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Japan Is Telling You To Run To Gold
Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via Von Greyerz,
Below, we look at lessons from Japan and its latest signals to prepare for a market sell-off, a debasement acceleration and a golden endgame.
Pattern RecognitionMy father taught me long ago that the years teach things the days do not always notice.
In all areas of our lives, we slowly acquire perspectives earned by experience over theory and by time rather than guesses.
This is equally true of lives spent investing in markets and cycles. A certain pattern recognition is acquired that not even a Bloomberg terminal or AI robot can teach.
As one, for example, who traded through a dot.com bubble led by the undeniably transformative technology of the internet of all things, I remember well how everyone from Wall Street experts to Hollywood movies made it clear that names like Cisco, Yahoo and AOL were kings who would never be dethroned.
That felt very exciting.
At least until the NASDAQ lost 78% and two of those "kings" were carried off the market on their shields, while Cisco, which at least survived the carnage, would never be the same again.
Those days and years are now teaching us yet another lesson, one whose pattern few wish to see, for the simple reason that many are not, or never were, paying attention.
And as for such patterns or lessons, what very few are seeing today is that Japan's JGB, yen and Nikkei have just given us a familiar road map for what lies ahead for America's Fed, dollar and S&P.
I Think We're Turning Japanese (Yes, I Really Think So)What is happening this year in Japan goes well beyond the otherwise significant conversations on the Japanese "Carry Trade."
As bond jocks constantly remind us of boring things like sovereign debt yields, it can often be too boring (or too scary) to confront.
Like the sun, topics like death and bond markets are often hard to look at directly.
The fact, for example, that the yield on the Japanese 30Y JGB just hit over 4.18% for the first time in its history may seem like a yawn to many otherwise doom-scrolling through the latest war, AI meme or DC scandal de jour.
But this historical yield spike out of Tokyo is far more than just another bond signal - it's a harbinger of things to come in your own backyard (and wallet).
The Canary in a Coal MineMuch like the USA, today's Japan (which is the world's 3rd largest economy) is a paper tiger built on extraordinary debt (greater than 200% of its total economy) and a bond and hence stock market entirely supported by (and correlated to) a central bank fatally addicted to printing (debasing) trillions worth of its currency to keep its illusion of economic survival going.
If this profile looks a lot like America's and Europe's, that's because Japan is just a canary in the Western coal mine. Where it goes, we shall follow.
In fact, Japan's sins are in many ways our own, especially America's.
Blame It on the ExpertsJust after the Nikkei literally died in 1989, a then-ambitious and much younger Ben Bernanke gave Tokyo a handbook to print their way out of collapse.
Bernanke would use a similar handbook when U.S. markets tanked years later in 2008. As we are now discovering, his expertise was anything but expert.
But during this period of mass MMT delusion and massive currency debasement, Wall Street was betting for years (decades) that Japan's debt levels would eventually implode under inevitably rising bond yields (and hence debt costs).
For literally decades, Wall Street mavericks were betting big on a yield spike that would re-crush the Nikkei and JGB in one big headline.
But this headline never came, and the foregoing bet against Japan became known on the Street as the "widow maker."
Buying Time, Postponing PainInstead, the BoJ bought itself decades of time and a market recovery by printing just unthinkable levels of yen to keep JGBs (Japanese bonds) bought and the Nikkei higher.
For the near entirety of my career, this kept Japanese yields at zero to negative, buying time while crushing those who bet against Tokyo.
Which brings me back to that boring 4.18% record yield on the 30Y JGB.
This figure confirms that the dam has finally broken on the broken Japanese "plan."
Or to use the analogy above, the canary in its coal mine just died.
For those paying attention, these rising yields just caused the Nikkei 225 to lose 200B in a single day, and this sell-off was led by the so-called "Immortal" tech kings, you know, the kind which were never supposed to fall - like AOL, Yahoo or Cisco of old.
The Sickness is Global and Currency-KillingBut what happens in Tokyo doesn't stay in Tokyo.
Yields across the "developed" world have been rising to decade highs because the bond markets are now showing more honesty than central bankers, from Tokyo to DC.
As the yield on the Bloomberg Global Sovereign Bond Index shoots past 3.72%, yields from Australia and the UK to Germany and the USA are skyrocketing to untenable levels.
The bond market is essentially asking for more risk premium (yield) on government IOUs that are no longer trusted.
Given this global debt fiasco, is it therefore any surprise that the global broad money supply of printed paper currencies, which hit $150 TRILLION in June, has increased by a staggering 50% since 2020?
Such open currency debasement now hiding in plain sight not only explains why currencies like the USD have lost 87% in absolute purchasing power since decoupling from gold in 1971, it further explains why the world's central banks are stacking gold at an unprecedented pace in 2026.
Physical gold is no longer an allocation or dollar "debate"; it is the open and now obvious puck direction of global collateral and the de facto international reserve asset above tanking currencies and unloved sovereign IOUs.
This is not fable but fact.
Stocks vs. GoldBut equally worth noting from the Japanese tech sell-off of late is what it reminds as to the dot.com era of yesterday and what it portends for the AI era/market of tomorrow.
Unlike the aforementioned bloodbath during the internet bubble, today's U.S. stock market is literally being kept alive by an equally game-changing technology meme with an even greater profile of over-investment ($400B this year alone by the leading tech names), which always moves from over-bought to over-sold.
With U.S. public debt crossing 40T as rates rise to levels costing Uncle Sam (i.e. you) over $3B/day to service the interest expense, the convergence of a credit crisis is about to slam into a dying PE market, an already dead private credit market and an over-valued and over-hyped AI sector.
This suggests that what we just got a glimpse of in Japan (as to both its markets and currency) is an undeniable warning of what is to come to the U.S. NASDAQ and dollar.
Be PreparedTiming this convergence is a mug's game. Preparing for it is not.
Even if central banks like the Fed or BoJ "save" the markets with mouse-clicked trillions, the currency destruction necessary to support those "resilient" markets is robbing you in plain sight.
The Nikkei, for example, has seen an impressive 145% gain in the last five years, yet when measured in gold terms, the result was a net loss of -31%.
During that same period, the NASDAQ 100 has shown an impressive nominal return of 95%, yet when measured in gold, the net result has been a loss of -23%.
And if any of you were being told by your advisors over the last 12 years that USTs were the key to your safe retirement, the "risk-free returns" of Uncle Sam's IOU, when measured against gold, have lost you 90%.
See the theft? See the real measure of wealth?
Given the foregoing interplay of rising rates, tanking bonds, debased currencies and hyper-risk in the tech sector, an allocation to physical rather than paper gold is the only asset separating the informed from the uninformed, and the wealth-protected from the wealth-destroyed.
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Elon Musk's PAC Bets Trans Issue Push Will Drive GOP Voters To The Polls
Elon Musk's America PAC has opened its 2026 midterm ad campaign with a barrage of ads centered on trans issues. Musk has reportedly authorized the PAC to spend more than $100 million this cycle and is targeting four Democratic Senate candidates in competitive races: Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Josh Turek in Iowa, James Talarico in Texas and Mary Peltola in Alaska. They are running online and across streaming platforms, marking the first coordinated trans-focused push of the cycle from a major Republican-aligned outside group.
Photograph: Michael Swensen/Getty ImagesAccording to AdImpact, the firm that tracks political ad spending, trans issues have been a minor theme in GOP Senate advertising so far this cycle. America PAC's opening salvo changes that calculus, and it arrives as Republicans navigate a difficult midterm environment, with voters across party lines angry over the Iran war and the high gas prices that have followed it. Economic concerns dominate what voters tell pollsters they want candidates to address. Trans and LGBT issues barely register on those same surveys.
New — Elon Musk's super PAC America PAC is going up with its first connected TV ad of the cycle. It's against Sherrod Brown in #OHSen.
— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) September 8, 2026Elon Musk's America PAC is running this ad on CTV in #TXSen right now, per @AdImpact_Pol:
— Brad Johnson (@bradj_TX) September 8, 2026This paid digital ad from America PAC started running in Alaska over the weekend. "Would you want your daughter sharing a bathroom with a biological man? Mary Peltola cosponsored legislation that would require it." #AKSen
— Andrew Arenge (@MrArenge) September 8, 2026Here's a paid digital ad America PAC is now running in Iowa going after Josh Turek The ad uses the emergency sound phones use when amber alerts are pushed out. #IASen
— Andrew Arenge (@MrArenge) September 8, 2026So, why try this now? The answer traces back to the final weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign, when a similar ad devastated Kamala Harris's presidential campaign. Trump's closing spots successfully cast Kamala Harris as out of touch because of her support for taxpayer-funded gender transitions for prison inmates and illegal immigrants, culminating in the line "Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you."
Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) September 23, 2024Democrats have not disputed the ad's effectiveness, even in hindsight. Quentin Fulks, Harris's principal deputy campaign manager, said after the election that even though trans issues sat "at the bottom for voters," trailing the economy, immigration, crime and inflation in what people actually cared about, the "Kamala is for they/them" line effectively branded Harris as "out of touch."
According to a report from Semafor after the election, Democratic Party allies had expected it to "flop or backfire," but instead, "it inspired more than $215 million of follow-up ads, by multiple campaigns, dividing Democrats and fulfilling the Trump campaign's goal of branding Harris as an out-of-touch progressive."
That explains why America PAC is reaching for the same playbook now, and public opinion data suggests this still can be an effective strategy.
Gallup found in 2025 that 66 percent of Americans want a person's birth sex listed on documents such as passports and driver's licenses, versus 31 percent who favor listing current gender identity. Sixty-nine percent told Gallup they favor requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams matching their biological sex. Pew Research Center found nearly identical numbers on athletics, 66 percent in favor and just 15 percent opposed, with support up 8 points since 2022. A separate Pew survey published Aug. 11, 2026, found 73 percent of respondents uncomfortable, to varying degrees, with transgender athletes competing on teams that do not match their biological sex. On gender transitions for minors, Pew found 56 percent favor making it illegal for health-care professionals to provide gender-transition treatment to people under 18, up 10 points since 2022.
Whether pivoting midterm messaging to the culture war pays off depends on a variable the 2024 campaign did not have to contend with: an electorate frustrated with Republicans over the Iran war and the prices that have followed it. Trans messaging worked in 2024 as an addition to an economic argument that heavily favored Trump. America PAC is banking on it working again in this cycle as a substitute for one.
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"You Better Get Ready For... War": Socialists Call For "War In The Streets" & The End Of Capitalism
Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,
"You better get ready for ... war."
Across the country, radicals are openly planning for the next stage of their movement, and notably, the Democratic establishment is not part of their plans.
Despite the talk of a "Big Tent Party," socialists are riding high on a surge of support and talking purges and revolution.
In Chicago, radicals gathered for a conference on Marxism during what many view as the heyday of socialism in the United States. The Democratic Socialists of America is now larger and more powerful than at any time in our history. Socialist candidates are winning elections across the country as Democratic establishment figures from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to Gov. Gavin Newsom pander to the movement.
Speakers in Chicago used the conference to push supporters to the next stage in the movement, including some openly calling for violence and the end to capitalism.
University of California Santa Barbara History Professor Butch Ware said Democrats "must be destroyed" and urged attendees to be ready for "war in the streets." Notably, in postings on X, Ware has said that candidates such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed are too restrained and are being pushed by the establishment "to contain radicalism."
The professor "of Africa and Islam" whose faculty page is appropriately found under "bware" is the latest radical to dismiss the "Big Tent Party" rhetoric of establishment figures like Schumer. He declared, "The Democrats cannot be reasoned with. They must be destroyed." There is little subtlety in the message, Ware has explained: "You cannot call yourself a revolutionary and not be talking about training with weapons."
It is another example of the delusion that establishment Democrats have that they will be able to use these radicals to destroy their political enemies but not themselves.
After one election victory, socialists chanted "You're Next!" when House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries's image came on big-screen televisions.
Hasan Piker has called for a purging of moderates from the Democratic Party.
Just last week, Darializa Avila Chevalier declared, "A big tent doesn't pay your rent, lower your grocery bill, or take on the corporations bleeding our country dry. Democratic socialism does."
In a video posted to X, Professor Ware called for violence, warning followers that "some of these clickety-clack revolutionaries have never been in a f*cking gunfight." He menacingly added, "Y'all ain't nowhere near ready for a war in the streets. You better get ready for both kinds of war if you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready."
This is just the latest example of the type of hate-spewing radical that university departments want to teach in higher education. While purging virtually all Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians from departments, faculty candidates cannot be too radical enough to secure positions on colleges and universities. UCSB pays Professor Ware over $211k to spread this type of lunacy.
Notably, this is the same university that saw a professor lead her students in physically assaulting pro-life advocates on campus years ago. Despite pleading guilty to criminal assault, she was not fired and later honored by the University of Oregon for her inspiring leadership.
In other events around the country such as "Socialism 2026 Conference," City University of New York Professor Ruth Gilmore said in a video, "It's capitalism we're after,...There isn't a capitalism that is somehow not racial. There isn't a capitalism that does not produce and reproduce all kinds of sexual and gender boundaries."
At my alma mater, University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi, the half-sister of Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, has denounced the university and explained that she is only teaching there to bring down the system.
One year after the massacre, Professor Abdelhadi offered an "October 7th blessing" over an attack that murdered, raped, and tortured innocent men, women, and children. She was previously arrested for spitting on officers.
She added "I hope you know that we have a lot of work ahead of us and that we need each other to do that work. We have an imperative to not just imagine a better future, but to build one together. I'll see you on the streets."
What is so striking is that these radicals are not hiding their agenda or their hostility toward the Democratic Establishment. William Lawrence, who is running for Michigan's 7th Congressional District, previously called for the end of borders, the nation-state, capitalism, and told a leading moderate Democrat to "hurry up and die."
In the meantime, some Democrats are admitting that, after using the socialists to retake power, they will marginalize them in actual governing decisions. Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) just explained that they will have to block the "crazy" DSA stuff from actually getting to the floor for a vote.
In Rage and the Republic, I discuss how these Democratic leaders are following the same self-destructive delusions of other establishment figures in history who thought that they could use mobs against their opponents while hoping that they could survive.
Figures like Newsom have even campaigned on denouncing capitalism as "not working" as candidates like Texas Democratic Senatorial candidate James Talarico have called to "dismantle" capitalism. Figures like former Vice President Kamala Harris have dismissed loyalty to our core institutions such as the Supreme Court as mere "nostalgia."
It will not work. These figures are nothing more than "clickety-clack revolutionaries" who convince no one inside or outside the movement. By putting their elections above every other consideration, Democratic leaders are willing to endanger core institutions, values, and even capitalism itself to reacquire power. In so doing, they are embracing the very "mobocracy" that the Founders warned us against in laying the foundations of our constitutional system.
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 16:20