Something enormous is happening inside the U.S. Treasury market. And most Americans have no idea it's happening. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Treasury must refinance approximately $9.7 TRILLION of maturing government securities in fiscal year 2026. Not over the next decade. This fiscal year. That is nearly $10 trillion of existing federal debt that reaches maturity and must be replaced with new debt at today's market interest rates. And that is only part of the story. THE $9.7 TRILLION REFINANCING WALL NOVARA GOLD — PRECIOUS METALS MARKET UPDATE | SEPTEMBER 2026 Something enormous is happening inside the U.S. Treasury market. And most Americans have no idea it's happening. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Treasury must refinance approximately $9.7 TRILLION of maturing government securities in fiscal year 2026. Not over the next decade. This fiscal year. That is nearly $10 trillion of existing federal debt that reaches maturity and must be replaced with new debt at today's market interest rates. And that is only part of the story. When Treasury debt matures, Washington generally doesn't eliminate the obligation. It refinances it. Old Treasury securities mature. New Treasury securities are issued. Investors must absorb the new supply. Think of a homeowner with an enormous mortgage that keeps coming due. Except instead of paying down the mortgage, the homeowner repeatedly refinances it — while continuing to spend more than he earns and borrowing additional money to cover the difference. Eventually, the question becomes unavoidable: That question is becoming increasingly important for the United States. The GAO reports that Treasury refinanced approximately $9.1 trillion in FY2025. For FY2026, that number rises to approximately: And the federal government is still running massive deficits at the same time. Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-26-107529 Refinancing existing debt isn't the same thing as borrowing money to finance new deficits. America has to do both. On August 3, the U.S. Treasury announced that it expects to borrow approximately: $739 BILLION — July through September 2026 followed by another $628 BILLION — October through December 2026. That's approximately: in projected privately held net marketable borrowing during those six months alone. And importantly, Treasury specifically states that these borrowing estimates exclude ordinary rollovers. In other words, the refinancing machine continues running while Washington continues adding new debt. Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, August 3, 2026 On August 19, 2026, the Treasury Department made an announcement investors should understand. Beginning September 9, Treasury said it would at least DOUBLE the maximum size of certain liquidity-support buyback operations involving longer-dated Treasury securities. The previous maximum: $2 BILLION per operation. The new level: At least $4 BILLION per operation. Treasury says the program is designed to provide greater liquidity support to portions of the Treasury market. That distinction matters. This is not evidence that Treasury cannot sell its debt. But investors should be asking a different question: That is the question worth paying attention to. Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, August 19, 2026 The United States has refinanced debt for generations. What has changed is the scale — and the cost. According to the GAO, the average interest rate on marketable Treasury securities increased from approximately 2% at the end of FY2014 to 3.4% at the end of FY2025. That may not sound dramatic. Until you remember the size of America's debt. Federal interest expense on debt held by the public reached approximately: The GAO also reported that federal spending on net interest has already exceeded spending on national defense. Every additional dollar consumed by interest must ultimately come from somewhere: Higher taxes. Reduced spending. More borrowing. Or some combination of the three. And more borrowing creates more debt. More debt creates more interest expense. More interest expense creates larger financing requirements. The cycle feeds itself. This may become one of the defining financial questions of the coming decade. Treasury itself acknowledges that investor demand matters. The GAO has warned that unsustainable federal debt could eventually cause investors to demand higher interest rates to compensate for increased risk. Higher yields would mean higher refinancing costs. Higher refinancing costs would mean greater interest expense. Greater interest expense could require still more borrowing. And that means still more Treasury securities requiring buyers. This is why the $9.7 trillion refinancing figure matters. America doesn't merely owe an extraordinary amount of money. Debt crises rarely begin with an announcement from the government saying: "The system is now in trouble." Confidence usually erodes gradually. Debt grows. Interest expense grows. Refinancing requirements grow. Policymakers intervene. Markets adjust. Currencies absorb pressure. And investors who assumed yesterday's financial system would continue indefinitely discover that monetary systems can change. The United States is not Zimbabwe. It is not Argentina. And the dollar has not suddenly stopped functioning. But believing that America is different does not make the mathematics disappear. The GAO itself describes the country's fiscal trajectory as "unsustainable." That isn't language from a gold dealer. Gold has no maturity date. Gold does not need to be refinanced. Gold does not depend upon another government's willingness to purchase it at the next Treasury auction. Gold cannot be created because Congress approved another spending bill. And physical gold carries no promise from Washington that must be honored decades from now. That doesn't mean gold rises every day. It doesn't mean Treasury securities suddenly become worthless. And it doesn't mean the dollar disappears tomorrow. It means something much simpler: Central banks understand this distinction. Sophisticated investors understand it. The question is whether ordinary Americans will understand it before they are forced to. The United States will refinance it. Then it will refinance more. And if current fiscal trends continue, the amount that must continually be financed will continue growing. Nobody can tell you precisely where the breaking point is. Nobody can tell you which Treasury auction, interest-rate move, geopolitical event or monetary-policy decision changes investor psychology. That's precisely the problem. You don't buy insurance after the fire starts. And diversification into physical precious metals isn't about predicting the exact date of the next financial crisis. It's about deciding how much of your wealth you want dependent on a financial system carrying unprecedented amounts of debt. NOVARA GOLD The Future of Vaulted Wealth Speak with a Novara Gold precious-metals specialist to learn how physical gold and silver may fit into a diversified retirement or wealth-preservation strategy. This material is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered individualized investment, tax or legal advice. Precious metals involve risk and may decline in value. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

August 31, 2026 | Novara Gold Research The United States has crossed another historic financial threshold. Gross federal debt has surpassed $40 trillion. But the size of the debt itself may no longer be the most important number investors should be watching. The number that deserves more attention is 18.5%. According to analysis cited by Yahoo Finance, annual interest expense on the federal debt has climbed to approximately $1.25 trillion, consuming roughly 18.5% of federal revenue. That is a record. It exceeds the previous high of approximately 18.4% reached in 1991 and highlights a fundamental change in America's fiscal position: The government isn't simply accumulating more debt. It is becoming increasingly expensive to carry the debt it already has. August 31, 2026 | Novara Gold Research The United States has crossed another historic financial threshold. Gross federal debt has surpassed $40 trillion. But the size of the debt itself may no longer be the most important number investors should be watching. The number that deserves more attention is 18.5%. According to analysis cited by Yahoo Finance, annual interest expense on the federal debt has climbed to approximately $1.25 trillion, consuming roughly 18.5% of federal revenue. That is a record. It exceeds the previous high of approximately 18.4% reached in 1991 and highlights a fundamental change in America's fiscal position: The government isn't simply accumulating more debt. It is becoming increasingly expensive to carry the debt it already has. For years, discussions about the national debt focused almost entirely on the headline number. $20 trillion. $25 trillion. $30 trillion. $35 trillion. Now more than $40 trillion. But debt becomes considerably more consequential when the cost of servicing it begins consuming a growing percentage of government revenue. Think about it this way: Before Washington pays for defense, infrastructure, federal agencies, Social Security, healthcare programs or countless other priorities, an increasingly large amount of federal revenue must be devoted simply to paying interest on previously accumulated debt. That expense does not build a bridge. It does not fund a new program. It does not reduce the principal. It is the cost of carrying yesterday's borrowing. And that cost is now approximately $1.25 trillion per year. For much of the period following the 2008 financial crisis, the United States benefited from extraordinarily low interest rates. That made enormous amounts of government debt relatively inexpensive to finance. That environment has changed. Treasury securities continually mature and must be refinanced. When older securities carrying lower interest rates mature, the Treasury may have to replace them with securities carrying higher prevailing rates. This means the government's average borrowing cost can continue increasing as debt is refinanced. With a debt base exceeding $40 trillion, even relatively small changes in average financing costs can translate into enormous amounts of money. For perspective, one percentage point on $40 trillion equals approximately $400 billion. That is not a projection of government interest expense—the actual calculation is considerably more complicated—but it illustrates the sensitivity created by such an enormous debt balance. The mathematics can become self-reinforcing. The government runs a deficit. It borrows money to finance that deficit. The national debt increases. Higher debt produces additional interest expense. That additional interest expense contributes to future deficits. Those deficits require additional borrowing. And the cycle continues. This is why the trajectory of the debt may ultimately matter more than any individual milestone. The Congressional Budget Office projects that federal deficits will remain substantial in the years ahead. Debt held by the public is projected to reach approximately 101% of GDP in 2026 and rise to approximately 120% of GDP by 2036. At the same time, net federal interest expense is projected to continue consuming an increasing share of the economy and federal budget. In other words: There is currently no expectation that the United States will simply grow its way out of the debt problem under existing fiscal policy. The 18.5% figure deserves particular attention. If nearly one dollar out of every five dollars of federal revenue is effectively being absorbed by interest expense, policymakers have less flexibility everywhere else. And that matters when the next crisis arrives. A recession. A banking crisis. A geopolitical conflict. Another pandemic. A financial-market disruption. Historically, Washington has responded to major economic shocks with some combination of fiscal spending, borrowing and monetary intervention. But the larger the existing debt burden becomes, the more difficult those responses can become without adding still more debt. That doesn't mean the United States suddenly runs out of money. It means the range of attractive policy choices becomes narrower. There are ultimately only a limited number of ways governments can manage very large debt burdens. They can reduce spending. They can raise taxes. They can generate stronger economic growth. They can continue borrowing. Or they can allow inflation and nominal economic growth to gradually reduce the real purchasing-power burden of existing debt. None of these choices is painless. Aggressive spending cuts can slow economic activity. Higher taxes can reduce private-sector investment and consumption. Continued borrowing increases the debt stock. And inflation reduces the purchasing power of money. This is where the debt discussion becomes particularly relevant for long-term investors. It is important to distinguish fiscal deterioration from an imminent sovereign debt crisis. The United States borrows primarily in a currency it controls. The U.S. Treasury market remains the world's largest and deepest sovereign bond market. The dollar remains the dominant global reserve currency. Those are enormous advantages. The more realistic risk may therefore not be a dramatic overnight default. It may be something slower. A gradual erosion of fiscal flexibility and purchasing power. That can happen over many years without producing a single dramatic "crisis moment." And for investors, that distinction matters. Gold does not require the United States to default in order to serve a purpose in a portfolio. Physical gold represents something fundamentally different from most traditional financial assets. A Treasury bond is a liability of the U.S. government. A corporate bond is a liability of a corporation. A bank deposit is a liability of a bank. Physical gold is different. Gold is not someone else's promise to pay. It has no issuing government. It has no maturity date. It has no counterparty required to make good on the asset. Its market value can certainly fluctuate, sometimes substantially. Gold produces no interest or dividend, and it should not be viewed as a replacement for every other asset class. But its independence from the credit system is precisely why investors and central banks have historically viewed it differently from conventional financial assets. The question is not necessarily: "Is America going to collapse?" That is an unnecessarily extreme way to frame the issue. A better question is: How much of my wealth depends upon the continued stability of the same currency, financial system and government balance sheet? If virtually every asset an investor owns is denominated in dollars or represents a claim against another financial institution, diversification may mean more than simply owning different stocks and bonds. It can also mean owning assets with fundamentally different characteristics. Physical precious metals can potentially serve that role. America's national debt did not suddenly become a problem when it crossed $40 trillion. The more important development is that the cost of servicing that debt is consuming a historically large percentage of federal revenue while the government continues running substantial deficits. That combination deserves attention. It reduces future policy flexibility. It increases sensitivity to interest rates. And it makes the long-term consequences of continued borrowing increasingly difficult to ignore. None of this guarantees that gold prices will rise. Nor does it mean investors should abandon traditional financial assets. It does suggest that investors should seriously consider whether their portfolios are sufficiently diversified against fiscal, monetary and currency risks. At Novara Gold, we believe physical precious metals should be evaluated within that broader context—not through predictions of an imminent collapse, but as a potential component of a disciplined long-term wealth-preservation strategy. Because when the debt reaches $40 trillion and simply servicing it consumes nearly one-fifth of federal revenue, the question is no longer whether America's debt matters. The question is what happens if the trajectory doesn't change. Yahoo Finance, “The US Debt Crisis Just Got Uglier: Number to Know,” August 31, 2026. Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee materials, August 2026. U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, Monthly Debt Update, August 2026. This material is provided by Novara Gold for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, tax or legal advice. Precious metals can fluctuate in value and may not be appropriate for every investor. Historical relationships do not guarantee future results. Investors should consider their individual financial circumstances, liquidity needs, time horizon, risk tolerance, pricing, storage and other relevant factors before purchasing precious metals. NOVARA GOLD | THE FUTURE OF VAULTED WEALTH

America’s debt trajectory is entering territory that leading economic models warn may ultimately become unsustainable. New Penn Wharton research raises an uncomfortable question for investors: what happens to your purchasing power when Washington is finally forced to confront the debt? For years, Americans have been told not to worry about the national debt. The United States can always borrow more. Treasury securities remain in demand. The dollar is the world's primary reserve currency. Washington has faced large debts before. But what happens when the numbers become too large for even those assumptions to hold? Researchers at the Penn Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania recently attempted to answer that question. Their conclusion deserves the attention of every American with meaningful savings: There is a limit. And on our current fiscal trajectory, the United States may be approaching it much sooner than most people realize. In June 2026, Penn Wharton researchers estimated that federal debt cannot rationally exceed approximately 210% of GDP as an outer sustainable limit. This isn't a political talking point. It's the result of an economic model attempting to determine how much federal debt financial markets can realistically absorb. Under a scenario in which healthcare costs continue growing at rates consistent with historical experience, Penn Wharton estimates that this outer limit could be reached around 2045. Even more striking, its model calculates a 25% probability of reaching the maximum debt level within just 14 years under that scenario. And the researchers issued another warning: Debt markets could unravel earlier if investors begin questioning the government's ability or willingness to restore fiscal stability. That distinction is critical. The United States doesn't necessarily have to reach some magical debt number before a crisis becomes possible. Financial markets operate on confidence and expectations. If confidence changes, the timetable can change with it. The underlying problem is surprisingly simple. The federal government routinely spends substantially more than it collects. The difference is financed through borrowing. That borrowing adds to the national debt. The government must then pay interest on the larger debt. Those interest payments increase federal spending, contributing to future deficits and requiring still more borrowing. The cycle becomes: This isn't speculation about some distant future. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $1.9 trillion federal deficit in 2026, increasing to $3.1 trillion in 2036. Federal debt held by the public is projected to increase from approximately 101% of GDP in 2026 to 120% in 2036. By 2056, CBO projects it reaching approximately 175% of GDP. Perhaps most concerning is the cost of servicing it. CBO projects federal net interest expense rising from approximately $1 trillion in 2026 to $2.1 trillion annually by 2036. That is money spent simply servicing previous borrowing. Not building roads. Not strengthening the military. Not funding Social Security. Not reducing taxes. Paying interest on yesterday's debt. There is a tendency to discuss the national debt as though Washington can simply continue issuing Treasury securities forever. Penn Wharton's research challenges that assumption. At sufficiently high debt levels, the government faces an increasingly difficult problem. Investors must be willing to purchase enormous quantities of additional Treasury debt. If they demand greater returns for doing so, federal interest costs rise. Higher interest costs require additional borrowing. Additional government borrowing can compete with private investment for capital. Economic growth can suffer. And slower economic growth makes the debt burden even more difficult to stabilize. At some point, the equation becomes extraordinarily difficult to solve. Penn Wharton's researchers estimate that waiting until the outer debt boundary to address the problem could require a permanent additional tax of roughly 15 percentage points on broad-based labor income to stabilize the debt. Think about what that means. The adjustment required to restore fiscal stability eventually becomes so large that policymakers are forced to confront choices that have been politically easy to postpone for decades. Governments facing excessive debt burdens don't have unlimited options. Washington can cut spending. It can raise taxes. It can reform entitlement programs. It can attempt to generate substantially faster economic growth. Or it can allow inflation and monetary expansion to reduce the real burden of existing obligations over time. Most likely, the eventual solution would involve some combination of these measures. But investors should ask a different question: That may be the more important question for a household approaching retirement. You don't have to believe America is going to default. You don't have to believe the dollar is going to disappear. You don't have to believe the financial system is going to collapse. You simply have to recognize that $1 today already buys dramatically less than it did several decades ago—and an increasingly indebted government has limited painless options for dealing with its future obligations. Gold and silver occupy a fundamentally different position within the financial system. A Treasury security represents an obligation of the U.S. government. A corporate bond represents an obligation of a corporation. A bank deposit represents a liability of a financial institution. Physical precious metals owned outright are different. Gold doesn't require a government, bank or corporation to make good on a promise for it to exist as an asset. That doesn't mean gold always rises. It doesn't mean precious metals should replace a diversified portfolio. And it certainly doesn't mean investors should panic and move everything they own into gold. But it does raise an important question: For many investors, that's the purpose of physical precious metals. Not speculation. Not predicting the end of America. Insurance against the possibility that Washington's debt problem ultimately gets resolved at the expense of the purchasing power of American savers. When people hear the phrase "debt crisis," they often imagine the United States simply refusing to repay Treasury bonds. That isn't the only risk. A country that controls its own currency has another option: its obligations can be repaid in dollars that have less purchasing power. That's an important distinction for investors. You can receive every dollar you were promised and still lose purchasing power. For someone who spent 30 or 40 years accumulating wealth, the question isn't simply: "Will I get my dollars back?" The more important question may be: "What will those dollars buy when I get them back?" That is one reason gold has survived countless currencies, governments, banking systems and monetary regimes over thousands of years. It isn't somebody else's debt. It doesn't require quarterly earnings. And it cannot be created by congressional authorization or expanded with a keystroke. Perhaps that's what makes this research so significant. Penn Wharton isn't a precious-metals dealer. Its researchers aren't forecasting a gold price. They aren't telling Americans to abandon the dollar. They're examining the mathematical limits of federal borrowing. And their conclusion is uncomfortable enough on its own: There is an outer limit to how much debt the United States can sustain, and current fiscal policy is moving the country toward it. The Congressional Budget Office reaches the broader problem from another direction: persistent deficits, rapidly rising interest expense and federal debt climbing to unprecedented levels relative to the economy. No one knows exactly how Washington will ultimately address that problem. But investors don't need to know the exact outcome to prepare for the risk. The debate shouldn't be whether the United States collapses. That's the wrong question. The better question is: How much confidence are you willing to place in Washington solving a decades-long debt problem without materially affecting your purchasing power? For investors who aren't comfortable betting their entire financial future on that outcome, physical gold and silver can provide something increasingly valuable: An asset outside the debt-based financial system. At Novara Gold, we believe precious metals should be purchased based on facts—not exaggerated predictions of financial Armageddon. But the facts themselves are becoming difficult to ignore. Federal debt is rising. Interest costs are rising. Deficits are projected to persist. And one of America's leading academic budget models now warns that there is an identifiable boundary beyond which the current fiscal trajectory simply cannot continue. The question isn't whether Washington eventually has to confront the debt. The question is what your dollars will be worth when it does. Sources: Penn Wharton Budget Model, “When Does Federal Debt Reach Unsustainable Levels? Spring 2026 – Onward,” June 2026; Congressional Budget Office, “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036,” February 2026. Precious metals involve risk and can fluctuate in value. This material is provided for educational purposes and should not be considered individualized investment, tax, or legal advice.

He compared the setup to the opportunities he found after the dot-com bubble began to unwind, saying he was "patiently acquiring" companies that the market had moved away from. In an earlier Substack post, Burry said he felt deja vu when it came to the market (2). "That I had lived this before suddenly dawned on me," he wrote (3). "The NASDAQ 100, complete reversal … I am calling something. The market has jumped the shark." Part of the reason for his bearishness is the resemblance between today's market and the final parts of the dot-com bubble. Investors, he added, are ignoring economic data and global events to focus on just one thing instead: AI, in this case. "Absolutely non-stop AI. Nobody is talking about anything else all day," Burry wrote after listening to financial radio coverage on a long drive (3).