Dear Reader,

FIFTY-TWO YEARS. That is how long the petrodollar has run. Nixon killed the gold standard in 1971. Three years later, Henry Kissinger flew to Riyadh and struck the deal that saved the dollar: Saudi Arabia prices oil in dollars, the U.S. military protects the Gulf, and every nation on earth has to buy dollars to buy energy. Genius. For 52 years, it worked.

On July 4, 2026, America celebrated 250 years of independence. Trump stood on the National Mall and told the crowd he had wiped out Iran's military. The Dow hit 52,900. A record. CNN called it a soft landing. Fireworks lit the sky.

Meanwhile, ships at the Strait of Hormuz are routing through Iran-approved lanes.

Let that sink in. The U.S. fought a war with Iran. And ships now ask Iran's permission to pass through the world's most important oil chokepoint.

IN TODAY'S ISSUE:

• The 1974 deal that saved the dollar. And why 2026 just broke it.

• 57,000 jobs. Dow record. Insiders selling. What the smart money is actually doing.

• NYC spent $7 million on drag queen story hours. New York's Medicaid fraud unit got decertified for not fighting fraud. Happy birthday, America.

• Brownstone Research - One Ticker Trader: The Oil Skimming strategy.

The petrodollar was the most important deal America ever made. And almost nobody learned about it in school. Here is the short version.

In 1971, Nixon ended dollar convertibility to gold. The dollar had no anchor. Inflation was coming. The world was losing faith. Kissinger flew to Riyadh in 1974 and made the deal: Saudi Arabia and OPEC would price oil exclusively in U.S. dollars. In return, the U.S. military would protect the Gulf. Demand for the dollar was built into every barrel of oil on the planet. No gold needed.

That deal required one thing above all else: U.S. military dominance at the Strait of Hormuz. Control the strait, you control the petrodollar. Control the petrodollar, you fund your own empire without raising taxes.

Robert Kiyosaki has been pounding this table for months. He posted it plainly last week:

"History has ARRIVED. 1974 was a future changing year. Rather than backed by gold, the US dollar was backed by oil. Today, in 2026, the world stands on the edge of world war over oil. Inflation is coming."

He is right. And the data this week proves it.

JUNE JOBS: 57,000. Economists expected 115,000. May had 172,000. That three-month deceleration is not a soft landing. In a $30 trillion economy, adding 57,000 jobs a month is what a stall looks like. Historically, it is what a recession looks like.

So what did the Dow do? It rallied to 52,900. A record. Because Wall Street did the math: weak jobs means the Fed will not hike rates in July. Stocks go up not because the economy is strong, but because the Fed cannot tighten. That is not a recovery. That is a patient celebrating because the doctor has not cut off the morphine.

Here is what the insiders know. The corporate buy/sell ratio right now is 0.27. The five-year average is 0.35. The executives running these companies are SELLING into this record Dow. Not buying. Selling.

My poor dad believed the headlines. My rich dad watched the hands. The hands are selling.

M2 money supply: $22.8 trillion, growing at its fastest pace in four years. The Fed's own balance sheet expanded $11 billion in Fed Chair Warsh's first week. The man who was supposed to be the hawk. In one week, he expanded the balance sheet more than his predecessor did in a month.

"What's happening in gold and silver now reminds me of what happened to subprime in 2007. We're getting closer to a dollar crisis."

Gold is at $4,135. Silver at $64. These are not investment prices. These are flight prices. That is what money does when it runs from a system it no longer trusts.

Now. Back to Hormuz. Trump said he wiped out Iran's military. Ships are routing through Iran-approved lanes. Here is the number I want you to hold in your head before I show you what this means on the other side of this trade.

$41.1 trillion. That is the debt ceiling Congress set last year in the One Big Beautiful Bill. We have already burned through $2.9 trillion of the $5 trillion raise. In under 12 months. More than half the new headroom, gone.

Iran controls Hormuz. Not militarily. Politically. And political control is more durable than military control. It does not require aircraft carriers. It requires patience. Iran has had 52 years to practice.

Every barrel that routes through an Iran-approved lane proves the petrodollar deal is finished. The deal was: U.S. military guarantees free passage, the world uses dollars to buy oil. If ships need Iran's blessing, the U.S. is not the guarantor anymore. No guarantor. No deal.

Luke Gromen at FFTT said it plainly on Bloomberg Radio last week:

"I will continue to pound the table. This Fed WILL cut rates in September. After today's jobs data, my call looks smarter now than it did before."

The Fed will cut. Not because inflation is beaten. Because the fiscal math demands it. $2.9 trillion of new debt in 12 months cannot be serviced at high interest rates. The plan: cut rates, expand the balance sheet, and hope the petrodollar holds long enough to paper over the numbers.

Meanwhile, here is what your government was doing with your money while you watched the fireworks.

New York City appropriated $7 million for transgender equity programs and drag queen story hours. The same week, New York State's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit was decertified by HHS effective July 1. The reason: it was not prosecuting Medicaid fraud. A government agency funded specifically to fight fraud. Did not fight fraud. Lost its federal certification.

This is not incompetence. Incompetence loses your keys. This is a system that has stopped pretending to function. When the fraud-fighting agency stops fighting fraud and nobody goes to jail, the system is not broken. It is working exactly as designed. For someone else.

I have watched every cycle since Nixon closed the gold window in 1971. Currencies inflate and collapse. Empires overreach and retreat. Wars start for the same reasons they always have. None of this surprises me. I have seen this movie before. But I understand why it should concern you.

History does not announce itself. It arrives while you are watching the fireworks.

What you can control: get out of the dollar and into real assets. Gold. Silver. Real estate you own outright. Assets that hold value outside the banking system. Not because I am predicting doom. Because when the petrodollar shifts, the people holding paper lose and the people holding things win. That is not a prediction. That is 5,000 years of monetary history.

PIGS GET FAT. HOGS GET SLAUGHTERED.

To your freedom, Robert Kiyosaki

P.S. When the market crashed 37% in 2008, [our friend] Larry Benedict made $95 million for his clients. Now he is sounding the alarm on oil. He warns that high oil prices could strangle the U.S. economy. Yet where others see disaster, Larry sees one of the biggest opportunities in 40 years, and a way for regular folks to profit without owning a single oil stock. He lays it all out in a free presentation found here.