Speaker 1: All right, Andy Sheckman, President, Miles Franklin.
Speaker 2: You're the gold guy, but you're bigger than the Gold guy.
Speaker 1: You talk a lot about the massive amounts of debt
Speaker 1: that we have going on in the country, the impact
Speaker 1: of what that debt is doing, the impact of other
Speaker 1: nations moving to gold, you know, the bricks nations, all that.
Speaker 1: We've done a bunch of shows together. Anyway, Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining me, Andy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mark, great to be here, buddy, Thanks for having me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You're always a wealth of information and I love your
Speaker 1: passion and energy you have on these topics. So I
Speaker 1: want to talk about twenty twenty four, what you think
Speaker 1: is going on this year, and maybe we'll talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, how we think we get through this year
Speaker 1: with like three big critical events that I see that
Speaker 1: we're dealing with. One, the massive amounts of debt, not
Speaker 1: just the United States has, but basically every nation has,
Speaker 1: I mean unsustainable debt. But then we have in the
Speaker 1: United States, we have a year and that's sure to
Speaker 1: cause some fireworks and volatility.
Speaker 2: And then we have.
Speaker 1: The looming threat of war, and we have war. It's
Speaker 1: not a threat of war, we have war, but potentially escalating.
Speaker 1: So those kind of I kind of want to walk
Speaker 1: through that framework. But you know, you're you're the gold guy.
Speaker 1: But like I said, not just goal, but you know,
Speaker 1: bricks and currencies and all of that.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's start real quick by just sort.
Speaker 1: Of recapping twenty twenty three and what happened in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. I know there was a lot of talk
Speaker 1: about the Bricks launching a new currency in August, the
Speaker 1: death of the dollar, all of these things. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about twenty twenty three and how it shaped up
Speaker 1: versus kind of what you thought or how we got
Speaker 1: through that.
Speaker 3: Sure, Well, you know, look, James Ricords is someone I
Speaker 3: respect an awful lot, and I had the good fortune
Speaker 3: of actually spending a little bit of time with him
Speaker 3: before the August meeting, chatting with him about his theories,
Speaker 3: and I agree with everything he said. I think the
Speaker 3: mistake he made was picking time saying that the Johannesburg
Speaker 3: meeting in August of last year, where the Bricks had
Speaker 3: their meeting, would bring about not only a unified currency,
Speaker 3: a settlement currency backed by commodities. As we've been told
Speaker 3: by the Russian Finance minister over and over and over again,
Speaker 3: will happen. But he also said something that I've been
Speaker 3: saying for over three years, and that is that we
Speaker 3: will see a unification of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and
Speaker 3: the Eurasian Economic Union with the Bricks. They're in essence
Speaker 3: the same countries and aligned very much the same, and
Speaker 3: I believe that will happen. In fact, right before the
Speaker 3: end of the year, the President of Belarus called for this.
Speaker 3: He said, we need to get these groups together. We
Speaker 3: all have the same interests. And even though the Bricks
Speaker 3: did not come out and issue this unified currency, it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter to me. In fact, what they said was
Speaker 3: let's have the finance ministers go back to the drawing
Speaker 3: board and present their findings. In the twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: meeting in Russia, one of two hundred Bricks meetings that
Speaker 3: we will see over the course of twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: in Russia, but we did see five countries formally apply
Speaker 3: and formally be accepted. Six applied, five were accepted, or
Speaker 3: I guess we could say. Argentina was asked to join
Speaker 3: and they were going to but the new administration declined.
Speaker 3: So we saw Egypt in Iran and the United Arab
Speaker 3: Emirates and Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia, and these are big.
Speaker 3: These are very big. Of course, with UAE and with
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia that's as big as it gets. With Ethiopia
Speaker 3: the fastest growing economy in Africa, very very resource rich,
Speaker 3: Egypt with its strategic shipping lines, the Straits of Hormuz
Speaker 3: and the Red Sea, and of course you know, if
Speaker 3: we look at this coalestion in terms of its significance
Speaker 3: with energy, I think it is huge. And when we
Speaker 3: talk a little bit about what's happened so far this year,
Speaker 3: I'll talk to you about what the United Arab Emirates did.
Speaker 3: And I think it's the biggest shot across the bow.
Speaker 3: But it's big, and I don't think the fact that
Speaker 3: these things didn't happen immediately is a big deal. In fact,
Speaker 3: I think it adds credibility to the Bricks. I think
Speaker 3: the people in the West think that instant gratification is
Speaker 3: not fast enough. And if anything, look, this has been
Speaker 3: a seventeen year deal with the Bricks. This hasn't just
Speaker 3: come out of nowhere, and they're doing things methodically, and
Speaker 3: they are doing things I believe well thought out, and
Speaker 3: I think This plays into Brett Johnson's milkshake theory, which
Speaker 3: I agree with. The dollar is still the strongest currency.
Speaker 3: Until it's not. This will be death by a thousand cuts,
Speaker 3: little by little, by little by little. I call it
Speaker 3: logarithmic decay, little by little, by little, by little by little. Bang.
Speaker 3: At some point we see things shift. And it wasn't
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three, and it may or may not
Speaker 3: be in twenty twenty four. But what I do see
Speaker 3: is a growing legitimacy to where now we've seen thirty
Speaker 3: countries thirty formally apply to this growing legitimacy, this growing
Speaker 3: union of countries pushing back against the West. So as
Speaker 3: far as bricks are concerned, Mark, I think that twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three was a big year. I think twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four will be a bigger year. But all I can
Speaker 3: tell you is that in my mind, I believe at
Speaker 3: some point we see that all at once moment, when
Speaker 3: enough countries have joined together in the crypto space, I
Speaker 3: guess you would call it mass adoption. And I don't
Speaker 3: think we've seen mass adoption yet. But you add thirty
Speaker 3: more countries to now ten, with another twenty that have
Speaker 3: informally applied. We're beginning to get to that mass adoption
Speaker 3: moment in GDP and military might and oil and gas
Speaker 3: production and all energy production and critical resources, everything, human population,
Speaker 3: you name it. And at that point, I think it
Speaker 3: becomes not only more likely, but much more credible that
Speaker 3: we see something like that happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like what you said about the death by a
Speaker 1: thousand cuts. I think that's certainly kind of where we're at.
Speaker 1: And I like to say, and I typically say, all
Speaker 1: this is a process.
Speaker 2: Not an event.
Speaker 1: And to your point about people looking for instant gratification.
Speaker 1: You know, when the dollar took over the reserve standard
Speaker 1: from the sterling one hundred years ago, I mean that
Speaker 1: was about a forty year. Process just doesn't happen over
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen in a couple of years. It doesn't
Speaker 1: happen a decade. It's multiple decades. And so the thousand
Speaker 1: cuts is sort of that process that we're seeing. We
Speaker 1: do know that we've seen nations. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: follow Luke Grammin's work, which I'm sure you do, and
Speaker 1: I've had them on the show several times, we do
Speaker 1: see that they have been using less US treasuries and
Speaker 1: they've been moving to gold as a reserve for example,
Speaker 1: so not as a medium of exchange, but certainly as
Speaker 1: a store of value, reserve asset.
Speaker 3: Well, let me comment on that real quick, and I'm
Speaker 3: glad you brought that up. I'm a big fan of
Speaker 3: Lukey's one smart guy for sure. You know, you look
Speaker 3: at gold since the beginning of two thousand, you know,
Speaker 3: go all the way back, and you see the SNP
Speaker 3: appreciate by seven percent per year. You see gold appreciate
Speaker 3: on average by seven point eight percent per year, and
Speaker 3: it's really in terms of its percentage, it's destroyed the
Speaker 3: bond market. And if you look just over the last
Speaker 3: few years in terms of what we've seen in gold's appreciation.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty, the price of gold, let me give
Speaker 3: you the exact number here in twenty twenty, the price
Speaker 3: of gold on average was Bear with me one second.
Speaker 3: Here we go seventeen seventy three in twenty that's twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: excuse me, twenty twenty one, seventeen ninety eight average price,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, eighteen oh one, twenty twenty three, nineteen
Speaker 3: forty three. So you go all the way back to
Speaker 3: the beginning of the century, with the exception perhaps of
Speaker 3: a gain in bitcoin. I know, I know you have
Speaker 3: strong feelings about bitcoin, and I don't have any negative
Speaker 3: feelings about bitcoin whatsoever. But just speaking in terms of
Speaker 3: traditional assets, gold has been the tortoise, not the hair.
Speaker 3: And when you think about it in terms of using
Speaker 3: gold to replace the function of treasuries, look, I think
Speaker 3: what gold offers is trust, and it's transparent trust. Whereas
Speaker 3: you could argue with what's been going on with the US,
Speaker 3: we are beginning, perhaps in some people's eyes, to lack
Speaker 3: a little bit of trust. When we look at the
Speaker 3: bond market, they said in twenty twenty three that gold
Speaker 3: it was the first time in forty five years that
Speaker 3: gold had less volatility than the ten year treasury. So
Speaker 3: I think it's completely logical for countries to shed treasuries
Speaker 3: which have volatility issued by a country that perhaps is
Speaker 3: lacking a little bit of trust and appears to be
Speaker 3: choosing inflation over austerity. I truly do believe that that
Speaker 3: is a growing trend. You will see countries like China,
Speaker 3: like Saudi Arabia, like all these countries that are shedding
Speaker 3: treasuries and look at the numbers. Twenty twenty three was
Speaker 3: the and twenty twenty two both biggest years ever one
Speaker 3: after the other central bank purchasing in history. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it appears. I think Loop's right. I think they are
Speaker 3: selling treasury slowly and accumulating gold as a form of
Speaker 3: a substitute, if you will, for a treasury and go
Speaker 3: back to the beginning of the century. And it really
Speaker 3: does really kind of fit that bill in terms of safe, secure,
Speaker 3: no counter party risk, and watching it appreciated a slow,
Speaker 3: steady growth. I think the concept of using a government
Speaker 3: or a foreign government's debt as an asset from a
Speaker 3: historical context as but a very brief history. Gold not
Speaker 3: so brief, and I think we're kind of going full circle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost ridiculous when you think about that, using
Speaker 1: another country's debt as a reserve asset, if you will.
Speaker 1: And so this is what I see as a bigger
Speaker 1: shift going on, right, And I'm sure you would agree.
Speaker 1: And this is what Luke points to a neutral reserve asset.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's basically what you're just saying, right, It's
Speaker 1: like a neutral reserve asset. And so a lot of
Speaker 1: people say that, you know, you can't replace the dollar.
Speaker 1: That would definitely be Brent Johnson's argument, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to have him on later to to make that case.
Speaker 1: You can't just replace the dollar, you know, the swift system,
Speaker 1: the correspondent banks, the deep bond market, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 1: And they're absolutely right. And Russia isn't going to replace
Speaker 1: the bond market. China's not going to replace the US
Speaker 1: bond market. But gold is eating.
Speaker 2: Away at that.
Speaker 1: And I think this illustrates a much bigger shift the
Speaker 1: one that I hit on all the time, which is
Speaker 1: the sort of this decentralized revolution, sort of the pendulum
Speaker 1: swinging back from sixty eighty years of centralization and now
Speaker 1: going back to decentralization. So the days of the dollar
Speaker 1: homogeny are sort of over, and now each nation not
Speaker 1: wanting to trust each other, the.
Speaker 2: Bricks nations, you know.
Speaker 1: As far as the currency, or specifically a reserve asset,
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure about that because I think that
Speaker 1: trust is gone, which is why that neutral reserve asset,
Speaker 1: like a gold reserve asset, sort of makes sense.
Speaker 3: Well, my take on that has always been, you know,
Speaker 3: people say that trust and I wonder I look at
Speaker 3: what's happening in this country, and I say, are we
Speaker 3: really trusted anymore? I mean we trusted the way we
Speaker 3: really once were. Is this the country that you and
Speaker 3: I when we were kids in the seventies and eighties?
Speaker 3: Is this really the country we grew up in? I
Speaker 3: would say, no respect for authority, all of that stuff,
Speaker 3: the open borders, the you know, blindfolded lady liberty holding
Speaker 3: the scales of justice. And I don't care what side
Speaker 3: of the aisle you're on, can you argue that the
Speaker 3: current and the previous administrations have been treated equally? All
Speaker 3: of these things that made this country great, religion, nuclear family,
Speaker 3: you know, all of these things seem to be questioned
Speaker 3: right now. And I would say to you that the
Speaker 3: way that this works go back to what Zoltan Posar
Speaker 3: has been saying. Breton Woods three. I think we've talked
Speaker 3: about this briefly. Where Bretton Woods won at the end
Speaker 3: of World War Two. As you just mentioned, we took
Speaker 3: over for the pound sterling the loose Bretton Woods too,
Speaker 3: and when we closed the gold window and then became
Speaker 3: the petro dollar, and now a system that will be,
Speaker 3: according to Zoltan backed or described or predicated on commodities
Speaker 3: and transparency. And this is the marriage of blockchain technology
Speaker 3: and commodities, and I think that's what the Russian finance
Speaker 3: minister is getting at. And I agree, you don't need
Speaker 3: to replace the reserve status of the dollar to massively
Speaker 3: chip chip chip chip chip, chip away at the settlement
Speaker 3: status of the dollar. And I think Jim was very
Speaker 3: careful in his words that would be Jim Ricords when
Speaker 3: he said settlement common settlement currency. But you continue to
Speaker 3: chip away at the settlement status of the dollar, at
Speaker 3: what point does it begin to dramatically affect the reserve
Speaker 3: status of the dollar and the bond market and interest
Speaker 3: rates and that unintended or maybe the intended corollary consequences,
Speaker 3: And this is where gold comes in, or bitcoin, something
Speaker 3: that would act for these countries as an asset that
Speaker 3: doesn't carry US counterparty liability, that would allow them to
Speaker 3: take their excess cash and put it into something that
Speaker 3: would not only preserve its purchasing power, but potentially grow
Speaker 3: its purchasing power and in fact remove counterparty liability, whether
Speaker 3: it be US default liability, US inflation liability, or just
Speaker 3: the risk of rates going higher in this system where
Speaker 3: less and less and less settlement is being done in dollars,
Speaker 3: and all of those dollars slashing around make their way home,
Speaker 3: creating more and more and more inflation, which leads to
Speaker 3: higher rates. And this is just a vicious circle. But
Speaker 3: I agree, and I want people to know. I mean,
Speaker 3: a lot of people would say Brett and I are
Speaker 3: on the opposite side of the table. In some respects,
Speaker 3: we are, but in most respects we're not. Because I
Speaker 3: agree his premise is very logical. But there is coming
Speaker 3: an inflection point. And I think the world looks at
Speaker 3: the dollar, the world looks at our policies. I mean,
Speaker 3: right now, you got the Speaker of the House and
Speaker 3: the Senate talking about and the Biden administration backing not
Speaker 3: just the sanctioning of the Russian assets like we did
Speaker 3: with Iran, and we start giving them back their sanctioned assets,
Speaker 3: but now confiscating them and using them to fund the
Speaker 3: war in Ukraine because the Congress doesn't want to give
Speaker 3: appropriations to more Ukraine funding. You cross that line of
Speaker 3: not just sanctioning under the guise of law, but actually
Speaker 3: confiscating and using against that country. And now the whole
Speaker 3: world looks at the trust. Really, where's the trust? And
Speaker 3: I think the world looks at the US very differently
Speaker 3: in that respect. Again, the rule of law is the
Speaker 3: rule of law what it once was. Is Lady Liberty
Speaker 3: really blind or is she peeking out one eye? I
Speaker 3: don't know, but I think the rest of the world
Speaker 3: could look at things that way, Mark, And so I
Speaker 3: think ultimately the settlement status of the dollar will ultimately
Speaker 3: lead to the lack of use of the reserve status
Speaker 3: of the US bond market. And that, to me is
Speaker 3: where things start to get a little bit murky. And
Speaker 3: maybe that's what the role that gold will ultimately play
Speaker 3: in this new growing union of countries. But until then,
Speaker 3: Brent's right, until then, the dollar is still the king.
Speaker 3: But you know one other thing I'd like to say,
Speaker 3: and you look at the lead economic advisor to the
Speaker 3: United States government, it's interesting a man named Jared Bernstein.
Speaker 3: His whole thesis is removal of the world reserve currency,
Speaker 3: and his report dethrone king Dollar. So you look at
Speaker 3: the moves we've made around the globe and you have
Speaker 3: to ask yourself, I mean, was this intended? Could it
Speaker 3: or could it just be too stupid to be stupid.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I do think in general the
Speaker 3: reserve status of the dollar will start to wane in
Speaker 3: the face of more and more and more settlement outside
Speaker 3: the dollar.
Speaker 2: I think it's both.
Speaker 1: I think it's some intentional and some stupidity. It's probably
Speaker 1: a common both. And what i'd say back to the
Speaker 1: dollar is still king dollar, king of what, king of currencies? Sure,
Speaker 1: king of fiat currencies. Uh, but the king US dollars.
Speaker 1: So we've seen, you know, I think it was Lebanon
Speaker 1: was the worst performing currency to the dollar.
Speaker 2: Maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Argent Jennezuela's probably good, Venezuela.
Speaker 1: Argentina, they're all they're all competing, right, but they've all lost,
Speaker 1: you know, big to the US dollar.
Speaker 2: But the US dollars lost big too.
Speaker 1: The US dollars down sixty five percent to media and
Speaker 1: US real estate, it's down about seventy percent to the
Speaker 1: S and P five hundred, just down about one hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy percent to bitcoin. It's down, right, it's down
Speaker 1: to everything as well. So it's king of what, it's
Speaker 1: king of fiat currency's okay, but they're all sinking, right.
Speaker 1: It's the it's the slowest sinking ship, if you will.
Speaker 1: Gold Uh, you know, is sort of back up to
Speaker 1: its previous all time high, but when you adjusted for inflation,
Speaker 1: it's actually nowhere, not well, I don't want to say nowhere,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly not act to it's all time high.
Speaker 1: So you have to kind of take that into consideration.
Speaker 1: But let's just jump gears a little bit. So let's
Speaker 1: if we're looking forward to twenty twenty four. As I said,
Speaker 1: there's these three critical events that I see that I
Speaker 1: think that are driving markets. So one is this massive
Speaker 1: amount of debt that's sort of forcing the hand of governments.
Speaker 1: Then we have the election year, and then potentially war.
Speaker 1: So let's talk through each of those. I know you've
Speaker 1: talked a lot about the debt, the amount of debt
Speaker 1: that the US government has and the assets they have
Speaker 1: to back this up, but the debt sort of puts
Speaker 1: the government in this rock in a hard place. The
Speaker 1: government is overspending, so that means they need more debt.
Speaker 1: The deficit spending is growing. How do you think that
Speaker 1: affects this year twenty twenty four and even maybe into
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. Do you think that this massive amount
Speaker 1: of debt at some point is going to blow everything up.
Speaker 1: I think we'd both agree on that. At some point
Speaker 1: you just can't sustain that anymore. I don't think that
Speaker 1: happens this year, but I think to me it means
Speaker 1: that they're going to continue spending in deficit, which means
Speaker 1: the markets will and will probably keep humming along in
Speaker 1: an inflationary type environment. But what's your take on that?
Speaker 1: What do you think the debt?
Speaker 3: That's what I mean. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to
Speaker 3: interrupt you there. Yeah, but that's yes. I agree with
Speaker 3: everything you just said. I really do. And look in
Speaker 3: terms of the debt, let's just first quantify it. Most
Speaker 3: people mark nowadays. I don't think it's unrealistic for people
Speaker 3: to expect to make a million dollars in their lifetime.
Speaker 3: Most of us will if you work long enough. And
Speaker 3: we see all sorts of billionaires around us, So you know,
Speaker 3: the number trillion sounds a lot like a million and
Speaker 3: a billion and can't be that big. But let's just
Speaker 3: first baseline it and say, for definition purposes, a trillion
Speaker 3: seconds ago was thirty one, six and eighty eight years ago.
Speaker 3: That's first and foremost. Who got Neanderthals walking around the
Speaker 3: planes of Europe a trillion seconds ago. That's one trillion
Speaker 3: seconds ago. And it took I don't know, like hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty years to accumulate our first two trillion dollars
Speaker 3: in debt. Yet if you go back to January one
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty three, we are at thirty one point
Speaker 3: four trillion dollar debt, and you go to January one
Speaker 3: of this year and we're at thirty four trillion plus.
Speaker 3: We've grown by two point six trillion dollars. Over the
Speaker 3: course of the twenty twenty three calendar year, we saw
Speaker 3: nine hundred billion dollars in gross interest payments. And I
Speaker 3: think this is the point where I think we start
Speaker 3: to bring the milkshake theory or the dollar bowl theory
Speaker 3: into focus. And it is simply this. The Congressional Budget
Speaker 3: Office tells us by their own estimation, and they're always wrong.
Speaker 3: They're going to be way way more I think, lenient
Speaker 3: on the facts then we could really expect to see.
Speaker 3: But they're telling us by their own admission that by
Speaker 3: twenty thirty one, in seven years, one hundred percent of
Speaker 3: all tax revenue will go just to pay the interest
Speaker 3: on the debt and a mandatory entitlement spending like Social Security.
Speaker 3: Now social Security is off balance sheet, it's about seventy
Speaker 3: trillion in the whole seventy trillion, and you add in
Speaker 3: Medicare and Medicaid and government military pensions, we're about one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty hundred and forty trillions so or but
Speaker 3: somewhere between one hundred and fifty and two hundred trillion
Speaker 3: dollars in debt. But ask yourself, is how is it
Speaker 3: that we can expect to be the dominant financial and
Speaker 3: military power in the world when in less than seven years,
Speaker 3: one hundred percent of all discretionary spending, which includes military,
Speaker 3: will need to be borrowed. Why would anyone want to
Speaker 3: borrow us money? A country that will inflate will choose inflation.
Speaker 3: And I think that's becoming obvious because of all of
Speaker 3: the obligations we have, both on balance sheet and off
Speaker 3: who the hell's going to pay for them? Let alone
Speaker 3: the ten million people who who have just walked into
Speaker 3: this country, mostly illegally. Who's going to pay for their
Speaker 3: schooling and their housing and their medical and what's going
Speaker 3: to happen to the wages of the American paying tax
Speaker 3: paying Americans who are these low income jobs that are
Speaker 3: now going to be much lower pay offer salaries because
Speaker 3: you have all these immigrants looking for work. The whole
Speaker 3: situation is getting worse and worse, meaning the entitlements will
Speaker 3: go higher and hire, the obligations higher and hire. And
Speaker 3: how the hell do we pay for it? How do
Speaker 3: we pay for ten trillion dollars in bonds that come
Speaker 3: do this year? I got an idea, Let's borrow some
Speaker 3: more money.
Speaker 2: So the point of it is is.
Speaker 3: That we're debt, we're insolvent, we're broke, we're insolvent, and
Speaker 3: we're right there at one hundred and thirty percent debt
Speaker 3: to GDP, real damn close to it. And in all
Speaker 3: of history, there's never been a country cross that line
Speaker 3: that didn't come back or never came back at There
Speaker 3: has never been a country to come back without defaulting
Speaker 3: or hyperinflating. So I guess I would say that debt
Speaker 3: is a very very very big problem that won't go away.
Speaker 3: In fact, it's only going to get worse. And when
Speaker 3: you talk about you know, the FED pivoting because it's
Speaker 3: an election year, well, I mean here again, they're just
Speaker 3: signaling that they're going to do at all governments have done,
Speaker 3: and that is to try and get reelected and choose
Speaker 3: inflation over austerity over the tough choices. And we're a government,
Speaker 3: we have a government addicted to spending. And unless we
Speaker 3: pay much higher taxes and go through a world of
Speaker 3: much less government spending, which comes with much more pain,
Speaker 3: both areas ain't gonna change. And I don't think it
Speaker 3: does change.
Speaker 1: So then in regards to the debt, and you're thinking
Speaker 1: your base case is that lots more of it's coming.
Speaker 1: The government is going to choose to print over going
Speaker 1: to a budget in austerity cutting back, and eventually it
Speaker 1: will blow up, but probably not in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think eventually it has to. I mean, mathematically,
Speaker 3: at what point does the rest of the world see it,
Speaker 3: Who with their right mind would loan us money at
Speaker 3: any level of duration? I mean, I mean, I think
Speaker 3: you got to be out of your mind to do that. So,
Speaker 3: especially when you look at the way that we gauge
Speaker 3: inflation and the metrics by which we even get age
Speaker 3: on employment, they just revise the twenty twenty three numbers
Speaker 3: down by four hundred and forty thousand jobs sorry, we're
Speaker 3: off by forty percent, but we'll tell you that the
Speaker 3: year after. So the point is is that we're being
Speaker 3: lied to by the Fed constantly, and I think the
Speaker 3: world is beginning to lose trust in us, in the metrics,
Speaker 3: in our management of the currency and our decisions, and
Speaker 3: the policy makers who are really inflating away the value
Speaker 3: of the world reserve currency. So when you talk about
Speaker 3: selling oil or any of these goods for a currency
Speaker 3: that is being inflated, let's not forget that part of
Speaker 3: the petro dollar deal as well was to go back
Speaker 3: into US treasures. Well, how'd that work out the last
Speaker 3: few years? Volatility in the treasury market, inflation, And I
Speaker 3: just think that we are, like you said, we're between
Speaker 3: a rock and hard place with all of the government
Speaker 3: debt right now, with all of the personal debt, and
Speaker 3: look at the banks that are hanging on by a thread.
Speaker 3: You raise rates high enough, you blow up the whole system.
Speaker 3: And they know that. So as much as they would
Speaker 3: like to have less inflation, I think they don't want
Speaker 3: to see the whole system blow up, especially in an
Speaker 3: election year, so they'll pivot, they'll do what they can,
Speaker 3: but ultimately you have to ask yourself, who's going to
Speaker 3: buy our bonds? And so if it falls back on
Speaker 3: the institutional traders, I believe that they will demand higher
Speaker 3: rates for the risk of default, for the risk of inflation,
Speaker 3: and for the risk of just higher rates. And so ultimately,
Speaker 3: again all roads lead to the same place. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't think that we will see this won't this
Speaker 3: won't end well, And I don't I don't, you know.
Speaker 3: I think the mistake people make is say, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: going to be this year. Look, I think we're living
Speaker 3: on borrowed time. Mathematically, this stuff should have happened a
Speaker 3: long time ago. Logically, it should have happened a long
Speaker 3: time ago. But here we are, and I guess we'll
Speaker 3: just keep on humming along until the wheels fall off.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now let's move into the second part, the second critical
Speaker 1: event happening.
Speaker 2: This year, which is the election.
Speaker 1: I think maybe only one potentially president income and president
Speaker 1: running for a second term during recession has been elected.
Speaker 1: No president returning wants to lose an election, and certainly
Speaker 1: the Democrats in office do not want to lose that
Speaker 1: this year, and so you would think then, just rationally,
Speaker 1: that then they would use every tool at their potential
Speaker 1: disposal to make sure that does not happen, from lying
Speaker 1: about the data to your point, having the BLS data
Speaker 1: come out and having to revise it a year later,
Speaker 1: from lying changing the way CPI is calculated, to potentially
Speaker 1: pumping money directly into the markets like we've seen in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, et cetera. So my thinking is that they're
Speaker 1: going to do everything they can, including helicopter money if
Speaker 1: they have to, to make sure this doesn't happen. And
Speaker 1: so that's another big catalyst for this year.
Speaker 2: What do you think about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think all of that sounds probably pretty logical.
Speaker 3: But it feel free to disagree with me.
Speaker 2: I don't want to lead you into thy thing.
Speaker 3: So no, I don't. I don't disagree, but I guess
Speaker 3: the only place I disagree is and I say this
Speaker 3: with respect for the office of the president, because one
Speaker 3: of the things that bothered the hell out of me
Speaker 3: Mark over the last you know, I don't know, six
Speaker 3: years or whatever, is the lack of respect for the
Speaker 3: office of the president. And you know, but I'll tell
Speaker 3: you this, this gentleman is too old, it seems, and
Speaker 3: he seems cognitively impaired and I think all of this
Speaker 3: is going to amount to nothing because I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't care what side of the aisle you're on.
Speaker 3: You have to ask yourself if Biden is the is
Speaker 3: the candidate for the Democrats, you have to wonder, I mean,
Speaker 3: is there enough confidence just in his ability to run
Speaker 3: another four years? So you know, all this stuff that
Speaker 3: they're doing, is it going to be in vain? And
Speaker 3: I think more than anything, they've shown their hands to
Speaker 3: to really do things that are again chipping away at
Speaker 3: the culture of this country. And when you strip someone
Speaker 3: off the ballot, I mean, the last time that happened
Speaker 3: was Abraham Lincoln. We saw a civil war, and I
Speaker 3: think that's the kind of feelings. Look, there was a
Speaker 3: report that came out recently by a small college in
Speaker 3: Virginia that said half of about fifty five percent of
Speaker 3: Democrats think violence is okay to get their results, and
Speaker 3: about forty five Republicans said the same thing. We are
Speaker 3: so divided, so divisive, uh, and red and Blue can't
Speaker 3: even talk to each other anymore. So I just think
Speaker 3: that it's not a good situation at all. If there
Speaker 3: is any if there is any feeling of it being
Speaker 3: not a fair election, and I don't think that what
Speaker 3: they will do. I mean they're going to try. You
Speaker 3: can see that they're going to try and keep interest
Speaker 3: rates low, prop up the markets, make everything seem rosy.
Speaker 3: But if you look and see who's our president, I
Speaker 3: wonder if it if it amounts to a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of nothing. Now, maybe we see a new Democratic candidate
Speaker 3: like Gavin Newsom show up and maybe that changes things.
Speaker 3: I don't know. But what they could they could say.
Speaker 3: They could say, hey Democrats, they.
Speaker 1: Could say, hey, Biden's too old, he just wants to
Speaker 1: step down. Let's just go ahead and slide and gave
Speaker 1: and new some whatever. But you want to continue with
Speaker 1: this ideology or you know, that's what I call it.
Speaker 1: But you want to continue with this administration because we're
Speaker 1: on track. Look how good the economy is. If you
Speaker 1: go to Trump, he's gonna or whatever. He may not
Speaker 1: run either, he might be in prison. But if you
Speaker 1: go to a different ideology, if you go to the
Speaker 1: Republican Party, things can fall apart.
Speaker 2: So stick with us.
Speaker 1: So either way, whether they replace Biden or not, they're
Speaker 1: going to still want the economy to good. I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: so my base case is, like I said, if there's
Speaker 1: anything they can do, even helicopter money in, they will
Speaker 1: do that. So I just don't see that there's this
Speaker 1: big risk of this massive recession or market crash happening
Speaker 1: this year. If they could prevent it, and my base
Speaker 1: cases they probably can keep it going for a while longer.
Speaker 1: And that's why I was just trying to get your opinion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I agree with that completely. And you know,
Speaker 3: the thing is is that the public is getting such
Speaker 3: unless people are watching guys like you who are giving
Speaker 3: real information, actually based I think it's hard for people
Speaker 3: to understand just how dire things maybe are outside the country.
Speaker 3: And yeah, everyone feels what's going on inside the country,
Speaker 3: but you know, I just I think that I think
Speaker 3: that they'll be able to keep it going, and they'll
Speaker 3: try to keep it going as long as they can.
Speaker 3: But if people really understood what was happening outside the country,
Speaker 3: what was happening to the dollar and the d dollarization
Speaker 3: and all of the things that are happening, I mean,
Speaker 3: I wonder if it would be a different outcome. And
Speaker 3: you know, evidently you're a threat to democracy according to
Speaker 3: Al Gore, who says people watching you know, the alternative
Speaker 3: media crowd is a threat to democracy because we're saying
Speaker 3: something different than what the mainstream is talking about. But look, Mark,
Speaker 3: all I can tell you is I think it's going
Speaker 3: to be an incredibly interesting year, and the election certainly
Speaker 3: will be the vocal point of it. And I hope,
Speaker 3: I hope there is no perception of this being anything
Speaker 3: but a very fair and lawful election. And if so,
Speaker 3: then let's see where the chips fall.
Speaker 1: Okay, And then the third critical event that I see
Speaker 1: that could potentially change the outlook in markets and economies
Speaker 1: is war. So already we're seeing the Red Sea starting
Speaker 1: to choke point on oil. Oil is now having to
Speaker 1: be diverted a long way around. It's going to increase
Speaker 1: the price of oil, although the demand could continue to
Speaker 1: fall out to commodities that's driven by supplying demands. So
Speaker 1: we'll see how that plays out. But potentially, you know,
Speaker 1: war could escalate. We have you know, obviously China, Taiwan.
Speaker 1: Now you know somewhat historically war has been good for
Speaker 1: the economy, good for defense stocks.
Speaker 2: So do you think that.
Speaker 1: The potential war and well, we have war, but like
Speaker 1: I said, the war escalation potentially could that derail the
Speaker 1: markets this year and the economy or is your base
Speaker 1: case that it will or it won't.
Speaker 3: Look, you know, we've been, we've been. It seems we've
Speaker 3: been at war forever. I don't know. I mean, God
Speaker 3: forbid we get into to a much more escalated war,
Speaker 3: and certainly a war with China if they were to
Speaker 3: try to do something with Taiwan, or you know, I wonder,
Speaker 3: you know, I guess you could argue maybe Iran, And
Speaker 3: what does it mean that Iran, who's obviously the perception
Speaker 3: is that they're backing the Hutis, And what does it
Speaker 3: mean that they've joined the bricks and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
Speaker 3: which is the largest regional military organization on the planet.
Speaker 3: What does it mean they're full fledged members. I don't know.
Speaker 3: But I don't think war is good at any time,
Speaker 3: and I think that's part of the problem. The world
Speaker 3: is getting tired of all of the war and maybe
Speaker 3: the fact that it just seems a military industrial complex
Speaker 3: is behind so many of these wars. I don't see
Speaker 3: it as being good for anything, but certainly it wouldn't
Speaker 3: be good I think for the economy or even the
Speaker 3: stock market or the bond market. I can't see it
Speaker 3: being good because I think it's just an another Look,
Speaker 3: this whole thing is like a house agenda to me,
Speaker 3: and you keep pulling out pieces of of American heritage,
Speaker 3: of the American culture, and if we have to result
Speaker 3: to war to prop up the markets, I just think
Speaker 3: it's a very sad state of affairs. And I'd like
Speaker 3: to hope that we don't get embroiled in another war.
Speaker 3: But look, you know, there's no coincidence that you're talking
Speaker 3: about this happening at the choke point at the Red
Speaker 3: Sea and the Suez Canal. But what people don't understand
Speaker 3: is that, look, you could argue when you talk about
Speaker 3: the countries that have just joined the Bricks, you've got
Speaker 3: the Suez Canal and the Red Sea surrounded. But this
Speaker 3: falls right into the hands of the Bricks and Russia
Speaker 3: with their brand new They've got this Northern Sea route
Speaker 3: which goes right up through the space where everyone else
Speaker 3: has to go around the Cape of Good Hope. And
Speaker 3: so you know, and now you have the Bricks Naval
Speaker 3: Alliance that will be patrolling the Red Sea. And I
Speaker 3: think that this is a lot bigger than people think
Speaker 3: and certainly, if I had to guess, just like we
Speaker 3: went to war in Iraq looking for weapons of mass
Speaker 3: destruction twenty years ago, we're still occupying their country. This
Speaker 3: is a critical choke point for oil and for trade.
Speaker 3: So I would say there's probably a fairly good probability
Speaker 3: that we get into something deeper here in this spot
Speaker 3: right in the Yemen area with the hooties. And I
Speaker 3: don't know what it does to the economy, but I
Speaker 3: think it has a lot to do with the price
Speaker 3: of oil and our influence in that region. But actually
Speaker 3: I think it actually plays right into the hands of
Speaker 3: the Bricks and all of their new roots and the
Speaker 3: Belt Road Initiative, all of these new roots that kind
Speaker 3: of circumvent traditional roots that are patrolled by the US Navy,
Speaker 3: and whether it be this Northern Sea Route or the
Speaker 3: North South Corridor that goes from Iran to India, and
Speaker 3: you know, permission based transport. When you look at the
Speaker 3: Belt Road Initiative, this massive infrastructure program, it will be
Speaker 3: patrolled solely by military and commerce. So this is just
Speaker 3: more of the same. It's and there's no coincidence that
Speaker 3: the countries that have first applied or first been accepted.
Speaker 3: Not only are they energy rich, but they're also in
Speaker 3: very important choke points in terms of of global commerce,
Speaker 3: and this is one of them. So if I had
Speaker 3: to guess yes, I would think we'll see an escalation
Speaker 3: in Yemen. And I don't know what it does for
Speaker 3: the economy. I just think it adds that much more
Speaker 3: resentment to the United States. Ultimately, not a good thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's see, so three critical things definitely need to
Speaker 1: keep our eye on. They're all potential. I don't want
Speaker 1: to all them black swans because we see them. They're
Speaker 1: all potential gray swans, but they could greatly change the
Speaker 1: outcome of this. The one thing I would just say,
Speaker 1: I want to pivot into some questions that I had
Speaker 1: the audience had submitted ahead of time. But I would
Speaker 1: say Gerald Soilente, who have had on my show me
Speaker 1: several times, he always says that when all those spells,
Speaker 1: they take you to war, and that's from the debt standpoint,
Speaker 1: but also from the political standpoint as well. And so
Speaker 1: when the country is very divided, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of times they hope that war could then somehow bring
Speaker 1: people back together. I don't think that worked so well.
Speaker 1: On Israel for bebe over there. But you know, potentially,
Speaker 1: if there's a war going on, I'm sorry, you know,
Speaker 1: in this election that could be a tight election. Potentially
Speaker 1: they could use war as a way to do that.
Speaker 1: But we'll see where that goes. So so we've sort
Speaker 1: of framed this up, I think pretty well. I want
Speaker 1: to get to some questions that I have, Like I
Speaker 1: said here from the audience, I kind of I threw
Speaker 1: them out to the list and they presubmitted him.
Speaker 2: So I have one here, Free Skate is the name.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: Let's see what they're saying.
Speaker 1: So they said, well, they want to know if you
Speaker 1: have any predictions of where you think the price of
Speaker 1: gold will go over the next year.
Speaker 3: When I started in this industry, mark the Dow Jones
Speaker 3: was twenty one hundred and the Knik was nearly forty thousand,
Speaker 3: and Japanese owned Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach and casinos
Speaker 3: in Vegas and ski resorts in Colorado. And they made
Speaker 3: they made better motherboards and engines and anyone in the world.
Speaker 3: They were taken over the world. And here we are
Speaker 3: thirty years later, where the Dow Jones has gone from
Speaker 3: twenty one hundred to over what thirty six seven, thirty
Speaker 3: eight thousand, and the knik has at one point was
Speaker 3: down seventy five percent and it's never gotten back to
Speaker 3: where it was when I started in this industry thirty
Speaker 3: three years ago. The one thing I have learned is
Speaker 3: that markets go higher than anyone thinks possible, and bear
Speaker 3: markets will fall further than anyone ever thinks possible. And
Speaker 3: that's a very, very I think, the only absolute that
Speaker 3: I can give you. But I will tell you this
Speaker 3: that when you see the most well informed, forget about
Speaker 3: the most well funded, that being the central banks, but
Speaker 3: the most well informed traders on the globe accumulating what
Speaker 3: the Bank of International Settlements called a Tier one reserve asset,
Speaker 3: the only one next to dollars and treasuries, Ultimately the
Speaker 3: price goes higher than people will ever imagine. And that's
Speaker 3: the one thing I learned is that bull markets go
Speaker 3: higher than people think, and bear markets go fall further
Speaker 3: than people think. I think gold will ultimately go higher
Speaker 3: than anyone can imagine, and it will be pegged at
Speaker 3: some new system, a marriage to blockchain, a backing of
Speaker 3: the system giving it credibility, because who trusts China and
Speaker 3: Russia who trusts us? Well, how about a trustless system?
Speaker 3: And I think that's what it will ultimately come back to.
Speaker 3: And why else would the BIS re class by gold
Speaker 3: is Tier one and not something else like special drawing
Speaker 3: rights from the IMF or whatever. Heck, even Kristallina Georgieva,
Speaker 3: the head of the IMF, said, if you don't peg
Speaker 3: a central bank digital currency to something, then it's just fiat.
Speaker 3: And when you see the massive acquisition by the most
Speaker 3: well informed traders on the globe, it tells me that
Speaker 3: gold will have its day. Now. Is it going to
Speaker 3: be twenty twenty four, maybe twenty twenty five, don't know,
Speaker 3: but just look at what we've seen. It's average seven
Speaker 3: point eight percent per year for the last twenty four
Speaker 3: years and had a really nice run last year. Up
Speaker 3: I don't know, ten twelve percent, so I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think anyone who picks the number would be just guessing.
Speaker 3: But it will continue to move higher and ultimately we'll
Speaker 3: go much higher. Don't know if it's this year or not.
Speaker 3: A lot going on this year, but I still feel
Speaker 3: comfortable saying that I would expect it to finish this
Speaker 3: year much higher. Than it did last year. Don't know
Speaker 3: what that number is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just for me to add some color onto that,
Speaker 1: I mean, the previous high set to eleven when adjusted
Speaker 1: for inflation, which is a fake number as well, but
Speaker 1: based off of what we've been told is about almost
Speaker 1: about twenty five hundred and twenty four to seventy two
Speaker 1: is the official number.
Speaker 2: It'd be much higer than that.
Speaker 1: So we'd have to really Bitcoin has not hit that
Speaker 1: a new all time high when a just a for intiflation.
Speaker 1: We have to get back up above twenty five hundred
Speaker 1: to really get to that number again based off the
Speaker 1: government number, which is totally doable. Steve Forbes has made
Speaker 1: a public call to be twenty five hundred, and then
Speaker 1: you got the Jim Records saying that, hey, it could
Speaker 1: be thirty forty fifty thousand if governments decided to sort
Speaker 1: of go back to some sort of gold standard side
Speaker 1: and how they went.
Speaker 3: Well, you know it's interesting too. All of the central banks,
Speaker 3: the name of the account for all of these years
Speaker 3: that gold is held in is called the Gold Reevaluation Account.
Speaker 3: I don't know why they named it that, but it's
Speaker 3: kind of interesting when you think of it. And then
Speaker 3: look at what the Dutch National Bank, the head of
Speaker 3: the Dutch National Bank said, and others who said, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, this is a solution to the problem of
Speaker 3: our debt. We just revalue gold to a much higher
Speaker 3: level and then our ass thats are worth more than
Speaker 3: our debt and our balance sheet's fixed, just like that.
Speaker 3: That's not so crazy to think, because that's what he did.
Speaker 3: That's what he did back in nineteen oh seven or
Speaker 3: thirty three, rather when he confiscated gold and then devalued
Speaker 3: the dollar by forty percent, making gold worth forty percent more.
Speaker 3: Is it that crazy to think that could happen. No,
Speaker 3: I don't think it is, but just food for thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: I got another question here from Danny's world, and he
Speaker 1: is saying.
Speaker 2: Is silver dead? The question is that because silver.
Speaker 1: Was demonetized and is no longer being used or being
Speaker 1: acquired by central banks, is silver dead?
Speaker 3: That's not true. I mean, the Bank of India in
Speaker 3: the past two years has purchased almost four hundred million ounces,
Speaker 3: three hundred and four million last year and at least
Speaker 3: eighty million this year that they that we know of.
Speaker 3: China has purchased a bunch of silver. I don't know
Speaker 3: sixty eight million announces silver is being accumulated. It just
Speaker 3: doesn't have the reporting that gold does. You know, it's
Speaker 3: an interesting thing when you look at silver, and I
Speaker 3: think it's it's very fair to say that I believe
Speaker 3: anyway that it is suppressed. Now there's interesting. There's an
Speaker 3: article that I think people should look at, and it's
Speaker 3: by the Pickaxe talking about the amazing amount of silver
Speaker 3: that is needed in all of these high tech weaponry systems.
Speaker 3: There's five hundred ounces in the tip of a Tomahawk
Speaker 3: cruise missile. There's much more than that in things like ICBMs.
Speaker 3: But it's needed in aerospace, it's needed in submarines. And
Speaker 3: it's interesting and he cites all sorts of fact. And
Speaker 3: yet when you look at the Silver Institute number that
Speaker 3: will show another two hundred million ounce or plus in
Speaker 3: deficit versus supply. They don't even count military in it.
Speaker 3: You have an asset that is depleting in nature. It's
Speaker 3: found in nature in a form called epithermal, like your
Speaker 3: skin is epidermis. It's very near the surface. And no,
Speaker 3: my buddy Keith Numeier will be the first to tell
Speaker 3: you it's coming out of the ground right now, it's
Speaker 3: seven to one. Yet it's priced at about eighty two
Speaker 3: or three to one. Something's wrong there. And I think
Speaker 3: country like India and China and all the countries that
Speaker 3: are accumulating it the way that they are so the
Speaker 3: central banks are buying it quietly tells a different story.
Speaker 3: And when you look at an asset that has experienced
Speaker 3: monetary renaissance, that is used increasingly in greed and digital applications,
Speaker 3: is decreasing in nature, is coming out of the ground
Speaker 3: at a ratio about eleven times under its price ratio.
Speaker 3: Right now, it's averaged roughly forty two to one gold
Speaker 3: to silver ratio for the last one hundred and fifty years,
Speaker 3: largely because of gold's role is money. But the geologic
Speaker 3: ratio for five thousand years before that was sixteen to one.
Speaker 3: Now it's seven to one. It's disappearing. You have an
Speaker 3: asset that is increasing in demand and decreasing in supply,
Speaker 3: and ask yourself, why the hell do you have four
Speaker 3: or five commercial banks with the largest short position concentrated
Speaker 3: short position of any commodity traded on COMEX. Why And
Speaker 3: I will simply tell you that I think silver is
Speaker 3: in my mind. Look, I don't sell gold and silver
Speaker 3: as investments. To me, their wealth, and I want that
Speaker 3: to be very clear. Wealth that has lived for five
Speaker 3: thousand years, through two World wars, German hyperinflation, great depression,
Speaker 3: everything the world's thrown at it, every pandemic, you name it.
Speaker 3: But I do think that silver should be characterized as
Speaker 3: a strategic metal, non at industrial and by suppressing the
Speaker 3: paper price where right now in the registered category on COMEX,
Speaker 3: those are the bars backing the contracts that are issued.
Speaker 3: It's the same thing the Hunt Brothers saw in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: There's over fifteen hundred percent more paper than there are
Speaker 3: bars standing behind it. They're suppressing the price. But for
Speaker 3: why and why are the commercial banks doing this? And
Speaker 3: I would simply tell you that to me, it is
Speaker 3: the buying opportunity or the value of a generation. And
Speaker 3: I'm dead serious about that. I think it is the
Speaker 3: value of a generation. But yes, it is underperformed, it
Speaker 3: is counterintuitive, it is frustrating as hell. Does not change
Speaker 3: the reality in my mind that it is an asset
Speaker 3: that is needed in so many areas, and there's a
Speaker 3: lot of tom foolery. I guess you could say surrounding
Speaker 3: the price of silver at least on the exchanges. But
Speaker 3: my mind has always been that, look, here's food for thought.
Speaker 3: On the last day, on December twenty seventh, let me
Speaker 3: give you the exact number here on December twenty seventh, U,
Speaker 3: I want to give you the exact number because it's important.
Speaker 3: On December twenty seventh, twenty twenty three gold or silver
Speaker 3: closed on the Shanghai Gold Exchange AT. I got this somewhere.
Speaker 3: One second shouldn't take but a second it closed on
Speaker 3: the Shanghai Goal Exchange AT. I want to say, I
Speaker 3: can't find it. Twenty six dollars and fifty cents closed
Speaker 3: in the United States at around twenty four the numbers,
Speaker 3: I can't find it, but I had it here somewhere.
Speaker 3: The numbers on the Shanghai Goal Exchange the last day
Speaker 3: of the year were two dollars and thirty or forty
Speaker 3: cents higher announced ten percent higher in Shanghai than it
Speaker 3: was on the LBMA or on COMEX. Goal is averaged
Speaker 3: between six and ten percent higher in Shanghai than on
Speaker 3: the LBMA or on COMEX. And I believe you are
Speaker 3: slowly seeing the arbitrage turned up, and they are. They're
Speaker 3: incentivizing the Western traders to arbitrage everything over there quietly
Speaker 3: here again, just like they're doing this whole bricks thing.
Speaker 3: The countries that are accumulating it. The only reason they're
Speaker 3: not bitching is because they're the ones buying it at
Speaker 3: these subsidized prices. So they're using the West's leverage to
Speaker 3: support the illusion of a strong bond market and a
Speaker 3: strong currency. Because what is gold and silver? They're monetary metals.
Speaker 3: They they're the kryptonite to Superman. They're pulling the cape
Speaker 3: or the curtain, you know, at the Wizard of Oz
Speaker 3: and seeing it's a little frail man. And if you
Speaker 3: have gold and silver going much higher, you call into
Speaker 3: question the strength of the world reserves. So I believe
Speaker 3: that this suppression is being allowed to happen, and in fact,
Speaker 3: they don't care about it because we're dumb enough to
Speaker 3: keep these prices artificially low while they buy it. And
Speaker 3: the four hundred million ounces or thereabouts that India bought
Speaker 3: is way more than this on the entire comex market
Speaker 3: right now. So no, silver is not dead, and silver
Speaker 3: will be one of these things where we wake up
Speaker 3: on a Monday morning, and it's there's no one stupid
Speaker 3: enough to let go of it at that price where
Speaker 3: the comex gets rendered obsolete. And I believe, before it's
Speaker 3: all said and done that you will see rice setting
Speaker 3: for these kinds of commodities, a real one on the
Speaker 3: Shanghai Gold Exchange or others in that part of the world,
Speaker 3: like in Dubai, because they're the ones buying it all,
Speaker 3: they're the ones producing it all, they're the ones who
Speaker 3: understand its real value. And you can see slowly turn
Speaker 3: up that heat right now ten percent more. You can
Speaker 3: arbitrage if you're a big enough trader and have access
Speaker 3: to those markets. You can buy in London or buy
Speaker 3: in the US and sell in China's immediately for ten
Speaker 3: percent gain. Now. I think you know, you're a pretty
Speaker 3: literate financial guy. You know that traders will arbitrage for
Speaker 3: a whole hell of a lot less than ten percent.
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what we're beginning to see. So no,
Speaker 3: silver is not dead. I think it's the buy of
Speaker 3: a generation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good stuff, good stuff, I agree, And what we're
Speaker 1: seeing happening in the China Shane High Exchange is definitely
Speaker 1: breaking the price of gold. We see the price continue
Speaker 1: to separate and I think will eventually break the grip
Speaker 1: the LBMA has on the price of gold and silver,
Speaker 1: and so that sort of goes more to the Jim rickerdisis,
Speaker 1: which it could pop the thirty thousand, you know pretty
Speaker 1: quickly if something like that were to happen, and it's probably.
Speaker 2: Only a matter of time. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's probably not my base case that happens in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, but potentially twenty five, twenty six, like it's
Speaker 1: gonna happen at some point.
Speaker 3: I agree with that.
Speaker 2: We're gonna go ahead and wrap it up.
Speaker 1: Andy Sheckman, President of Miles Franklin Precious Medals Miles Franklin
Speaker 1: dot com. Always a wealth and knowledge, always happy to
Speaker 1: have you on. And with that, we'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: sign it off.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, Mark, I follow everything you do. I
Speaker 3: think you're one of the brightest minds in the industry
Speaker 3: and a honor to be here, and thank you for
Speaker 3: the invite. Look forward to seeing you in Vancouver in
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks, and I wish you and everyone
Speaker 3: else out there very happy, healthy New Year, and look
Speaker 3: forward to picking up where we left off somewhere not
Speaker 3: too far down the road
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks Andy,