October 10, 2025 • 14 mins
LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE on:
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Chris dives into Wall Street’s newest sales pitch — “the debasement trade” — and exposes how the financial elite once again show up late to the party. From gold hype to the global debt spiral, he breaks down what’s really driving the markets and why the U.S., for all its flaws, remains the “nicest house in a bad neighborhood.” Chris explains how inflation, tariffs, and tech dominance shape today’s investing landscape — and why everyday Americans still feel the squeeze despite the market boom.
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watchdog-on-wall-street-with-chris-markowski/id570687608
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PtgPvJvqc2gkpGIkNMR5i
WATCH and SUBSCRIBE on:
https://www.youtube.com/@WatchdogOnWallstreet/featured
Chris dives into Wall Street’s newest sales pitch — “the debasement trade” — and exposes how the financial elite once again show up late to the party. From gold hype to the global debt spiral, he breaks down what’s really driving the markets and why the U.S., for all its flaws, remains the “nicest house in a bad neighborhood.” Chris explains how inflation, tariffs, and tech dominance shape today’s investing landscape — and why everyday Americans still feel the squeeze despite the market boom.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
The Debasement Trade. Yeah, it's kind of you know, Dom Draper.
Wall Street has kept Dom Draper from mad men. It's
like they keep him hold up somewhere and every now
and then they pull him out and they say, don now,
we need a new pitch. Okay, we need something new
to sell the American people. And I've watched this over
(00:37):
the years. I remember post dot com collapse. I remember
to day it was Merrill Lynch was running advertisements on
the radio, on TV with Steve Martin. Steve Martin, you know,
pitching bond funds and a myriad of different things. Right now,
right now, we have the latest pitch from Wall Street.
(00:57):
It's called the Debasement Trade.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, Actually one of the firms out there actually suggested
that you put twenty percent of your portfolio into gold.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
This is after gold has skyrocket. They're all full of it,
quite frankly, they are. And we have at Markowski investments
basically been using currency debasement as a strategy, understanding it's
(01:30):
the reality of the terrain for over thirty years now,
for over thirty years now, and again people have been
following us and what we do and our clients are
aware of this is that you have to you have
to outgrow the debasement of your money currency. Thirty years
(01:51):
the value of your dollar has dropped by fifty four
percent this year. This year, we had a major dip
in the dollar, very very quickly. A lot of that,
quite frankly, quite frankly, has to do with terriffs that
really kicked that into you know, high gear this past
(02:13):
year because it was almost the euro and the dollar
was almost had parody. Prior prior to Liberation Day, the
dollar was actually strengthening. Anyway, neither here nor there. Wall
Street has got their new sales pitch. It's called the
debasement trade. And you want to talk about being late
(02:35):
late to the party, and again they're handling it incorrectly
in the first place. Commodities, a lot of people are
talking about gold and what it means. Central banks, central
banks all around the globe are diversifying. They're diversifying simply
(02:59):
because we are thirty seven trillion dollars in debt. We
spend over a trillion dollars a year in interest on
our debt. With that being said, with that being said,
we are still by far the nicest house in a
crappy neighborhood. That's reality. The inflow of investment dollars into
(03:27):
the United States has been extraordinary and we see that
in the performance in the tech sector. In Vidia, for
crying out loud, the market capitalization of in Vidia is
bigger than the entire German stock market. For crying out loud,
(03:49):
we are, outside of China, the only game in town.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
When it comes to.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Tech, when it comes to AI, trade win, it comes
to data center, all of these things. Sure, there's some
data centers outside of Beijing, there's one I think in Ireland.
I think one in the UK as well. But nobody's
doing what we're doing. And that means you having a
(04:18):
lot of money flow into these companies. As we've seen.
You take a look at the performance of these companies
and you take a look and I think I mentioned this,
I mean just a few days ago here on the
program AI, they're saying accounts for an astonishing forty percent
(04:38):
share of US GDP growth. It's one estimate, and are
saying it could be even higher. Eighty percent of the
gains in US stocks so far have been in that arena. Yeah,
had are another economists out there, and quite frankly, you know,
they throw things out there. I didn't check this guy's work, Okay,
(05:00):
but I mean he's in the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Okay. Without data centers.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
GDP growth was point one percent in the first half
of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
But again, tech.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Has always Tech has always driven growth, has always driven GDP.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Now countries around
the globe are saying to themselves, well, okay, we're going
to invest there, but we're also going to have to
hedge ourselves. We're gonna have to hedge ourselves when it
(05:32):
comes to currency. And that's quite frankly, that's what they're doing.
That's what we're seeing happening all over the globe. Now,
gold commodities and we've we've I've discussed this here on
on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Gold For One.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I am not a huge fan of the people that
you know, go nuts with gold.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Ah, yeah, but look at how far it's gone listen.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Okay, a lot of people, especially people out there that
you know by coins and physical gold out there, you
can be a little bit careful. Okay, you got to
take a look at the bid to ask on some
of those things. Now again rare coins and it's a
completely different ball of axe. And I know people that
are in that business, and you can do well. When
(06:17):
we get involved in commodities, I like a basket of them.
I've talked about uranium here. Certain times, you take a
look at oil one of the things that you know
we've been doing as of late. Okay, gold you can
get more of it. You can get more of it.
And when the price of gold is at levels that
(06:40):
it's at, well, gee whiz, mining operations. Mining operations can
take a look at, you know, various different areas that
they have and say, hey, ge whiz, we can extract
from this spot and actually make money now, whereas hey,
you know, when it was much lower, the extraction cost
(07:02):
was too high or break even or break even didn't
make sense for us to go out there and extract
the gold. Now it is, so you start looking into
gold miners and things like that. You know, that's a
decent place you want to be in overall, and I'm
(07:23):
going to pull the economy into this entire equation. Okay,
to basement trade inflation is still running hot. Okay, it
is okay again all around the globe, certain assets that
were rock solid not so much anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Again, I want to remind.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Everybody still nicest house in a bad neighborhood. I mean,
even take a look at Japanese bonds there at some
of the highest yields they've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Again, we have to be a little bit more careful
we do if we show any signs.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
And again I'm not holding my breath on this is
trying to be fiscally austere and get our house in order.
That would flip a switch very very quickly as far
as the dollar, as far.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
As gold is concerned.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And it's something that you have to keep in mind,
the overall underlying economy overlall. Yes, tech sector doing well,
money flowing into the country. But once I want to
remind everyone, the market and the economy are two separately
(08:45):
different things, two different animals. Okay, you have to look
at what's happening underneath the hood, outside the headlines that
are being pushed at you. Americans falling behind on their
car payments. Delinquency rates on well it's subprime auto loans
(09:06):
are at records records, sense of pandemic. Buyers on auto
dealers lots have encountered surging sticker prices and smaller and
send us some automakers less than.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
A blow to afford and affordable.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
More consumers, especially lower income families, have resorted to buying
used cars and taking out longer loans. Now more are
falling behind on their loans, signaling that lower income consumers
are struggling to afford payments as wages stagnate and unemployment.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Ticks higher again.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Subprime and there's been some blow ups and I'll get
to that in another podcast. Some other issues happening. One
of the things again, debasement trade. They're throwing these things around.
If if we were i mean fully being debate, I mean,
we're really falling off a cliff.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Don't you think that? Don't you think people be selling
off our bonds? One would you know? One would think
of me? Just take a look at.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
The the yields on Japanese bonds again, records going through
the roof. If it was all out debasement, why why
are bonds trading where they are. Okay, So again that's
something else that you have to keep in mind. Again,
(10:29):
as far as the underlying economy is concerned, I mentioned
this the other day. You know, individual bankruptcy filings, jobs numbers,
there's there's a myriad of things out there. There's weakness
in the economy. And yeah, yeah, the average American out
there is hurting. Okay, they haven't seen the type of
wage growth, they've seen the debasement of their purchasing power.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Inflation. You know, it's not an easy thing.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And that's part of the you know, part of the
thing that that that's hurting Trump right now.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Is he really really over.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Promised when it came to fixing inflation and bringing prices
down when he ran, and the people are waiting, they're
waiting and things are not turning as quickly, and again
it was going to be much more difficulty. Do you
take a look at what happened and the type of
(11:27):
inflation that we saw during the Biden years. Everybody, everybody
warning warning, don't do that. Larry Summers are crying out loud,
don't do the inflation, but stop printing all this money.
It's going to be a disaster. Then you get the fend.
No it's just transitory. No, it's underly not transitory. It's
been fricking sticky, man, it's been sticky. And that's something
(11:52):
that needs to be dealt It really needs to be
dealt with.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
It's coming to ahead right now.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
When it comes to the government shutdown, people are taking
a look at you know, what are my insurance costs?
But everybody's across the board, everything has has gone up,
and yeah, nothing's really really been done about it. Something
that I think right now, right now, the administration is
(12:24):
really has to pivot, really has to make a hard
pivot to actually getting these things done, showing some movement,
and it's it's just going to be some radical type things.
Radical radical in the sense of, you know, changing the
way we handle agriculture here in this country, getting food
costs down because it's a bloody disaster.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Again.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Blow up Obamacare, get those health insurance costs down, okay.
Crush private equity, Crush private equity. You know, when it
comes to homes and how they're sold here in the
United States, get the right idea, get rid of you know,
maybe some property in turn, some of these places you
got to get the price of homes down again. You
have to give people hope. You got to give them
(13:09):
a light at the end of the tunnel. You wake
up every single day and if you feel like you're
on that treadmill and you're not getting anywhere week after week,
month after month, year after year, you know, that's when
that's when people start turning to the mandamis of the
world that we can't have, that we can't have, and
(13:30):
that's quite fair. That's what the President needs to work on.
Going back again to the debasement trade. Yes, okay, as
it stands, your money needs to be working very very
hard for you. You know that the whole Wall Street pitch
for the past thirty years, the sixty forty trade, has
been a disaster.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It's been a it's been a deter man. We get the.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Portfolios coming in from all of these firms, and you know,
seeing the type of growth that people have seen over
the past, it's been awful. Oh I mean portfolio Yeah,
sure they've gone up, but you're paying what in fees
and the value of your your currency has gone I mean,
come on, man, But again, it was easy for Wall
(14:17):
Street to do that. Now they're coming up with another gimmick,
another scheme, and telling people to go all in on
gold after it just went up by fifty percent over
the past several months. Okay, anyway again, questions in regards
to the debasement trade, questions in.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Regards to your portfolio.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Don't understand some of the things that that I'm trying
to get across here that that's actually my fault. Please
reach out, that's what we're here for. Get to our
website at Watchdog on Wall Street dot com.
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
The Debasement Trade. Yeah, it's kind of you know, Dom Draper.
Wall Street has kept Dom Draper from mad men. It's
like they keep him hold up somewhere and every now
and then they pull him out and they say, don now,
we need a new pitch. Okay, we need something new
to sell the American people. And I've watched this over
(00:37):
the years. I remember post dot com collapse. I remember
to day it was Merrill Lynch was running advertisements on
the radio, on TV with Steve Martin. Steve Martin, you know,
pitching bond funds and a myriad of different things. Right now,
right now, we have the latest pitch from Wall Street.
(00:57):
It's called the Debasement Trade.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, Actually one of the firms out there actually suggested
that you put twenty percent of your portfolio into gold.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
This is after gold has skyrocket. They're all full of it,
quite frankly, they are. And we have at Markowski investments
basically been using currency debasement as a strategy, understanding it's
(01:30):
the reality of the terrain for over thirty years now,
for over thirty years now, and again people have been
following us and what we do and our clients are
aware of this is that you have to you have
to outgrow the debasement of your money currency. Thirty years
(01:51):
the value of your dollar has dropped by fifty four
percent this year. This year, we had a major dip
in the dollar, very very quickly. A lot of that,
quite frankly, quite frankly, has to do with terriffs that
really kicked that into you know, high gear this past
(02:13):
year because it was almost the euro and the dollar
was almost had parody. Prior prior to Liberation Day, the
dollar was actually strengthening. Anyway, neither here nor there. Wall
Street has got their new sales pitch. It's called the
debasement trade. And you want to talk about being late
(02:35):
late to the party, and again they're handling it incorrectly
in the first place. Commodities, a lot of people are
talking about gold and what it means. Central banks, central
banks all around the globe are diversifying. They're diversifying simply
(02:59):
because we are thirty seven trillion dollars in debt. We
spend over a trillion dollars a year in interest on
our debt. With that being said, with that being said,
we are still by far the nicest house in a
crappy neighborhood. That's reality. The inflow of investment dollars into
(03:27):
the United States has been extraordinary and we see that
in the performance in the tech sector. In Vidia, for
crying out loud, the market capitalization of in Vidia is
bigger than the entire German stock market. For crying out loud,
(03:49):
we are, outside of China, the only game in town.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
When it comes to.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Tech, when it comes to AI, trade win, it comes
to data center, all of these things. Sure, there's some
data centers outside of Beijing, there's one I think in Ireland.
I think one in the UK as well. But nobody's
doing what we're doing. And that means you having a
(04:18):
lot of money flow into these companies. As we've seen.
You take a look at the performance of these companies
and you take a look and I think I mentioned this,
I mean just a few days ago here on the
program AI, they're saying accounts for an astonishing forty percent
(04:38):
share of US GDP growth. It's one estimate, and are
saying it could be even higher. Eighty percent of the
gains in US stocks so far have been in that arena. Yeah,
had are another economists out there, and quite frankly, you know,
they throw things out there. I didn't check this guy's work, Okay,
(05:00):
but I mean he's in the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Okay. Without data centers.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
GDP growth was point one percent in the first half
of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
But again, tech.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Has always Tech has always driven growth, has always driven GDP.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Now countries around
the globe are saying to themselves, well, okay, we're going
to invest there, but we're also going to have to
hedge ourselves. We're gonna have to hedge ourselves when it
(05:32):
comes to currency. And that's quite frankly, that's what they're doing.
That's what we're seeing happening all over the globe. Now,
gold commodities and we've we've I've discussed this here on
on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Gold For One.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I am not a huge fan of the people that
you know, go nuts with gold.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Ah, yeah, but look at how far it's gone listen.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Okay, a lot of people, especially people out there that
you know by coins and physical gold out there, you
can be a little bit careful. Okay, you got to
take a look at the bid to ask on some
of those things. Now again rare coins and it's a
completely different ball of axe. And I know people that
are in that business, and you can do well. When
(06:17):
we get involved in commodities, I like a basket of them.
I've talked about uranium here. Certain times, you take a
look at oil one of the things that you know
we've been doing as of late. Okay, gold you can
get more of it. You can get more of it.
And when the price of gold is at levels that
(06:40):
it's at, well, gee whiz, mining operations. Mining operations can
take a look at, you know, various different areas that
they have and say, hey, ge whiz, we can extract
from this spot and actually make money now, whereas hey,
you know, when it was much lower, the extraction cost
(07:02):
was too high or break even or break even didn't
make sense for us to go out there and extract
the gold. Now it is, so you start looking into
gold miners and things like that. You know, that's a
decent place you want to be in overall, and I'm
(07:23):
going to pull the economy into this entire equation. Okay,
to basement trade inflation is still running hot. Okay, it
is okay again all around the globe, certain assets that
were rock solid not so much anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Again, I want to remind.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Everybody still nicest house in a bad neighborhood. I mean,
even take a look at Japanese bonds there at some
of the highest yields they've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Again, we have to be a little bit more careful
we do if we show any signs.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
And again I'm not holding my breath on this is
trying to be fiscally austere and get our house in order.
That would flip a switch very very quickly as far
as the dollar, as far.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
As gold is concerned.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And it's something that you have to keep in mind,
the overall underlying economy overlall. Yes, tech sector doing well,
money flowing into the country. But once I want to
remind everyone, the market and the economy are two separately
(08:45):
different things, two different animals. Okay, you have to look
at what's happening underneath the hood, outside the headlines that
are being pushed at you. Americans falling behind on their
car payments. Delinquency rates on well it's subprime auto loans
(09:06):
are at records records, sense of pandemic. Buyers on auto
dealers lots have encountered surging sticker prices and smaller and
send us some automakers less than.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
A blow to afford and affordable.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
More consumers, especially lower income families, have resorted to buying
used cars and taking out longer loans. Now more are
falling behind on their loans, signaling that lower income consumers
are struggling to afford payments as wages stagnate and unemployment.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Ticks higher again.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Subprime and there's been some blow ups and I'll get
to that in another podcast. Some other issues happening. One
of the things again, debasement trade. They're throwing these things around.
If if we were i mean fully being debate, I mean,
we're really falling off a cliff.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Don't you think that? Don't you think people be selling
off our bonds? One would you know? One would think
of me? Just take a look at.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
The the yields on Japanese bonds again, records going through
the roof. If it was all out debasement, why why
are bonds trading where they are. Okay, So again that's
something else that you have to keep in mind. Again,
(10:29):
as far as the underlying economy is concerned, I mentioned
this the other day. You know, individual bankruptcy filings, jobs numbers,
there's there's a myriad of things out there. There's weakness
in the economy. And yeah, yeah, the average American out
there is hurting. Okay, they haven't seen the type of
wage growth, they've seen the debasement of their purchasing power.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Inflation. You know, it's not an easy thing.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And that's part of the you know, part of the
thing that that that's hurting Trump right now.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Is he really really over.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Promised when it came to fixing inflation and bringing prices
down when he ran, and the people are waiting, they're
waiting and things are not turning as quickly, and again
it was going to be much more difficulty. Do you
take a look at what happened and the type of
(11:27):
inflation that we saw during the Biden years. Everybody, everybody
warning warning, don't do that. Larry Summers are crying out loud,
don't do the inflation, but stop printing all this money.
It's going to be a disaster. Then you get the fend.
No it's just transitory. No, it's underly not transitory. It's
been fricking sticky, man, it's been sticky. And that's something
(11:52):
that needs to be dealt It really needs to be
dealt with.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
It's coming to ahead right now.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
When it comes to the government shutdown, people are taking
a look at you know, what are my insurance costs?
But everybody's across the board, everything has has gone up,
and yeah, nothing's really really been done about it. Something
that I think right now, right now, the administration is
(12:24):
really has to pivot, really has to make a hard
pivot to actually getting these things done, showing some movement,
and it's it's just going to be some radical type things.
Radical radical in the sense of, you know, changing the
way we handle agriculture here in this country, getting food
costs down because it's a bloody disaster.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Again.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Blow up Obamacare, get those health insurance costs down, okay.
Crush private equity, Crush private equity. You know, when it
comes to homes and how they're sold here in the
United States, get the right idea, get rid of you know,
maybe some property in turn, some of these places you
got to get the price of homes down again. You
have to give people hope. You got to give them
(13:09):
a light at the end of the tunnel. You wake
up every single day and if you feel like you're
on that treadmill and you're not getting anywhere week after week,
month after month, year after year, you know, that's when
that's when people start turning to the mandamis of the
world that we can't have, that we can't have, and
(13:30):
that's quite fair. That's what the President needs to work on.
Going back again to the debasement trade. Yes, okay, as
it stands, your money needs to be working very very
hard for you. You know that the whole Wall Street pitch
for the past thirty years, the sixty forty trade, has
been a disaster.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It's been a it's been a deter man. We get the.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Portfolios coming in from all of these firms, and you know,
seeing the type of growth that people have seen over
the past, it's been awful. Oh I mean portfolio Yeah,
sure they've gone up, but you're paying what in fees
and the value of your your currency has gone I mean,
come on, man, But again, it was easy for Wall
(14:17):
Street to do that. Now they're coming up with another gimmick,
another scheme, and telling people to go all in on
gold after it just went up by fifty percent over
the past several months. Okay, anyway again, questions in regards
to the debasement trade, questions in.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Regards to your portfolio.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Don't understand some of the things that that I'm trying
to get across here that that's actually my fault. Please
reach out, that's what we're here for. Get to our
website at Watchdog on Wall Street dot com.
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