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In Peter’s most recent interview on the Thread Guy channel, he walks listeners through the logic of prepping in an era of war, misinformation, and market manipulation. He argues that official numbers and political spin are unreliable, that the president now moves markets in real time, and that these factors increase incentives to diversify out of the dollar and into gold as a hedge against monetary policy mistakes.

He begins by explaining why the outbreak of conflict sharpens the case for buying physical goods now rather than later, rather than waiting for prices to catch up:

Obviously when I was on before, we weren’t at war. And so that actually even increases the reasons why you would wanna start hoarding stuff. I mean, before I was mainly looking at prices and thinking, look, you know, if you got extra cash, just buy the stuff that you’re gonna need in the future and buy it now because it’s, you know, gonna be more expensive in the future. So might as well buy it.

Peter frames this buying behavior as practical pre-positioning rather than panic. He then turns to the reliability of official sources and political commentary, stressing that rhetoric often diverges from reality and that he pays attention to observable facts instead of press releases:

Pretty much most of the information coming from government, I think is inaccurate or outright lies. Certainly most of what Donald Trump says is a lie. You know, first he used to lie mainly about the economy, but now he seems to be lying about the war. I mean, I listened to it just so I can comment on it, but I don’t put any stock in it. You know, I look at what’s actually happening, not what people are saying is happening.

He warns that an administration willing to stage-manage a public message creates a temptation for insiders to profit, and he sketches how advance knowledge of a coordinated post could be used to trade futures with confidence:

But if you are a real insider and Donald Trump has told you, I am going to put out this post to scare everybody, but don’t worry. I am going to call it off. It’s a lock, right? I’m gonna do it for sure. And once you know that, well, now you can really go into the markets in size with a lot of confidence and you can buy S&P futures.

Peter emphasizes that this kind of influence is unusual for a president and that markets now react to presidential commentary in ways they historically did not, beyond the normal reaction to scheduled government data like jobs reports:

I can’t recall at any point in time where a president, any president, including Trump, you know, 45, any president that had so much of an impact on financial markets on a day-to-day basis. You know, there was always an impact on major news announcements that came out of government. So the government comes out with the jobs numbers, and the markets would move on that. But I can’t recall markets moving the way they move based on the president saying anything.

Moving from market mechanics to portfolio consequences, Peter argues that U.S. policy is creating stronger incentives to reduce dollar exposure and increase allocations to gold. He points to gold’s long-term real return versus stocks when measured in ounces rather than dollars:

And that the United States has created even greater incentives to diversify out of the dollar and to move more of your reserves into gold. So I think that trend is gonna continue. It’s gonna accelerate. And I think that more private investors are gonna be moving into gold in the years ahead. I think they’re starting to recognize now the importance of gold and looking at the 25 year track record now since 2000, 1999 and how the US stock market is down by better than 75% measured in gold.

Finally, he warns that the Federal Reserve will likely respond to weakness tied to the conflict and the broader economy by easing policy again—cutting rates and returning to QE (quantitative easing)—even if headline inflation metrics like the CPI (Consumer Price Index) are well above the Fed’s 2% target. Peter sees this as a predictable policy mistake that will further erode fiat purchasing power:

But I expect the Fed to be cutting rates and going back to QE because of the underlying weakness in the economy that will in part be attributed to the war, but not in whole. But I expect the Fed to look through the increase in prices. So even though the official measures of inflation will be a lot higher than 2%, it can be 5%, 6%. I think the Fed will look through that anyway and still ease policy, which will be a mistake, but they’re gonna make it.

This article was originally published on SchiffGold.com.