VRIC Media, Released on 3/25/25 (Recorded on 3/18/25)

Steve Hanke and Michael Pento both believe the broad market is in an epic bubble and the fact that many investors believe the Fed will bail them out if the market crashes is laughable. The duo also provide their insights on tariffs and trade wars, the ridiculousness of the Fed’s 2% inflation target, the implications of $3,000 gold, and much more.

00:00 Introduction
00:48 Tariffs: Genius or Madness?
15:31 The Fed Does Not Have Your Back
24:00 Fed’s Inflation Targets
29:53 Passive Inflows Driving the Market
35:25 Implications of $3,000 Gold

Michael Pento is a specialist in Austrian economics and is the President of Pento Portfolio Strategies. Prior to starting Pento Portfolio Strategies he served as a senior economist and VP of the managed products division of another well known financial firm. Michael has also created ETFs and UITs that were sold throughout Wall Street. Earlier in his career, he worked on the floor of the NYSE. He is the author of The Coming Bond Market Collapse: How to Survive the Demise of the U.S. Debt Market.

Steve Hanke is an American applied economist at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He is also a senior fellow and director of the Troubled Currencies Project at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, DC, and co-director of the Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise in Baltimore, Maryland. Hanke is known for his work as a currency reformer in emerging-market countries. He was a senior economist with President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1981 to 1982, and has served as an adviser to heads of state in countries throughout Asia, South America, Europe, and the Middle East. He is also known for his work on currency boards, dollarization, hyperinflation, water pricing and demand, benefit-cost analysis, privatization, and other topics in applied economics. Hanke has written extensively as a columnist for Forbes magazine and other publications. He is also a currency and commodity trader. His latest book is Capital, Interest, and Waiting: Controversies, Puzzles, and New Additions to Capital Theory.

  economy, federal reserve, gold, inflation, steve hanke, tariffs