Rule One: Tell No One About “The Floor Money”

[Rule One: Tell No One About “The Floor Money”](#) The world is on a blitz in gold purchases, and there's little reason it should slow down. The Fed and the Treasury are about to face one of the most difficult years in their histories in 2025. Garrett {NAME} OCT 21 [Icon]([Icon]([Icon]([Icon]( The old Florida Republic property in Bonita Springs sat on 1.5 acres of farmland. The house itself was an old rancher with a large master bedroom closet. An industrial safe was buried in the closet floor. Its door was exposed through a small aluminum door. Inside, I kept ammunition and a few ounces of physical gold. One morning, Amelia—then five—wandered into the room while I was adding another ounce of gold and some cash to the stash. “Daddy,” she asked... before a long pause. “Why do we have money in the floor?” I explained that it was for an emergency… She deduced that if we needed money and couldn’t go to a bank, we could get the money from the safe. Of course, I wasn’t going to tell her about a scenario in which ATMs stop working… or someone tries to rob the house. Or something that might scar her, like: “Your father doesn’t trust central banks...” But I then told her a very important rule: Never tell anyone there’s gold in our house. At the end, she nodded: “I won’t tell anyone about the floor money…” With gold prices barreling toward $3,000… Just a reminder: don’t tell anyone if you own physical gold or where you’d keep it. Even if it’s in a safe deposit box. And especially if it’s under the floor. Here’s another reminder: Buy this fund instead if you’re wary of physical gold. Why Gold is Heading Higher At the beginning of March, we started banging the drum hard about the impact of annual tax payments on the money markets – and the inevitable efforts by the Treasury Department to manipulate our bond market. [We recommended gold as a long-term investment]( when it was already sitting at $2,100 per ounce alongside Bitcoin and various other investments. We were hedging against the slate of monetary and fiscal inflation on the horizon – the “Hedge of Tomorrow.” [Here's the report.]( Mission accomplished by Janet Yellen and her team, as Nouriel Roubini suggested, these efforts were akin to a 100-point rate cut by the Federal Reserve in the last year. As the Treasury Department winds down its stimulus, the hope is that the Fed’s rate cuts will balance out the economy and no one will notice. But people have noticed. Bond markets are ticking higher again, with the 10-year bond now up to 4.17%. The countdown begins to a massive wall of refinancing that must be completed in the next 12 months… all while we experience the threat of inflation returning. As we’ve noted, the financial markets' path is for more debt, more inflation, and whatever it takes to keep the music playing. The world has woken up to this pattern, and central banks continue to blitz against the dollar by purchasing more gold.[China is feeding this currency war](by circumventing the U.S. dollar as a trade instrument. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department is scrambling… They’ll need to refinance up to $10 trillion at likely higher rates next year. Meanwhile, the Fed will likely continue its pace of fiscal repression. The Treasury will need someone to buy all this debt… It’s not going to be China or Russia… Those nations are hoarding Gold. So… who will carry that burden: a weakening currency over time padded by more money printing or big upticks in long-term rates? If you’re an American… you will. Don’t Cling to This Currency In the next few years – there will be domestic efforts to “Save the Dollar.” Politicians will attempt to force Americans to hold public debt. They may also attempt to create retirement accounts for everyone, which could only hold 30-year Bonds. In fact, they tried this during the Obama years with [a failed program called “MyRA.”]( If that doesn’t work, they'll say you're unpatriotic for not holding more dollars. Don’t fall for that. As currency regimes end… and the Dollar will eventually give way to something different in my lifetime… the currency maker attempts to appeal to the citizen. Watch as the Fed—one day—tells us that it’s our duty to protect our currency. Even though… it’s really THEIR currency, one they’ve destroyed since inception and burdened us with a constant inflation tax and perpetual bailouts to banks, D.C. contractors, and soon-enough electricity providers. Hemingway once wrote: 'How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then, suddenly.' That’s the pathway for the dollar, which has already shed 52% of its purchasing power over the last 31 years. That’s just the gradual path now. Wait until there isn’t enough money for Social Security and Medicare in the 2030s. The Best Way to Invest in Gold So, what’s the best way to invest in gold and hedge against what feels inevitable? Well, I’m a bit more conservative than most people on gold investment – largely because I like to take more risks in other areas of the markets. Junior miners are more speculative – they have a bit more of a venture capital-style approach. Oddly enough, though, I’m still advocating for something that is beating the bigger miners this year. Larger miners, like Barrick Gold ([GOLD](), also carry risk. If we look at the stock's move over the last 52 weeks, it looks like a rock-solid play, adding 26% over the last year. Gold Futures are up 37.6% over the last year. The more simple Sprott Physical Trust ([PHYS]() is up 38% in the last 12 months. That’s the play. PHYS is like a piggy bank for grown-ups who want to hoard gold without the hassle of burying it in their backyard or under the floors. It's a closed-end trust, fancy-speak for "You can buy in, but we're not making more shares unless we feel like it." Here's the deal: - PHYS buys real, shiny gold bars. It holds a little more than $8.6 billion in 400-ounce physical bars. - They lock this gold up in super-secure vaults in Canada. Good luck finding it. - You buy shares of PHYS, which is like buying a slice of that gold pie. The cool part? You can swap your paper for real gold if you're rich enough and own enough shares. Plus, PHYS offers better tax benefits as a fund than physical gold (which is taxed at a higher rate). Just own the metal through the Trust without keeping the stuff under your floor. Stay positive. Garrett {NAME} [Icon]([Icon]([Icon]([Icon]( [Logo Image](#) Postcards from the Republic 1125 N. Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21202 This email was sent to you because you subscribed to this publication via FinPub. 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