By Charlie Garcia
America’s once-a-century reset is happening at hyperspeed – creating new fortunes and destroying old ones
AI will eliminate jobs – and the tax base.
AI is coming for your job. Stablecoins and the U.S. Treasury are coming for your wealth.
Let me tell you a story about America, money and the kind of optimism you only find in emergency rooms at 3 a.m.
The numbers say America’s doing great. GDP just got revised up to 3.8%, unemployment is low and stocks are high. Beautiful. Except walk into any bar in America – and I’ve done the research – and you’ll find people drinking like they’re pre-gaming for the apocalypse. This isn’t paranoia. It’s pattern recognition.
In 1997, historians William Strauss and Neil Howe published “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy,” arguing that America loses its moorings every 80-100 years: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Great Depression/World War II. Each crisis period lasted about two decades before it was resolved and transformed America.
In his 2023 sequel, Howe said the U.S. is in the part of the movie where the shark music starts playing. America hit the iceberg in 2008 – 79 years after the 1929 stock market crash, right on schedule. Peak catastrophe in this cycle arrives around 2030. Hedge-fund pundit Ray Dalio agreed, which either makes it true or proves billionaires are reading the same doom predictions as the rest of us.
You’ve got five years to position your money. In government-speak, that means maybe two.
Here’s what nobody mentions at dinner parties: Every time America has one of these seizures, it completely changes what money is. Revolutionary War? America invented the dollar DXY. Civil War? Greenbacks. World War II? Bretton Woods, where the U.S. convinced the world its paper was as good as gold until Nixon said “Psych!” in 1971.
The old money always dies. The new money always seems brilliant. Then, 80 years later, that money dies too.
The AI accelerant
Here’s where it gets fun, and by fun I mean terrifying in that special way that makes you laugh because crying would be undignified.
Previous Fourth Turnings had the decency to unfold over decades. This one’s happening at internet-fueled hyperspeed. The CEO of Anthropic – a company that makes artificial brains smarter than actual brains – said half of all entry-level white-collar jobs could vanish in one to five years.
This is like the guy who invented the guillotine telling you he’s made some really exciting efficiency improvements.
The assisted-living apocalypse
By 2030, every baby boomer will be of retirement age and expecting the government to keep its promises, which is adorable in the way that believing in Santa Claus is adorable – except Santa Claus doesn’t owe $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
Medicare needs $78 trillion. Social Security needs $23 trillion. State pensions need miracles. We were planning to pay for this by taxing workers, except – surprise – the robots are taking those jobs. It’s like planning to pay your mortgage by winning the lottery, except you forgot to buy a ticket and the lottery has been discontinued.
History shows us three ways out: inflation, default or war. Being American, we’re going for the triple crown. But digitally, because we’re modern.
The great escape that wasn’t
Some smart people saw this coming. Bitcoin (BTCUSD) went from drug-dealer currency to a $2 trillion asset class. Gold (GC00) has been quietly beating stocks. Everyone’s trying to get their money out of dollars and into something the government can’t print more of.
But here’s where it gets beautiful, in the way a mushroom cloud is beautiful from a distance.
Washington just blocked the escape route. Stablecoins move $190 billion daily – more than Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) combined. The biggest stablecoin issuer, Tether, (USDTUSD) owns $127 billion in Treasury bonds, making it a bigger lender to Uncle Sam than most countries.
But stablecoins are terrible investments. They’re designed to be worth exactly one dollar forever, earning nothing. The real play is owning companies like Circle (CRCL) that collect fees on every transaction. Think toll roads, not cars.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants to channel $3.7 trillion through stablecoins into Treasurys over the next decade. That’s not monetary policy; it’s monetary conscription.
The world’s central banks know this game is ending. China is hoarding gold. Europe is building independent payment systems. They see what’s coming: a monetary reset where the dollar’s exorbitant privilege ends, not through Chinese conquest but through American fiscal exhaustion, accelerated by AI destroying the tax base.
The investment implications
When the only financial world you’ve ever known is ending, you want to own things that don’t require faith in government competence.
When the only financial world you’ve ever known is ending, you want to own things that don’t require faith in government competence.
Fourth Turnings are brutal for conventional investment portfolios. But Fourth Turnings also create generational wealth for those who recognize the opportunities. Morgan, Rockefeller and Carnegie built their fortunes in the chaos of the 1860s-1870s. Families who bought U.S. stocks in 1932 or real estate in 1945 created dynasties.
Today’s opportunity lies in assets governments can’t debase or confiscate digitally – yet. Real assets that generate income even when money’s worthless. The “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks, because someone has to own the robots replacing us. Gold and silver (SI00), which have outlasted every empire that thought it was different. Bitcoin – digital gold that, unlike stablecoins, can’t be forced to buy Treasury bonds at gunpoint.
The resolution pattern
Expect the imposition of wealth taxes – because when you can’t tax paychecks that don’t exist, you tax the house, the 401k, and that boat you’re living on because you sold your house.
Fourth Turnings resolve the same way my New Year’s resolutions do: Complete abandonment of previous promises and a system nobody saw coming.
Here’s what actually happens: whoever has the guns and the goods makes the new money rules. The Civil War? The Union had more guns and factories, so state currencies died and greenbacks were born. World War II? The U.S. had all the gold, half the world’s production, and the only unbombed factories, so the U.S. at Bretton Woods made everyone accept dollars as the new gold.
Then, when that got inconvenient, Nixon canceled that deal faster than a streaming service subscription.
Today America’s got a problem. It has the guns but not the goods. China makes everything from your iPhone to your underwear. The U.S. owes money that would make a drunken sailor blush. And the only thing growing faster than U.S. debt is AI eating jobs like Pac-Man eating dots.
These awkward facts force three changes:
First, a new monetary system where the dollar shares top billing with a basket of currencies and commodities. It’s like being demoted from CEO to co-CEO, except your co-CEO owns the factory and you owe him money.
Second, stablecoins become the new financial repression. It’s the same scam we pulled after World War II, forcing people to hold bonds paying less than inflation – except now it’s global and digital. Tether just announced a special U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin called USA?. Every digital-dollar USA? transaction is a mandatory loan to Uncle Sam – at whatever rate he feels like paying.
Third, the imposition of wealth taxes – because when you can’t tax paychecks that don’t exist, you tax the house, the 401k and that boat you’re living on because you sold your house. Politicians who swore on their mother’s grave never to touch retirement accounts will explain that mom would want you to be patriotic.
The clock is ticking
Return OF your capital beats return ON your capital like rock beats scissors.
Five years before this Fourth Turning becomes whatever comes next. In that time, expect the Fed to lose independence faster than a college freshman with a credit card. The dollar will lose its monopoly like Standard Oil, except that it will make everyone poorer. AI will eliminate jobs while stablecoins conscript savings.
Your portfolio should be positioned like you’re planning for a hurricane, an earthquake, and a plague of locusts, because financially speaking, that’s the combo platter we ordered.
Own things that survive regime changes. Avoid anything that can be “repurposed” for the greater good. And remember: In times like these, the return OF your capital beats return ON your capital like rock beats scissors.
Charlie Garcia is founder and a managing partner of R360, a peer-to-peer organization for individuals and families with a net worth of $100 million or more. He holds positions in gold, silver and bitcoin.
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More from Charlie Garcia:
When the world’s largest asset manager and the ‘bond king’ both agree – run to gold, silver and bitcoin
AI will take your job in the next 18 months. Here’s your survival guide.
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-Charlie Garcia
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10-04-25 1217ET
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