BREAKING: Silver Price Emergency! The Depression Nobody Is Talking About

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]It means we have been in a nonstop recession, a long-term recession since since 2020. We've lost 12% of of output in real terms and the value of the money is down 50%.

[00:00:29]Hello everyone, thanks for joining and welcome back. Before we begin, please hit the like and subscribe button. It helps us grow tremendously. Our guest today is a good friend of mine, Jeffrey Tucker. He's the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute and he is also an author of The Market Loves You: Why You Should Love It Back. Uh, welcome back, Jeffrey. Well, >> I'm thrilled to be here. It's a good day because I just published I think one of the more important pieces I've written in 5 years.

[00:00:54]>> What what uh what's in the publishing that you have?

[00:00:58]>> Well, I just put it up on on brownstone.org uh yesterday, day before, something like that. I think it maybe it was yesterday morning.

[00:01:06]So, it's a complete rethinking of the last six years. And it really traces to the fact that we've and you and I have talked about this many times on this on this show, just the sketchiness of the government data. There's there's something wrong. It doesn't fit when you've got when you've got uh the lowest consumer sentiment u ever recorded. And this is by um the university account in the US or the OECD.

[00:01:37]there's never been such pessimism and sadness on on the part of the public about about American economic life. And then at the same time, you have these reports, the newest one out of New York University saying one, so this is very interesting. One in four of the members of the the white collar professional class has not received a raise in four years. And uh that's very interesting because all the official data shows a rise in in real income uh not spectacular rise but just generally higher than it was say five or 6 years ago and we've somehow narrowly avoided uh technical recession. Uh the growth rates and real GDP are running about 2.3% which is true. It's about half of the historical post-war norm, but it's still not dead, you know? It's it's it's like the patient's still kicking, right?

[00:02:35]>> Um well, so a remarkable thing happened last week, and I I just can't even believe it happened, but there's a a programmer.

[00:02:45]Uh he he runs a the media company called Gravian. uh but he's he's a a data slinger and and highly sophisticated on economics and on nights and weekends he began to to work on a little project uh which was to reformulate the CPI um and without all the adjustments that have been taking place since 1986. And you can go to the Department of Labor right now and see what those adjustments are. And there have been about eight big changes in the way the CPI has been calculated since 1986.

[00:03:23]>> Mhm.

[00:03:24]>> From from instead of house prices, we get owner occupied rent. You know, instead of the prices of medical insurance, we get, you know, the a consumption deflator. So uh so so so long as you're not actually spending spending the money on health care services, it doesn't matter what you're paying on insurance. So they they bury that the hydonic adjustments. Okay, your car has a lot of fancy things on it. It may cost twice as much, but the BLS says, well, it's an improvement in quality, so we can't cut the prices in the same way. And all sorts of arithmetic uh changes in the way the thing is calculated because the boss can commission if you can go through them.

[00:04:02]there about eight super meaningful substantial changes that have been made in the way the CPI has been calculated over say 40 years and he very sort of naively said look you know you know what I'd really like to know I would like to know how much prices have changed >> right >> don't give me all the rest of this flim flam like how much has stuff gone up right >> so so fortunately AI now allows us to make these calculations. So he sit down very systematically and worked it all out. And I would say he's the very first one who's done the work I've been calling for for for a long time. Just to show me the prices, cars, houses, bread, toasters, medical insurance, whatever they are.

[00:04:53]and he stripped out all the adjustments and came up with new numbers uh calculating inflation from 1980 up to the present and comes up with astounding numbers like um and they're not I don't have them off the top of my head but um something like twice the rate okay >> uh just in general and so I got interested in this and and started reporting on it uh last week showing that the dollar decline since since 1980 is much more substantial than has been reported. I think um yeah, I'm not even going to name the numbers. I do remember that the 1980 is now worth about 19 cents which is quite extraordinary. I think the CPI listed at something in in the 30s. Okay, so this is a a big difference.

[00:05:47]>> So now here's where it gets interesting.

[00:05:50]you look at his charts on the website and he wasn't quite he wasn't quite keen to this wasn't quite alert to it but if you just eyeball his charts on the website the website is realityindex.co realityindex.co co and where he lays out his entire methodology. It's entirely open book, right? He's got all the links in there. You know, he's got a complete explanation. The he points out he doesn't have an agenda. He's not even saying the CPI is fake, >> right? Um what he's saying is that these adjustments that the the bureaucrats are earnestly doing every day uh only change the the biases in one direction towards under reporting of price increases rather than over reporting like the hyonic adjustments, >> right?

[00:06:35]>> Uh you might have an ice maker and and a water dispenser on the front of a refrigerator which the BLS says, "Oh, that makes your refrigerator cheaper."

[00:06:46]But but it turns out that um even though it's more expensive, you know, they would reduce the price reduction, but they're not they're not making a hydonic adjustment in the other direction. For example, that it lasts 5 years instead of 30. Okay? So that would be a case for hydonic adjustment in the other direction, but they never make those hydonic adjust ever make a hydonic adjustment in the other direction. So anyway, if you eyeball this chart, what you see is that the difference between the reality index and the CPI index grows more substantial over the time, which you would expect, but it really takes off in um in 2020 up to the present moment.

[00:07:26]>> And so I talked to about this and I said, "Look, I'm going to use uh some AI tools to try to isolate what this looks like." So I did and the numbers were absolutely astounding. So if you if you clock uh so the way I did is I I I flipped it from being what is the rise in the index to the inverse which is uh what is the loss in purchasing power.

[00:07:57]Okay.

[00:07:58]>> So clock it from 2019 to the present. uh the CPI says there's been about uh you know a 28% loss in purchasing power. Okay. Right.

[00:08:11]>> Which is >> which by any standard is like a calamity to to lose more than a quarter of your purchasing power of your of your of your money in in six years uh is is a is an economic disaster by any standard.

[00:08:28]>> Right. But according to the the reality index, meaning the actual prices without all the adjustments, looking at homes, cars, whatever, the actual number is 50%.

[00:08:42]>> Bang on 50% between 2019 and the present. We've lost fully half of the currency value.

[00:08:51]>> Tell everyone we're going to be doing a silver giveaway for the month of June.

[00:08:54]I'm giving away 30 ounces of silver.

[00:08:56]I've given away almost 10 20 ounces 30 ounces every single month uh for the past four or five months now. Now for the month of June, we're going to be giving away 30 ounces of silver. So do not miss out for this opportunity. Uh the way you can enter is you like every video this month. You got to subscribe and you got to comment. That's how you enter. I pick a random uh winner at the end of the month. Uh so like the video, subscribe, comment your favorite type of silver or your silver price prediction for the month of June. Good luck everyone.

[00:09:27]>> It does seem like uh everything's so distorted to the point where like if you're saying it's 50 50% uh since 2019 then then it almost feels like the death of the US dollar and if you look here I'm going to bring up the chart here that you're talking about. So this is the chart that you're talking about the reality index is way higher than what the CPI actually is.

[00:09:49]>> That's right. And look at look at where the big diversions takes place. Right.

[00:09:53]So that's 2020 2021. That's where the big inflation started taking off. And uh what I asked AI to do was just isolate those numbers, set 19 uh uh 2019 at $1 and then clock it out in terms of purchasing power. So basically flip that chart and what you end up with is a is a 50% uh loss in the currency and and the the value of the dollar in terms of goods and services domestically has lost fully half its value over this over this period. Now if you don't mind I just take take it one more step that he didn't even he didn't even consider.

[00:10:32]Right? So and this is where it becomes extremely important because uh we use inflation data for many things like calculating uh taxes, increases in pay, not really but you know um you have inflation adjustments in uh marginal tax rates and social security payouts and a lot of other things. But the single most important inflation adjustment we make is on output numbers meaning GDP. there is a GDP deflator that's connected to uh to calculate GDP so that we can know whether we're in recession or recovery whether we're growing or shrinking and it's always traditionally been adjusted with a GDP deflator that's supposed to be a proxy for a price index so what you want with GDP real terms not nominal terms right so what if we use the reality index against raw output numbers and adjust them so that we can get a sense of where we are in the business cycle. And this is where I I it's it's both surprising and not right.

[00:11:42]>> Mhm. So if you do this calculation what you end up since uh 2019 2020 is a net over stretched out over over six years 12% loss in real output.

[00:12:01]>> Mhm. Which is crazy.

[00:12:03]So and and you can you can chart it out and show that only three times between uh 2019 and the present has g real GDP even like graced the zero uh level right all the rest of the time it's down down graces zero down again down again down again so what that means is that we have this is this is what this implies okay um traditionally you define kind of recession as two successive quarters of declines in real GDP. Uh at least that's the way we used to calculate it. That happened to us in uh I think it was 2022 but they didn't count as a recession cuz the employment numbers were so so impressive. So MBR did not uh name that as a recession. But if you hold to that it means we have been in a nonstop recession a long-term recession since since 2020. Geez, that's crazy.

[00:13:04]>> Like a complete like we've never recovered and we've lost 12% of of output in real terms and the value of the money is down 50%. So, so now let me tell you something. It's very difficult to come out with an article like this because you know you've got an entire economics profession that's supposed to be clocking these things. You've got millions of bureaucrats that are looking this stuff every day, right? I'm like, and so I'm thinking, am I crazy? Is is Tom Elliott over here, uh, you know, at Reality Index crazy? Like, what's going on? So, I'm on the phone last night with with a a tople guy in government, an economist. And I present the numbers to him and explain how he got there, and and he said to me, he goes, "You know what? That makes perfect sense. That explains everything else. That fits with every intuition. And now I'm realizing I published this thing two days ago. How come I haven't been assaulted from all sides? Like, ah, you're a crank. You're crazy. Your model's wrong. Your numbers wrong. No. Uh, you can do the numbers yourself. The reason is that that this connects with our intuition. And and I know you like to cover precious metals and things like that, but I'm now looking at silver prices over five years. They're up 170%.

[00:14:29]Okay. Now, if you knew nothing about inflation and output and just, you know, if you woke up from a coma and somebody said, "Hey, over 5 years, silver prices are up 170% and gold prices are up 137%." What do you think happened? You might say, hm, there must have been a devastating inflationary recession because there's no way uh pre precious metals prices are responding that quickly. Even over the last year, uh one year silver prices up 118% and one year gold prices up 33%. Okay, so these are serious numbers. So what you see is despite all the official data out there, despite the BLS and the Republicans and the Democrats and every all the big shots and the media telling you that everything's fine. Uh you know uh we're we're growing this is a golden age or whatever. People with money to spend, people with real resources know where the safety is. And the safety is in assets like like precious metals. So and you can tell that by the numbers. So you so the markets are telling you the truth in this case. Right? So this is what this is what I find so fascinating.

[00:15:56]And then sure enough uh Financial Times reports yesterday that while the US dollar is still uh the international medium of exchange, you know, as a as a kind of a uh uh highly in demand as as a as a as a means of payment. The reserve currency for the world is now gold.

[00:16:20]>> Mhm. So that's where that's where that's where the the central banks are putting are holding their wealth. They're not buying dollar uh denominated debt uh to hold it, but rather to transact because it's more liquid, >> I guess you could say. But in terms of long-term value, the value is in is in gold. So this is the most important change. The thing I find so remarkable about everything I just told you is that this is an epical moment in modern economic history where we've seen a dramatic devaluation of the world's reserve currency. Dramatic by half. At the same time, we've been stuck in a kind of a long-term uh economic stagnation that's that's got increasingly worse and and and we see no way out of it. And this is also backed by the labor participation numbers which would never the population worker ratios. They never came back after 2020.

[00:17:21]So all of the and record low consumer sentiment. All these things are true and you cannot and will not read about it in any of the academic journals or hear about it in any of the mainstream media.

[00:17:35]I find that just absolutely remarkable.

[00:17:38]What are we going to call this? The last thing was the Great Depression. Maybe we should call this, you know, the secret depression. Something like that.

[00:17:45]>> Hello everyone. Hope you're doing well.

[00:17:46]If you can please click the link in the description below and just follow us on Instagram and follow us on X, it'll be much appreciated. We're putting out new content every single day. Uh we're doing financial content, silver and gold and political content. Uh just please take a second, click the description below of this YouTube video. Uh follow us on X and follow us on Instagram.

[00:18:10]>> Yeah, the fake depression or something like >> Yeah. No, it's really remarkable. And you know what? Everyone feels it. You know, Jeffrey, like you can feel it.

[00:18:20]There's a You can feel a recession. You can feel higher prices. You can feel everyone talking about how expensive things are got. Uh but I feel like Yeah, we're living in a distorted reality right now where Yeah, it's so crazy where nothing is real and numbers are manipulated. We know people in the silver and gold space know know that numbers are manipulated because you see that in the precious metals space for the past 10 15 20 years. So it doesn't surprise me that everything is manipulated. Inflation data job numbers uh you know whatever it is CP yeah whatever it is it's all in it's all just manipulated. And you know what's remarkable to me about this and I it's it's it you know I I've been talking about okay this has been going on basically since 1986 right so well how come we haven't really um it hasn't been that big a deal to us you know this is this is a 40-year-old problem well the answer is that all these changes that have been made to the way the price indices are calculated u didn't have a great deal of significance until the sectors that were most impacted by the changes came alive, you know, for to reveal the changes. So, and I'm speaking here of particularly homes and uh and healthc care um and electronics and these sorts of things. So, so, so these were these were like u what's it like like landmines planted within the uh algorithms right >> that that ex only exploded once we bumped into this sort of post stimulus uh inflation that we saw as a result of what $7 trillion in debt creation over the course of two or three years. And so once that came online, hot money on the streets, everybody's spending all their stimulus payments on electronic goods to get ready for the AI age, uh that then suddenly these these these landmines these mines just blew up and and and and made the end and actually created an illusion that it wasn't really happening.

[00:20:38]>> Right.

[00:20:38]>> Right.

[00:20:40]And and so and you've been around for the last five. You know how this has been reported like every labor department release of CPI goes well inflation is cooling. I mean this has been going on for five. Inflation is not bad. A little bit hot but it's better than last month. Whatever. This has been but there's been nobody sounding the alarms. Like nobody think that the only way to profit from gold is when the price goes up. But what if you could earn a yield on gold paid in gold without selling a single ounce? Instead of paying someone to store your gold, you can now get paid to own it. Monetary Metals offers gold owners the ability to earn a yield on gold paid in gold up to 4% in physical ounces. This means you can accumulate more gold in your account. Not fiat promises, not backed by interest, just in metal. Unlike dollar yields that can be negative or even get slashed, a gold yield is completely different. It's a real return measured in something the world has trusted for over 5,000 years. Thousands of clients have trusted monetary metals to help them grow their wealth in gold.

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[00:22:00]like they don't want to sound the alarms because then the stock market would collapse and then all the wealthy people around the world will lose all a big chunk of their net worth. Nobody wants a recession so they sugarcoat it and there you go.

[00:22:13]>> That's right. Not really.

[00:22:14]>> The other the other big problem is that in the US all politics and all political messaging is based on partisanship. The Democrats are bad. The Republicans are good. The Republicans are bad. The Democrats are good. Okay. What if both parties have a hand in the destruction of the money and and the destruction of of productivity? Both are equally to blame for what happened in this case. So there's a deal. It's like it's like like the US and Russia during the height of the Cold War. It's mutually assured destruction, >> right?

[00:22:49]>> Leads to peace, right? So, we got a, you know, a a a piece between the parties like, "Okay, you don't mention this and we won't mention it either. We'll both be better off."

[00:23:03]>> It's crazy. It's crazy, Jeffrey. And, you know, you broke it down in this episode so uh, you know, so simple and so clear that by the by the time you know, listening to you at the end of this, you're everyone is realizing, okay, we are in a recession. And a lot of people who's in the silver and gold medal space, anyone who's watching real data, we know we've been in a recession since 2020. We just nobody's really saying it out loud like what you're saying. Um it's just >> we've not really had the empirical that's what I've been waiting for is like the empirical evidence that's reproducible, you know, uh so that you can you can look at it yourself. And quite frankly, uh, you know, the calculations here are so massive and so difficult and so voluminous and comprehensive and broad that you need tools like artificial intelligence to be able to generate these things. Yeah, you could get there if your full-time job to do nothing, but nobody's going to pay anybody to do that kind of work, right?

[00:24:01]So, >> u, so these AI tools actually make make these kind of calculations fast and accessible. So, boom. Now we know right so it's like even three years ago we could not have uncovered this or at least we might have had the intuition but now we have the actual technical apparatus and the machinery is available to us to be able to do these kind of calculations and see >> uh to pull back the curtain so to speak right that's what that's what's happening >> wow yeah incredible it's a you know it's it's a really weird time that we're living in and I'm sure the I'm sure sooner or later sooner or later you can't uh cover it up like I know nobody's sounding the alarm like now you are, which is which is incredible, but sooner or later they can't hide it. They can't sugarcoat it.

[00:24:47]Something big will happen and then it'll force them to come out and say it. Uh but Jeffrey, I want to thank you so much for coming down and speaking to everyone and and speaking to the silver and gold community. Uh like what a what a great episode that uh we recorded today because it's I I feel like it's so important and so critical at this time.

[00:25:05]Uh but people can find you where they find you. Do they find you on social media, LinkedIn? Where can they find you?

[00:25:10]>> Well, I go I post on X all the time at Jeffrey Tucker at ru Y Tucker and then brownstone.org uh webbrite probably once a week and then I'm writing every day uh at Epoch Times. So >> yeah, I highly recommend everyone please go check out Jeffrey's work. Uh but Jeffrey, thank you so much for coming down as markets develop, as the news develops. As always, love to have you back on.

[00:25:33]>> Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:25:35]>> Talk to you soon.