's positioning around gold as credit conditions tighten. Thank you to our sponsors: Kalshi - download the Kalshi app and use code JULIA to get $10 when you trade $10. http://kalshi.com/r/JULIA Monetary Metals - learn more at https://www.monetary-metals.com/julia/ Links: Danielle's Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/dimartinobooth Substack: https://dimartinobooth.substack.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DanielleDiMartinoBoothQI Fed Up: https://www.amazon.com/Fed-Up-Insiders-Federal-Reserve/dp/0735211655 Timestamps: 00:00 — Intro and welcome 00:35 — Immediate take on the FOMC hold with three dissenters; Warsh's "robust discussion" and four questions 02:42 — Is it a deeper split? Waller standing with Warsh; district bank presidents vs. governors 03:48 — Why strategists are throwing a "hissy fit"; abandoning forward guidance, Fed stepping back as referee 05:01 — The 2% inflation target described as non-negotiable 05:47 — Did it make sense to hold? The five shocks, "team transitory" slip, trimmed-mean inflation 07:13 — Is the door open for a September hike? 08:53 — Kalshi prediction-market odds for September (53% hike / 45% hold) 09:57 — Market reaction; NASDAQ's late-day fall off a cliff 11:52 — Why the FOMC minutes may be the real story 12:20 — Economy assessment via alternative data: waste-management volumes, GDP, Indeed wages 14:38 — How inflation should really be measured; P&G, purchasing power, World Cup hiring 16:09 — Cracks emerging: CCC high-yield spreads, 15-year-high bankruptcies, apartment concessions 18:52 — The K-shaped economy, the wealth effect, and international travel as a bellwether 21:01 — Does she agree with the hold? Her public call for a hike 21:52 — The bond market has done the tightening for the Fed 22:11 — The move in gold vs. Bitcoin, and what it signals about credit 23:07 — More breakage coming in credit; distressed debt exchanges as "polite" Chapter 11 24:29 — What investors are missing: truck stops, ocean freight, inventory restocking, Austria/BMW 29:32 — What she's watching into September; tax refunds, World Cup aftermath, the top of the K 32:25 — Parting thoughts