“I strongly suggest,” begins an email we believe we received in error this morning, “both of you subscribe to this investment newsletter.”
Its author, M.P, was writing to his kids, we assume, and copied the Grey Swan inbox inadvertently.
“The newsletter’s primary focus is on how to deal with a weakening economy,” the letter goes on, “and the appropriate investment decisions to prosper in these coming hard times.”
M.P. concludes:
I’m happy to discuss this with you, but two things should receive your immediate attention: First, eliminate debt to the extent possible, and second, start investing in gold and other hard assets. We can talk more in the days ahead. ~ Dad
Dad nailed it. That is… the paradox we are living through now.
Thanks, M.P.
What January 6 Actually Marked
On this day, in January 2021, the U.S. Capitol was breached. Police were assaulted. The History Channel has efficiently whitewashed the episode:
At noon on January 6, at a rally on the Ellipse one mile from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Trump claimed election fraud and called on Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results by refusing to certify certain electoral votes.
Near the conclusion of his speech, several thousand attendees began marching toward the U.S. Capitol, where a crowd had assembled and was clashing with police. By 2 p.m., the rioters broke through the police barricades. The mob then entered the Capitol building, with some people smashing through windows and doors. Soon after, both the Senate and House of Representatives—which were in the middle of debating a Republican objection to Arizona’s electoral votes—adjourned. Vice President Pence and his family were immediately evacuated from the Senate chambers. Some members of Congress were escorted to an underground bunker while others barricaded themselves in offices or sheltered in place in the House chamber.
For several hours, rioters looted and ransacked congressional offices, including the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; invaded the Senate chamber; and posed for pictures.
Historians will debate motives and assign blame for decades. Markets reached their verdict in a day. Stocks recovered quickly.
Institutions did not.
The “Capitol Riot,” as the History Channel has called it, marked the beginning of a long separation between performative politics and economic reality.
Alas, the lesson was not that democracy was fragile. We already know it must be guarded like virginity on prom night.
The real lesson of January 6 is that markets do not rely on civic confidence. The market can rally through thick and thin… and pay little mind to opinions vociferously shared on social media.
Empire Never Announces Itself
The trouble with trying to understand the Trump grand realignment strategy in the days post-January 6 and election denial of the ‘deplorables’ is that no matter what Donald Trump does… the entire media establishment, save for cheerleaders on Fox News, will contort their minds, bodies and future children to explain why Trump is a bad guy.
God forbid, what he actually did was bad and deserved to be critiqued.
We read William Murphy on Substack.
For all his own contorted opinions of the world, Mr. Murphy is a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist anachronism.
But, to his credit, he’s been trying to persuade readers of the truth about the imperialist pigs in Washington and New York since before Zohran Mamdani defecated in his mama’s cloth diapers.
In a piece called The Empire’s Body Count: The Hidden Carnage of the U.S. Since 1967on Substack this morning, Murphy reminds us both parties have been at this imperial game in South America for a long, long time… not just the latest “Donroe” episode.
Murphy:
Military Interventions: The Empire in Motion
Since 1967, the United States has launched an estimated 100–200 military interventions around the world. This includes:
- Full-scale invasions: Panama (1989), Grenada (1983)
- Major wars: Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia, Afghanistan (2001–2021), Iraq (2003–2011)
- Air campaigns and drone wars: Libya (2011), Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan
- Proxy wars and covert operations: Latin America, Africa, and beyond
These interventions aren’t random. They serve a coherent goal: maintaining global dominance, ensuring the flow of capital, and crushing any state or movement that challenges U.S. hegemony.
This is not “defense of freedom” or “humanitarianism.” It is raw, unapologetic imperial power. Every bomb dropped, every occupation, every covert action is a message: no challenge will go unpunished.
Governments Overthrown: Democracy as a Business Model
In my lifetime alone, the U.S. has successfully overthrown or attempted to overthrow 30–40 governments. The pattern is unmistakable:
- Chile, 1973: democratically elected Salvador Allende toppled in a CIA-backed coup
- Grenada, 1983: government removed to “protect American citizens”—a flimsy pretext
- Panama, 1989: Manuel Noriega ousted and imprisoned under dubious charges
- Libya, 2011: Gaddafi removed and executed after NATO intervention
- Dozens of covert operations elsewhere: Africa, Latin America, Asia
Regime change is no accident of history—it is U.S. policy. And while mainstream media sanitizes these events as “interventions” or “peacekeeping,” the reality is stark: entire nations were destabilized to serve the interests of capital.
We only share Murphy’s body count tabulation because the context matters today.
Venezuela and the Market’s Shrug
Two days after U.S. special forces removed Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, he appeared in a Manhattan courtroom, calling himself “kidnapped” and a prisoner of war.
Wall Street’s reaction was not outrage or panic.
Oil stocks rallied. Defense stocks jumped. Consultants booked flights to Caracas. Investors spoke openly of oil, tourism, construction, and “hundreds of billions in opportunity.”
This is the confidence paradox in motion.
The legitimacy of the action remains contested. The legality may be debated for years. Yet capital immediately priced the outcome as useful.
Pundits on Fox Business immediately began explaining the complexities of processing “heavy, sour” crude oil that the refineries in Texas and Louisiana used to be tooled up for, versus the “light, sweet” variety the shale boom gushed forth.
The Economy Slows — Stocks and Wonks Don’t Care
And we can only marvel at the “Wag the Dog” part of the story.
Nobody bothered covering Mamdani’s acceptance speech in New York City. Not even the Democratic strategists who are confident Zohran’s victory is the path forward for the party all over the country leading into the midterms this year. They were too busy picking at every new scab Trump, Hegseth and Rubio have given them in the past twelve months.
Never mind, too, that the real economy is still trying to figure out how to process the AI infrastructure bubble on Wall Street and calculating the phantom impact of Trump tariffs.
Job growth is effectively flat. Private payrolls have declined in four separate months. Layoff announcements are running more than 50% higher than last year.
Unemployment has climbed to 4.6% and continues to rise.
The ISM Survey, primarily the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) and Services PMI, is a key monthly economic report from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) that gauges the health of the U.S. economy. The survey shows contraction after contraction.
Corporate bankruptcies are at their highest level since 2010. Commercial real estate prices are falling. Bank liquidity is tightening.
And yet… asset prices soared again today.
The Dow flirted with another record. Oil pushed stocks higher. Volatility (VIX) rose alongside prices — a rare and telling combination.
Over at The Grey Swan Trading Fraternity, a signal went off – for uranium. That’s the power source needed to keep AI running, and it’s showing more signs of life than oil prices itself right now.
Last year, in our Trading Fraternity, call options on a uranium company gained just a hair over 150% in a few short trading days. We expect to see similar setups in 2026 with uranium showing signs of life.
Japan: The Quiet Fault Line
Let’s pay no heed to the fact that something far more critical is happening… far from the headlines… either.
Japanese government bond yields are rising — again… across the curve. Ten-year. Twenty-year. Thirty-year. Forty-year.
For more than two decades, Japan was the world’s ATM. Zero rates funded global speculation. Yen carry trades inflated U.S. stocks, crypto, and real estate.
That money was never permanent. It was borrowed time.
As yields rise at home, Japanese capital comes home too. When that happens, global liquidity tightens whether the Federal Reserve likes it or not.
As a result, Chinese M2 – the measure of cash it is injecting into the system – is now at twice the rate of the U.S. M2 rate.
Hard Assets Tell the Truth
A quick note for M.P.’s kids: Last year told a quiet story that many missed.
Gold rose roughly 70%. Silver surged more than 140%, one of the strongest performances on record. Along with our Shad Marquitz, Tavi Costi has been keeping an eye on copper:
The movement in precious metals and critical minerals was not a rejection of innovation. But it is a vote for credibility.
When confidence frays, markets favor things that do not require belief in someone else’s promise. And from an investment perspective, it’s better to focus on the stuff we need to keep the lights on, the computers humming, our tootsies warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
The Deeper Shift Beneath It All
For an investor managing wealth through this environment, confidence cannot be outsourced.
We’re going to spend some time in 2026 on the following:
- Understanding where liquidity really comes from
- Knowing which assets depend on calm assumptions
- Holding things that survive political noise
- Maintaining flexibility when certainty is sold cheaply
We have often observed that crises rarely arrive as single events. They unfold as a series of recognitions.
Today, January 6, marks a recognition point in history. Be as vexed as you like, Trump’s paradoxical approach to political will is effectively moving markets.
The confidence paradox is this: the louder the declaration, the more likely it is to be false. Caveat emptor.
~Addison
P.S. Also for M.P.’s kids: On Thursday at 2 p.m. ET, on the next Grey Swan Live!, Matt Smith will help us take a deeper look at his book with Doug Casey
The Preparation: How To Become Competent, Confident and Dangerous.
From the book’s jacket: Skip the debt. Build the man. What if you could trade four stagnant years in lecture halls for four years of adventure — emerging as a debt‑free EMT, pilot, welder, web/app builder, rancher, and entrepreneur all in one?
The Preparation is the field manual for young men (and the parents who love them) who know the old college formula is broken and want a roadmap that actually forges competence, confidence, and real‑world value.
If you have requests for new guests you’d like to see join us for Grey Swan Live!, or have any questions for our guests, send them here.
