Gold Is Booming and That’s Really Bad News

My more paranoid self says the whole thing’s a conspiracy engineered by Fox News and Newsmax. I’ve long maintained that Fox and Newsmax ought to be investigated by the Federal Trade Commission as elderscams. These aren’t news networks; they’re transmission belts that use moronic agitprop to sort the elderly population for maximum credulity (median viewer age: 55), then deliver the most gullible to advertisers who sell them dubious diet supplements and retirement strategies. The latter typically involve investing heavily in gold, which isa bad idea. But this week it looks like a good idea.

Don’t worry, I don’t actually believe the price of gold is a conspiracy by right-wing media. Rather, it’s a vote of no confidence in the U.S. economy. Debasement trades usually happen in bad economic times. Gold prices jumped during the Covid recession and the Great Recession of 2007–09. This time they’re rising faster. Gold futures haven’t risen so fast since 1979, when the misery index (unemployment plus inflation) reached 19 percent.

The puzzle here is that most of the underlying economic indicators aren’t that bad. Unemployment is a manageable 4.3 percent (or at least it was two months ago; the shutdown has thus far prevented us getting a number for September), and the consumer price index is a tolerable 2.9 percent. Granted, job creation has cratered; the reason that hasn’t driven up unemployment, according to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, is that deportations are shrinking the labor market. Also, growth in gross domestic product was slower during the first two quarters of 2025 than during the same period in 2024. But even these unfavorable signs aren’t terrible—yet—especially when compared to the calamities that accompanied the last two surges in gold prices.