Larry Lepard

Café Bitcoin | Larry Lepard on the Debasement Trade, Global Bond Yields, and the Big Print | Day 41 of 50

- Warsh's Jackson Hole speech was hawkish rhetoric designed to talk down the debasement trade after Bitcoin and gold surged in early August, but Lepard believes Warsh is trapped and unlikely to follow through on rate hikes on September 16. - The bond market is signaling loss of confidence in the Fed; all major global 10-year yields (US, German, French, Italian, Japanese) are at or near multi-year highs, and every maturity on the US curve prices above the current 3.45% average cost of outstanding debt. - Yield curve control is the inevitable destination because the math is undefeated; once formally imposed, the Fed's balance sheet will explode—this is "the big print." - Lepard expects the big print within 6–12 months, compared to his earlier 3-year timeline; gold up 65% last year signals the debasement race has begun. - The World War II precedent—120% debt-to-GDP, ~18% inflation in 1951–52, yield curve control through 1952—is the template for how governments escape debt traps without collapse. - Private equity has infiltrated the insurance business, misallocating assets tied to pension and annuity obligations that face nominal-only payouts in a currency-debasement scenario.