The Solidus
While speaking with my friend on hard jobs, he commented that someone he knew made $22,000 over 6 weeks while crab fishing in the Winter of 2000. His friend worked 18 hours per day scraping ice off of the fishing boat.
Assuming that is true, with gold costing $300 per troy ounce in 2000, his friend made 73 troy ounces of gold (2.270 kilograms).
With gold costing $4,200 per troy ounce in 2025, to make 73 troy ounces of gold today, he would need to make $306,600.
The Italians seem to have realized that gold is good money and have decided to clarify that their gold is meant to keep Italian living standards high and not impoverish Italians to keep the rest of the European Union’s living standards high.
Per Amy Kazmin and Olaf Storbeck writing at the Financial Times on December 1, 2025, in an article entitled, Giorgia Meloni’s party pushes to declare Italy’s gold ‘property of the people’,[1]
“Lawmakers from Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing coalition are pushing to have Italy’s gold reserves declared the property of the Italian people — a move critics fear will pave the way for a government sell-off of the metal.
Italy has the third-largest gold reserves in the world after the US and Germany, with roughly 2,452 tonnes, according to Bank of Italy data. Following the recent blistering rise in global prices, it has a current market value of about €285bn.
The central bank says it owns the gold as part of the country’s official foreign exchange reserves. These stocks ‘boost confidence in the stability of Italy’s financial system and of the [euro]’ and are a ‘safeguard for the Bank of Italy in fulfilling its public functions’, it says.”
Basically, Italy might be looking at creating their own gold backed currency, and don’t want their gold to be sold to back the depreciating Euro currency. They will sacrifice the rest of Europe for Italy.
The Italians did something similar when Constantine was emperor in 312. Following the Crisis of the 3rd Century, Rome created the solidus gold coin to fix inflation.
Following the debasement of the silver denarius to pay the ever-increasing costs of imperial waste, fraud and a century of civil war, the soldiers were paid in gold, while common folk used the debased silver coins that could be converted into the good gold coin. The word soldier comes from solidus, because they were paid in gold. After the permanent split between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires in 395, and the barbarian invasions starting in 406, Western Romans just became tax slaves to protect rich Italians in Rome’s homeland.[2]
Instead of potentially losing their gold to prop up the rest of Europe, the government of Rome is looking to consolidate their economic power in Italy at the expense of the European Union. History repeats.
The USA are facing a similar problems as Italy in the Roman Empire. Because the dollar is the world reserve currency and other nations’ inflation is worse than the dollar, foreign nations have bought treasuries as long term, solid investments. If their inflation gets out of hand, they can always sell their treasuries and have valuable dollars. That might be happening in Japan.
Interest rates on Japanese government bonds are increasing because investors want more money because prices are higher because the Bank of Japan is printing money. For example, If the Japanese loan out ¥100 at 10% interest, get back ¥110, but now things that cost ¥100 cost ¥150 because everything costs more, then they are poorer. So, they either want higher interest rates to account for inflation or dollars.
With interest rates on Japanese government bond’s increasing in response to their inflation, the Japanese may soon start selling their US treasuries to prop up the Yen and Japanese living standards. If China sells their US treasuries too, that means either hyperinflation for the dollar as the Fed becomes the lender of last resort for government spending or bust as the USA cut spending on the military, social security, medicare, medicaid, et cetera.[3][4]
The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates on treasuries low by printing money to buy US government debt themselves. They indicate that they are buying US debt by lowering the Federal Funds Rate. This is how the world has worked since the Greenspan Put in 1987.[5]
However, interest rates on long term US treasuries have been rising in response to every Federal Funds Rate cut since September 2024. E.g. The 10-year treasury is 50 basis points higher than where it was in September 2024- up from 3.64% to 4.14% today, while the funds rate is down to the 3.75% to 4.00% range from the 5.25% to 5.50% range.[6][7]
Treasury yields are rising because investors want more money because prices are higher because the Fed is printing money.[8]
If interest rates on US treasuries increase again in response to the FOMC decreasing the Federal Funds Rate today, December 10, 2025, we may soon find out if Ft. Knox has any gold to solidify American living standards.[9][10]
In short, foreign nations might be looking to sell treasuries to buy gold as the long term, solid investment.
[1]https://www.ft.com/content/123cab66-6b63-4964-9989-91cc7cc40f40
[2]https://mises.org/mises-wire/romes-runaway-inflation-currency-devaluation-fourth-and-fifth-centuries
[3]https://www.ft.com/content/12c35477-5843-4d15-9808-e9563a497648
[4]https://www.hamiltonmobley.com/blog/turning-japanese
[5]https://www.hamiltonmobley.com/blog/printing-money-lowers-interest-rates-until-it-does-not
[6]https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/fed-funds-rate-history/
[7]https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/bond/tmubmusd10y
[8]https://www.hamiltonmobley.com/blog/the-golden-age-vii-end-game
