Flood the Zone: Trump’s Second-Term Playbook

In this special in-person interview, Jim Rickards breaks down why the Trump administration is far more strategic than the media portrays, explaining the "flood the zone" tactic and Scott Bessent's "Three Arrows" approach to bringing down the debt-to-GDP ratio. Jim dismantles the popular "debasement trade" narrative, revealing that foreign central banks are not dumping Treasuries and that the real risk lies in the Eurodollar market and the $1 quadrillion derivatives system underpinning global finance. He warns that stablecoins are quietly hoarding Treasury bills needed for collateral — and the risk of fraud waiting to blow up. On gold, Jim explains why $5,000 is just the beginning, making the case for $10,000 to $25,000 based on historical precedent from the 1970s when the dollar lost 94% of its value measured in gold. He also offers a bold prediction: the potential breakup of NATO as geopolitical alliances fracture under pressure.

More about Rickards:

Rickards is a New York Times bestselling author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis and several other best-sellers, including The New Great Depression, Aftermath, The Road to Ruin, Death of Money, The New Case for Gold, Sold Out: How Broken Supply Chains, Surging Inflation, and Political Instability Will Sink the Global Economy, and his newest book MoneyGPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy. An investment advisor, lawyer, inventor, and economist, Rickards has held senior positions at Citibank, Long-Term Capital Management, and Caxton Associates. He is also the Editor of Strategic Intelligence, a widely-read financial newsletter.

Links:  

http://www.jamesrickardsproject.com/

https://x.com/RealJimRickards

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

2:33 Why the second Trump term is different from the first

5:25 The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025

6:45 Executive orders and legislative wins

8:20 Federal courts and the Supreme Court battles

9:49 The economy: Is it really chaos?

11:32 The national debt: Why $39 trillion isn't the number to watch

13:45 The debt-to-GDP ratio explained

15:30 The Keynesian multiplier and diminishing returns

17:38 How we fixed the debt ratio after WWII (1945-1980)

18:36 Scott Bessent's "Three Arrows" strategy

19:19 The debasement trade: Why it's a false narrative

21:15 Are foreign central banks dumping Treasuries? (No)

23:15 What triggers a financial panic

24:45 How the Fed actually "prints money"

26:30 The Eurodollar market: Where real money comes from

28:00 The $1 quadrillion derivatives market

30:15 Stablecoins: The hidden risk in crypto

33:24 Tether's commercial paper problem

35:37 Gold: Why it's really moving

37:45 The Russian asset freeze and its unintended consequences

42:26 Gold does well in deflation too

45:48 The first Pentagon financial war game (2009)

49:54 Gold's trajectory: $10,000 to $25,000 or higher

51:45 The 1970s: When gold went up 2,700%

55:30 Anchoring bias and why $1,000 jumps get easier

56:33 Jim Rogers on the 50% retracement rule

58:49 Silver: Precious metal meets industrial input

63:21 Bold prediction: The potential breakup of NATO

67:34 Parting thoughts: True diversification