(Esther Wickham, The Center Square) School districts across the country have significantly increased spending since 2020, even as they face steep declines in student enrollment and academic performance, according to a new analysis from the Reason Foundation.
The report finds American public schools are nearing $1 trillion in annual spending, almost a 35% increase between 2002 and 2023. During that period, the average per-student spending rose from $14,969 to $20,322.
California stands out as one of the highest-spending states. According to the study, the state now spends $25,941 per student, placing it among the top eight nationally. The sharpest growth has occurred in just the past few years.
Since the pandemic, California’s per-student spending has surged 31.5%, rising from $19,724 in 2020 to its current level.
Since 2020, California public schools have lost 318,532 students, a trend that education experts say raises serious questions about how resources are being used.
Lance Izumi, senior director of education studies, told The Center Square in an exclusive interview that the disconnect between spending and academic outcomes is troubling.
“It’s very difficult to look at these cries for more funding as anything more than just funding the adults in the system and not helping the students,” Izumi said.
He added that public schools are facing increased competition from alternatives such as charter schools, private schools and homeschooling. “Public schools are hurting because there’s competition, and people are deciding the alternatives are better.”
Izumi also pointed to longstanding educational issues.
“We’ve condemned a generation of students to poor reading and illiteracy because California moved away from phonics-based reading despite decades of evidence that the science of reading works,” he said. “Evidently, the spending had no impact and was unable to overcome the poor teaching methodologies and curriculum the state was forcing on teachers and students.”
Izumi described the system as increasingly focused on equity at the expense of academic rigor.
“Too many schools emphasize equity over merit … they want the same outcomes regardless of effort,” Izumi said. “You’re seeing elimination of D’s and F’s, lowering the bar for an A, massive grade inflation … These kids were lied to and told they were doing great when they weren’t.”
Izumi highlights that these clearly declining standards have impacted the decline in academic results.
“California needs to go back to emphasizing merit, hard work, high standards, phonics, traditional math, real consequences for misbehavior and actual excellence instead of engineered equal outcomes,” Izumi said.
Aaron Smith, director of education reform at the Reason Foundation, told The Center Square that teacher pension costs are a driver of increased spending.
Employee benefit costs have jumped 134.9% since 2002, and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System reported $85.5 billion in debt in 2024.
“Research shows that teacher pension debt is driving this trend, the state failed to set aside enough money to cover teacher pension promises, and now the bill is coming due,” Smith said.
Smith also emphasized that academic challenges remain severe despite higher spending. “Nearly 44% of fourth graders can’t read at a basic level, yet public schools have taken on other responsibilities that have little to do with academics.”
To reverse California’s downward trajectory, Smith argued lawmakers must confront the structural issues in K–12 finance.
“Policymakers need to address structural problems in K-12 finance, like paying down pension debt, focusing resources on academics, and closing under-enrolled schools that spread resources thin,” Smith said. “It’s really simple stuff, but public schools have drifted too far from their academic mission.”
(José Niño, Headline USA) U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee hosted convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard for a clandestine meeting at the American embassy in Jerusalem, theNew York Times reports.
Pollard confirmed the encounter took place and characterized it as cordial. In the same breath, he denounced Trump as a “madman,” an ironic criticism given that Trump’s Justice Department enabled his relocation to Israel by lifting stringent parole restrictions in 2020.
The gathering, which also included David Milstein, a senior adviser to Huckabee and the stepson of conservative commentator Mark Levin, has raised immediate concerns about diplomatic judgment and security protocols at the highest levels of American representation in Israel, per a report by Information Liberation.
The Justice Department at the time stated that after reviewing Pollard’s case, the U.S. Parole Commission determined no evidence suggested he would violate the law. Within months, he departed for Israel aboard a private aircraft belonging to Jewish Zionist megadonor Sheldon Adelson and received a hero’s reception, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally greeting him on the tarmac.
Israel subsequently granted Pollard citizenship and awarded him a pension typically reserved for former Mossad and Shin Bet operatives. In his inaugural interview with Adelson’s Israel Hayom newspaper, Pollardopenly encouraged Jewish Americans in intelligence positions to betray their oaths and spy for Israel.
When asked what advice he would give a young Jewish naval intelligence officer approached by the Mossad, Pollard responded unequivocally: “I’d tell him, not doing anything is unacceptable.”
David Milstein, who participated in the secret Pollard meeting, has emerged as a powerful and controversial figure within the embassy. TheWashington Post reported in August that the State Department dismissed its chief press officer for Israeli Palestinian affairs, Shahed Ghoreishi, after disputes with Milstein, who State Department officials describe as confronting staff throughout the department in defense of Israeli government positions.
Critics within the State Department contend Milstein operates far beyond his advisory role. One official told the Post that Milstein, despite being merely an adviser to an ambassador, involves himself in virtually everything. Multiple clashes have erupted over Milstein’s efforts to reshape American diplomatic language, including his push to replace references to the West Bank with the biblical term Judea and Samaria.
Thefired official later told Democracy Now that Milstein wielded disproportionate influence at the Jerusalem embassy and would regularly intervene to edit documents, substituting internationally recognized terminology with language preferred by Israeli settlers and annexation advocates.
The fired State Department official posed a pointed question on social media after news of the meeting emerged: “What’s it called when you welcome a traitor into the U.S. embassy?”
The Trump administration defended the ambassador’s actions Thursday.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavittacknowledged the administration had no advance knowledge of the meeting but stated the President stands by the ambassador, offering no explanation for why a convicted spy received access to American diplomatic facilities or what business the embassy had conducted with someone who stole classified American secrets.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., will remain in the House despite a DOJ indictment accusing her and co-defendants of stealing $5 million in FEMA funds and using it for illegal campaign contributions.
After the DOJ released the indictment, Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., threatened to file a motion to remove her but said he would give her time to resign voluntarily and wait for the House Ethics Committee to finish its probe.
Critics on X are demanding that she be removed before a guilty conviction, citing how House Democrats voted to oust now-former Rep. George Santos for similar accusations. Santos, now pardoned by President Donald Trump, was removed after the same panel released its report on him.
A 42-page indictment accuses Cherfilus-McCormick of unlawfully keeping the money mistakenly deposited into a company she controlled.
FEMA contracted with her healthcare company, Trinity Health Care Services, to assist Florida’s coronavirus vaccination campaign and reportedly received $5 million more than it was owed.
Prosecutors say Cherfilus-McCormick, along with her chief of staff, Nadege Leblanc, and her accountant, David Kofi Spencer, moved the money through multiple accounts before it landed on her congressional campaign.
The indictment says the congresswoman used straw donors to funnel the money. Additionally, prosecutors allege she inflated business expenses and charitable contributions in 2021 to reduce her tax liability.
Co-defendants reportedly falsified documents to hide the scheme when investigators approached them.
Attorney General Pam Bondi slammed Cherfilus-McCormick in a press release announcing the indictment: “Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime. No one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain. We will follow the facts in this case and deliver justice.”
For her part, Cherfilus-McCormick said she is being targeted because of her race.
JUST IN: Dem Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who was just indicted for allegedly stealing $5M in FEMA funds, suggests she is being targeted because she is black.
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) One of the founding members of hip-hop group The Fugees was sentenced to 14 years in prison for acting as a foreign agent and violating campaign finance laws tied to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign.
District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly delivered the sentence Friday, directly addressing Pras Michel, a former entrepreneur who gained popularity in the 1990s for hit songs Killing Me Softly with His Song and Ready or Not.
The sentence, described by Michel’s defense attorney as excessive, pales in comparison to the life sentence federal prosecutors sought for his 10-count guilty verdict that included witness tampering, conspiracy and other offenses.
Rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel of the Fugees was sentenced to 14 years in prison for a case in which he was convicted of illegally funneling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to former President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.
As revealed at the 2023 trial, Michel used foreign money to influence both the Obama and Trump administrations in an illegal effort to derail an investigation into Malaysian financier Jho Low and his 1MDB operation.
He also tried to pressure the federal government to send a Chinese national back to China, acting under orders from Low and the vice minister of public safety of the People’s Republic of China.
At the center of the case was Michel’s failure to register as a foreign agent. The scheme started when Low sent over $120 million to Michel.
The rapper-turned-foreign-lobbyist then funneled the money through 20 straw donors into Obama’s campaign.
He then concealed the true source of the funds, causing the Obama campaign to file false disclosures with the Federal Election Commission. Michel himself filed a false document with the FEC.
Low forfeited $100 million in assets to the DOJ in connection with two civil cases but remains an international fugitive both in the U.S. and in his home country.
“Prakazrel Michel betrayed his country for money,” prosecutors wrote in 2024. “He funneled millions of dollars in prohibited foreign contributions into a United States presidential election and attempted to manipulate a sitting president to serve a foreign criminal and a foreign power.”
(Headline USA) Five people involved with an Antifa group pleaded guilty Wednesday to terrorism-related charges stemming from a July shooting that wounded a police officer outside a Texas immigration detention center.
The charges brought by the Justice Department followed President Donald Trump signing an order that designated the decentralized movement known as Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.
Antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups.
FBI Director Kashyap Patel has previously said the charges in Texas are the first time a material support to terrorism charge has targeted Antifa. Federal prosecutors say an Antifa cell attacked a Prairieland Detention Center on July 4 with fireworks and gunfire, injuring a police officer in the process.
Check out the sophistication of the Antifa-linked terror cell members in Dallas-Fort Worth charged with attempted murder after opening fire on an ICE facility in Alvarado on July 4th. They were heavily armed with military gear, guns, AR-15 style rifles, 12 sets of Kevlar bullet… pic.twitter.com/fOpvMw4ZFn
— Elizabeth MacDonald (@LizMacDonaldFOX) July 8, 2025
Nathan Baumann, Joy Gibson, Seth Sikes, Lynette Sharp and John Thomas each entered guilty pleas to one count of providing material support to terrorists in federal court in Fort Worth. They face up to 15 years in prison at sentencing.
Sharp’s attorney, Erin Kelley, said entering the plea was “step one in a long process” before the sentence is actually determined. Lawyers for the other four defendants either did not immediately return messages Wednesday or comment.
Cases against others also charged in the shooting remain ongoing.
According to court documents, one member of the group outside the facility yelled “get to the rifles” and then opened fire as officers responded, striking an Alvarado Police Department officer in the neck area. He fell to the ground but was able to return a few shots. Prosecutors say more rounds were then fired at the wounded officer and an unarmed DHS correction officer.
Court documents say Gibson, Baumann and Sikes were among those who were present the night of the attack and were arrested shortly after, while Sharp and Thomas were among those who helped the accused shooter avoid arrest until July 15.
Others are scheduled for arraignment in the case next month, including Zachary Evetts, whose attorney, Patrick McLain, has said he’s seen no evidence to support the government’s view of the case.
“Mr. Evetts has never been a member of anything like a ‘North Texas Antifa Cell,’ and from the evidence provided to us by the government so far, there is no evidence that such an organization ever existed,” McLain said Saturday.
The shooting took place as Trump ’s administration has ramped up deportations. Days after that shooting, a man with an assault rifle fired dozens of rounds at federal agents and a U.S. Border Patrol facility in McAllen near the Mexico border, injuring a police officer. Authorities shot and killed the attacker.
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan revealed Thursday that the Biden FBI spied on his phone records for more than two years as part of the bureau’s Arctic Frost investigation into President Donald Trump.
The shocking surveillance was carried out through a subpoena to Verizon, Jordan’s phone carrier, and specifically targeted detailed records of all incoming and outgoing calls, metadata for texts and voice messages from January 2020 to April 2022.
The subpoena also sought payment records, usernames tied to online accounts, device identification numbers and times and durations of internet sessions, including Jordan’s IP addresses, according to newly declassified documents.
The judge who approved the subpoena, David Baker, also ordered Verizon to remain silent, claiming any disclosure could have resulted in flight from prosecution, destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, and serious jeopardy to the investigation.”
Baker’s claims were bizarre, given that Jordan was a member of Congress and the top Republican in the House Judiciary Committee, the lawmaker said Thursday in an interview on Fox News.
The sweeping surveillance was part of the FBI’s investigation against Trump and his allies after the president left office in 2021.
Jordan told Fox News host Sean Hannity that the findings were “worse” than previously imagined. “This is how ridiculous this is and why we are doing everything to get to the bottom,” he said.
Jordan said he will investigate who signed off on the surveillance, pointing to former FBI Director Chris Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
“Who signed off on this? This idea you’ve got one branch of government run by Democrats going after the legislative branch at the time run by Republicans. That’s how crazy this is,” Jordan warned.
Jordan now joins a growing list of Republican lawmakers who were targeted in what critics have decried as a fishing expedition. Arctic Frost served as a precursor to Attorney General Garland’s appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel.
Smith, who is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his aggressive probe, went on to indict Trump, the first time in American history a former president faced criminal charges.
The bill noted the long history of genocide and totalitarian dictatorships connected with the far-left ideology.
“[S]ocialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide,” it said.
The measure was drafted by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., a first-generation U.S. citizen born to Cuban exiles.
“This is a moral vote against an ideology that has destroyed millions and millions of families,” Salazar said in her floor speech supporting the resolution, according to a press release from the House Financial Services Committee.
“… Unfortunately, socialism and Marxism crushes the human soul,” she added. “And it’s not just my community in Miami. It’s the rest of the hemisphere and the rest of the world.”
The bill passed 285 to 98, with 86 Democrats joining Republicans to support it. Two others voted “present,” and 47 lawmakers from both parties abstained altogether.
It also drew criticism from at least one Republican leader, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who labeled it as “performative” in a post on X.
Other X users mocked it as a toothless waste of time.
That's it, boys. We did it. Socialism is no more. Thank you Speaker Johnson in your leadership on this issue. Socialism has been dismantled in the west now. We can all sleep easier. I'm sure the rest of Trump's agenda will be passed now.
Mamdani, a self-declared socialist, won a resounding victory in New York City’s mayoral election on Nov. 4, raising widespread concerns over the potential impact his policies will have on the nation’s largest city.
Despite the harsh rhetoric he has exchanged with President Donald Trump in the past, the two struck a more collegial note in their meeting Friday.
“I met with a man who’s a very rational person,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question. “I met with a man who really wants to see New York be great again.”
Top moments from President Trump and Zohran Mamdani’s time in the Oval Office today.
7. Trump defends Mamdani from people calling him a ‘jihadist,’ says he is a rational person.
6. Trump defends Mamdani after reporter asked him why he didn’t take a train.
(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The movement to deport Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and other Somali refugees who have taken hostage the state of Minnesota got a boost late Friday from President Donald Trump.
In a post to Truth Social, Trump said he was removing the temporary protected status first put in place under former President George H. W. Bush in 1991.
“Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing,” Trump wrote.
“Send them back to where they came from,” he added. “It’s OVER!”
The immigrant community in Minneapolis and St. Paul has been accused of turning parts of the Twin Cities into a lawless enclave, and it has exerted increasing influence on both local- and federal-level politics. That includes lingering allegations of vote fraud, accusing leaders in the Somali community of using bribery and intimidation to secure votes for their favored candidates.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey most recently faced a serious challenge in this year’s mayoral election from state Sen. Omar Fateh, a first-generation U.S. citizen born to Somali parents in Washington, D.C.
The TPS designation for Somalia has been extended 27 times since first implemented, with the most recent 18-month extension from the Biden administration due to expire on March 17 next year.
It is unclear how effective Trump’s action would be since recent official data indicated that only 705 TPS-protected refugees from Somalia were currently residing in the U.S., including an estimated 200 in Minnesota.
Of the nearly 1.3 million TPS-protected residents, Venezuelans are by far the largest group, comprising more than 600,000 refugees as of March, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration services.
Conservatives have, nonetheless, often speculated about the possibility of deporting Ilhan Omar, a Somali native who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000, at the age of 17.
Omar reacted defiantly to Trump’s latest proclamation.
“I am a citizen and so are majority of Somalis in America,” she wrote on X. “Good luck celebrating a policy change that really doesn’t have much impact on the Somalis you love to hate. We are here to stay.”
Despite claiming to be a victim of xenophobia and Islamophobia, the controversial “Squad” member has stoked alarm with public comments expressing her “Somalia First” agenda.
Yep, she married her Brother and broke our immigration laws, @IlhanMN should be deported immediately! And she’s not here to help America, her loyalty is with Somalia. pic.twitter.com/FBy6qWIda9
Omar also has expressed her desire in the past to relocate back to her native country.
“I am a Somali girl taken from my country,” she reportedly said in a speech addressing constituents in her native tongue. “I miss my country, and I dream of living in Somalia again.”
ILHAN OMAR: “I am a Somali girl taken from my country. I miss my country, and I dream of living in Somalia again.”
(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) A Michigan man who made threats against President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and others on the left-wing social media platform Bluesky has received two years in federal prison, the Justice Department said.
James Donald Vance Jr., 67, of Grand Rapids, pleaded guilty to two felonies: threatening to kill or injure the president and vice president, and interstate threatening communications, according to Monday’s DOJ press release.
“The advent of the internet gives us all an opportunity to engage in the healthy exchange of ideas that are so important to a democracy,” U.S. Attorney Timothy VerHey said in a statement.
“But some would rather use this tool to threaten and intimidate, conduct that causes fear and damages our democratic ideals,” VerHey added. “When Vance said he planned to kill our President and the Vice President simply because he disagreed with them, he crossed a line we all understand and so had to be punished.”
“If tRump, Vance, or Musk ever come to my city again, they will leave it in a body bag,” he reportedly wrote in an April 1 post, according to the New York Post.
“I will either be shot by a secret service sniper or spend the rest of my life in prison,” he added. “I’ve only got about 10 years of life left anyway so I don’t f**king care either way.”
While spending his final years in lock-down was not an issue, he was less receptive to the idea of a Don Jr. presidency.
“I will murder that stupid f**ker before he gets secret service protection,” he wrote on March 7.
A search for the account indicated that the account has since been removed.
There is no known relation between James Vance and the vice president, whose name is James David Vance. The Ohio native was born James Donald Bowman. However, he changed his middle and last name to cut ties with his biological father and honor his maternal grandparents, who raised him.
“Any old D name would have done, so long as it wasn’t Donald,” he recounted in his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy about adopting the new middle name following his parents’ divorce.
He formally changed his last name in April 2013, after graduating from Yale Law School.
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him atx.com/realbensellers.
Gold hit record highs in October, then pulled back—but the correction was much shallower and the rebound much faster than many expected. Prices have been holding near the $4,000 level, with gold bouncing from $4,000 on the very day they recorded the interview.
Roy-Byrne, author of the book Gold & Silver: The Greatest Bull Market has Begun, admits the strength of the rebound surprised him “a little bit,” but he’s not convinced the correction is over. He stresses that corrections are always a function of both price and time. Often, 90–95% of the price damage happens quickly, then the market chops sideways or retests the lows over several months as it builds a new base.
From his perspective, we are just over a month into this corrective phase. Historical analogs from the 1970s and 2000s suggest a typical consolidation lasting around five months. That implies gold could still drift lower, possibly toward $3,700, while silver could slip back into the “low 40s.” The bigger risk for bulls is not a crash but a grinding, three- to four-month (or even five- to six-month) sideways-to-down period before the next leg higher.
(Interview Starts Around 7:15 Mark)
Silver’s Relative Strength Is Sending A Signal
One key development in this episode is Roy-Byrne’s emphasis on silver’s behavior during the pullback. After the October peak, silver’s rally off the correction low was noticeably stronger than gold’s. Silver pushed back up to retest its recent highs, while gold did not.
That relative strength matters. In a weak or topping precious metals market, silver typically underperforms on rebounds and then “falls out of bed” versus gold. Instead, we are seeing the opposite: silver leading during a corrective phase. For Roy-Byrne, that is a positive divergence, not a warning sign.
It fits his longer-term view that silver will eventually “blast off” through $50, then $60, and “much higher than that.” In his framework, the current environment is a medium-term consolidation within a secular bull market, and silver’s leadership is one more confirmation that the bull is alive and well.
Echoes Of The 1960s And Early 1970s
Roy-Byrne’s big-picture framework hinges on comparing today to the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s. He looks at the three major asset classes—stocks, bonds, and gold (using gold as a stand-in for commodities more broadly). Right now, both stocks and gold are in secular bull markets, while bonds have flipped into a secular bear market.
Historically, that configuration is extremely rare. Using total real return for bonds and an 80-month moving average, he notes that from roughly 1920 to 2020, bonds were in a secular bull market. The last time stocks and “gold” (then represented by gold stocks, since Americans couldn’t legally own bullion) were in secular bulls while bonds were in a secular bear was roughly 1965–1982. That mid-to-late 1960s period—right before the explosive 1970s—offers the closest parallel to today.
On the cyclical side, he zeroes in on 1972–1973 for gold and silver. Gold’s breakout in 1972, coming off decades of price suppression under the gold standard, was—in his words—“the greatest breakout of all time” in capital markets.
It took out a roughly 100-year base dating back to the Civil War, when gold peaked around $50 an ounce. He likens that historic breakout to gold’s move in March of last year, when it finally broke out of a 13-year cup-and-handle-type pattern to new all-time highs.
Silver has its own 1973 analog. In that year, silver broke above its Civil War high—somewhere around $2.50–$3.00—marking its largest breakout on record.
Today, silver is trading around $50 and has already closed above that level on daily, weekly, and monthly time frames, essentially “flirting” with a definitive breakout. A clean move through roughly $54–$55 would, in Roy-Byrne’s view, line up almost perfectly with where silver was in 1973.
Overbought… But Still Deeply Underowned
One of the more striking contradictions in the current market is what Roy-Byrne calls the “overbought but underowned” condition of gold.
He cites a tweet by Ronnie Stoeferle referencing Bank of America Merrill Lynch data: despite the strong move in precious metals over the last 18 months, allocations to gold remain extremely low.
In retail client portfolios, gold accounted for just 0.4% of assets about a month ago. Among institutional money, the figure was only about 2.4%. That is remarkably small, given the magnitude of the price move.
ETF data tell the same story. In 2011–2012, assets in gold ETFs reached more than 8% of total ETF assets. The most recent figures Roy-Byrne has seen put that share at only about 2%.
This combination—short-term overbought conditions with structurally tiny allocations—leads him to reject comparisons with 1978–1979. He argues we are still in the early-1970s phase of the secular bull, not the late-stage blow-off.
In his view, the market’s positioning and the macro backdrop simply do not align with a terminal top.
Fiscal Strain And The Missing Volcker
Maharrey brings in his macro lens, drawing parallels between the 1960s and today. Back then, Washington layered Vietnam War spending on top of major domestic programs—the “guns and butter” era. That helped feed the inflation that ultimately erupted in the 1970s.
Today, Maharrey notes, the United States is running budget deficits on the order of $1.8 trillion, with debt levels that dwarf those of the 1960s and 1970s. Inflationary pressures are embedded in the system, and the federal balance sheet is under enormous strain.
Roy-Byrne agrees that this makes a “Paul Volcker moment” extremely unlikely. In the early 1980s, Volcker famously drove interest rates toward 20% to crush inflation. With today’s debt load, he argues, that kind of medicine would simply “bankrupt everything.”
Instead, he believes the eventual endgame for this secular bull market is more likely to involve some reintroduction of gold into the monetary system, rather than punitive double-digit rates.
Debunking The “Triple Top” And Misused Chart Patterns
The conversation then turns to chart patterns and the debate over whether silver is in a bullish cup-and-handle or a bearish triple top. Maharrey notes that silver just broke out of what many call a secular cup-and-handle formation, a pattern usually considered very bullish. Others, however, insist silver is forming a “triple top,” which they see as a bearish signal.
Roy-Byrne is blunt: true triple tops are rare and are usually part of a larger head-and-shoulders formation. Without that underlying structure—years of strong advance followed by a rounded, multi-peak topping shape—simply pointing to three high points on a chart and calling it a triple top is meaningless.
He acknowledges that in the short to medium term, silver could be forming a double top within this correction and might consolidate not three or four months, but five or six. That is the reasonable “bearish” risk in his view. But the idea that silver is topping out at the same level as its 1980 and 2011 peaks is something he “does not agree with whatsoever.”
Silver, he emphasizes, has already posted new all-time highs across daily, weekly, monthly, and even quarterly closes. That is not what a topping pattern looks like. Nor does silver’s recent outperformance versus gold fit the pattern of a market that has just made a major top.
On the cup-and-handle question, he makes another nuanced point. Gold’s 13-year pattern fit the textbook definition, with the handle retracing only about 38% of the cup. Silver’s structure is different. If its last 15 years were truly a handle to a giant cup stretching back 45 years, silver should have held above $32–$33. It didn’t, so technically that “handle” failed.
However, he says, the bigger picture is still extremely bullish: silver is carving out a “big, beautiful, massive 45-year-long base.” That base is just as important—and just as powerful—as any neat textbook cup-and-handle, even if the pattern label is technically wrong.
The problem, he laments, is that modern technical analysis often consists of people glancing at a chart for a few seconds, slapping on a label like “double top” or “head and shoulders,” and ignoring the detailed characteristics that actually define those patterns.
Gold vs. Bitcoin: A Major Turn In Relative Strength
Maharrey then shifts to another of Roy-Byrne’s recent observations: gold’s breakout from a nearly two-year head-and-shoulders bottom versus Bitcoin. The ratio chart he follows is simple—gold divided by Bitcoin. Over the last couple of years, that ratio has carved out a classic head-and-shoulders bottom, with three distinct lows.
The first low created the left shoulder, followed by a rally that failed at a certain level. The second, deeper low formed the head. The market rallied again, failed near the same area, then sold off into a third low that held above the head. That third low became the right shoulder. The “neckline” connecting the two rally peaks has now been broken to the upside, and the ratio has recently made a new 52-week high.
In plain English, that pattern says gold is now in a position to outperform Bitcoin over the next several years. Roy-Byrne sees this as potentially secular—something that could last 5, 7, even 10 years. He expects capital to gradually rotate out of Bitcoin and crypto and into gold as this unfolds, although he is careful not to put a short-term timetable on it.
This is part of a broader theme: in a real gold bull market, gold must outperform other major asset classes. Earlier this year, gold broke out against the stock market after a four-and-a-half-year base and also broke out against the traditional 60/40 stock-bond portfolio after a roughly 10-year base. Now gold is breaking out against Bitcoin and crypto as well.
Each of these breakouts signals that capital is leaving other assets—stocks, bonds, crypto—and flowing into gold and, by extension, into silver and the broader precious metals complex. That, Roy-Byrne argues, is what ultimately fuels “mini blow-off” moves like those in the early 1970s leading into 1974.
Bitcoin Is Not Digital Gold
Finally, Maharrey asks Roy-Byrne about the popular claim that Bitcoin is “digital gold.” Roy-Byrne rejects the idea. His friend Vince Lanci offers an interesting nuance—Bitcoin as “risk-on gold” and gold as “risk-off gold”—but Roy-Byrne insists that, functionally, Bitcoin trades like a technology asset, not like money.
Looking back over Bitcoin’s history since roughly 2010–2011, its big years have lined up with the best years for tech stocks and the Nasdaq. Its secular bull market has essentially mirrored the secular bull market in stocks over the last 15 years. The correlation is not perfect month to month, but at a 30,000-foot level, the pattern is clear enough for him: Bitcoin moves with risk assets.
Gold, by contrast, behaves differently. It is a monetary asset, a store of value that tends to shine when confidence in fiat systems, bonds, or stocks wavers. Bitcoin and crypto, in his view, are technologies, not money. He freely admits he is not a crypto specialist, but the trading behavior over more than a decade is enough to draw that line.
Where To Find Jordan Roy-Byrne
Before wrapping up, Maharrey gives Roy-Byrne a chance to point listeners to his work. At TheDailyGold.com, investors can opt in for a free copy of his book and access his free newsletter. Those interested in “high quality juniors with big upside potential”—the kinds of companies he buys himself—can subscribe to his premium newsletter.
He also runs a YouTube channel under “The Daily Gold,” where he publishes two to three videos each week. On social media, he is active on X (formerly Twitter), where his feed adds ongoing color to his written and video analysis – @TheDailyGold.
For Maharrey, whose focus is macroeconomics rather than chart patterns, these conversations with Roy-Byrne are especially valuable.
For listeners, the takeaway is straightforward: despite a short-term correction and some choppy months ahead, the combination of structural underownership, powerful long-term bases in both gold and silver, and gold’s breakouts versus stocks, bonds, and Bitcoin all point to a secular bull market that still looks much more like the early 1970s than the last gasp of 1979.
