| My late, great friend Jim Blanchard was a character for the ages.
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| Many gold and silver bugs remember him as an icon of the hard money movement and the person most responsible for restoring the right of gold ownership for American citizens.
He’s also renowned for establishing a publication called “Gold Newsletter,” which now stands as the longest-running investment newsletter in the world, and the New Orleans Investment Conference, which holds the same distinction for investment events.
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| But I knew him on a very personal level, having worked as his right-hand man running his businesses for many years.
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| Everyone who met Jim immediately appreciated his remarkable charisma and engaging personality...but those who worked closely with him also knew of his remarkable talent for seeing things others missed.
I believe he simply viewed life from a different angle than others.
...Which brings me to the topic of this issue.
You see, Jim, at his core, understood the big picture.
He appreciated with every fiber of his being how the march of time and human nature leads inevitably to rapid depreciation of fiat currencies...and how gold alone serves as protection from these assaults.
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| Again, perspective is important. If you look at today’s markets and the macroeconomic landscape from the top of a figurative mountain, you see this lesson of history in action.
You know that currency depreciation isn’t a strategy...it’s a necessity resulting from years of debt accumulation.
And you see that, for the U.S. and the world at large, the end game of a 45-year-long trend of relentless debt creation is playing out before us. Today’s massive debt loads will require currency depreciation at an accelerating pace.
There are no alternatives and there is no choice.
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| Importantly, as this depreciation advances, gold alone stands as the ultimate standard of value.
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| I was reminded of this when my brilliant friend Robert Prechter, the dean of Elliott Wave theory, featured this chart and his commentary in a recent edition of his Elliott Wave Theorist newsletter:
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| An Amazing Occurrence
One of the craziest things that happened is that major stock market indexes ended 2025 at an all-time high and a 12-year low at the same time. How is that possible?
As everyone knows, the Dow Jones Industrial Average priced in dollars made a new all-time high in December 2025. But nearly no one knows that at the end of the very same month the Dow priced in real money (gold) registered a new low in its 7-year bear market. (See Figure 1.) Incredibly, the Dow/gold ratio has fallen by half from September 2018, while the nominal Dow has doubled over the same period. In other words, the DJIA is four times higher in dollar terms than it would be had the country returned to a gold standard in September 2018.
Part of the reason is that positive social mood in an environment of government interference in the monetary system has led to massive debt inflation. The Federal Reserve System has expanded the base money supply; the federal government has encouraged private indebtedness through its lending agencies; governments at all levels have taken on massive indebtedness; the banking system has created an ocean of debt out of thin air; and private non-banking entities have created even more debt.
All this money and debt creation has driven the U.S. dollar to 1/200th of its pre-Fed value as measured by the dollar price of gold. Ironically, much of the debt is employed for speculation in the stock market, compounding the influence of inflation in the run toward higher stock prices.”
From Robert Prechter’s Elliott Wave Theorist, January 25, 2025
(https://www.elliottwave.com/BrienLundin)
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| Again, gold is the standard against which the values of all other assets are measured.
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| As we navigate the daily fluctuations in the gold price and other assets, we would do well to maintain this perspective.
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| We’ll sleep better at night and...if we invest accordingly...we will preserve and build wealth along the way.
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| Brien Lundin
Publisher, Gold Newsletter
CEO, the New Orleans Investment Conference
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