THIS WEEK · 10 PODCASTS · WEEK OF JUNE 26, 2026
This week we bring you ten heavyweight conversations that, read together, tell a single story: liquidity is tightening, inflation is embedded, the Fed is boxed in, the AI buildout is the great misallocation of the cycle, and the rotation into value, emerging markets, and hard assets has already begun. Michael Howell argues global liquidity peaked in late 2025 and is slowing into a system the Fed and Treasury are actively propping up, with a “selective debasement” in gold made in Beijing and a stronger dollar he calls a “wrecking ball.” Peter Schiff supplies the fiscal engine — interest expense headed to $2 trillion, a chair he believes will “choose inflation,” and Japan as the harbinger of a US reckoning. Marc Faber sees a major top that “ends in disaster” precisely because the financial system now dwarfs GDP, with the Fed trapped in a straitjacket it cannot escape without a Volcker-style shock it can no longer afford. Ben Inker of GMO reframes the AI mania as an “easy” bubble concentrated in US stocks — possibly an earnings bubble — and quantifies a coming supply flood that history says depresses returns. Ed Zitron brings the receipts: every layer of AI is unprofitable, OpenAI lost roughly $21 billion, and the demand is circular, requiring “two or three more OpenAI-sized customers that do not exist.” Steve Eisman and three Evercore analysts map the consumer at ground level — a “K within a K” in which the middle is finally cracking and Walmart is the runaway winner of the trade-down. Doomberg explains why the feared oil shock never detonated — covert Chinese stockpiling, hydrocarbon fungibility, a North American fortress — while warning the inflation pulse is not yet spent. Robert Pape brings the geopolitical counterpoint: his balance-of-power framework argues the US–Iran ceasefire is a “non-ceasefire ceasefire,” with the MOU unraveling and the escalation trap far from resolved. Louis Gave of Gavekal provides the portfolio architecture — his four-quadrant model points squarely to an inflationary boom, a “60/20/20” allocation of equities, energy, and metals replacing the dead 60/40, with cheap yen calls as fire insurance against the twin risks of an AI bust and Japanese capital repatriation. And Rick Rule closes the loop on the rotation: a soft summer in gold is a sale, the conditions that would make him sell “don’t seem possible,” and the next five years should be “very pleasant” for hard assets. Each summary is designed to be immediately actionable — whether you are allocating capital, running a business, or simply trying to understand the forces reshaping the world around you.
THIS WEEK’S LINEUP
EP 1 Liquidity Has Peaked — Brace for the Wrecking Ball — Michael Howell — Founder & Managing Director, GLI Indexes; Author of Capital Wars — Watch Full Video
EP 2 The End Game: Inflation Is a Choice and $2 Trillion in Interest — Peter Schiff — Economist, Market Strategist & Host of The Peter Schiff Show — Watch Full Video
EP 3 We’re Approaching a Major Top — and It Ends in Disaster — Marc Faber — Editor of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report — Watch Full Video
EP 4 The Easy Bubble Most Investors Will Still Get Wrong — Ben Inker — Head of Asset Allocation, GMO — Watch Full Video
EP 5 The AI Bubble Is Bleeding Cash — Here Are the Receipts — Ed Zitron — EZPR Founder & CEO; Author of “Where’s Your Ed At,” “Better Offline” Host — Watch Full Video
EP 6 The K Within a K: Where the Consumer Is Cracking — Steve Eisman & Evercore ISI Analysts (Binetti, Palmer, Melich) — Watch Full Video
EP 7 The Oil Shock That Refused to Detonate — Doomberg — Head Writer, Doomberg Substack — Watch Full Video
EP 8 The Escalation Trap: Hormuz Power Politics Are Far From Over — Robert Pape — University of Chicago; Escalation Trap Substack — Watch Full Video
EP 9 The Hangover Is Coming — Position for the Inflationary Boom — Louis Gave — Founding Partner & CEO, Gavekal — Watch Full Video
EP 10 Buy Gold Before the Crowd Comes Back — Rick Rule — Principal, Rule Investment Media — Watch Full Video
Full summaries with actionable insights and investment focus for each podcast follow on the pages below.
EP 1 - Liquidity Has Peaked — Brace for the Wrecking Ball
Michael Howell — Founder & Managing Director, GLI Indexes; Author of Capital Wars
Michael Howell, founder and managing director of GLI Indexes (formerly CrossBorder Capital) and author of the Capital Wars Substack, returns to David Lin’s show six months after a December call to get defensive ahead of tighter liquidity and higher inflation — a call that proved exactly right. His update is blunt: global liquidity peaked in late 2025 and is slowing, not because the Fed is braking but because a roaring real economy is crowding financial markets out of the money supply. The result is a flattening yield curve, repo stress the Fed is papering over with a “disguised QE” program, a gold market driven by Chinese rather than Western debasement, and a dollar that, if it runs, becomes a “wrecking ball” for the world.
Actionable Bullet Points
Liquidity Peaked in Late 2025 — and the Flattening Curve Is the Tell: Howell’s core claim is that global liquidity, the marginal price of all assets, peaked in late 2025 and is now slowing — not because the Fed is stamping on the brake, but because a roaring real economy is absorbing money that would otherwise flow into financial markets (2:52). The proof is in the curve: the consensus entered the year expecting steepening, but what has actually arrived is a flattening curve, which Howell reads as unambiguous evidence that liquidity conditions are tightening (15:10). All money that is anywhere must be somewhere — and right now it is in the real economy, not in stocks, gold, or Bitcoin. Track the curve, not the Fed’s rhetoric, as the live read on liquidity.
Warsh Wants the Market to Do His Tightening — Which Means a Stronger Dollar: Howell argues new chair Kevin Warsh is deliberately standing back and letting markets tighten for him, producing a rising dollar and rising yields without an explicit Fed funds hike (5:19). The danger is that this is a fine line: if the dollar runs too far it becomes “a wrecking ball for the world economy and world financial markets,” so the authorities cannot let it climb unchecked (19:53). Warsh’s questioning of Fed funds as a single policy lever is, in Howell’s view, correct — in a world of 50%-margin AI capex, 25 basis points is meaningless. Expect a stronger dollar and a contested long end, and treat dollar strength as the variable the Fed must cap.
The Cracks Are Already Showing — Repo Stress, Buybacks, and a System on a Heart Monitor: Howell describes the repo market hitting what looked like a “coronary attack” at the end of 2025, forcing the Fed to inject liquidity through what he calls a disguised QE program (the RMP) (7:36). Because the entire financial system is collateral-based, bond volatility is critical: every time the MOVE index spikes, the Treasury steps in with buybacks — swapping illiquid off-the-run bonds for fresh ones — to suppress it (9:54). His framing is binary: either you are reassured the authorities have your back, or you are concerned the cracks are widening. Treat the intensity of official intervention as a measure of stress, not stability.
Gold’s Surge Is a ‘Selective’ Debasement Made in Beijing — the ‘Great’ One Is Still Ahead: Howell’s most contrarian point is that gold’s run is not the “great debasement” journalists describe but a selective one, driven by the People’s Bank of China internally devaluing the yuan to escape its debt overhang — a program briefly switched off around March 2nd as Iran tensions flared (23:11). Gold measured in yuan tracks PBOC liquidity almost one-for-one, which is why the Shanghai Gold Exchange, not COMEX or London, has become the marginal price-setter (24:21). The implication: the genuinely large debasement, driven by Western debt, is still ahead (24:55). Read today’s gold strength as a preview of the Western leg, not its culmination.
The Long End Is Heading Toward 6% — and 4.5% Is Where the Financial System Strains: With nominal GDP running at a 6–7% clip and the 10-year historically tracking that rate, Howell sees the long bond pulled toward roughly 6%, with only temporary respite from Fed and Treasury suppression (16:08). He separates two questions: 5.5% is where the economy itself starts to derail, but the financial sector — loaded with leverage — strains earlier, which is why HSBC’s 4.5% “danger zone” matters for institutions even if the economy can absorb more (16:59). Fiscal momentum and the capex boom may keep the US out of recession despite this. Underwrite higher yields, not lower, and watch the financial sector ahead of the real one.
Investment Focus
This is the week’s master frame — in Howell’s telling liquidity is upstream of economics, and economics is upstream of geopolitics. His investable template: (1) keep migrating into the defensive areas of the market as liquidity slows (35:41); (2) add commodity protection on the view that inflation is embedded, not transitory; (3) shorten duration into government debt, where yields are now “fairly decent”; (4) own TIPS, yielding over 2% real, as a hard-to-beat inflation-era return (36:07); and (5) respect the late-cycle warning embedded in gold and Bitcoin, both of which Howell treats as barometers of Fed liquidity — his base case is a range-bound, volatile Wall Street in 2026 (27:09), but he flags that the 2021–22 tightening took the S&P down 25% and Bitcoin down 75% (26:51), and that liquidity conditions are set to tighten further into year-end and 2027.
EP 2 - The End Game: Inflation Is a Choice and $2 Trillion in Interest
Peter Schiff — Economist, Market Strategist & Host of The Peter Schiff Show
Peter Schiff, in his quarterly conversation with Julia La Roche, argues the air is coming out of the bubble — led by crypto and the “house of cards” of MicroStrategy-style structures — while markets remain far too complacent about inflation, higher rates, and the real (not nominal) cost of money. His thesis is that every Fed chair eventually “chooses inflation,” and Warsh will be no different once the political vise tightens. Underneath sits an interest-expense bomb and a Japanese debt crisis Schiff treats as the harbinger of an American reckoning. His positioning is unchanged: he is “playing for the end game.”
Actionable Bullet Points
‘Inflation Is a Choice’ — and Warsh Will Make It: Schiff’s central claim is that the Fed creates inflation by choice, and that every chair from Greenspan to Powell has chosen it because the alternative — a severe recession with falling stocks, bonds and real estate, plus forced fiscal austerity — is politically intolerable (4:12). He expects Warsh to talk tough as the “new sheriff” but to fold when cornered, and warns that even if Warsh hikes he will not hike enough: real rates, not nominal rates, are what matter, and the market is missing them (3:18). Do not position for a Fed that defends the currency over the asset markets.
The Interest Bomb: $1.6 Trillion Now, $2 Trillion Next Year: Schiff highlights that federal interest expense has reached roughly $1.6 trillion a year — the size of the entire federal budget as recently as 1997 — with the May deficit up over 30% year-over-year and interest expense up 44% (8:46). He projects it crosses $2 trillion next year and keeps compounding until, absent a crisis, all tax revenue is pre-committed to interest — a condition he says the markets will never allow to fully arrive (9:23). His framing of inflation as a hidden tax follows directly: the cost of government is embedded in higher prices. Model interest expense as the line item that forces the monetization.
Japan Is the Harbinger — Watch the Yen and the Carry Trade: Schiff argues Japan may blow up first, with debt-to-GDP around 250%, a rising deficit, and JGB yields breaking out (the 10-year near 2.7%, the 30-year approaching 4%) while the yen weakens past 160 toward 162 (22:14). A further yen slide would pressure Tokyo to act and could force the unwind of cheap yen-funded carry trades that have spread worldwide, triggering margin-called selling across assets — including the over $1 trillion of US Treasuries Japan could cash in (23:02). A Japanese day of reckoning, in his view, is a harbinger because the US is in the same situation. Watch the yen as the fuse on global liquidity.
The US Cannot Hide Behind Japan’s Debt Load: Schiff is emphatic that the common “Japan is at 250% and we’re only at 125%, so we have room” comparison is a trap (25:26). Japan is a creditor nation whose debt is held domestically, so its interest payments stay onshore; the US is the world’s largest debtor, with debt held externally, chronic trade deficits, and a GDP he dismisses as “hot air” built on service-economy employers (Walmart, Amazon, UPS) that make nothing. The breaking point for Japan, he argues, signals the US is close to its own. Do not assume US debt capacity is anywhere near Japan’s.
The End Game: Reserve-Status Loss and a Rotation Into Hard Assets: Schiff’s thesis, which he says he is positioning for directly, is that when this ends the dollar loses reserve status, US assets are repriced down relative to the rest of the world, the dollar loses substantial value, and gold is repriced much higher while commodities and emerging markets receive the capital flows (42:01). He notes the dollar index near 100 needs to break below 90 before the bigger decline accelerates (45:35). He cites former Treasury Secretary Paulson’s call for an emergency “break-the-glass” plan as an admission from inside the establishment that the crisis is viewed as inevitable. Position for the rotation before the warning is unmistakable, because by then he believes it is too late to act.
Investment Focus
Schiff’s political and geopolitical commentary — including his characterizations of the Iran outcome and of US fiscal politics — is his own opinion and should be read as such, but the investable spine is clear and consistent. His template: (1) own gold, and keep buying it — he reads the pullback from roughly $5,600 to $4,200 as a textbook “buy the rumor, sell the fact” around the war, not a failure of the safe haven (29:57); (2) treat silver near $65 as a brand-new bull market with room toward $200, not a top to fear (33:47); (3) position for higher long-end yields, with the 10-year breaking toward 5% and the 30-year toward 5.5–6% (6:52); (4) watch the dollar index sub-90 as the trigger for the larger move (45:35); and (5) play the end game — commodities, emerging markets, and hard assets over US paper — rather than keeping score along the way.
EP 3 - We’re Approaching a Major Top — and It Ends in Disaster
Marc Faber — Editor of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report
Marc Faber, editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, joins Maggie Lake at Wealthion to argue that the market is now at or past a major top — and that the unwind will be “a complete disaster” because the financial system has grown into a multiple of the real economy. His evidence is breadth: the advance has been carried by a handful of AI and space names while most stocks lag, an echo of every prior top from 1973 to the dot-com peak. He sees a Fed trapped in a straitjacket, real inflation far above the official print, and a long-cycle uptrend in rates — even as he plays for a near-term dip in yields.
Actionable Bullet Points
The Top Is Here, and the Breadth Is the Warning: Faber stresses that the advance of the last 12–18 months has been exceptionally narrow — only about 60% of stocks sit above their 200-day moving average, where a genuinely strong market would show 80%, and the Magnificent 7 have actually fallen this year (1:53). What has driven the indices to new highs is anything tied to AI and space, masking a market where most stocks have not made new highs. This is the classic signature of a major top, like the Nifty 50 carrying the tape in 1973 after the broad market had already rolled over. Watch breadth, not the index, to see what is really happening.
The AI Capex Boom Is Real — and That Is Exactly Why Most Participants Lose: Faber concedes the AI spending boom is genuine and, as a share of the economy, the largest in our lifetime (2:56). But history is unkind: railroads, canals, autos, and the oil build-outs all saw colossal losses for most participants, with over 90% of railroads restructured by 1895 and even the Erie Canal eventually going bust (4:40). He likens it to mineral exploration, where ~95% of companies fail and a handful win — and the winners may still not be profitable. Expect a few survivors and broad destruction; do not assume the builders capture the value.
This Top ‘Ends in Disaster’ Because Finance Now Dwarfs the Economy: Faber’s core reason for alarm is structural: at the 1973 top, US market cap was about 25% of GDP, whereas today the total financial system is a large multiple of GDP (8:38). That inversion means the market now drives the economy rather than the reverse — which is why a repricing would cascade through indexing, dragging the S&P down with Nvidia, Tesla, Apple, and Microsoft (6:18). The bigger the financial system relative to output, the more devastating the mean-reversion. Treat the scale of financialization as the reason a correction becomes a crisis.
The Fed Is in a Straitjacket — No Volcker Is Possible: Faber argues inflation is real and badly understated, citing lived inflation of 6–12% against the official ~4% (13:41), driven by AI’s demand for power and water, defense spending, tariffs, and immigration restrictions lifting labor costs. But with interest now the largest federal line item, the Fed cannot repeat Volcker’s 250-basis-point shock without triggering catastrophe (20:40). He frames it as “two Warshes” — the economist who would raise rates and the administration politician who cannot (14:34). Do not expect meaningful tightening; the box is real.
Long-Cycle Rates Trend Up — but a Six-Month Dip Is Coming: Faber’s long view is that rates bottomed in August 2020 and are in a multi-year upward cycle for inflation and yields, interrupted by counter-trend rallies (35:30). Right now he reads the strength in financial stocks and home builders — in the US and emerging markets — as the market signaling lower yields over the next six months (33:36). Accordingly he is long US bonds “because everybody else is short” (7:41). Play the tactical dip, but keep the secular uptrend in rates as the dominant frame.
Investment Focus
Faber’s political asides — his guaranteed-short view of Trump-family stocks and stablecoins, and his “don’t listen to Mr. Trump” sign-off — are his own and should be read as opinion; the investable spine is a late-cycle defense. His template: (1) play the near-term yield dip via long bonds, financials, and home builders, which he sees leading (33:36); (2) own gold, silver, and platinum for the long run despite a correction he thinks can run into September or October — he is not selling his (32:35); (3) rotate toward value and cheap emerging markets such as Indonesia and Thailand, both already outperforming the US (44:19); (4) brace for asset deflation that erodes billionaire and trillionaire wealth, noting that measured against gold the market is down since 2000; and (5) respect the leverage warning — record margin debt near $1.3–1.4 trillion, levered SpaceX ETFs, and global retail crowding into Nvidia, Tesla, and Micron (37:22).
