Introduction: One Minute to Midnight

Had you told me 10 years ago that I would become a financial author and one of the leading voices in the world on the subject of gold and the global economy, I would have said you were absolutely crazy. Ten years ago, my life looked entirely different than it does today. Back then, my life was consumed with pursuits in the entertainment industry. I had spent the first 20 years after college making my way up the ranks in Hollywood-from "actor," to "writer," to "director," and eventually to "producer." I am a storyteller at heart. It is what I am most passionate about.

But seven years ago I came across a story that caused me to leave the entertainment business altogether. The more I learned about this story, the more I realized it was a story that very few people knew, that no one else was telling, and everyone needed to hear. It's one I have become so passionate about that I have made it my life's mission to share it with as many people around the world as I can. Candidly, I was initially unsure that I was the right person to share this story, but have since come to view it as my obligation to share the enlightenment I have obtained with as many people around the world as I know need it. I have written books and newsletters, produced award-winning videos, helmed multiple documentaries and webinars, and even created animations and children's stories. I have given talks around the world, and my presentations have been subscribed to by tens of thousands of people.

So what is this story I've been telling? Told in its simplest form, it is the title of my first book, Gold Is A Better Way-and Other Secrets Wall Street Doesn't Want You to Know. The purpose of that book was to challenge the way people viewed investing. It explains how the Wall Street model is broken and why gold is among the most misunderstood assets in the world. It became a national bestseller.

I believe Gold Is A Better Way resonated for a few main reasons, the first of which is that I am not an insider writing about markets in a boring way, but rather, looking at and telling the story from a fresh perspective. The second is that I was right. Gold Is A Better Way was published on August 14, 2018. Since that time, the price of gold has risen from $1192 to $1498 today, an increase of 25 percent. The Dow Jones in the same span is down 25 percent. This spread is just the beginning and will widen significantly in the coming decade. I predict that gold will outperform equities eight to one over the next decade. It's why I have put every investment dollar I have into physical gold.

What makes me so sure? I believe that mankind is on the verge of making the same mistakes we did 90 years ago. Mark Twain famously said, "History may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme." The Great Depression that happened in the 1930s must have seemed impossible to comprehend to those in the peak of the roaring 1920s. But what happened then is an excellent roadmap for what's coming next. The order will come similarly; first we will have a stock market collapse, followed by recession, followed by global depression, all of which will end in a monetary reset. This book is about how that will transpire and why mankind will continue to keep making the same mistakes in the future. The Great Devaluation was chosen as a title for this very reason, to remind people, and to forewarn the risks.

You should know from the outset that this book is unlike any other you will find on investing, gold, and the global economy. It is intentionally designed that way. I am a storyteller. That is my unique talent. My goal is to tell you this story in ways that will make sense, that will allow you a real understanding and to do so in a compelling way. This way you will receive the maximum benefit and can take actions that will improve your wealth. I will try not to use the complicated language found in most books of this kind. Rather, I will use pictures and imagery, children's stories, and easy-to-understand analogies, all in an effort to simplify the story. I will provide a new lens from which to view the world that will finally allow you to see things clearly.

I believe this story will amaze you, and once you hear it you'll be even more amazed that you've never heard it before. It features heroes and villains and danger and risk. It's the story of power, who controls it, and the tremendous efforts being made to keep it. Like every great story, this one has a beginning, a middle, and an end. While everyone is impacted by this story, very few people are aware that it's even taking place. That's why it's a story I am compelled to tell.

This is the story of the world economy, the US dollar, the Federal Reserve, and their arch-nemesis, gold.

From the beginning, the story was designed to be confusing. The Federal Reserve was created by powerful men who invented new words and ideas that regular people couldn't understand. In fact, the more confusing the terms were, the less questions that were asked. Over time, as the story has unfolded the terms have become more and more confusing, the rules ever changing, and the citizens more confused than ever.

Why the importance for complexity? Because the stakes were too high and the reality was too obvious. The Federal Reserve is an institution that was initially designed to enrich a few wealthy bankers and titans of industry. These were the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, the Carnegies, and the Morgans. It was imperative that their true motives for the institution forever remain a secret. In order for the scheme to work, it had to appear that it was created for the benefit of the people. So long as these men could keep their true motives private, they could amass tremendous wealth and power, more than the greatest monarchs of history, all while claiming to be the benefactors of the people.

How did it all work? The creation of the Federal Reserve allowed the central bank to legally seize the money of the citizens. It's design allowed for the expansion of the money supply and for the funneling of the real money of gold from the masses to the few.

These men got away with it, at least for a while. That is, until greed and corruption became too much and they caused a debt crisis that led to a global economic collapse known as the Great Depression. By then, the institution was too powerful to be dissolved. It was too integral to the monetary system. Rather than become extinct after it failed, it was then taken over by the government and the politicians. Over the last 90 years, control of the institution of the Federal Reserve has been passed back and forth between the bankers and politicians. Control by the politicians has allowed for the expansion of tremendous unpayable debts. Control by the bankers has allowed for massive financial asset bubbles that enrich the investor class. Over time, bankers and governments have been complicit. Today we have both-asset bubbles and unpayable debts.

While it's still alive, neither side will ever admit the true nature of the institution. This is why as the story of the dollar has unfolded, the words used to define the rules have become even more complicated-quantitative easing, federal funds rate, real interest rates, overnight repo operations, swap lines, foreign currency exchanges, inflation, deflation, and now negative interest rates and yield curve control. The terms and ideas are so confusing that most people don't even try to understand. Those that do are insiders who continue to benefit from the obfuscation.

It's been said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The power wielded by controlling the US dollar has been too much for either side to maintain. Each time they've abused their power, each time causing a massive debt crisis. Each crisis permits the wrestling of power from the other side. We are at that crisis stage once again, only this time the Federal Reserve will not continue on. The Great Devaluation will be its end.

The Great Depression of the 1930s occurred on the heels of the roaring twenties at a time when inequality had created a polarized world. The debt crisis that caused the Depression looks in many ways identical to what we are witnessing today. I believe we have come full circle from where we were 90 years ago. We have seen this movie before. My purpose is now to share with you the similarities so that we may be aware of the risks and evaluate the best way to prepare.

I recently flew to Canada, where I was invited to give a 20-minute presentation at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. The annual event was held on January 20, 2020, and was attended by over 10,000 people. The attendees came from all over the world to learn the most up-to-date information about precious metals, mining, and the world economy.

My talk that weekend was on the fragility of the monetary system and how the global economy is in the midst of an unprecedented debt crisis, one that could be knocked out by the most unpredictable of catalysts. I argued that these events happen roughly every 90 years or so and that when they do, mankind endures an event so big it changes the entirety of human perspective moving forward. I argued that the world was on the verge of such an event, and due to the weakness of the global economy, the event would lead to a reset of the entire monetary system. I titled the presentation The Black Swan.

The presentation I gave...