
Tavi Costa: On The Cusp of The Next Depression, The Gold Reset & Financial Repression
Palisades Gold RadioShow Notes
Stijn Schmitz welcomes Tavi Costa to the show. Tavi Costa is Founder & CEO of Azuria Capital LLC. Costa argues that the U.S. is approaching a fiscal breaking point, emphasizing that current bond yields are unsustainable when measured against record debt levels. He notes that with over a quarter of U.S. debt rolling over in the next twelve months at higher rates, the situation is becoming increasingly asymmetric. He predicts eventual intervention through yield curve control or other mechanisms to suppress yields and weaken the dollar, which would benefit hard assets, mining, and emerging markets.
Costa sees a global sovereign debt dilemma eroding confidence in instruments backed only by military strength rather than tangible assets. He believes this paradigm shift echoes the 1940s but with even higher equity valuations today. Gold’s resilience alongside rising yields signals, in his view, that the market is pricing in an inevitable monetary reset or remonetization of gold. He highlights that gold backing for U.S. Treasuries has fallen from fifty percent to just three percent, implying a massive revaluation would be needed to restore discipline. Geopolitical conflicts are seen as symptoms of overwhelming debt, further fueling the thesis for hard assets.
Costa’s investment strategy focuses on a few concentrated macro themes: mining, Latin America, and energy. He structures his mining portfolio using a three-tier framework combining cash-flowing producers, strategic developers, and bold exploration companies. He finds silver miners particularly attractive due to strong balance sheets and high free cash flow yields. Costa cautions against chasing critical metals purely on narrative, advocating a first-principles focus on business quality. He is launching Azuria Capital with a mining fund embodying this approach, aiming to capitalize on what he views as a generational opportunity in the resource space.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 – Introduction
00:00:38 – US Treasury Markets Signal
00:05:05 – Global Debt Issues Explored
00:08:25 – Sponsor Message Bellasets
00:09:14 – Emerging Markets Comparison
00:18:20 – Sponsor Message Palisades
00:19:09 – Gold Reset Thesis
00:27:20 – Geopolitics and Wars
00:32:40 – Latin America Investment Shift
00:35:40 – Portfolio Construction Framework
00:43:20 – Mining Investment Pitfalls
00:49:50 – Azeria Capital Launch
00:57:36 – Concluding Thoughts
Guest Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/otavio-tavi-costa-76368628
Substack: https://tavicosta.substack.com
Otavio (“Tavi”) Costa is the Founder and CEO of Azuria Capital LLC. He invented a macro model that identifies the current stage of the U.S. economic cycle through a combination of 16 factors.
His research is regularly featured in financial publications such as Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, CCN, Financial Post, The Globe and Mail, Real Vision, and Reuters. Tavi is a native of São Paulo, Brazil, and fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. Before joining Crescat, he worked with the underwriting of financial products and international business at Braservice, a large logistics company in Brazil.
Tavi graduated cum laude from Lindenwood University in St. Louis with a B.A. degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance and a minor in Spanish. Tavi played NCAA Division 1 tennis for Liberty University.
More from Palisades Gold Radio
Check out the Palisades Newsletter, here: https://palisades.ca/blog/the-hard-road-to-dasa-palisades-largest-uranium-position-secures-us414m-loan-from-u-s-government/
Brett Rentmeester, founder of Windrock Wealth Management, argues that we are entering a “Fourth Turning”—a roughly 100-year crisis cycle in American history, following the American Revolution, Civil War, and Great Depression/WWII. He identifies four major tailwinds that powered the last 40 years of conventional investing (falling inflation, falling interest rates, rising equity multiples, and massive debt accumulation) as now reversing into headwinds. With US debt at $40 trillion, interest payments consuming 28% of tax revenue, and the 10-year Treasury at 5.1%, Rentmeester warns of a “death by a thousand cuts” rather than an outright default—characterized by financial repression, higher inflation, and eroding purchasing power.
Rory Johnston, founder of Commodity Context and host of the Oil Ground Up podcast, joins Palisades Gold Radio to dissect the current energy crisis. He argues that while the market has avoided outright shortages in the West, the war has created a “balkanized” global oil market. The primary issue is not just crude supply, but a severe crisis in refining capacity, particularly for middle distillates like diesel and jet fuel. Diesel crack spreads have hit unprecedented levels (near $100-$120 a barrel), driven by a combination of the Iran war, Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, and Houthi strikes on Saudi infrastructure. This has led to a million to 1.5 million barrels per day loss in diesel supply, with emerging markets like Indonesia feeling the pain of outright shortages first.
Stijn Schmitz welcomes Bob Moriarty to the show. Bob Moriarty is Author, Founder 321 Gold, & Former Marine Fighter Pilot. The discussion centers on escalating Middle East conflicts, particularly the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the broader geopolitical brinkmanship involving Iran, Israel, and the United States.
Stijn Schmitz welcomes Trader Ferg to the show. Trader Ferg is a Full-time Trader and is the Author of the Trader Ferg Substack. The discussion opens with a vivid illustration of emerging fuel shortages, as Trader Ferg shares images of long queues at his local petrol station in Bali, a symptom of diesel and product tightness spreading across Asia. He argues that governments avoid admitting scarcity, instead running down strategic reserves, but this dynamic sets the stage for a prolonged “big refill” cycle that will keep crude and refined products tight for years. He cautions that markets are complacently expecting a quick resolution, while the reality points to sustained supply constraints.