meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The David McWilliams Podcast

Is $4,000 Gold the First Crack in the Fiat Era?

The David McWilliams Podcast

David McWilliams

News & Politics

4.5692 Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Broadcasting from under the Hollywood sign in the middle of a rare Californian downpour, we follow the water straight into the gold. Starting with LA as a city built on pure imagination, we jump back to the original gold rushes that reshaped the map: California in 1849, the Australian fields, the Klondike, and the deep shafts of South Africa. We meet Johann Sutter and the prospector who accidentally ruined his carefully built New Helvetia, the pioneers who turned empty coasts into booming economies, and the engineers and chemists who turned raw gold into the backbone of the 19th-century gold standard, global trade, and the first great age of financialisation. More recently, we ask why is gold nudging $4,000 an ounce? Why are central banks loading up on bullion again? Is this a bet against the dollar, a sign of geopolitical jitters, or the start of a new monetary era as fiat money and the old globalisation order creak? From mudslides in Malibu to vaults in Fort Knox, this episode is all about gold, what it did to the world before, and what its new surge might be telling us now.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

To understand the economy, you have to understand human nature.

0:06.6

This podcast is powered by ACAST.

0:13.3

How you doing there?

0:14.7

It is podcast time.

0:16.5

I am looking out over the Hollywood Hills,

0:19.4

just under the Hollywood sign, that iconic image of California,

0:25.1

of LA, in particular, of the movie industry, which we suggested last week. The reason this place is so

0:32.8

fascinating, it is a city that lives on its imagination. It is one large script, and it tells America the story of America.

0:43.2

And it's quite a fascinating, fascinating, ephemeral, lightweight economy

0:48.3

that you can build entirely created on what is going on between the ears of creative types, scriptwriters,

0:57.8

movie moguls, etc, etc, etc.

1:00.2

The only other problem, John, is there is a song,

1:03.2

says it never rains in Southern California, and that is wrong.

1:06.3

Girl, I want to warn you. It pours.

1:12.5

Man, it pours.

1:13.4

Okay.

1:14.8

So we are now,

1:17.1

are getting warnings on our phones.

1:20.4

Warnings on our phones of mudslides in Malibu.

1:21.2

Oh, wow. Because, of course, one of the dilemmas with L.A.

1:23.9

is it doesn't have a very good drainage system.

1:26.2

Why?

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from David McWilliams, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of David McWilliams and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.