WEBVTT - This Is Why People Are So in Love With Gold 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.400 Hey, they're aud Loots listeners. It's Tracy Alloway. 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:04.040 And Joe Wisenthal. 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:07.720 We are very excited to announce that Oudlots is going 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:09.719 to Washington That's right. 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:11.560 For the first time, we are going to do a 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:16.439 live public Odd Lots recording in our nation's capital. That's 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.720 going to be March twelfth in Washington, DC at the 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.600 Miracle Theater and guests will be announced in the coming days, 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:26.000 but in the meantime you can find a ticket link 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.000 at Bloomberg dot com, slash odd. 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:46.519 Lots, Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.760 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.240 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:56.600 Tracy. Gold has had a really good year. 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.160 Here's a question. Here's a question. 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:00.000 Yeah. 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.920 One of the last times we talked about gold, you 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:05.600 made fun of me for being a gold bug. Are 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.039 you going to start this episode out by doing the 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:08.440 same thing. 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.000 No, you're completely vindicated. Gold has done really well over 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.039 the long term. Over the last several years, it's been 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.400 one of the best performing assets. It's stable. I take 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.280 back everything I ever implied negatively about gold. 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.000 You're gonna be nice to the gold now, yeah, all right. 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:26.920 Out, but it's look at the chart's great. 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.600 I will say I'm sort of an accidental gold bug. 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:32.880 It has not been a conscious choice to accumulate, but 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:35.800 it has turned out really well. So gold keeps hitting 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.440 record after record. As we're recording this, I think it's 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.440 at two thousand and six hundred announced. 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.119 Yeah, twenty six forty nine. It had gotten as high 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.800 as twenty eight hundred almost in October. But it's been 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.000 I mean, it's the last couple of years have been phenomenal. 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.640 That's crazy. And the other really interesting thing is like 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.240 it started going up even as the Federal Reserve was 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.160 raising rates, which is something that you don't normally see, 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:04.560 like normally has that inverse relationship to rates, that negative correlation. Yeah, 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.639 and I guess the demand has just been so strong 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:09.760 that it doesn't really matter this time around. 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.839 Can I say something? So you bring up the sort 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.560 of FED connection, et cetera. And so I want to 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:19.799 learn more about gold, but I don't really have much 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.560 interest in just talking to like another gold macro guy, 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:25.639 because I don't know what they say. They always sell 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.440 the same story. It's like inflation and currency debasement and 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.440 all that. Maybe that's all true, but I sort of like, 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:34.959 I want to talk gold, but it's just like I 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.960 sort of felt going into this conversation that we can't 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.079 just talk to someone who's just, you know, going to 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:41.959 tell the same story they could have told about gold 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:43.720 every single day for the last twenty years. 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.520 I think it's a very valid feeling to have. There 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.880 is something like physical about gold. Obviously, it's shiny, it's 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:53.600 fun to hold. Even like silver, you can have fun 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.800 stacking those coins, as I know personally, So it makes 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:58.799 sense to talk to someone who's in the physical market. 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:00.720 We're gonna talk about what's going on in the gold market, 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:05.720 but actually get into why people love gold so much, 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.360 and why people want to be covered and why right now, 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.320 why right now, why people want to accumulate gold, have 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.520 it in their saves, have it on their person, et cetera. 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.639 We really do have the perfect guest. We're going to 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.840 be speaking with Max sud Aga, Johnny Max Aga. Johnny. 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.680 He is the founder of Tracks NYC, New York City 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:28.360 based jewelry dealer, and listeners might not We actually had 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.560 him on the podcast once in early twenty twenty, and 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.440 listeners might know him if they ever saw the movie 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:36.800 Uncut Gems, one of my favorite movies of the last 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.160 few years, because he actually was in the movie. He 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.000 played I guess kind of himself to some extent in 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.240 the movie. I think the character's name was Yussie in 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.600 the Diamond District, in the gold District in Manhattan. And 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.200 we're going to talk all these gold with Max masud 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.000 Aka Yussi. Thank you so much for coming back on 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:55.480 oud laws. 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:57.400 Thank you for having me for a second time. 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.720 What's your life been like the last four years? How 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:01.240 did that all change your life? 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:07.000 Am I the od It's only been up from there 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.440 A little movie that you appeared in. The movie did good, 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.640 My odd lots did good, other podcasts did good, and 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:15.920 all the social media also it did really good for me. 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.880 Here's an important question. Did you bring me the diamond 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.560 encrusted Ferbie? 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:25.440 In all reality? It wasn't even diamonds in that thing. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.760 It was movie magic. 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:30.000 Honestly, I would take the brass version too. 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.240 But it might not be good for your skin. 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.400 But oh really, what does breast do your skin? 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:35.440 It turns it green? 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:36.599 She got it, she knows it. 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.520 All all women know this. The big difference between gold 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:41.080 and brass. 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.320 So other than the fact that gold doesn't turn your 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.599 skin green, people, what is it that people love about gold? 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.839 Why do people why do people buy gold from you? 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.320 Well, gold is for people who have money to burn, right, 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:55.960 you know, if you're you could go back thousands of years, 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.640 if you're an Egyptian pharaoh and you're not starving, you 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:04.120 have any of labor and grain and land and property. 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.359 What don't you have? Well, I guess I want to 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.880 make a gold casket, a gold esophagus, so to speak, 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:12.920 and maybe some peasants might find some in the field 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:15.120 and I'll give him the grain he needs, and he'll 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:17.640 give me the gold. So it accumulates with people who 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:23.159 are not struggling, and that turns it into a status symbol. 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.160 You know, Joe, I remember you actually wrote a really 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.120 good piece about the history of gold and how it 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.880 was sort of intermingled with power and this idea that 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.560 you know, like you needed a big military basically to 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:37.800 go out and get gold, and you needed a lot 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.880 of labor to dig it up, and so it became 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:42.400 very much associated with power. 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.200 It's like a proof of work, right, Yeah, you can, 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.760 like even in the bitcoin sense. Also, you know, one thing, Tracy. 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:51.720 You know, Max mentioned the Pharaohs. Gold doesn't tarnish, right, 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.719 So it's like the historically, going back thousands of years, 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.839 it was associated with the God, just like one commodity 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.119 that is truly immortal in a way that most things 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:02.120 that we find on earth are. 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.280 Okay, I have a really dumb question, though. When gold 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.839 is hitting records like it is right now, do you 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.640 see more or less demand for jewelry? 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.039 I mean, it's kind of stable, to be honest. You know, 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.200 when I started my business in two thousand and four, 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.479 gold was about three hundred dollars in ounce. Now it's 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.680 twenty five hundred and twenty six hundred, fluctuating over there. 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.760 I've watched it the whole way. It's increase in price 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.360 does have a little bit of effect on a demand, 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.359 but not that much. But you know, at some point 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.040 people can't afford what they want. Back in two thousand 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.960 and four, you could stack yourself with gold fourteen carrot 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.440 at twelve dollars a gram or whatever it was. It 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.360 was a great time to really stack gold. But now 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.320 your dollar doesn't go so far and you can't really 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:47.279 have as much as you'd like. 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.440 But on the other hand, in two thousand and four, 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:53.080 if you bought one hundred dollars worth of gold, you 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.080 had one hundred dollars worth of gold. In twenty twenty five, 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:57.800 if you buy one hundred dollars worth of gold, you 0:06:57.839 --> 0:06:59.880 still have one hundred dollars. So in a way, no 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:01.719 o like for real, like if you want to like 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.360 convert your dollars into something else, it does the same 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.600 job at twenty six forty nine as it does a three. 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:08.920 Yeah. Well listen until the guy that bought it at 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:11.240 two thousand and four walks through the door and his 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.280 hundred dollars worth of gold looks like a bigger pile 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:16.160 than your one hundred dollars worth of gold. But whatever, 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:18.560 you know, money's a game. Gold is one way to 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.760 play it. It's a safe way to play it. I 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.200 love it because I have a jewelry store full of 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:28.480 goal chains and gold jewelry, and as the price goes up, 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:30.560 what I can't sell, I melt and I still make 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:34.280 my money back, and that's a fantastic aspect of it. 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:36.800 And it never let me down, and I don't think 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.800 it ever let anybody in history down. So you can't 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.440 really go wrong with it. You might not be the 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.520 biggest winner like you are with the cryptos or whatever. 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.440 It is. Somebody who bought you know, a pizza pie 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.480 for fifteen or twenty bitcoin back in twenty eleven and 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:54.560 now could have been a billionaire or whatever. Yeah, it 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:56.880 might not do that, but it'll keep you safe and 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:57.840 sound and happy. 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.440 Do you feel competition with the crypt I mean. 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:03.760 I don't want gold to go up. You know that 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.720 doesn't do anything for me. I know it will eventually, 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.680 but yeah, crypto had a major impact. Who knows if 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:15.800 crypto would never Satoshi Nakamoto never bothered to do whatever 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.160 he was doing or whatever that was. What would the 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:22.040 gold be right now if it wasn't trillions of dollars 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.120 literally inside of crazy cryptos? 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.120 Yeah, it could be up more. What what are people 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:29.120 into these days? 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:30.960 What are people into these days? 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:32.760 So when they come into your store, what are they like? 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.840 How much is it like the crazy diamond and crusted 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.400 ferbies that Tracy didn't get today versus just wanting a 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:41.960 nice tasteful chain versus So what's what's that? 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.120 I mean, listen, everybody everybody has their own little need, 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:47.280 you know, they want they want to give a gift 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:49.240 for a girl. So they might want to be able 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:53.360 to buy a tennis bracelet. Okay, they have a girlfriend, 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:55.400 or they have a side chick, or they have a 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:57.880 baby mama. I don't know what their situation is, but 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.000 you gotta buy or something, all right, So you gotta 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.280 go and you gotta buy it. Could be a tennis 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:04.400 bracelet that will be with done. 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.200 Call they tell you if it's for the side chick, 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:08.280 will they say that, by the way, this is for 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:09.200 the side Uh? 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:10.920 I could usually tell what's going on. 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.320 Is the bracelet for the side chicks the one for 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:15.880 the wife? 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.920 You know that varies from customer to customer. Put it 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:21.520 that way, okay. 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:23.960 Can I ask the basic question though? Why why do 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.120 you think gold prices happen going up? 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:28.880 Well, listen, I mean, you know, we gotta do the math, 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.520 all right. It's one thing I learned since the last 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.040 time I was here to today. A lot of people, 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.000 maybe they might be in a beautiful building like we 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.040 are now, are in a professional field, but not doing 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:42.640 the mathematics here at all. All right, thirty six trillion 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.880 dollars and that one trillion dollars in interest you got 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:49.160 China buying it up like crazy. So I hear Central 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.480 Banks this that if you look into numbers, you're going 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.560 to find out what's really going on. And it's like 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:57.760 the Wizard of Oz out there. You really don't want 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.640 to look behind the curtain here because I don't know 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:02.719 what you're gonna find there and how this is all 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:07.240 going to come to a head as things that get turbulent, 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.880 you know, when in the new administration or what have you, 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.080 whatever you want to call it, and cryptos and quantum 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.920 computing and robots and this and that. I don't really 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:18.800 know how it's all going to play out, but I 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.000 know that if anything happens, I have my safe, my 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:26.960 combination to my safe, my security system, and my physical 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:31.320 assets that I can rely on. So that's what it 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:32.200 is for me. I don't know. 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.360 I feel like there is a tension there though, because 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.560 like if I imagine myself coming into a jewelry store and 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.240 I'm like, okay, I'm gonna buy a gold chain because 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:43.720 you know, it's a safe store of value and things 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.599 are uncertain right now, Like that's okay, But on the 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.560 other hand, I'm buying like something that's pretty frivolous, right. 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:51.800 It's like a it's a gold chain. What am I 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:53.280 really going to do with as it should be? 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.559 Frivolous? I mean, you're not supposed to be on the 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:59.800 edge of starvation, you know, struggling against all odds. I 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:03.120 need choose and a winter coat and coal for my. 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.079 Furnace, you know, prioritize the gold. 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.000 Yeah, we're supposed to be productive, successful people in a 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.480 modern world with surplus. Right. 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.200 Wait, but when people come into your store, do they 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.920 talk to you about why they're buying gold? Do they 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.040 say stuff like I'm worried about inflation? 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.560 Yeah, some people do. I mean there's somebody that came in. 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.080 I'll never forget him. He was listening to what I 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.000 was saying and he came in. This is when gold 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.040 was eighteen fifty and he was painting houses and he 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.800 bought like ten ounces. So he saved up the money 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:38.920 eighteen five hundred dollars or whatever it was, and he 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:41.440 saved up the money and he said, you know what, 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:43.480 I'm tired of losing my money. I'm tired of spending. 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.280 He bought ten ounces of gold because of what I said. 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.960 And you know wherever he is now if he held 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.720 out to that gold, now it's you know, twenty six thousand, 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.040 five hundred or whatever. So he did great, and he 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:58.720 just bought ten ten ounces of you know, one ounce 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.080 each of Bouyon bars. But I feel like he even 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.640 got short changed. I think the gold price after that 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:09.120 ridiculous pandemic with all that printing, should be way higher 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:12.920 and then even twenty six fifty. But I'm not looking 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:14.400 for that to happen anytime soon. 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.840 One thing that I always liked on your Instagram page, 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.559 and I'm not sure if you've done one recently. Used 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.880 to do like these really fun like sort of like 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.000 let's take a look at geopolitics and like the charts 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:42.480 and the maps. Have you still been doing that? 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:44.959 Yeah, I mean that's not like the I found that 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.080 to be very entertaining. Well you guys, you guys, there's 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.480 you know, a little smart and stuff like that. But 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.320 for the average person in the crowd, sometimes I have 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:54.760 to do something a little bit more. 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:56.520 I remember, like years and I don't know what year 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.080 it was when you had like the chart of Iran 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.760 and the chart, you know, and it's differently tensions in 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:01.360 the Middle East. 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.000 I do that on tracks news. Yeah, yeah, I have 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.280 a little side channel where I talk about what's really 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:09.920 going on in the world. But when it comes to 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.199 my main pages, I want to I have to make money. Yeah, okay, 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:14.920 So I have to go and I have to stick 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:19.080 around the materials, the diamonds, the sapphires, the gold, and 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.560 I have to market my jewelry to the masses in 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.480 a clever way. Make my money. Buy more gold chains. 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.559 I'm placing in order for half a million for seven 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.920 kilos okay of gold chains. I'm gonna flood out my 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:34.160 shop and I'm gonna hunker down and I'm gonna wait 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:34.959 for it all to end. 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:38.760 What are your security costs right now? 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:41.040 Well, listen, I mean I'm in the middle of the 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.640 Diamond district. You know, my rent is about fifty thousand 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:47.400 dollars a month. But that has three spaces up you know, 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:51.000 in fourteen A, which is on the thirteenth floor, and 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.160 then I have a mezzanine, and then I have a storefront. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.480 And luckily there's you know, police cars there and two 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:01.240 precincts nearby. I'm next to Fox News and Rockefeller Center, 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:03.280 so I'm in a safe place. If if there's ever 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.600 was a place to stash gold, this is the place 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.960 to do it. So I'm gonna take advantage of that fact. 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.280 What what would you leave for the day? Like how 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.640 big is that protocol of like locking up everything? 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:19.160 Right? Well, my staff does it. I have cameras. I 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.080 see what's going on, and I have It's like a 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.400 casino or a bank. If you make a proper protocol, 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:26.720 you don't have to sit here and worry about it 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:27.240 so much. 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.520 When you talk about buying half a million, seven kilos 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:34.040 worth of gold making a half a million dollar order, 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:35.280 what's that? What's that? 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:35.480 Like? 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.000 Who are the big players in the sort of wholesale 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:38.520 gold district? 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:40.960 And for anybody doing the math that's in fourteen characters, 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:42.800 they're going to seven kilos, they're going to be think 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.000 and this guy's some not on the up and up. 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:50.160 That's coming from different chain manufacturers in Italy sometimes could 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:54.240 be Indonesia or somewhere else, and they have factories and 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.760 they source their gold however which way they do it. 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.480 You know, I've been to some of these factories. They're 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.800 beautiful factories, family run. But I like to buy my 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.480 gold in gold chains. Now if I buy gold bars 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.000 or grain, and I do that often as well. I 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.280 do that right on the street on forty seventh Street 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.880 with several different vendors there that are really really cool 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.000 people worth the visiting and learning about. 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:22.360 What do higher gold prices actually do for your profit 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.600 margins because I imagine, like the actual manufacturing cost is 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:27.040 probably the biggest chunk. 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:29.680 Yeah, they know that's not the manufacturing cost is not 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:31.760 the biggest chunk. I mean, the gold, the material is 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.800 the biggest by far, and it eats away and then 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.840 you have to raise your prices. But jewelry is the 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.080 only industry in which you raise your prices and sales 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:46.440 could go up because people associate that with a higher quality, right, 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.360 you know, they'll look if people don't know anything about it, 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.200 they'll say, hey, this sapphire is thirty thousand, this one's 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:55.280 twenty thousand, so that sapphire must be better than this one, 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.920 you know. And that's how people think about jewelry, and 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:03.320 that's the psychology behind it. And you know that works 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.240 in our favor if we're building a jewelry brand or whatever. 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.680 So, by the way, we're recording this on January seventh. 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:14.160 Just today, Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO, the Facebook Guy, 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.560 released a video and about content moderation and a number 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.560 of people noticed he was wearing a nine hundred thousand 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.160 dollars watch. His style has changed. Yep, what do you 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:25.920 is there been? Have you noticed a shift in general 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.200 sort of public styles of people these days maybe versus 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.160 say ten years ago, of wanting to wear their wealth 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:33.880 on their wrist, around their neck more. 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.520 Yeah. Yeah, the people are growing up. Think things are 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.560 definitely changing and people are flashing a little bit more. 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:43.400 I mean, you know, there was the era of Steve 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:45.960 Jobs where he was the real leader and he was, 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.680 you know, the same pair of jeans and sneakers, New 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:53.360 Balance sneakers, very plain, and you know, once he passed, 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.120 other people are stepping out and the watch game is 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:02.040 I guess something that caught marks and he's in it 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:05.040 now and he's playing along, which is great for business. 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.520 And you know, that's really what's been going on. And 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:10.639 I think that's a great trend. A lot of people 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.880 wearing different time pieces. There's way more information about them now. 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.400 The market has kind of been democratized a little bit 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.000 where people could look up different watches and find their 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.200 certain styling. And this guy is stepping out, he's stepping 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.359 up and he's changing his personality. Maybe he did ayahuasca. 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.119 I don't really know what got into him, but it's 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:30.760 good for business, so I'm happy about it. 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.640 He definitely had a little makeover recently. You can tell 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:37.080 we've been talking a lot about gold, but we should 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.560 talk about diamonds as well, because like gold's been going up, 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.760 diamond prices have been going down for a while. And 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.280 I imagine some of it is, you know, the pressure 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.880 from lab grown diamonds, but like what's going. 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:54.000 On there, Well, the lab grown is in the market 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.920 and it's weighing it down heavily because you can't tell 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.719 the difference. And even I've buy them sometimes and you 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.359 know the real challenges it used to be able to sell. 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:10.480 You know, S I, two, I one J color as well. 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:12.119 These are all the gradings of the stone. 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.879 Keep so you didn't you buy an engagement ring and 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.119 forgot it. 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:20.879 It was a family early so I never had to 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.520 go to the lucky then in those days. 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:28.320 So the lower you know, lower grade stones, they used 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:32.480 to play a part. But now why would I buy 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.760 a lower grade stone? Right? It's here's a decent example. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:41.439 Why would I buy a Honda Accord built from a 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.879 factory when I could buy a lab grown Mercedes. 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:46.960 Yeah, I get that. 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:48.520 Okay, you know, so it's. 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:50.679 Really it kills the low end. Yeah, if you're going 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:52.160 to go to the low end anyway, you don't really. 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:54.440 But once you take out the low end, the high 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.440 end is coming with it and all sorts of things 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.840 are going down. But natural is still natural. Natural gems 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:01.879 are a different story. 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:04.399 So the natural gyms are for the wife. 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:06.760 Yeah, they're for their wives, and there for a way 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:07.640 for you to spend money. 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.840 But wait, my engagement ring is actually an aquamarine. It's 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.760 not a diamond. But this reminds me, like, do you 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:17.159 see other types of stones coming into fashion, like the 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.560 more natural gemstones if maybe, like the lab grown diamonds 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:22.399 are kind of muddy in that market. 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.920 Not yet nobody really knows what to do, okay, So 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:32.119 the engagement marriage these are you know, the highest societal 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:36.360 matters that one can discuss, and society doesn't know how 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:38.959