Adam Taggart | Thoughtful Money, Released on 4/22/25

Despite the best efforts of Elon Musk and the DOGE team, the US fiscal deficit for 2025 is $1.3 trillion so far, the second highest six-month level on record. And while the US at least is giving lip service to its plans to reduce its deficit over coming years, much of the rest of the world’s largest economies — like the EU and China — are actively ramping up their fiscal spending. All of which makes today’s guest’s perspective incredibly timely. He’s just released a new second edition to his book “Inflated: How Money & Debt Built The American Dream” Is there a way we can stop, and perhaps even reverse the loss of purchasing power our fiat currencies are suffering from all this wanton spending? Or, it is only going to get worse from here? To find out, we’ll ask the author himself, Chris Whalen, Chairman of Whalen Global Advisors LLC and expert on the banking, mortgage finance and fintech sectors.

0:00 – Take a defensive posture
5:44 – Trump’s intentional disruption to address systemic issues
16:23 – Bullish outlook on gold & commodities
19:46 – Gold’s role under Basel III and institutional adoption
27:38 – Shift to income-focused, defensive investments
29:56 – Trade disputes likely to resolve by year-end
33:37 – Housing market reset
39:42 – Updates to ‘Inflated’ book for modern fiscal challenges
43:21 – Unsustainability of U.S. fiscal deficits
48:02 – Consumer distress
53:41 – Risks in buy now, pay later lending models
1:02:20 – Banking sector stress

Richard Christopher Whalen is an investment banker and author who lives in New York City. He is Chairman of Whalen Global Advisors LLC and focuses on the financial services, mortgage finance and technology sectors.

Adam Taggart is the Founder of  Thoughtful Money. He is also Co-Founder and former President of Peak Prosperity. Adam is an experienced Silicon Valley internet executive and Stanford MBA. Prior to partnering with Chris Martenson (Adam was General Manager of our earlier site, ChrisMartenson.com), he was a Vice President at Yahoo!, a company he served for nine years. Before that, he did the ‘startup thing’ (mySimon.com, sold to CNET in 2001). As a fresh-faced graduate from Brown University in the early 1990s, Adam got a first-hand look at all that was broken with Wall Street as an investment banking analyst for Merrill Lynch. Most importantly, he’s a devoted husband and dad.

  chris whalen, gold, inflation, market correction