Robert Kiyosaki, the “Rich Dad Poor Dad” author, warned that a major expansion of Treasury bond buybacks announced on August 19 will weaken the dollar and punish savers holding dollar-denominated assets. The U.S. Treasury doubled the size of its long-term debt buyback operations from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, effective September 9, prompting Kiyosaki to call the move “another round of QE” — quantitative easing — that amounts to “printing fake dollars.”
The Treasury’s decision to expand buybacks came as longer-dated bond yields surged to levels not seen since 2007, forcing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to intervene in an effort to calm the market. Bessent signaled the program could expand even further beyond the $4 billion ceiling if needed. The timing was stark: the national debt crossed $40 trillion the same day the buyback expansion was announced.
Kiyosaki’s specific concern centered on the dollar’s purchasing power. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on August 22, he wrote that Treasury buybacks would crash the dollar’s purchasing power index — the DXY — which he noted had already fallen to 98.7, its lowest level since May. “When that happens,” he argued, “savers of fake $ are the biggest losers.” The Priority Gold article capturing his warning emphasized that the distinction between a retirement account’s nominal balance and its actual purchasing power has become critical as the dollar weakens.
The market moved in line with Kiyosaki’s concerns almost immediately. The dollar fell to a three-month low against the euro on August 21, according to Reuters and CNBC, as investors worried that expanded Treasury buybacks would further erode the currency’s value. Gold rose more than 5% in a single week — its best performance since January — as investors shifted into assets whose supply cannot be expanded by government decree. Bitcoin also rallied as the so-called “debasement trade” — the investment strategy of moving into hard assets when currency confidence erodes — returned to prominence.
Expert Skepticism Over Treasury’s Approach
Kiyosaki was not alone in his criticism. Mohamed El-Erian, chief economist at Allianz, warned that the bond buyback program could hurt public trust in the Treasury Department. El-Erian noted on August 25 that the Treasury’s intervention was a short-term band-aid on a structural problem: a $40 trillion debt load growing faster than any credible fiscal path to resolution. The 30-year Treasury yield had already climbed to 5.27%, signaling what El-Erian described as a structural shift that would make America more expensive across mortgages, car loans, and other borrowing.
The Treasury’s buyback program operates by using existing cash reserves — Bessent had built the Treasury General Account to roughly $950 billion, well above the Biden-era target of $550 to $600 billion — to repurchase longer-dated bonds. Unlike Federal Reserve quantitative easing, which creates new money, Treasury buybacks technically recycle existing funds. However, the effect on markets and the dollar was immediate: investors read the signal that the government was willing to intervene in the bond market to suppress yields rather than address the underlying fiscal imbalance.
Kiyosaki has built his financial philosophy around the idea that governments debase their currencies when they spend beyond their means for long enough. His recommendation to hold gold, silver, and Bitcoin as hedges against dollar weakness reflects a thesis he has been articulating for years: when the purchasing power of paper money falls, assets with fixed or constrained supply tend to hold their real value. This week, the market confirmed that thesis again.
Sources
- Priority Gold — Robert Kiyosaki’s warning about Treasury buybacks, dollar purchasing power index decline, and the debasement trade response
- Reuters — Treasury announcement of doubled bond buybacks from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, effective September 9; dollar falling to three-month low
- CNBC — Treasury buyback expansion details, dollar decline against euro, Bessent’s statements on potential further expansion
- U.S. Department of the Treasury — Official August 19, 2026 press release on increased sizes of long-dated bond buyback operations
- Fox Business / Yahoo Finance — Mohamed El-Erian’s warning that the bond buyback program could hurt public trust in the Treasury Department
