That Cross of Gold
Urgent note on William Jennings Bryan
Silver is not at an all-time high.
It only looks that way if you ignore what inflation did to the dollar.
In real terms, silver was close to one hundred dollars in the late 1970s.
Today, after decades of noise and waiting, it still hasn’t reclaimed that level.
That matters.
Because what people are calling a bull market after thirty years of patience is not a bull market.
It’s the beginning of one.
When investors celebrate silver hitting a long-remembered target, they’re confusing relief with trend.
Bull markets don’t arrive with applause.
They arrive with disbelief.
Cisco hitting a nominal all-time high and getting glowing coverage is the contrast.
Silver, adjusted for purchasing power, is still in recovery.
One asset is being praised for arriving.
The other hasn’t even left the station.
That’s the setup.
And it’s why William Jennings Bryan still matters.
Most people trip immediately on one idea.
Inflation helps poor people?
That sounds wrong.
We’re taught that inflation is bad.
A strong dollar is good.
Sound money is virtue.
But in the 1890s, America’s problem was not inflation.
It was brutal deflation.
Deflation is not just falling prices.
It is rising debt.
When the value of money increases, every fixed obligation becomes heavier over time.
Debts don’t sit still.
They grow teeth.
A farmer who borrowed one thousand dollars in 1880 owed the same dollars in 1890.
But those dollars bought more.
Crop prices fell.
Work didn’t get easier.
The burden quietly intensified.
It’s like a mortgage that increases every year while your income shrinks.
You don’t default because you’re lazy.
You default because math turns against you.
That was the trap.
Silver entered the argument not as romance, but as mechanism.
Gold supply was tight.
Silver supply was expanding.
Free coinage of silver at sixteen to one meant one thing above all else.
More money.
Not reckless inflation.
Not chaos.
Relief.
A way to stop deflation from grinding people into insolvency without mass default.
That’s why farmers supported it.
That’s why debtors supported it.
That’s why silver miners supported it.
Different incentives.
Same pressure point.
This alignment made the movement feel political.
But at its core, it was mechanical.
Bryan turned that mechanism into a moral crusade.
The Cross of Gold framed creditors versus producers.
Bankers versus labor.
East versus West.
It worked emotionally.
It terrified capital.
Gold standard supporters weren’t villains.
They believed credibility mattered.
They believed inflation punished savers.
They believed discipline prevented collapse.
Those beliefs weren’t insane.
But they favored creditors over debtors.
That is the axis.
Always has been.
Here is the sentence that unlocks the entire debate.
Free silver was not about getting rich from inflation.
It was about stopping deflation from quietly destroying people who lived on fixed debts and volatile prices.
Once you see that, the speech stops sounding radical.
It starts sounding early.
Which brings us back to silver today.
What you’re watching now is not resolution.
It’s observation.
Either this is the beginning of a real bull market in a monetary metal eroded by decades of dollar dilution.
Or it is another failure.
Both outcomes matter.
Both teach something.
This will be documented in real time.
Paid subscribers will get more on how to play it.
Buy and hold still works.
It never goes out of style.
One last thing, because markets don’t move on logic alone.
They move on emotion; especially when people feel left out.
I’ve noticed something over the years.
When a theme really starts to matter, it shows up in culture before it shows up in price.
Gold has plenty of songs.
Silver barely has any.
That’s not an accident.
I don’t hold positions because logic tells me to.
Logic helps me enter.
It rarely helps me stay.
What helps me stay is conviction.
And sometimes conviction comes from a good, thumping song.
Today, for me, it’s Bad Company.
Silver, Blue & Gold.
You don’t need to agree with the thesis.
You just need to be around long enough to observe whether it’s right or wrong.
And sometimes, music helps you hold the trade long enough for the cycle to reveal itself.
Seize the Day,
Eric
