---
title: "Bert Dohmen Thinks the Next Crisis Could Be Worse Than 2008"
url: "https://www.readplaza.com/articles/bert-dohmen-thinks-the-next-crisis-could-be-worse-than-2008"
type: "article"
publisher: "Commodity Culture"
category: "Market Commentary"
published: "2026-08-01T21:03:00+00:00"
updated: "2026-08-25T07:20:48.183873+00:00"
reading_time_minutes: 7
tags: ["Gold"]
---

# Bert Dohmen Thinks the Next Crisis Could Be Worse Than 2008
I had Bert Dohmen on Commodity Culture this week, and he did not mince words.

His view is that the warning signs for a major financial crisis are already here, and the most dangerous pressure point may be one that a lot of investors are still barely paying attention to: private credit.

That was the big takeaway for me from this conversation. Bert is not just saying markets are expensive or that sentiment is too euphoric. He is saying the underlying setup looks a lot like the kind of environment you get ahead of a real liquidation event, the kind that spills across asset classes, catches most people wrong-footed, and forces a dramatic policy response.

And in his mind, that response eventually becomes bullish for commodities, agriculture, gold, and silver.

Private credit is where he sees the crack formingBert’s basic point on private credit was straightforward.

He said the warning signs have been there for about a year, and that the private credit market is starting to show the kind of strain you would expect to see before a larger financial accident. In his words, firms that loaded up on questionable private credit assets are now trying to offload that risk onto less experienced investors, while some funds are making it difficult for people to get their own money back.

That is what really stood out to me. When liquidity looks fine on the surface but people start finding out they cannot exit when they want to, that is usually not a healthy sign. It suggests the market is more fragile than it appears, and that confidence is doing more of the work than fundamentals.

Why he thinks this could rival 2008Bert kept coming back to the idea that today’s setup resembles major historical turning points, especially 2008 and even the 1930s.

He said that in 2008 he and his subscribers saw the crisis coming early while Wall Street stayed bullish, and he believes something similar is happening now. This time, though, he thinks the consequences could be even more extreme, with the potential for a global depression, riots, famine, war, and at least one major equity index falling 80 percent, possibly 90 percent in the worst case.

That is obviously an extreme forecast. But even if you do not go all the way with him on that, the broader point is still worth hearing: he thinks investors are badly underestimating how unstable the current system has become.

He says the bear market is already hereOne of the more interesting parts of the interview was Bert’s argument that we are already in a bear market, even if the main indices do not fully show it yet.

His reasoning is that the headline indices have been distorted by extreme concentration. He pointed out that seven stocks account for roughly 40 percent of the S&P 500’s capitalization, which means broad market weakness can be hidden if a handful of mega-cap names keep floating higher. He also rattled off a list of major stocks already deep in bear market territory, including Oracle, IBM, Western Digital, Micron, and SanDisk, as evidence that a lot of damage has already been done under the surface.

I think that is one of the more useful lenses from this conversation. A market can look fine from a distance while quietly falling apart underneath.

Why he thinks speculation has gone too farBert also made the point that the market has increasingly turned into a casino, and he sees that as another sign of a major top.

He talked about record margin debt, speculative behavior in crypto, and the growing number of products that make it easier for people to gamble on short-term price action rather than invest with any real time horizon. In his view, Wall Street continues to manufacture more ways for retail investors to take risk at precisely the wrong moment, while the real professionals are much more focused on preserving capital and managing downside.

That ties into one of his core principles, which I thought was well said: the first question should never be how much money you can make. The first question should be where the risk is.

The trade he actually likes: commoditiesFor someone this bearish on the broad market, what was interesting is that Bert was not bearish on everything.

When I asked him where he sees the most attractive trade right now, his answer was commodities. He specifically mentioned broad commodity exposure through DBC and agricultural exposure through DBA, and argued that shortages in farm products could be closer than most people think because fertilizer is expensive, supply is tight, and the Strait of Hormuz remains a critical bottleneck.

That is where the conversation became especially relevant for the Commodity Culture audience. Bert’s macro warning is not just a call to hide in cash. It is also a call to think carefully about where hard asset scarcity could become much more obvious in the months ahead.

His view on gold is not what everyone expectsGold was another interesting part of the discussion because Bert did not give the simple “war equals gold up” answer that a lot of people might expect.

Instead, he said war itself is not automatically bullish for gold, and that what really matters is inflation and monetary debasement. His view is that gold and silver may need a bit more time to wash out bullish sentiment, but once the last weak hands are gone and central banks are forced to create even more money, the setup for a major catch-up move becomes much stronger.

That is a subtle but important distinction. In Bert’s framework, gold is less about reacting to headlines and more about responding to the monetary consequences of the policy response that comes after the crisis deepens.

Debt is the real dangerAnother point he emphasized repeatedly was debt.

He said people should be getting out of debt, not layering on more of it, because margin debt is already at record highs and borrowing to speculate becomes especially dangerous in a market that is vulnerable to a forced liquidation. He also warned that companies borrowing massive amounts in the current environment should not automatically be seen as bullish, especially if the broader system is becoming less stable and credit conditions are deteriorating.

That ties back directly to his private credit warning. When too much of the system depends on easy money, rolling financing, and buyers who never ask hard questions, things can look stable right up until they are not.

The bigger messageWhat I took from this conversation is that Bert sees the current market as a classic late-cycle setup built on leverage, denial, and a very dangerous amount of complacency.

You do not have to agree with every part of his outlook to find it useful. But I do think his framework is worth paying attention to, especially if you are someone who has been looking at record highs, AI mania, speculative excess, and tightening stress under the surface and thinking that something about this does not add up.

If Bert is even half right, then the next big move may not be about chasing what worked over the last two years. It may be about surviving the unwind and being positioned in the parts of the market that benefit when the financial system starts reminding people why real assets matter.

My ReadIncredibly bearish outlook on the broad market from Bert, but his view on a 1970s-style commodities and gold bull market ahead was also music to my ears. The first obvious play here is physical gold. Remember a few issues back when I said I was waiting for a $3,500 to $3,800 gold price to pull the trigger? Well, I ultimately decided that $4,000 was good enough and added to the stack. It's hard not to with all the insane corruption, currency debasement, and government spending going on, not to mention accelerating global conflict and central bank buying.

Bert emphasized two ETFs when it comes to commodities: DBC, which tracks a broad basket of commodities, and DBA, which is focused on agriculture. There are actually very few publicly traded ways to get exposure to agriculture, compared to other commodities, but for investors in Canada I would also recommend taking a look at the COW ETF, which I personally hold and which contains agriculture and also food product companies, so you essentially get access to everything from farm to table. This means it should benefit from inflation at the grocery store level, in addition to rising demand for fertilizer and other agricultural inputs.