Silver Rises Over 120% YTD 
Gold is up big in 2025 — yet the skeptics are louder than ever. From cherry-picked data to false comparisons with 1980, the anti-gold narrative is working overtime. But when Mike Maloney and Alan Hibbard fact-checked the latest hit piece, they uncovered something revealing: the critics aren’t just wrong — they’re selling something.
Here are the key takeaways from their deep dive.
The 1980 Peak Deception
The article Mike and Alan reviewed commits the oldest trick in financial analysis: starting from gold’s most extreme bubble peak in January 1980. Yes, gold fell 60% from that historic high. But as Mike points out, measuring any asset from its absolute peak is intellectually dishonest.
Here’s what they conveniently forget to mention: Gold rose 25x throughout the 1970s while stocks went nowhere. Cherry-picking the very top of that move to declare gold a “bad investment” is like judging Amazon stock only from its 2000 peak. It’s not analysis — it’s propaganda.
Today’s Economy Is Nothing Like 1980
Critics love claiming we’re reliving the late 1970s — high inflation, spiking oil, geopolitical chaos. But Alan pulled the actual data, and the comparison crumbles:
1980 vs Today: The Real Numbers
- Inflation: 14-15% then vs 2-3% now
- Oil prices: More than doubled in the 1970s vs down 50% from 2008 peaks today
- Geopolitics: Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (gold peaked 28 days later) vs Ukraine conflict (3+ years ago, gold still climbing)
The data is clear: We’re not in 1980. The conditions that ended gold’s last major bull run simply don’t exist today.
The Convenient Memory Hole: 2000-2011
Here’s where the anti-gold narrative gets truly dishonest. Critics jump straight from 1980 to 2011, erasing an entire decade of outperformance. Between 2000 and 2011, gold delivered:
- 600%+ returns
- Double-digit annual gains
- Massive outperformance vs the S&P 500
Anyone who accumulated gold during this period remains solidly in profit today. But acknowledging this fact would destroy the narrative, so they pretend it never happened.
The Real “Quiet Loss” Nobody Discusses
Some critics claim holding gold after 2011 was a “quiet loss” because stocks went on their longest bull run in history. But Alan discovered something fascinating: The very newsletter promoting this anti-gold article admits their best stock picks returned about 1,107% since 2002.
Impressive? Sure. Until you realize:
- Gold returned over 1,000% in the same period
- No research required
- No trading fees
- No companies going bankrupt
- No CEOs to fail you
But here’s the real quiet loss — one measured not in dollars but in life. While newsletter subscribers spent thousands of hours reading reports, analyzing earnings, and managing positions, gold holders were living their lives. They gained not just wealth preservation but something priceless: time and peace of mind.
The Simple Path to Real Wealth
The truth is refreshingly straightforward: Gold can’t go to zero. It doesn’t depend on quarterly earnings or management decisions. For 5,000 years, it has done one job perfectly — preserving purchasing power across every economic cycle.
When you combine gold with silver and Bitcoin, you create a foundation that protects wealth while freeing up your most precious resource: your time.
What’s Next?
Alan Hibbard is launching “Hidden Secrets of Value” this fall — a six-part series building on Mike Maloney’s legendary “Hidden Secrets of Money.” It will dive deeper into these principles of real value and expose more myths peddled by those who profit from financial complexity.
Because the truth is: Wall Street needs you to believe investing must be complicated. They need you chasing the next stock, the next trade, the next newsletter. But real wealth has always been simple. It’s just hidden behind those who profit from confusion.
The skeptics will keep talking. Gold will keep performing. And those who understand the difference between noise and value will keep accumulating real assets while others chase complexity.
The choice, as always, is yours.
Investing in Physical Metals Made Easy
