Surviving the Inflationary Money Flood

Originally published at: Surviving the Inflationary Money Flood – Peak Prosperity

For good reason, there’s a lot of attention on the effect of the Iran war and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz on oil prices, as well as the other missing products and elements.

But the current stock price explosion has its roots in 2022. We can clearly see that a massive reliquification event was initiated in mid-2022, the effects of which are still reverberating through the system.

Which means the supply shocks from the Iran war are going to combine with a veritable wall of freshly minted and printed money (and a ton of new leverage) to create an absolutely shocking level of inflation over the next few years.

Beginning with the so-called “peace deals” that have been a daily part of our informational landscape for the past 60 days, it’s reasonable to conclude that one remains as distant today as ever. Neither side seems to do much more than reiterate their prior wish-lists for ending the war. Not much actual movement can be detected from the tweets and poorly sourced news articles.

But the oil clock ticks down, especially for the US, which is dishoarding its energy treasure at a furious and unprecedented clip.

The US’s own stocks of gasoline and diesel are now plunging toward levels not seen over the past 17 years.

The chance of avoiding an energy price shock seems extremely remote at this point, and we should all play the odds and prepare for much higher oil and gas prices, if not outright shortages.

The Money Flood

If you want to know how to “invest” successfully, it can be as simple as “buy stocks when the money supply is expanding.”

“M2” is a broad definition of what we call ‘money’ (but is actually debt-based fiat currency; to be called ‘money’ it must be a reliable store of value). Note the very tight correlation between M2 money and the S&P 500:

That seems important, so let’s take a peek at global M2:

Holy smokes!! Global M2 is up $26 trillion since 2022 and a whopping $17 trillion since the beginning of 2025. Where does one park tens of trillions of dollars? It has to go … somewhere.

At first, it has gone into stocks…and gold and silver probably too. But now it’s going to bleed back into the wider system of economic products in the form of inflation. On that front, it sure looks like we’re about to repeat the 1970s-1980’s “double hump” inflation.

(Source – James Lavish)

We can already see that scenario playing out when we view this chart from Luke Gromen showing how the Producer Price Index (PPI) leads the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by 3-6 months.

Well, it sure looks like we’re 3-5 months away from a 6% CPI print; just in time for the mid-term elections.

Not helping this is the possibility that the US government has what Elon Musk called “Magic Money Machines” right before his DOGE experiment was unceremoniously terminated by a suddenly flustered Trump administration. Nor is the fact that since December 3rd, 2025, the Federal Reserve has been dumping ~$1 billion per day, seven days a week, into the US financial system.

The conclusion here is both serious and urgent for people who are either retired or about to retire; you need to factor in potentially much higher rates of inflation into your portfolio planning. The predicted extremely high rates of future inflation may not materialize, but everyone should have a plan in place in case they do.


Timestamps

00:31 The Energy Shock and Market Reactions
02:15 The Fog of Diplomacy and Oil Prices
05:22 Inflation and Energy Crisis
09:08 Strategic Petroleum Reserve and Political Implications
11:08 The Global Money Flood
14:50 Market Dynamics and Risk Management
26:21 Political Implications of Monetary Policy
27:36 The Bubble Economy: Speculation and Margin Debt
30:10 Liquidity and the Role of the Federal Reserve
34:22 The Mystery of Offshore Finance
38:15 The Infinite Money Glitch
46:11 Inflation: A Persistent Challenge
50:40 Navigating Inflation and Risk Management
55:44 The Impact of Inflation on Lifestyle
59:28 Shifts in Fixed Income Strategies
01:04:16 Understanding the ‘Magic Money Machines’
01:09:22 The Tale of Two Economies
01:14:10 Generational Perspectives on Financial Challenges


FINANCIAL DISCLAIMER:

The information contained in this video and the resources available for download through our affiliated website are not intended as and shall not be understood or construed as financial advice, nor should be interpreted as a solicitation to sell or offer to sell investment advisory services. No person who currently works for or contracts with Peak Prosperity or Peak Financial Investing is an attorney or accountant, nor are we holding ourselves out to be, and the information contained in the video and on the website is not a substitute for legal or tax advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. While Peak Financial Investing is a registered investment advisor, please note that this podcast is not intended to be investment advice.

All information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy is not guaranteed. There is no representation or warranty as to the current accuracy, reliability or completeness of, nor liability for, decisions based on such information and it should not be relied on as such. We have done our best to ensure that the information provided is accurate and provides what we feel is valuable information. The views expressed are subject to change based on market and other conditions.<

No guests or clients appearing on the podcast receive any form of compensation for their appearance and obtained no other benefit from either Peak Prosperity or Peak Financial Investing.

All investing involves risks including the possible loss of capital. Asset allocation and diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against loss. Please note that out- performance does not necessarily represent positive total returns for a period. There is no assurance that any investment strategy will be successful. All investments carry a certain degree of risk. Dividends are not guaranteed, and a company’s future ability to pay dividends may be limited.

Additional important disclosures for Peak Financial Investing may be found in our Form ADV Part 2A, which can be found at https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/319672.

6 Likes

Update - the oil inventory numbers just came out. Now we see US crude and distillate stocks below any other point over the past 17 years, and gasoline has only been lower at this time of the year once, in 2012.

Meanwhile, check out the dire comments by an Exxon SVP:

https://x.com/ericnuttall/status/2060049094236840291

(Full comment for people who’d rather not click through)

14 Likes

Squeezing a grapefruit to get the last drop of juice before you throw it away.

4 Likes

Roughly +20% money supply in world in just roughly a year… no wonder groceries bump +15…+20% in just a year. This has effect on us not even using dollars as it is global.
Notable how this is before oil shortages and other issues start to kick full effect.

Looking past previous years, first half of year until july 4th always looks “normal”, no big change. From july onwards all the money printing and shortages start to ramp up effect so by christmas it would be hitting everyone just as they would want to buy vacation shopping before year end. But often it can hit in august, september already(store chain prices in new whole year price for rest of year + first half “losses”).

1 Like

Its almost like they are linked in some way!

7 Likes

So in two days the SOH will be open and we’ll only have to fill up all those big beautiful empty VLCC’s headed for Houston once with the remaining 130 million bbls in the SPR? Is that like it’s only taken 15 days to stop the spread of Covid since March 16, 2020?

So shiny.

8 Likes

What a mellow harsher you are. If Brent goes up to 150/bbl in 32 days, it will go back down in two days when the SOH opens back up in two days. Geez.

1 Like

Prof. Peter has an optimistic view on the oil situation, maybe time for a chat between Chris and Peter to compare notes?

https://x.com/profstonge/status/2060322764142391424

5 Likes

Would anyone here be offended if Chris or Paul gave out stock tips? It would be refreshing to see what they are doing with their own portfolios to see how to put their methodology in practice.

2 Likes

I don’t think they are permitted to give stock tips. Investing is specific to situation and goals. What they provide here is the broad framework of what is happening. Based on that understanding you can begin to apply that to your situation.

5 Likes

Sometimes I wonder if the doom here gets a bit overdone. I guess we are going to test the credibility of various sooth sayers going forward. Might help in the future “vetting” process to write down some of the predictions being suggested about now?

3 Likes

It’s always a good idea to (at least periodically) double check assumptions and account for new facts as they arise.

4 Likes

Piper Sandler sounds like a fake company, like Dunder Mifflin :rofl:

Paul, the true southern gentleman, I met him twice at the Summits, always awesome.

2 Likes

If they would suggest the stock markets, the bond markets and the commodity markets are manipulated, it might be interesting to see what investments they might recommend?

I means tons of youtubers talk about various stocks with no issues.

1 Like

Yup, and many are talking their book. :wink:

The SEC or some other regulator would be offended. And I imagine they are seen as anti-narrative agitators and young, ambitious regulators would love to get a couple of scalps for their resumes.

Personally, the final nail in my stock and bond trading coffin was Chris’s deep dive into The Great Taking. I’m totally uninterested in stocks (until “The Collapse” bottoms out).

6 Likes

In the early 20th century, with the Federal Reserve in place, the United States was converted into the suburban sprawl, Happy Motoring, Bowling Alone, OnlyFans nation we know today. Municipal bond debt, commercial real estate home mortgages - all massive, unsustainable, bubbles on purpose, from the beginning, by the Carnegie and Rockefeller (and other) fortunes that used money power to do this to us (with us).

Now, a group of people around Trump, his Ballroom Donor Coalition, are collapsing those bubbles, that debt- and oil-reliant system.

Yeah, bad news all around . . . and yet - suburbia . . . gone? People living near each other, working near where they live, in financially self-sufficient traditionally scaled communities that don’t need consumer culture, debt, and imports to entertain, feed, organize, and appreciate their own lives.

Oh, it is “the digital control grid”, you say? Is it really though? To know your neighbor, for once? To play in the streets? The reality is we live in the control grid now.

The U.S. is exiting its bases around the world, to replace our troops with our client states’ people - Europeans are being be stood up to fight Russia; Japanese, Koreans, Phillipinos are being stood up to fight China. The Ballroom Donor Coalition is risking everything to keep energy prices high enough to justify U.S. LNG dominance.

I have this crazy sense that we are both headed for World War, finally ending the Second World War, and riding a bike on an American street (if it is still paved) is going to look and feel a lot like it did in 1912 than 2012.

4 Likes

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” -Joseph Goebbels

4 Likes

From what the amount of continued stock youtubes, it seems as long as you say “not financial advice” at the start, you will be fine.

Some of us are unable to invest with Paul Kiker (not being in the US), and we are stuck with whatever ETFs are offered in our coutries making passive investing almost unavoidable.

It would be nice to see what types of sectors, Paul and Chris are invested in. As long as their holdings are disclosed, we can’t be mad if things dont’ work out if we did copy their investing style.

1 Like