Economists Uncut

Trump’s Plan to Launch a New Global Economy (Uncut) 04-18-2025

Trump’s Plan to Fire Powell & Launch a New Global Economy

Hi folks, Daniela Camboni here. Welcome back to the Daniela Camboni show. With me today, my very special friend and guest, Peter Grandich of Peter Grandich and Company.

 

Peter, thank you for joining me. Always a pleasure to join, in my book anyway, the first lady of financial journalism. So it’s been a long time and you somehow keep getting looking younger and I’m looking a lot older and I don’t know how you’re doing that.

 

It’s the Italian olive oil, the jeans and the olive oil. Thank you, Peter. But in all seriousness, I want to get your thoughts on everything happening and specifically, you have been pounding the table on the Fed, on the relationship with Donald Trump for a very long time now.

 

So curious to get your thoughts on the latest here. President Donald Trump not holding back saying he can’t wait for Powell to be out the door now that the ECB has cut again, the Fed has yet to move. Your thoughts on how this will keep playing out here? Well, for starters, a few years back, I decided that the United States had lost its flagship in the world through de-dollarization and a whole bunch of other things, including the fact that I became a very, very big believer in the BRIC nations.

 

Not that I want to see it happen, because America will suffer because of that, but it seemed the realization and where things were going. So I always assumed and made my investments based on the fact that that would grow and continue. When Trump won, I spoke about a short period of time that the Trumpsters, so to speak, would have this enjoyment.

 

But by coronation day, I would want to be out of the stock market, certainly the clients of our planning group was told that, because I felt he was going to take actions that would come back to bite him. And I believe he has. I believe he took a much too hard stance, in a sense, kind of like a bully in this trade situation.

 

And one of the things I spoke about, and it came to fruition yesterday, was that he was not going to have the Fed on his side. There was no doubt in my mind, and it’s Monday morning quarterbacking, but I’ve said this many weeks ago, that him and Powell did not get along. And that it would probably be the most adverse relationship between a president and a head of a Fed at a key time economically and politically in America.

 

And Powell clearly, if you don’t want to say threw him under the bus, he at least backed the bus up on him yesterday. And that, of course, brings out what Trump normally gets like when he’s not happy somebody does something. And we saw that this morning with his comments about the Fed and all.

 

But when you throw that all in, Daniela, with everything else that’s happened, I think one of the biggest pieces of news that did not get a lot of coverage, if I may, and I think people need to focus on this going forward, is that South Korea, Japan, and China had a meeting and announced they want to talk together about a trade pact away from the United States. And people don’t know that if you want to talk about two mortal enemies for hundreds of years, it’s China and Japan. So the very fact that that’s happening, my dear friends, as you are in Canada, our two greatest partners, America’s never had better friends in all their time than Canadians, are all not caving in the way that I think Trump thought was going to occur days after he made these actions.

 

And that sets up for some very tough times ahead. Yeah. And that reset, that conference, that summit that happened, you’re right, didn’t get much play.

 

But countries are looking for solutions outside of the United States, Peter. Well, I’ve been saying this for weeks, ever since when Trump first, I don’t even know if he was made president, but it was certainly after the election, he made a comment, something to the effect of anybody that’s in the BRICS, if you think you’re going to trade, we’re going to crush you. And I said, in fact, that statement, and of course, now what he’s done, he’s the single best marketing piece who’s ever in charge of getting new members to the BRICS has to have a smile, because these are the type of things that actually going to chase people away.

 

I make it very simple, Daniel. I said to my clientele and my followers a few days ago, if you believe that at the end of all of this, more people in the world are going to be more happy to deal with the United States, then I’m not for you. If you believe they’re going to be less likely to want to deal with the United States, then maybe you want to continue listening to me.

 

And I believe net at the end of the day, that’s how it’s going to end up, that this will end up being more negative for the United States than positive. Going back to your comments about Powell, right? At one point, don’t you think he’s going to have to cave though? I mean, isn’t he going to have to put a floor in here to save the market? Well, you know, what was interesting also that wasn’t covered yesterday in that very same speech is how much he spoke about not only the deficits, but he also spoke about the real guerrilla in the room that no one wants to talk about, and that’s Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And I was astounded that he would even bring that up at all.

 

But he said what a lot of us have said for years, he finally said as far as a Fed governor could go. Yeah, I think if worse comes to worse, and there’s a complete meltdown, but I think he’s prepared and he’s going to argue even today as we speak, the claims have not dropped off a lot. We saw a little break on the consumer number.

 

I don’t think that’ll continue because I think this tariff stuff is going to raise inflation. But I don’t think he has to be in a panic mode. And I say this, these people are human beings and personalities inside help make their decisions.

 

And I can see him waiting longer than he might have done under another president before supposedly, you know, putting in a Fed, putting all and I’ll also add this, Daniela, and I’ve said this for a few years now. I don’t think the Fed has the power that it once had. I don’t think it’s reflected.

 

They lost that through the word transitory. They really blew that move. And to hear Janet Yellen, who when I think historians look back when they look back at this era and say, name the three top people that did more harm to America than anybody else, both as Fed governor as Secretary Treasurer, she’ll be in the top three.

 

And yet she’s out here throwing Trump under the bus too. So yeah, the Fed will eventually need to especially if the market really accelerates to the downside. But I don’t think they’re prepared to jump in as fast as they might otherwise, if somebody else wasn’t in the presidency.

 

And I’ll tell you this, Daniela, I wouldn’t put it past Trump firing him. I mean, he’s that type of person. So it’s all there’s nothing really good out of this.

 

That’s why I keep this negative kind of defensive position, even though it doesn’t help business, but it is what I think is the proper stance. Yeah, I think that’s a really interesting point that you bring up. And I know it’s premature to think of, you know, who would who would take over Powell? I mean, people are floating around Judy Shelton’s name, people are saying probably Waller, since he’s been, you know, saying we need the lower rates.

 

And that’s what the president wants, even though the Fed’s supposed to be independent. Any thoughts on who you think would want even the position? And two, you bring up the point of, is the Fed as powerful or truly independent? Because likely whoever, whomever replaces Powell will need to have a lower interest rate policy mandate in their head, I think. Well, you’re right.

 

But wanting something and the ability to do it could be two different things. Let’s first address who it may be. First of all, I think one of the other difficulties that happened here, there’s been different opinions coming out from his closest in his team.

 

A couple hours, one person says this and the market goes down. And then a few hours later, another member of his team says something different and the market goes up. I think his concern would be is even if he puts in a real special choice, he only has to look at one of his Supreme Court nominees who he thought was going to be clearly on his side and made recently a big vote against him.

 

So I think he’s going to try to pick somebody that he feels he has a personal relationship with or can have a personal relationship, even though they’re supposed to be this independency. But here’s the other problem. Again, the other big gorilla in the room, you can talk about lowering interest rates.

 

It’s great to say it and all, but deficits and debt just keeps going up. And despite all the initial talk and Doge was going to find and maybe it has trillions of dollars and the bottom line is there’s nothing happening in Congress where it has to happen in order to stop that runaway train. And that’s where the bond market will start to get really, really concerned.

 

We saw that a week or so ago in an overnight trading. People start to think there may be a real problem here with the U.S. making interest payments and boy, the credit market just seized up overnight. And, you know, that goes beyond anything that the Fed can do.

 

And I’ll tell you this difference. Look what’s happening in other key central banks now. Japan is having higher interest rates, OK, yet other are lowering interest rates.

 

And what did our dollar do? You know what I never thought I’d ever see, Danielle? It’s my 42nd year. We saw one day the stock market cave, the dollar cave, the bond cave and gold go up a lot. When the stock market caved, either bonds would rally and or the dollar would rally because those were the safe havens.

 

So for your guests, for these last few years, who advised your listeners that gold was a safe haven and not the dollar and the bonds, they were proven correct. Bravo. Bravo.

 

And to that point, happy you’re bringing up gold as we’re speaking, gold surging through thirty three hundred per ounce. I mean, I blink and I’m just in shock at the gold price I’m looking at. The question is.

 

Is it going to stay at these levels? Right. I know some of us who have been in this gold trade are a little nervous because we just all of a sudden see a drop back down. But what I’ve been reading from the experts is that this feels different than the 1980 rally, for example, where it faded with geopolitical resolution.

 

These spikes feel different and stickier. Do you agree? Well, the big difference is, is that there’s been huge physical demand in 1980. It was a paper driven market that drove gold up.

 

In fact, all previous rallies. This is unique. This is something this is what made me sell all my stocks in twenty twenty one and all gold and all the way through here simply because the tremendous physical demand that’s been happening.

 

And not only that, that thirty three countries decided to repatriate their gold from London and New York to own it as well. So we knew something was transpiring. These central banks can flip that.

 

It isn’t like they’re buying it so they can make a profit and sell it one day to somebody else. So there’s a huge change. The caution I have a caution and a positive about gold.

 

The caution is we moved very far, very fast. Even people like us that watch it every day are going, wow, I can’t even believe it’s here and all. So there’s a there’s a 10 percent or so really sharp correction somewhere.

 

But does it happen at thirty three hundred or forty three hundred? That’s but but but I still think eventually prices would be higher. And here’s what you have going for you. And please allow me, because this is very important.

 

So I ended the business in the early 1980s and the Dow had traded just between 700 and a thousand for 12 years. In fact, they were so negative about stocks for the future that Businessweek ran a famous front page called Equities are Dead and interest rates were 20 percent. Inflation was double digit.

 

Japan was taking over the world at that time, not China. Oil was going through the roof. Wall Street had no vision of the stocks ever going up.

 

And this man that no one knew about came out and predicted thirty six hundred based on a technical analysis. Again, no one knew about his name was Robert Precht Jr., called the Elliott Wave Theory. And he predicted this thirty six hundred on the Dow.

 

And I remember vividly even shows like Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser back then going, who is this guy? There’s no way the Dow can go. It can’t even get above a thousand. And the reason I tell that story is I’m not saying that gold’s going to forty thousand too.

 

But understand, just because something traded somewhere for a long period of time doesn’t mean it always has to stay that way. So there are people going, oh, this is just crazy. Gold’s way overpriced.

 

You know, it normally shouldn’t. You know, it always used to trip. These, you’re not supposed to say this and it’s normally deadly, but I think this is one of the exceptions.

 

This time it’s different. This is a whole difference of why gold has gone up than anything that we’ve talked about before. And let’s face facts.

 

When you have physical buying so greatly outweighing that the paper market, which used to basically control the price of gold, is gone, then as long as those physical reports continue and there’s nothing that has changed on that, you have to assume the price can go higher over time. Very well said. And you’re right.

 

This time just feels different. But going back to, you know, the mess we’re seeing in equities here, I mean, I’ve seen, you know, pundits like Peter Schiff saying it’s going to get uglier than 08. Do you agree with statements that we’re hearing like this? Well, I’ve sold all my general equity stocks back in 2021 to own gold.

 

So I’ve not been a bull on the general equity market other than when Trump elected, I said there’d be this initial enthusiasm, but by coronation day, inauguration day, but I called it coronation day because that’s how it was viewed back in November, December and January. The market could rally. Wall Street is, I’ve nicknamed it the don’t worry, be happy crowd.

 

I say this seriously and not any individual in mind, just in general, that the average financial advisor could be tossed off the top of the Empire State Building and all the way down, they’d all say the same thing. Hey, so far, so good. So there’s a tendency in the financial service industry to always see the cup half full.

 

Then there’s a certain group we used to be called hard asset group that kind of died, but doom and gloomers or whatever, they’re always seeing the world is coming to an end and, you know, so forth and so on. Now, I don’t sell anything that benefits from predicting the world. In fact, my financial planning business has suffered from me taking such a bearish stance.

 

But what I would say that I’d be closer to a Peter Schiff than one of these guys that appear on that certain network that always kind of say by the dip, it’s always going up, it’s going up. And the main reason I also say that, Daniela, is almost half of all licensed financial advisors practicing in the United States right now weren’t even born when I started. So I believe a lot of them have been used to driving on a one way street.

 

And that’s great. You can become a great driver driving fast. And the odd time there was this accident, this thing called the Fed came along this tow truck, fixed the put and cleared your avenue to go.

 

Now, at least there’s two way traffic. We may even be approaching traffic circles. My concern is that the professionalism of the financial service industry may not have the experience to understand it doesn’t always go up and may prematurely act poorly.

 

And here’s the big one. This is the biggest single reason. When I started in the business, Daniela, 87% of the trading was done on the New York Stock Exchange.

 

And back then there were only two exchanges, New York and the Amex. 13% was institutional. Now over half the money that’s in the U.S. stock market’s in passive funds.

 

And those funds, those managers are not actively managing it, nor do they have independent discretion. They’re there to track and index and indice. And as long as money’s flowing in, they have to put it to work.

 

They can’t make a decision. Well, the same thing happens on the downside. If those people start to take money out of those funds, the manager has no independence for, whoa, whoa, I’m not selling that.

 

That’s too good of a company. And that’s what we’ve lived with. That’s what we’re seeing the change now happening.

 

And that other supposedly half that’s left in the U.S. stock market, two thirds of that’s trading by computer algorithms. You know, maybe just a headline story could be sophisticated trading program. Individual ownership of part ownership of businesses, what the stock market was originally created for, is such a small part of the stock market now.

 

So what I tell everybody with gray hair and no hair that goes back to my days is, you can’t look at the market as you did 30 or 40 years ago, because it’s a completely different species. And one of the concerns that we’ve witnessed now, and this is why we’re having these thousand point days and so forth, is that the individual is no longer the influencer of what’s happening in the market. And now there’s people trading with information that’s so much superior and so much far ahead of the crowd that it’s a great disadvantage.

 

We just saw this in the last few weeks. Why did we see such great call buying and things a couple hours before a bullish news? And then we saw some putback because people don’t want to say this publicly, but it’s true. Certain people have distinct advantages over others when it comes to financial markets.

 

The other part I wanted to bring up, Peter, is before the word reset was almost kept to, you know, small circles, it’s almost like a conspiracy. But now I’m having more of these conversations with Wall Street insiders who truly feel that the path we’re on or the destruction we’re seeing or a vision perhaps that Donald Trump wants, you know, just tear up everything we know of Bretton Woods and create a new system, that it almost feels like there’s some reset happening, like we can almost say the word and it’s not a bad word anymore. Do you feel any inkling of that? Well, I feel that the reset was coming outside the United States and that’s why the BRICS and these central banks were buying large sums of gold because they knew that the world has become too indebted.

 

It’s not just a debt problem, doesn’t just exist in the United States, it exists through much of the Western world. And that someday, somewhere, something is going to have to be done and people aren’t just going to accept fiat currency anymore, the too many troubles that there’ll be. So I believe it’s been underway, whether or not the United States, some of us thought a few weeks ago when we started hearing talk about gold and is there gold in the Fort Knox, some of the pundits came out and started going, oh, maybe we’re going to have some type of gold back and that still may be in the back.

 

But I think the United States is outside looking in. I think they bullied their way into a corner where there aren’t going to be as many allies that might’ve been in years past. And Trump is not a person that likes to cave or in a sense, omit wrong.

 

I like to say that he’s the Fonzie of the 21st century of politics. And if you’re old enough to remember Fonzie, the one thing he couldn’t say was I was wrong. And that’s something that normally doesn’t come out of Trump’s mouth.

 

And I’m afraid he may dig in even harder, even if more things start to turn against him. I just have this visual of what the Fonzie used to say also, Peter. Hey, right.

 

Okay. Last point. I’m quoting an article from Zero Hedge from your friend, Vince Lansi.

 

It says very serious and sensible people are pointing towards extraordinary outcomes now, specifically a diminishing of the dollar’s reserve status. And as a function thereof, a complete rebalancing by global banks from its current 58% weighting to as low as a 40% weighting, which would necessitate an almost tripling of gold reserves held by them. Any insights? Do you see this happening, Peter? Yeah, there’s a lot of what Vince says that I concur with.

 

He’s been a person that’s helped guide me among some others. One thing I learned many, many years ago, maybe because how I entered Wall Street, not with any real formal education and all that, I would never be close to the smartest people. But if you can identify some of them and then kind of put it into your way of thinking, I think he’s been right on a lot of things.

 

I think what people need to understand here is this is a unique situation. We’ve never been in this type of situation because in years past when there’s been financial crises and all, we had more tools at our disposal. Even the Fed doesn’t have some of those tools anymore.

 

We certainly can’t, like we did in COVID, suddenly create another $7 trillion out of thin air. What people would think suddenly if we have a $40 or $45 trillion debt would be amazing. But there’s one thing we didn’t discuss here, and that is the political fighting that is occurring both on the social and political front.

 

I really believe the United States, as citizens, we’ve never been more divided than maybe other than the Civil War right now. There’s a left and a right. The middle has shrunk.

 

You’ve either gone this way or you’re leaning that way. The true middle, it doesn’t seem to exist. And if you try to exist, you get hammered from both sides.

 

I have that in my own household, Daniel. My wife is a Trumpster. She’s a MAGA.

 

He goes on TV. She leaves me to go watch what he has to say. I’m either against him or for him.

 

There’s things he does that I like and there’s things he does that I don’t like. It’s very hard to be in the middle ground here and all. And I’m afraid that both the social and political economic problems are coming together to really form this near perfect storm of trouble.

 

And I don’t like saying that. I don’t like saying, A, for business. And I don’t like saying it because of my faith.

 

My faith teaches me to have hope and pray for good. But right now, it’s a troublesome time to look at all those things. It is a troublesome time.

 

And that’s why I really wanted to bring you on today, which leads me to my wrapping point here, is that a lot of people are losing faith. I mean, I have people emailing me or stopping me daily saying they’re just really nervous, concerned. They have anxiety.

 

They can’t sleep. They worry about, you know, their generational wealth will even get to their children or their grandchildren or their great-grandchildren. You know, folks who have been just wiped out in the stock market right now, retirement savings out the window.

 

So anyway, the point is, people have lost a lot of hope. And I guess I’m reaching out to you to ask, you know, during this very holy week, you know, what are some things you do to stay positive, to keep hope alive, and stay the course? So I wear my Catholic Christian faith on my sleeve. I never look to hide it.

 

I don’t try to beat my chest and tell people if they don’t know Christ, they’re not going to heaven or anything of that nature. But I have because of the things that have transpired in my life, financial loss, such mental anguish, bringing to the point of not wanting to live. A lot of the things that people, like you said, are facing right now, I’ve endured.

 

And when I look back and I understand, well, how did I manage to get here despite all of that? It really goes back to the faith that I chose to follow. And when I fall back on, and many times, almost always, we fall back only because we’re under trouble. You don’t normally hear this story.

 

Hey, I just sold my software company for half a billion. The kids are off and walking in Harvard. We ski in Vail in the winter and summer in the Bahamas.

 

And I found Christ. Those are not the conversations. Most times when you hear people found Christ, they’ve gone through a very difficult period in all.

 

We’re in a nation, and I think Canada clearly falls into this as well, where agnostic and atheism is a faster-growing movement than falling into faith. And not necessarily just Christian faith, Judaism or other faiths that people have. And the loss that there’s an almighty supreme being and all that kind of stuff.

 

And I just think without that, there’s a void, and you can’t get enough things or have other people doing things for you that fills that void. For me, and seemingly for billions of others, having faith, and now especially the three most important days of the calendar are before us. We go from Holy Thursday, where basically Jesus basically tried to teach us to love one another and to serve and not be served, to a horrible day of imagining the worst possible death anybody could have.

 

And even at that last moment, still turn around and say they don’t know what they’re doing. And then of course, Easter is about renewal and faith and hope that we have salvation. Because if there isn’t, and this is it, boy, it really does stink.

 

But some of us choose to believe the story. And I like to tell people this, Danielle, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but even if the story isn’t true, it’s still a better way to live. It’s a better way to get through.

 

And maybe that’s how I’ve gotten through all this, because I chose to believe it. And it’s either true or it’s not like it’s not going to be true. And in my last breath, somebody’s going to go stupid.

 

Why did you believe all that? You wasted a good life. No, it’s still a good way to live. But I do believe it.

 

And I just pray that people understand that if they open their mind and just try to focus on how did this all come about? Did Adams really get together and somehow and make these beautiful things that we see? Or was there something that made it like this? And when we look at the earth and all without humans input, it’s a beautiful place. I mean, things that are able to see and also whatever led to its creation certainly had goodness more in their mind than badness. I thank you for that, Peter.

 

And I think what you said there about renewal and, you know, just hope and second chances. That’s I think why Easter has always really been my favorite time of the year, because it just brings a sense of of hope that even in, you know, through the despair, you can you can start again. And I think that’s a beautiful message.

 

I thank you for coming on for this special edition and for sharing your wisdom with us. Always a pleasure. Keep up the good work.

 

And I still don’t know how you keep getting younger versus older, but you better send me that formula. And on a lighter note, our both our hockey teams in the playoffs, your devils, my Habs. So we’ll see.

 

Yeah, well, I tell you this, if they somehow make the play each other, I’m coming to Montreal for a play. All right. All right.

 

We’ll see you there. Peter Grandage, everyone. Happy Easter, Peter.

 

God bless you and your followers. And happy Easter to those celebrating. Thank you all for watching.

 

We’ll have more content coming your way. Be sure to stay tuned to the Daniella Show and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thank you for watching.

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