This week on Doug Casey’s Take, we ran through a fast batch of subscriber questions - no fluff, no “good vibes,” just practical answers about where the leverage is in this market, what could go right, and what could go very wrong.
Gold has been acting like it wants to go somewhere. A lot of gold stocks, meanwhile, still look like they’re half-asleep.
So the obvious question is: what happens when the miners start reporting earnings that actually reflect today’s gold price?
That was the lead-off question in this week’s Doug Casey’s Take. We kept the format simple: rapid-fire questions from Crisis Investing subscribers, straight answers, no filler.
Doug’s view is basically this: the big companies usually move first, because they’re the ones everyone knows, the ones institutions can buy easily, and the ones that show up on the radar without anyone needing to do homework. Then, later, if the sector really heats up and regular investors start piling in, the smaller companies can do the crazy moves. The tiny market caps. Thin liquidity. It doesn’t take much buying for some of these things to start howling.
That’s why we keep exposure to both. Not because we’re trying to be clever, but because you don’t get to pick how the next phase unfolds.
Cash: the real answer is whether you can sleep
Somebody asked whether keeping 20% in cash makes sense right now. Doug didn’t treat it like a math problem where there’s one correct number.
He talked about cash the way it actually works in real life.
Cash gives you liquidity and optionality. It also bleeds in an inflationary environment. But it can keep you from making stupid decisions when the market is whipping around. It can keep you from being forced to sell something at exactly the wrong time. It can also keep you calm enough to take advantage of a dip instead of panicking during it.
The best line in the whole discussion, in my opinion, was basically this: the right amount of cash is whatever makes it so you can sleep at night. If you’re overinvested, you start checking prices too often. You start caring too much about the short term. You get pulled into the emotional game.
So yeah, keep some cash. Just don’t pretend there’s a universal magic percentage.
Aris Mining and the NYSE move
We also talked about Aris Mining moving to the NYSE and whether that matters.
Doug’s answer was pretty straightforward: it helps because more people see it, and some institutions can only buy stocks listed on major exchanges. Will it cause fireworks by itself? Maybe not. But it’s a tailwind, not a headwind.
And if you get real investor interest in the sector again, being visible in the right place matters.
The “Great Taking” and the slow grind we’re already living through
Another question asked whether we’re already living through a “Great Taking” in slow motion. Inflation. Cantillon effects. weaker property rights. market games. government overreach. The whole package.
Doug’s take was that the slow grind has been going on for a long time. He points back to the Roosevelt era and says it’s basically been accelerating ever since.
But the real “Great Taking” scenario people worry about, the David Rogers Webb-style version, would be something different. Not slow. Sudden. One of those events that changes the rules overnight.
So if you’re asking “are we already in it,” the answer is yes, in the sense that the long decline has been happening. But the trap door event is still the open question.
Where Doug would park a large pile of cash
A subscriber asked whether you’re better off holding big cash inside a brokerage cash account or in a traditional bank.
Doug didn’t overcomplicate it. If you want cash in the most secure form and you’re staying in cash, he leans toward short-term Treasury securities.
Simple answer, but probably the right one.
Boquete, Panama and the reality of “easy” expat options
There was also a question about retiring in Boquete, Panama.
Doug likes Panama. Boquete is a pleasant mountain town with a decent number of gringos. That has upsides and downsides. Panama City is close enough to be useful. And if you’re looking at a spectrum of “exotic retirement locations,” Panama is one of the easier ones.
No fantasy. Just a realistic assessment.
Mexico risk is real risk
We got into a security question around a silver project in Mexico and it turned grim fast. Kidnappings. Employees turning up dead. Not the kind of thing you can hand-wave away with a rosy investor deck.
Doug’s point wasn’t to moralize. It was to remind people that jurisdiction risk isn’t theoretical, and Mexico can become a lot more complicated a lot faster than investors want to believe.
This is the kind of stuff that doesn’t show up in your spreadsheet until it’s too late.
Uruguay and China
We also touched on Uruguay’s president visiting China. Doug didn’t make a big dramatic story out of it. He treated it like what it is for a small country: play both sides, try to get benefits, and use each relationship as leverage with the other.
It’s not ideology. It’s negotiating.
The gold confiscation question
The last question was about vaulting and whether storing metals in a US-based vault run by an offshore company actually protects you from confiscation risk.
Doug’s answer was basically: physical distance can only help. Historically, gold held offshore mattered during Roosevelt’s confiscation era. He’s not saying it’s guaranteed to repeat. He’s saying you don’t want all your insurance sitting inside one political boundary if things get weird.
He also said something I agree with: you want some gold in your own hands, and you want some outside the US.
It’s not about paranoia. It’s about not putting every egg in one jurisdiction.
The bigger point
If you want the theme of this episode, it’s this:
These aren’t normal times. So don’t build your life and portfolio as if the rules are stable and the system is honest.
Hold some liquidity. Diversify jurisdictional risk. Own things with real leverage to the trend. And don’t pretend you can predict the exact path the market will take.
That’s what we’re trying to do at Crisis Investing. Not perfect forecasts. Practical positioning.
If you want to hear the full conversation, listen to the episode.
And if you’re not already a paid subscriber to Crisis Investing, that’s where the real details are.
