James Hickman is a West Point graduate and former intelligence officer who has had an extensive business and investment career spanning more than 25 years. James has traveled to 120+ countries on all 7 continents, and he has started, invested in, and acquired businesses all over the world, in sectors ranging from technology to agriculture to banking. Since he originally began writing under the pen name âSimon Blackâ back in 2007, James has accurately predicted many of the major trends and events of our time, including the Westâs enormous debt bubble, inflation, bank failures, social unrest, and more. Read more at www.schiffsovereign.com
Site
RSS
Apple
Data updated on 04/07/2026
Recent rankings
Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.
Shared links between episodes and podcasts
Links found in episode descriptions and other podcasts that share them.
Why Jeff Bezos might just deserve the Nobel Peace Prize
Wednesday, April 16, 2025 ⢠Duration 54:14
In the two weeks since âLiberation Dayâ, weâve received plenty of very smart, thoughtful questions from our readers.
So today we recorded a special Q&A podcast to cut through the chaos and confusion these new trade measures have sparked in the markets.
We answer:
Is the Presidentâs top economic adviser correct that the US dollarâs reserve status is âhurtingâ the US economy?
Whatâs happening with gold? Why did it initially drop, and then soar?
Can the BRICS bloc switch entirely to yuan trade settlement, and, if so, who wins?
Do foreign countries actually own US debtâ or does the US hold all the cards through third-party custodians?
Whatâs with the historic whipsaw in Treasury bond yields, and how big of a deal is this?
Why would China buy Treasuries at the highest possible price, only to lose tons of money when they sold?
Can China afford to weaponize their dollar reservesâor are they shooting themselves in the foot?
And... humorously, why I think Jeff Bezos deserves the Nobel Peace Prize...
You can listen in below.
https://youtu.be/vYgSXw_PuME
Podcast transcript can be accessed here. Any other questions, just let us know.
What Matters More Than the Stock Market [Podcast]
Saturday, April 12, 2025 ⢠Duration 30:43
Yesterday when I was talking to my friend and business partner Peter Schiff, he made it clear: China is trying to drive a wedge between the US and Europe by dumping US bonds, and buying euros.If thatâs true, it constitutes a major reset of the global financial order.
I sat down to record a podcast about this because, frankly, itâs the most important thing happening right now. Itâs critical to understandânot just whatâs happening, but why this is no longer a trade war⌠It's an economic war.
Honestly, Iâm more concerned than Iâve been in years about this escalating into an actual war. The worldâs two largest and most dominant superpowers are directly threatening each otherâs economic interests.
You can watch or listen to the podcast here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wHDvpsYG5U
You can access the podcast transcript here.
Forget about AI: America is about to be the world leader in socks and underwear [Podcast]
Friday, April 4, 2025 ⢠Duration 31:21
Governments love to tell you tariffs are about "protection". But protection from what? More affordable goods? A higher quality of life?
In todayâs podcast, we dig into the many, many unforeseen consequences of the new tariff policies. For example:
Examples from countries where Iâve lived which have heavy tariffs and import dutiesâ and how those countries are vastly worse off as a result. Their citizens are poorer and less prosperous. Thatâs because taxing something always leads to less of it... which ultimately means a decline in standards of living. Hooray tariffs!!
They just slapped some of the highest tariffs on products the US doesnât even makeâ like socks from Vietnam or underwear from Bangladesh. Do they really want America to be a âsocks and underwear economyâ? Is this really the future of economic growth?
And even if so, where are they going to get the workers to staff those factories? Are Americaâs 20-year olds, who, heretofore have been posting butt-selfies on Instagram for a living, really going to put down their iPhones to go work in factories making socks and underwear?
Plus there are painfully obvious reasons why American-made goods will become more expensive... due to tariffs on raw materials.
We canât imagine how big the customs bureaucracy will become to enforce tariffs... let alone the complexity and confusion, when, say, a Swiss-owned vessel sailing under a Panamanian flag crewed by Danes and Filipinos carries chromite from Zimbabwe, granite from Mozambique, and graphite from Tanzania into a US port...
And then thereâs the golden opportunity that tariffs give China to assert global leadership. April 2, 2025 may be the date that future historians mark as the day American dominance ended.
Why tariffs are just the first phase... and how this escalates from trade wars, to capital controls... loss of visa-free travel, cyber attacks, and more.
You can listen in here.
https://youtu.be/CLc4XAiSO4E
You can access the podcast transcript here.
If tomorrow is âLiberation Dayâ, today is âRational Dayâ [Podcast]
Tuesday, April 1, 2025 ⢠Duration 37:19
Tomorrow is being billed as Liberation Dayâ where tariffs will supposedly free America from those pesky, parasitic foreign markets.
But whatâs actually going to happen?
This is the subject of todayâs podcast.
We discuss:
How odd it is that no Liberation Day details have leaked... which makes us wonder if there actually are any plans or details to leak.
If this administration truly believes tariffs are so obviously great for the economy, why would they wait until now instead of doing it day one, as they did with so many other executive actions?
What might actually unfold, and what it means for markets that are already jittery.
Questions any rational investor should ask themselves about their goalsâ for example, are you speculating on share price, or investing in a companyâs long term prospects?
Will tariffs make successful companies immediately and permanently less valuable?
To answer these questions, we bring up examples of well managed, value companies we present to our investment research subscribers, particularly undervalued real asset businesses.
One exampleâs entire market valuation is less than the cash it has in the bank. Plus itâs profitable and pays a dividend.
Finally, we discuss:
The long shot scenario of what would need to occur for tariffs to actually work as intended.
The very plausible scenario that America could become a manufacturing powerhouse againânot thanks to tariffs, but technology.
The surprising company we identify which likely stands to gain the most from this AI/ automation/ robotics boom.
If tomorrow is âLiberation Day,â then today is the day to be rational.
I encourage you to give it a listen.
https://youtu.be/jNUtSydVBsw
(Podcast transcript is available to you here.)
Hereâs how the US might force foreign nations into submission
Thursday, March 27, 2025 ⢠Duration 01:06:06
On June 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon dispatched Treasury Secretary William Simon and his deputy to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to strike one of the most criticalâand secretiveâeconomic deals in modern history.
Three years earlier, in August 1971, Nixon had severed the final link between the US dollar and gold, officially ending the Bretton Woods system. That meant foreign governments could no longer redeem their dollars for gold, effectively turning the dollar into a pure fiat currency backed by nothing but political promises.
After Nixonâs move, the US could effectively âprintâ and spend as much money as it wantedâsomething that Congress enthusiastically embraced.
Inflation soared, confidence in the dollar plummeted, and foreign countries began dumping dollars as a result.
So Washington hatched a plan.
The mission to Riyadh was a covert, high-stakes operation to engineer artificial demand for the dollar.
They went to convince Saudi Arabiaâ the worldâs largest oil producerâ to sell its oil exports exclusively in US dollars. In return, the US would offer military protection, political support, and access to sophisticated weaponry.
It was the birth of the petrodollar.
Pretty much every country on earth was buying oil from Saudi Arabia. And if Saudi Arabia was only selling oil in US dollars, it meant that every country on earth had to continue to own US dollars... and by extension, continue buying US government bonds.
This arrangement has continued for half a century and allowed the US to run massive deficits, âprintâ money at will, and export inflation around the globeâall while maintaining an illusion of monetary stability.
Today, there is once again grumbling around the world about reliance on the US and its currency.
Even allies like France and Germany are actively working on diversifying out of the US dollar and investing their savings at home, rather than buying more US government bonds.
In response, the Trump administration seems intent on resetting the global financial system and almost forcing foreign countries to continue holding US debt; insiders within the administration refer to it as the âMar-a-Lago Accordâ, and given the ongoing tariff announcements, it appears they are actually putting the idea into action.
I wrote about this earlier in the week: this is an extremely high-risk gamble.
But thereâs one thing the US has going for it... a way to âengineerâ demand for US dollars and encourage foreigners to buy US government debt.
Back in the 1970s, the need for oil forced foreign nations to continue owning US dollars.
The oil of today is technology. And foreign nations will most likely line up to get their hands on US technology.
The US is still the leader in advancements like AI and high performance computing, quantum, other advanced semi-conductor technologies, robotics, small scale nuclear, and more.
Obviously other countries possess some of this technology; China still leads in supercomputing and has plenty of its own AI. But much of the core infrastructureâ especially advanced semiconductorsâ is dominated by the United States.
This is potentially an advantage that the US government might exploit (through export controls and more) in order to force foreigners to continue owning dollars... and Treasury bonds.
This is the topic of our podcast todayâ and we also discuss:
How the Mar-A-Lago Accord is an enormous gamble
What happens to the US dollar if the gamble doesnât pay off
How theyâre also might plan on dismantling Federal Reserve independence
A 1960s-era economistâs view on why the reserve currency is doomed
Peter Schiffâs father Irwin, and his testimony to Congress in 1968
And the right way to solve Americaâs debt problems
You can listen in here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1E5Wkyr_HA
(Podcast transcript can be downloaded here.)
Itâs the Difference Between $70 and $140 Million [Podcast]
Tuesday, March 18, 2025 ⢠Duration 49:37
A few years ago, I was at a private conference listening to a CEO of a silver mining company explainâquite matter-of-factlyâhow silver prices were being manipulated.
He laid out the whole playbook: how major Wall Street traders would flood the market with short positions in paper silver, drive the price down, and simultaneously accumulate physical silver at rock-bottom prices. Then, once theyâd cornered enough physical supply, theyâd let prices rise, selling into the momentum they themselves created.
It was a textbook case of market manipulationâillegal, unethical, but enormously profitable.
But what stuck with me wasnât the CEOâs explanation. It was the reaction of some of the "finance elite" in the room.
A few of them scoffed. You could practically see them rolling their eyes. Manipulate silver? Why would anyone bother? They arrogantly dismissed the notion outright.
Fast forward a couple of years, and guess what happened? JP Morgan paid a nearly $1 billion fine for precisely this kind of manipulation. Several traders went to prison.
Turns out, the âconspiracy theoryâ was, in fact, reality.
The reason why it happened is because it could happen. Silver is a small enough market where a few large players can force those kind of price fluctuations.
And to me, that is the primary reason why we likely wonât see a sustained run up in silver prices.
Gold has now hit $3,000 per ounce. So could speculation drive silver to ridiculous heights? Absolutely. The Wall Street traders might even pull the reverse of what they did last time and intentionally drive prices up.
But there is a key difference between silver and gold-- gold has an obvious catalyst for higher prices: central banks are buying up gold literally by the metric ton in their efforts to diversify away from the US dollar.
The silver market, on the other hand, is simply too small to absorb that amount of capital.
Gold also provides central banks with the best wealth density to easily store vast fortunes of value.
Think about it like thisâ a barrel of oil is worth about $70. If you fill up that same barrel with silver, youâd have about $1.5 million of value.
But fill it up with gold and suddenly itâs worth about $140 million!
In other words, gold is the one of the most âdenseâ forms of wealth in existence... and thatâs the primary reason why central banks are loading up on it, instead of silver.
We discuss all this in todayâs podcast, as well as another precious metal that central bankers might consider accumulatingâ and itâs not silver.
We also talk about what goldâs latest milestone means, if investors are too late to the party, and some alternative ways to gain exposure to what will likely be a continuing run up in gold prices.
One of those alternatives is investments in profitable, well-managed precious metals companies which are at the moment incredibly undervalued.
Thatâs because central banks are buying gold, not gold companies.
The last three precious metals companies that we showcased in our 4th Pillar investment research newsletter fit this exact criteria, and are up 27%, 21%, and 40% respectively.
We still think this is a very sensible approach worth considering.
You can listen here.
https://youtu.be/-KNn7mYehr8
Also, you can access the transcript of this video, here.
Is the US Headed Toward Recession? [Podcast]
Tuesday, March 11, 2025 ⢠Duration 56:51
By the late 1920s, the US economy was booming and had advantages that most of the world did not yet enjoy.
Manufacturing in America was extremely competitive due to mass electrification powering factories. Farmers had traded out horses and mules for trucks and tractors.
US productivity was surging.
Global trade was still recovering from World War I, but there was enough sense at the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations) to campaign against trade barriers.
The final report from the World Economic Conference in 1927 concluded that âthe time has come to put an end to tariffs. . .â
But America decided to move in the opposite direction.
Two politicians, Willis Hawley and Reed Smoot put forth a plan to impose steep tariffs that reached as high as 59.1% on some products.
The infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act passed in 1930, and almost immediately, countries around the world imposed their own retaliatory tariffs against the US.
Global trade plummeted as a result, which became a major factor in prolonging an almost never-ending and extremely painful economic depression.
I donât think another Great Depression is in the cards right now, but frankly all these threats of tariffs are starting to have an impact.
Stock market investors are realizing that a recession is clearly on the table, and that business and consumer sentiment across the board have taken a nose dive.
That could all rebound just as quickly as it has fallen, but the larger point is that tariffs will absolutely make the country, and the world for that matter, much worse off.
The key reason is that tariffs force the economy to operate below its maximum potential.
Think about it on an individual basis. Imagine if Tom Cruise were sacking groceries instead of making movies. I think most people would probably acknowledge that creating multi-billion dollar box office hits is a hard thing to do, and sacking groceries would be below his potential.
The same goes for a trained and experienced neurosurgeonâ picking turnips is not the best use of his or her time.
The US economy is certainly capable of producing just about anything. But thereâs no point in deliberately producing below your potentialâ i.e. taking scarce talent and resources away from more valuable more productive sectors, and instead focusing that energy to make socks and underwear.
If an economy consistently underachieves its potential, everyone is worse off as a resultâ regardless of whether that results in a near-term recession.
The US has the potential in small-scale nuclear reactors, and emerging technology in AI, automation, robotics, and high-performance computing to create a level of abundance and prosperity that is almost unimaginable. That advantage is specific to the United States and that reality could be just a few years away because most of that technology exists or is close.
And thatâs what the US needs to get out of its $36 trillion debt problemâ a productivity and innovation driven economic boom.
Tariffs throw cold water on the whole thing.
This is what we discuss in todayâs podcast.
We also touch on:
Recent stock market swings
The valuation of stocks now, and historically
Who is investing in the stock market today
What could drive investors into bonds
And more.
You can listen here.
https://youtu.be/gisCd7pMpS8
(The podcast transcript is available to you here.)
The Controlled Demolition of the US Dollarâs Reserve Status [Podcast]
Wednesday, March 5, 2025 ⢠Duration 01:13:04
Even during the darkest moments of the Biden administrationâthe shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan, 9% inflation, bureaucrats hell-bent on destroying the economyâI still said Americaâs problems were fixable.
But I didnât see any hope in the previous administration or a prospective Kamala administration to fix things and only expected them to grow worse.
Weâre now a month and a half into a new administration, and itâs fair to say some things are going very well.
There are others that, depending on your view, are not.
One big concern I have is that no one is interested in reforming Social Securityâa massive entitlement program whose own trustees say will run out of money over the next several years. This is a gargantuan financial crisis in the making, a ticking time bomb that no one wants to touch.
Depending on your priorities, foreign relations are also on the list of concerns.
If you're more isolationist, you might think that the unwinding of relationships and alliances is no big dealâthat the world needs America more than America needs the world.
But there are consequences to that...
$28 trillion of US government debt is coming due over the next four years, and a lot of that is owned by foreign governments and central banks.
The Treasury Department needs these players to go along and reinvestânot only in America but specifically in US government bonds.
And if relationships are too fractured, they might not be willing to do that.
That could create an enormous fiscal crisis that would most likely result in a lot of inflation.
It also puts into question the US dollarâs status as the global reserve currency, which it has enjoyed for more than 80 years.
The reality, however, is that while the short-term consequences of losing reserve status could be profound, in the long term, reserve currency status is not a requirement for economic prosperity.
There are plenty of countries around the worldâTaiwan, Singapore, Switzerland, etc.âthat are prosperous nations and do not have the global reserve currency.
In some respects, reserve status is a huge benefit, but also a bit of a handcuff.
In todayâs podcast episode, we explore what we call the âcontrolled demolitionâ of Americaâs reserve statusâa way for America to potentially remain powerful yet lose that reserve status.
That could be the outcome over the next four years.
And today, we discuss the paths and consequences of that scenario.
Spoiler Alert: Itâs probably good for gold, and possibly crypto too.
https://youtu.be/64rBPmknUZQ
(You can access this video's transcript here.)
The Latest Bad Premise Could Be a Disaster for the US Dollar [Podcast]
Thursday, February 27, 2025 ⢠Duration 38:12
On October 20, 2022, Liz Truss resigned as UK prime minister after just 44 days in officeâthe shortest tenure in British history.
She was brought down not by a no-confidence vote or a party coup, but by a full-scale bond market rebellion.
Her governmentâs proposed mini-budget, featuring sweeping tax cuts, triggered a historic sell-off in UK government bonds (gilts), sending yields soaring and the pound crashing.
As panic spread, the Bank of England was forced to intervene to prevent a financial meltdown, and with markets, party members, and the public losing faith, Trussâs premiership collapsed.
Such is the fate of governments when they donât control the global reserve currency.
The US government should heed this warning.
But it seems more likely to barrel ahead with the false premise: America will always remain THE dominant global superpower that can do whatever it wants.
Thatâs the subject of todayâs podcast.
We discuss these types of false premisesâ Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, it will take just two weeks to stop the spread of COVIDâ mistakes that over and over cost the US trillions of dollars.
And nowhere is this more egregious today than in the idea that the US dollar will remain the reserve currency, whatever the US does to push other countries away.
We talk about how a series of laws has escalated the weaponization of the US dollar, starting with the PATRIOT Act in 2001, then FATCA in 2010, and the freezing of Russiaâs US assets in 2022.
Now, the Mar-A-Lago Accord is being floated, which includes an idea to strong-arm US allies into swapping their US Treasuries for 100-year, non-tradeable, zero-coupon bonds.
After all, the argument goes, the US provides defense for much of the world, it is only right that other nations should pay for it in some way.
But we discuss why this is such a bad idea, and how it will only push countries into finding alternatives for the US dollar, robbing the US of its power to influence global affairs with the currency, and stripping the US dollar of much of its demand, and therefore value.
You can listen to the full podcast here.
https://youtu.be/s9hQU9w5QWw
Americaâs $36 trillion national debt is just the tip of a $100+ trillion iceberg [Podcast]
Tuesday, February 25, 2025 ⢠Duration 51:45
We write a lot about the US governmentâs dismal financial conditionâ $36.2 trillion in debt, $1.1 trillion in annual interest expenses, and a $1.8 trillion annual deficit.
But in todayâs podcast we take a closer look at the numbers and the governmentâs actual balance sheet as if it were a business, including all of its assets and liabilities.
The government doesnât just have debt. Offsetting that debt is a pretty substantial pile of cash, financial assets, and other resources like land or gold.
Some of these assets are significantly undervalued and worth trillions of dollars more than what the government reports.
So we dove into the numbers today to determine what the governmentâs actual ânet worthâ is, i.e. if you add up all the assets and subtract the liabilities (including the debt).
Spoiler Alert: Uncle Samâs net worth is horrifically bad... on the order of MINUS $100 TRILLION.
In other words, according to their own financial report, the situation is much worse than just the $36+ trillion debt. And it really needs to be addressed immediately.
Weâve been writing for a couple of years that there is a very, very narrow window of opportunity to put the US governmentâs finances back on the right track. And there are few signs right now which appear to be helpful.
But other developments are frustratingly counterproductive... and even destructive.
Restoring confidence is a HUGE part of Americaâs recovery... and, letâs be honest, this administration isnât helping restore confidence when it threatens allies with tariffs, or blames Ukraine for being invaded.
It takes us back to what we wrote yesterday regarding Warren Buffettâs somber admonishment: maintaining a sound currency ârequires both wisdom and vigilance,â and based on what weâre seeing right now, thatâs far from a forgone conclusion.
Click below to listen in to todayâs episode.
https://youtu.be/f1-1X29_cO4
Related Shows Based on Content Similarities
Discover shows related to Schiff Sovereign Podcast, based on actual content similarities. Explore podcasts with similar topics, themes, and formats, backed by real data.
