Video · 15 April 2026

The Global Monetary Reset Has Begun (Hint: Act Now!)

Felix Nikolas Prehn, economist and former investment banker

Felix Nikolas Prehn, economist and former investment banker, on the Bretton Woods realignment and what it means for investors.

Topics: The Dollar and the Petrodollar System

Chapters

  1. Treasury Secretary signals monetary reset
  2. Dollar reserves declining worldwide
  3. Original Bretton Woods system explained
  4. Nixon ended the gold standard
  5. How money printing drives inflation
  6. Bessent plans to weaken the dollar
  7. Deregulating banks and integrating crypto
  8. Restructuring global trade with tariffs
  9. BRICS nations reducing dollar use
  10. Soft landing versus crisis scenario
  11. Three risks every investor faces
  12. Hard assets and American manufacturing
  13. Simple framework for your portfolio
  14. Key takeaways and your playbook

Treasury Secretary signals monetary reset

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that the US is in the middle of a Bretton Woods realignment. The national debt is heading towards 40 trillion and gold is hitting near all time highs. Other countries are dumping dollars and hoarding gold.

Dollar reserves declining worldwide

The dollar share of global reserves has dropped from 71 per cent to under 58 per cent. The last Bretton Woods reset after World War Two created the most prosperous era in human history but completely changed the rules of money overnight.

Original Bretton Woods system explained

In 1944, 44 countries met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire and agreed the US dollar would be the world reserve currency backed by gold at 35 dollars an ounce. This created the IMF and the World Bank and fuelled the greatest economic boom in history. The catch was the US had to be disciplined and not print more dollars than it had gold to back them.

Nixon ended the gold standard

By the late 1960s the US was spending too much on the Vietnam war and social programmes. Foreign countries, especially France, demanded their gold back, and France literally sent a warship. Nixon took the US off the gold standard because more money had been printed than there was gold to back it.

How money printing drives inflation

When the government collects 5 trillion in taxes but spends 7 trillion, it borrows the gap and the Fed prints money to buy the debt. More dollars chasing the same goods creates inflation, which is a feature not a bug. Asset owners get richer while those relying on salaries and savings lose purchasing power.

Bessent plans to weaken the dollar

Bessent called for a fundamental reset of financial regulation and the global financial system. The first move is to weaken the dollar by 20 to 40 per cent, sometimes called the Mar a Lago accord, modelled on the 1985 Plaza Accord. A weaker dollar makes American made products more competitive but makes imports and foreign travel more expensive.

Deregulating banks and integrating crypto

Bessent wants to unwind post 2008 financial crisis regulations to make it easier and cheaper for banks to lend. He also wants to empower community banks and integrate crypto and digital assets into the banking system. The risk is that less regulation means more risk taking by bankers who face no personal consequences.

Restructuring global trade with tariffs

Tariffs are being used as a strategy to force countries to buy more American goods and bring back factories. The goal is the 3 3 3 framework, meaning 3 per cent GDP growth, a 3 per cent deficit, and 3 million barrels a day more energy production. This means short term pain from higher prices for potentially longer term gains.

BRICS nations reducing dollar use

BRICS nations are reducing dollar use and doing deals in local currencies, dropping the dollar share of global reserves from 71 per cent to 57 per cent. They are working on alternative payment systems like CIPS as a SWIFT alternative. Central banks globally are buying gold at record pace and plan to buy even more.

Soft landing versus crisis scenario

Outcome one is a managed transition where the dollar weakens gradually, manufacturing returns, and new trade deals stabilise the system. Outcome two is a crisis forcing rapid change with currency wars, much higher inflation, and crashes. History suggests the result will be messy but manageable for those who are prepared.

Three risks every investor faces

The first risk is the cash trap, where savings accounts earn less than inflation and a falling dollar makes cash the worst position. The second risk is having 100 per cent of assets in US dollar denominated investments, though companies like Microsoft and Netflix get about 40 per cent of revenue from overseas. The third risk is the timing trap, because trying to time the reset perfectly is foolish.

Hard assets and American manufacturing

Gold has gone from around 2000 to 4000 in about two years and acts as insurance rather than a speculative bet. If the reset works as planned, domestic manufacturing and energy production should boom because the US is now the world largest oil and gas exporter. Countries with strong commodity exports will also benefit from de-dollarisation.

Simple framework for your portfolio

Investors should ask whether they are passive or active, and whether their goal is cash flow or appreciation. Protection against the reset involves holding a fair chunk in hard assets and diversifying geographically by looking at where companies have their revenue exposure. A mentor rule is to never invest in anything you cannot explain to a 12 year old.

Key takeaways and your playbook

The dollar based global financial system built at Bretton Woods is being restructured by the people who run it as actual policy. The result will be a weaker dollar, less bank regulation, tariff driven reshoring, and central banks buying gold while printing money. The playbook is to diversify beyond cash and the S and P 500, hold hard assets as insurance, and avoid trying to time it perfectly.

Questions answered

What is the Bretton Woods realignment that Scott Bessent is talking about
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated the US is in the middle of a Bretton Woods realignment, meaning a fundamental reset of both financial regulation and the global financial system. The original Bretton Woods agreement in 1944 made the US dollar the world reserve currency backed by gold. Bessent wants to restructure the current dollar-based system, including weakening the dollar, deregulating banks, and reshoring manufacturing.
What is the Mar-a-Lago Accord and how much would the dollar weaken
The Mar-a-Lago Accord is a plan to deliberately weaken the US dollar, modelled on the 1985 Plaza Accord. The chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Steven Myron, put out a target of weakening the dollar by 20 to 40 per cent. The reasoning is that a strong dollar makes American products too expensive and kills manufacturing jobs.
What is the 333 framework for restructuring global trade
The 333 framework sets three targets: 3 per cent GDP growth, a 3 per cent deficit, and 3 million barrels a day of additional energy production. The goal is to use tariffs to bring back factories from cheap manufacturing countries. This means short-term pain through higher prices but potentially longer-term gains through more jobs and a stronger economy.
How much has the dollar share of global reserves dropped recently
The dollar share of global reserves has dropped from 71 per cent to under 58 per cent. BRICS nations are reducing their dollar use and conducting deals in local currencies. They are also working on alternative payment systems, and central banks globally are buying gold at a record pace.
Why is holding cash during a dollar reset a bad idea
Cash savings accounts earn roughly 1 to 4 per cent, which is less than inflation, so holders are already losing money. A potential 20 to 40 per cent dollar decline would make the position even worse. After Nixon ended the gold standard in 1971, people who held cash got slowly crushed by inflation while those who bought assets got rich.
How does the S&P 500 give investors foreign exposure through US stocks
Companies like Microsoft and Netflix get about 40 per cent of their revenue from overseas markets. So owning US stocks does not mean being 100 per cent exposed to the US dollar. Investors should look at where their stocks actually earn their money rather than just where the companies are incorporated.
Transcript
The US Treasury Secretary just said something that should make every American investor pay attention. Scott Bessent, literally the man in charge of America's money, said, "We're in the middle of a Bretton Woods realignment." And if you don't know what that means, it could be the difference between building generational wealth, I'm not exaggerating here, and watching your savings quietly disappear. Right now, the national debt is heading towards $40 trillion. Gold is hitting near all-time highs, and other countries are dumping dollars and hoarding gold like it's going out of style. The dollar's share of global reserves has dropped from 71% to under 58%, and the people running the US government are openly talking about resetting the entire financial system. So this isn't a conspiracy theory. This is the Treasury Secretary's actual plan. And the last time the world did a Bretton Woods reset after World War II, it created the most prosperous era in human history. But it also meant the rules of money completely changed overnight. People who understood the new rules, they got rich. People who didn't got left behind. And the same thing is happening again right now in real time. In the next few minutes, I'm going to break down in plain English exactly what this financial reset actually means, why the government is doing it, and most importantly, the specific risks and opportunities for your money. Whether you have $500 or $500,000, you need to understand the 3 frameworks that I'm going to give you before the music stops. I'm not here to sell you gold coins or scare you into buying a bunker. I'm here to help you understand what's actually happening so you can make smarter decisions. I'm not a financial adviser. This is purely educational content. Winston here is obviously responsible for the smartest parts of it. The real gold adviser, the golden retriever. So here's what we're going to cover. The actual system, how money actually works and what's about to change. The reset and what Bessent and the government are actually planning. And then your playbook, which are the risks and the opportunities for every normal investor, whether you're buying stocks or you're just in a 401k or you're holding gold like Winston is. So let's break down briefly the foundations that we need to understand so we can get to the 3 frameworks so you can make smarter decisions. So what the heck is this whole Bretton Woods thing? Let me explain it in a minute. Imagine it's 1944. The world just fought the biggest war in history. Therefore, yes, German over here, guilty as charged, and Europe's in ruins. So 44 countries get together in a teeny tiny town in New Hampshire called Bretton Woods. And the deal they agreed is this. The US dollar would be the world's reserve currency backed by gold at $35 an ounce. Every other currency in the world would be pegged to the dollar. This created the IMF and the World Bank and it put the US on top of the world's financial system. Now why did it work? It gave the world a stable, trusted money system. It fuelled the greatest economic boom in human history. Highways, suburbs, the American middle class, American prosperity, and all that stuff that you guys have. Now, what was the catch? The US had to be disciplined. You can't print more dollars than you have gold to back them. That was the deal. So Bretton Woods was the deal that made America the financial centre of the world. It's why New York and Chicago matter. Now by the late 1960s, the US spending too much money. Vietnam war, social programmes, the gold retrievers were eating all the food, and the foreign buggers, especially the French, demanded their gold back. Like France literally sent a warship. So Nixon took the US off the gold standard because he knew he'd printed more money than they had gold. So what did it mean? The dollar was no longer backed by anything physical. It was just trust in the US government. It's like your landlord saying, "Don't worry, the roof is fine" while ripping off all the shingles one at a time. Is that a good analogy, Winston? It's not really the greatest, is it? All right, give me a better one in the comments down below. But before we dive deeper, some of you are just here because you want to know what to buy and why to buy it today. You're like, "What do I invest in today?" And if that's you, that's brilliant. I love that question. And I'm going to give you as a bonus Wall Street's very own rules for how to pick stocks or metals or commodities. And there are only 2 or 3 of them. Basically, what to buy, when to buy. And it's a very simple framework. It's been around for 50 years. It's not new. I didn't come up with it. I learned it from my Wall Street mentors because yes, I was an investment banker. Guilty as charged. Once again, first he's the German and now he's a banker. How much worse could this get? At least Winston's cute. That's really the only thing that's holding us together here. And if you want to learn that, I'm not going to put it in this video because it would make this video like 2 hours long. But I can teach it to you in under 2 hours if you join me on Saturday. felixfriends.org/training. I want to say 9:00 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday, but I might be slightly off on that. I think it's 8:00 p.m. actually. Anyway, link's down below. It'll tell you. Now, back to good old Nixon. The result of Nixon who nixed the gold standard was the following. Think about this. Say the government collects $5 trillion in taxes, but it spends $7 trillion. Defence, social security, Medicare, interest. So what do you do with the $2 trillion gap? Well, you borrow it and the Fed prints money to buy the debt. That new money then enters the economy, which means there are more dollars chasing the same. So you get inflation. You just have more money. You're just printing more money. So this inflation thing that's making your money worth less year after year, it's a feature. It's not a bug. We didn't have inflation when we had the gold standard. So they're making the rich richer because those of us who own assets, it goes up because there is more money chasing the same gold bars. There are not that many new gold bars a year. But those of you who have salaries and savings, well, you get screwed because those savings are worth less and less and less. It's a feature to turn hand money from those who have to those who have. So if you have salaries, if you have cash, you're losing money. If you own assets, you're getting richer by the second. So what is Bessent actually planning? Bessent said, we're in the middle of a great realignment, a Bretton Woods realignment. And he's not just talking about it. The guy is literally the Treasury Secretary and he wants to lead it. He called for a fundamental reset of both financial regulation and the global financial system. He told the IMF and the World Bank to get back to their core mission. Stop worrying about climate change and what gender you feel like today and focus on financial stability. So, what does it mean? The man in charge of America's piggy bank thinks the entire global money system needs a makeover, and not the slap some lipstick on it type makeover, a real reset. So what are the moves he's making? Move number 1 is to weaken the dollar. It's also called the Mar-a-Lago Accord, named after Trump's resort in Florida. And it's a version of the 1985 Plaza Accord. And the idea is this. The dollar is too strong, which makes American products too expensive and it kills manufacturing jobs. The plan, we use tariffs and diplomacy to push the dollar down by 20 to 40%. That's pretty extreme. The chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, a chap called Stephen Miran, put that number out. So what does it mean for you and for golden retrievers in America? Everything you buy from the foreign bastards gets more expensive. But American, good old American-made products become more competitive. They become cheaper relative to the stuff the foreign buggers make. So think of it like this. The dollar drops 30%. Yes, your vacation to Europe just got 30% more expensive. Boohoo. I'll see you guys in France in the summer. But the factory jobs in Ohio just became 30% more viable. He likes having his ears pulled for some reason. Very strange, isn't it? Very strange you like having your ears pulled. Now, the second move they're making, and this is important to understand, is to deregulate banks and supercharge finance. And by the way, I appreciate I'm throwing a lot at you. So, we're going to make a workbook, a research document with all the details of the stuff and more as well as more proactive choices of what one can invest in and so on depending on what happens. And I'm going to give that to you for free as well. So, there's another link in the description. You can download that report. You go into our free community. There's like 40,000 people in there and there's a channel in there called video workbooks. You just click on that and you can download it completely for free. That sound like a fair deal? I think it probably is necessary as we're putting quite a lot of stuff out there. That sounds like a good deal. Put deal in the chat. But of course more importantly join me on Saturday, felixfriends.org/training, because that's really going to uplevel you. But basically Bessent wants to unwind the financial crisis regulations that came in after 2008. That all the stuff that made the global financial crisis possible will be possible again. Officially, and I'm obviously paraphrasing here, officially the goal is to make it easier and cheaper for banks to lend money. They want to empower community banks, which have been crushed pretty hard by the regulation. They want to integrate crypto and digital assets into the banking system because it'll make transactions cheaper and so on. But there is a risk here. Less regulation means more risk. And I know some bankers, they'll take the risk. Why will bankers take the risk? Because their careers are pretty short and they're basically thinking I don't have to deal with the consequences. It's not me and my money. I just generate lots of money. I get paid bonuses. I take the money and then if the bank goes under, well, it'll get bailed out. So who cares? So it creates that problem. Right now, the third move is the restructure of global trade. And that's what the tariffs are all about. They're using tariffs as a strategy to force countries to buy more American goods. The goal is something that's known as the 3-3-3 framework. They want 3% GDP growth. They want a 3% deficit. And they want 3 million barrels a day, more energy. And essentially they want to bring back factories from the cheap manufacturing countries. So what does that mean for you? Well, it means short-term pain because you're going to pay higher prices for potentially longer-term gains. More jobs, stronger economy. So what are the other countries doing about this? Well, the BRICS nations are reducing their dollar use. They're wanting to do their deals in local currencies and therefore the dollar share of global reserves dropped from 71% to just 57% now. It's a big drop, right? They're working on alternative payment systems. It's called CIPS, a SWIFT alternative. And central banks globally are buying gold at record pace. And I can show you that we track it literally in here. We get data comes out published officially monthly, in between you can read between the lines. Anyway, it's all in there if you want to join the community. There's also a precious markets and a gold research in there and everything as well down below. And again, there is a link down below to that if you want to join the community. But central banks, the guys printing the money, the banks of the banks, the boss banks as I like to call them, they are buying more and more gold and they all plan to buy more and more gold. So when the people who run the money system are buying gold, the finance secretary is saying he wants to return to some form of the gold standard. Well, we don't need to wait for the actual reset, right? We are already seeing that they are rebuilding the system. So there really only two outcomes here. And outcome number 1 is a soft landing, a managed transition, which means the dollar weakens gradually, manufacturing returns to the US shores and you get new trade deals and the system will stabilise and your investments will adapt and will do really really well over time. Scenario B is the crisis forces more rapid change than envisioned. We get currency wars. We get inflation much much higher. We get crashes. And people who aren't prepared lose bigly here. Why? Because history usually tells us that it's never as clean as you'd like it to be. It also isn't the worst case scenario. So it's a messy but manageable scenario for those who are prepared. So what are the actionable frameworks here? Not theory, but what can you actually do? There are 3 bigly risks you must understand. Risk number 1 is the cash trap. If you're sitting in a savings account because you're too afraid about the market, it could all crash, I don't want to be in it. Well, you're earning what? How many per cent are you earning on your cash? Put it in the comments down below. 1, 2, 3, 4, maybe. Right. Inflation is more than that. So you are definitely losing money. And the dollar potentially going 20 or 30 or 40% down, your position is the worst in the world right now. Your grandparents might have said save money in the bank and that was great in the 60s, but today it's a definite guaranteed recipe for going broke slowly but assuredly. The second risk is if 100% of your assets are in US dollar denominated investments, you have a massive dollar exposure here, right? The S&P 500 is very very heavily weighed towards big tech which gets hammered by tariffs and a weaker dollar. Why? Because they actually have exposure to Europe and Asia and other countries and they'll pay in their local currencies. So why is that a good thing or a bad thing? Do you see what I just did there? I actually showed you that the common theory that if you just buy the S&P or you just buy US stocks, you're 100% US exposed is not true. Microsoft, Netflix, they all get about 40% of their money from foreign buyers. So you actually potentially are already quite nicely set up, but it depends on what you own. So you need to look at the stocks you own and where is their money coming from. Now, the third risk is what I call the timing trap. If you're trying to time this reset perfectly, you're a fool. Sorry to say, it's true. It's like timing the market. Rate cuts don't always mean stocks go up. In 2008, rates dropped. The S&P dropped 38% with it. We almost got 5% rate cuts there. We still lost a lot of money. So the biggest risk isn't getting in at the wrong time. It's sitting on the sidelines while the rules change. And the opportunities are there right for the grabbing. You got hard assets, gold, silver, real estate, right? Gold's gone from $2,000 to $4,000 whatever in about 2 years. Don't even get me started on miners. So that's been a tremendous opportunity. You have physical real estate. That is a little bit of a budget issue for some people, but it produces cash flow. It hedges against inflation. Gold, on the other hand, is only an insurance policy. So you don't buy car insurance because you want to crash, right? No, you buy it because you're protecting yourself. And the opportunity that's there is American manufacturing and energy. If the reset works as planned, domestic manufacturing, energy production is going to boom. Companies that make things in America could see significant tailwinds. The current war going on, what is it actually doing? It's turning off the oil tap in the Middle East and it's turning on the oil tap in the US. The US is the world's largest oil and gas exporter. It's the Saudi Arabia of today, right? That's a strategy. Always look at what the money is doing. Follow the money. Never follow the politicians. That's what I always say. That's what my mentors taught me. It's follow the money. I'll teach you that on Saturday, the full fourth strategy if you join me. And there are other markets that benefit from de-dollarisation. Countries with strong commodity exports will benefit. So what I'm saying to you is don't bet, definitely don't bet against America. It's a bad idea. It's like betting against the Fed. It's a bad idea. But don't bet only on America either. There are opportunities here. And then there of course crypto and digital assets. Bessent is trying his utmost to integrate digital assets into the banking system. And this is speculative. And quite frankly, the way I look at it is that the banks are trying to take the good stuff of crypto, which is the blockchain, but they're trying to eliminate all their competition. So again, need to look very very carefully who benefits from that and who loses from that. So here's your simple framework. And again, I'm not a financial adviser. I'm just giving you some thoughts, some ideas. So ask yourself, am I passive or active as an investor? If you're passive, just DCA into the ETFs with the lowest fees. If you're more active, you need to understand how the money flows between individual assets. Second question you got to ask yourself, what's your goal? Is it cash flow or is it appreciation? Is it value? If you want cash flow, you're looking at dividends, you're looking at rental income, right? If you want appreciation, you're looking at growth stocks, you're looking at land, you're looking at where is the value sitting, where's the money flowing to next. And then you're going to look at what are the vehicles that you want to look at here. Stocks, real estate, commodities, cryptos, bonds. It sounds like a lot and it sounds overwhelming if you're new to it. That's the intention, by the way, because they want you to feel overwhelmed and that way you will hand your money over to somebody who will charge you fees for it. So how do I protect against the reset? Fair chunk in hard assets, geographic diversification, not necessarily looking at whether companies are incorporated or based, but where is their exposure, right? So as I say, a Microsoft gives you significant overseas exposure. You don't need to buy an Indonesian stock you don't understand. Definitely don't be 100% in cash. But also, and this is, I think, a real golden rule that I learned from a mentor of mine. He said, "Don't invest in anything you can't explain to a 12 year old. If you can't explain why you own it, you shouldn't own it." Yourself a free seat. There'll be like 2,000 or 3,000 people there live. I will explain it to you as if you're 12, because simple is the most powerful thing out there. Investment bankers, we're not the smartest. Therefore, we get taught this stuff in a very, very simplistic way, but it works. And another bit of wisdom from one of my Wall Street mentors, he said something like, "In a crisis, rules will change. The people who win are not the smartest. They're the ones who are prepared for the rule change." The rules of money have changed before. 1944, 1971. They're changing again now. The people who understand the Nixon shock and bought assets got rich. The people who held cash got slowly crushed by inflation. I can, it can feel overwhelming. I get that. But here's the thing. You are already ahead of 95% of people just by watching this video up to this point and thinking about your money. You don't need to be perfect. You just need to be prepared. So, here are the takeaways. The dollar-based global financial system built at Bretton Woods is being restructured by the people who run it, not speculation. It's actually policy. We're going to get a weaker dollar, less regulation for banks, tariff driven reshoring, and central banks buying gold and printing money all at the same time. So, your playbook is this. You get a strategy. Diversify beyond cash and the S&P 500. Hold some hard assets as insurance and don't try to time it perfectly. Don't be frustrated if it doesn't work out the way you wanted to by Friday, but be positioned. If you want to go deeper on how exactly to build a portfolio for this environment, join me live for a complete breakdown that'll be probably simpler than this actually. Honestly, it is more simple the structure of it. And if you're going to show up for yourself on Saturday, write "show up" in the comments down below. And share this video if you think it might help some other people. I thank you for watching. Did you know there is an invisible system that controls nearly every trade on the planet? And I don't mean supply and demand. I don't mean the Federal Reserve. I didn't even mean to

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About the author

Felix Nikolas Prehn is an economist and former investment banker. He co-founded TradeVision.io and founded Winston Daily and The Prehn Institute. Winston is his adopted golden retriever. Felix is a vocal advocate for animal rescue.

About The Prehn Institute

The Prehn Institute is an independent research institution. It publishes research on the financial markets and provides instruction.