Latest / SILVER / GOLD / $UFD Meme Coin Investing & Global Economics / Silver Market Update with Chris Marcus -- Will THIS Ever Happen?
Transcript
- 0:00Silver is sitting. At $22.00 per oz, will we ever
- 0:04see prices like 40 or $50 per oz again?
- 0:09Today we have a special guest, Chris Marcus from Arcadia
- 0:12Economics. He's been following Silver for
- 0:15years. He's a respected voice within
- 0:18the Silver community. Chris, welcome to Ron's
- 0:21Basement. Hi Ron, it's a pleasure to be
- 0:23here. Always fun talking with you and
- 0:26been nice getting to know you the last couple years and
- 0:29obviously plenty to talk about in the silver world.
- 0:32So happy to be here with you today and dig into it.
- 0:36Let's dig into it. Well, my first question, because
- 0:38you were a person who taught me a lot about silver years ago.
- 0:44Would you ever think that this dollar fantasy or the the market
- 0:49would be able to remain in the current state that it's in for
- 0:52as long as it has? Well, certainly when I got into
- 0:58this which was 2009, now that was before the run up in 2011,
- 1:05which obviously for anyone who was falling it back then I I
- 1:08think certainly has an impact and has opened our eyes into
- 1:12what is possible given some of the types of events that can
- 1:17play out. Obviously, I don't think many
- 1:20people, if you had gone back 20 years, would have expected QE
- 1:23234 and the way some of these programs have been used.
- 1:29And when I left the trading floor in 2012, about a year
- 1:34after we had hit the $50 silver price and solver, things were
- 1:39headed from a monetary perspective.
- 1:42Yeah, I very much agree. I I don't think I would have
- 1:45believed that we'd be sitting there 1012 years later and
- 1:50here's Silver and and Ron, I might know we're not a 22 bucks
- 1:53anyway. We're at 22 1/2, so a little bit
- 1:57better. And so there's on on one hand
- 2:00where seems a little difficult to imagine that things would go
- 2:05on like they have yet. As I've thought about it more
- 2:09and reflected in these past couple years, I think there's
- 2:14also a degree in which it's wise to realize that things can go on
- 2:19for a lot longer. Obviously there is some things
- 2:22happening this year where a lot of us are keeping an eye on the
- 2:25draining of the reverse repo facility, the expiration of the
- 2:28bank term funding program and wondering exactly how that's
- 2:32going to play out. At the same time where you have
- 2:35the treasury going wild and now some legitimate concerns of how
- 2:40do we actually fund this, this gap that continues to exist.
- 2:46But with all that said, I mean we saw last year a great data
- 2:50point of all right, the banks got in trouble, what happened?
- 2:53the Fed did launch a new facility, The government is
- 2:57spending more money and we may not agree with that.
- 3:01We may not like that. Although when I think about, you
- 3:05know, if there are liquidity issues or credit event at some
- 3:08point this year, you do expect that they're going to do
- 3:13something similar, that there will be another round of the
- 3:15same thing. And you know, on one hand I get
- 3:19it where I may disagree with the idea of using currency creation
- 3:24to pay for these things over and just push it down the road.
- 3:28On the other hand, if someone in the Fed or the government is
- 3:32making the decisions, what are you expecting them to do?
- 3:36They're going to keep propping it up to avoid any sort of more
- 3:40severe calamity that think when we look at some of these trends,
- 3:44think at some point is coming and there's going to be a day of
- 3:48reckoning. Yet when you think about the
- 3:51mindset of the people who have the decision making power over
- 3:55how these things play out, yeah, you have to expect that they're
- 4:00going to continue to prop this thing up as long as is possible.
- 4:04In fact, if you think back what we're recording February 6th
- 4:08today, I think especially in the gold and silver community, if
- 4:12you think back just about a year ago when Signature Bank, Silicon
- 4:16Valley Bank, First Republic, when they were failing and there
- 4:20were bank runs, probably if you told most people that the rest
- 4:25of of 2023 would play out like it did, where things calm down,
- 4:29the BTFP patch things over and you didn't have any further
- 4:33issues. Especially with concerns about
- 4:36commercial real estate and other areas in people's minds, it
- 4:40might have been hard to imagine that things would calm down like
- 4:44they did for almost a year now. So I don't think that means that
- 4:50the situation is patched up and from a long term perspective
- 4:53it's it's Miller time just yet. But certainly something to keep
- 4:59in mind especially when you're setting your expectations and
- 5:03looking at metals and what role that you're expecting them to
- 5:06play that we we have seen this template and there is an ability
- 5:10to keep things at least appearing the way they are
- 5:14longer than we would expect. So balancing that with how
- 5:19people see the bigger situation playing out I think goes a long
- 5:23way and can can help a lot in the the process that we're going
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- 6:03in demand, precious and base. Metals.
- 6:06They seem to come up with more and more new and creative ways
- 6:11to bail out the economy. I mean, the BTFP program was a
- 6:14bailout, a rescue program. You know, I found it interesting
- 6:19just recently. Jerome Powell was on 60 Minutes
- 6:22and he directly addressed the fact that that this, you know,
- 6:27the debt situation, the deficit situation in the United States
- 6:31is a real problem and is something that needs to be
- 6:34addressed. And I think he even said like
- 6:36sooner as opposed to later. What do you what do you make of
- 6:39those comments? Yeah, it was interesting when
- 6:42he's been asked about that, talked about it in a couple of
- 6:45his Fed press conferences after their meetings in the last year
- 6:49or so. And he said that the debt is not
- 6:52so much a problem, it's the trajectory of the debt that he
- 6:56feels is a bigger issue, which I don't know.
- 6:59I would, I would say they're both seem to be issues in my
- 7:03opinion. Yet in either case, well, that's
- 7:05fine except that the trajectory of the debt is going in the same
- 7:09direction as the debt itself. It's not like Ron Paul is is the
- 7:14leading candidate in the presidential election coming up
- 7:19and we we've not seen anything to indicate that the trajectory
- 7:23of the debt is going to change except that it's going faster
- 7:27than ever. It's being loaded up and
- 7:30especially in an election year it's I don't know if it's a wise
- 7:35bet to assume that we're going to see much deficit reduction.
- 7:39We had the debt ceiling come up last year and like just about
- 7:44every previous occurrence, it at this time, it was just removed
- 7:48for a year and a half. So yeah, that's that's a a bit
- 7:54of a problem we've seen historically.
- 7:56Eventually empires get too big, they start spending more than
- 8:01they can, and eventually that does come to an end and you're
- 8:05hearing the Fed acknowledge it. The Congressional Budget Office,
- 8:09they warn of the heightened risk of a financial crisis as debt to
- 8:14GDP continues to grow. I mean, some of the numbers in
- 8:18their forecast that they have in 10 years by 2050, I mean it, it
- 8:22gets disturbing. And again, this is a government
- 8:26agency telling you the same thing.
- 8:27So I think people are, when you ask them, the direct question,
- 8:30even in some of these offices, I mean, we even hear some
- 8:33politicians talk about how they realize this isn't a good trend.
- 8:39What to do about it becomes a trickier situation because,
- 8:43yeah, we're getting great GDP numbers that are coming out, but
- 8:46what would those GDP numbers look like if you didn't have
- 8:49such large government spending? So even if you did cut
- 8:55government spending at this point, you're going to see a
- 8:57massive drop in tax receipts, which just exacerbates the
- 9:01deficits further. I don't think that there is an
- 9:05easy, perfect solution out of it.
- 9:08And that's the problem. And I think that's what leads a
- 9:11lot of us into looking at gold and silver, where you you see
- 9:16where it's headed. That part isn't complex.
- 9:20And now you see, like you point out that other groups are
- 9:23mentioning that there's an issue here which only goes one way.
- 9:28And when that becomes a more significant event, I mean it
- 9:34seems to me that inevitability that we're going to have a
- 9:39situation similar to what the what we saw in the housing
- 9:42bubble when you we had one problem that was just resolved
- 9:48with even faster money printing faster debt.
- 9:51So it it hasn't gone away and going back to your first
- 9:56question of well how long does this go on for?
- 9:58How do you balance that? That's the part that we sit
- 10:02there and watch and keep an eye on.
- 10:05I don't think anybody knows the answer.
- 10:07I go ahead. Yeah, well, and and and and we
- 10:10don't want to be doomsayers, right.
- 10:12Sometimes we get accused of you know, being doom and gloom
- 10:15Sayers. I heard someone recently say,
- 10:18I'm not a doomsayer, I'm a risk assessor.
- 10:22And I think when we look at the mathematical facts as they're
- 10:25presented to us, it sure feels like we aren't headed in a in a
- 10:29in a real good direction. And I would just throw out that
- 10:32you know if you look let's say from 1970 around the year that I
- 10:36was born through today about 50 years.
- 10:39We know that the dollar has lost 98% of its value against gold.
- 10:45And the fiscal and monetary situation during most of that
- 10:49fifty year period would probably be, I wouldn't say healthy but
- 10:55much healthier than what we're going to face in the next 50
- 10:59years. So, you know, I think when we
- 11:01look at the facts, it becomes pretty obvious that we're we're
- 11:05headed for some interesting times.
- 11:07And you know, I watched the, there was a documentary I think
- 11:11on Netflix about Bernie Madoff a few months back and I was
- 11:15engrossed and it was like 2 hours long.
- 11:17But I was just amazed at how he was able to keep that situation
- 11:21going for so long until finally it blew up.
- 11:26And again, I don't want to be a tinfoil hat, you know, the sky
- 11:29is falling type person. But I just wonder to a certain
- 11:32degree if what we're living through, you know, like like you
- 11:36talked about, right, You know, the reverse repo program, the
- 11:39the BTFP program, QE. I mean they keep coming up with
- 11:43newer ways to kind of perpetuate the system because they're all
- 11:48beholden to it. But at some point, does it?
- 11:53Does it, you know, do things start to fall apart?
- 11:57I know what you mean and especially what you mentioned
- 11:59about the mindset, whether it's a a doom and gloom crowd.
- 12:05Yeah. I mean, I think there's an
- 12:06element of that mixed in there because there are things that
- 12:11are are taking place that aren't particularly good.
- 12:15So certainly that can make for an interesting psychological
- 12:21challenge where you know, once people get invested in gold and
- 12:25silver, there's that part of you that wants to see your
- 12:29investment decision pay off. And you look at the things that
- 12:33have traditionally moved the gold and silver prices.
- 12:36And on one hand, they're not good things for society to see.
- 12:42Maybe prices have gone up in the past couple of years here in the
- 12:45US and around the globe. It's it's not something you want
- 12:50to see the the way debt loads have gone up to see the way
- 12:53things are patched over with more printed money.
- 12:57These aren't good things and it it can be tough sometimes where
- 13:02especially if you read Zero Hedge and a lot of the news
- 13:04that's coming out and you see the types of trends that would
- 13:08support the thesis behind gold and silver and it it can be
- 13:14tricky to stay balanced of thinking all right I I have an
- 13:18investment that can perform well when these things do unfold yet
- 13:22not wanting them to unfold and everyone has their different
- 13:27spectrum where they are in that line and and so it can be hard
- 13:31to read through some of these news events and see the things
- 13:35that are happening without falling into that doom and gloom
- 13:38mindset. Like you said though I mean
- 13:42we're we're risk assessors and again it reminds me of a very
- 13:46similar environment that you saw leading up to the housing bubble
- 13:49where there were people warning about it.
- 13:52Most of them were talking about the Fed and gold and silver and
- 13:55printed money and how these credit cycles work out.
- 13:59Most people are in the housing market, didn't want to hear
- 14:01about it. In hindsight, I think a lot of
- 14:05people would have wanted to have that warning beforehand and look
- 14:09at some of these things. Is it easier when you're seeing
- 14:13bubbles inflated? I mean, right now we're seeing
- 14:15stock markets hit new highs and so perhaps it's more fun to talk
- 14:20about that. I think it's good to look at all
- 14:22of these things and then balance them together and and find out
- 14:26where you stand. But certainly, yeah, it can be
- 14:30tricky because there is a lot of heavy news that comes out.
- 14:34We're seeing new conflicts go on in the world.
- 14:35We're seeing a lot of money being spent for weapons and to
- 14:39fight new wars, which is going straight on to the the balance
- 14:44sheet of the treasury. So it's it's understandable that
- 14:49it can be a doom and gloom thing.
- 14:50I think balancing that is a big part of being invested in these
- 14:55things. And why perhaps looking at gold
- 14:59and silver as insurance more than a speculation might be a
- 15:04healthier way for many people to approach it so that you can see
- 15:09what's going on, feel prepared, not end up.
- 15:14I know there's that temptation to go where yeah, this the
- 15:17bricks are going to kick our asses tomorrow and gold's going
- 15:20to take over which you yeah, you could see a big appreciation in
- 15:25the gold price in a scenario like that.
- 15:27But again, what does that mean for the way that they're living
- 15:30day-to-day so? Yeah.
- 15:33Certainly something that I think is a challenge for a lot of
- 15:36people who get into this. Balancing the emotions of that
- 15:39and getting to a place where you can feel prepared for the things
- 15:44that you see that are out there. Not having it take you to a
- 15:48little bit of a darker emotional place.
- 15:50And just balance these all together so you can continue
- 15:53living your life and have the investments serve you, rather
- 15:57than necessarily getting yourself beaten up by some of
- 16:00the heaviness of a lot of the things that are going on.
- 16:03If you're looking to buy gold, silver, or platinum, do yourself
- 16:07a favor and check out Pimbex, the online precious metals
- 16:10bullion dealer and sponsor of Ron's Basement.
- 16:14I was a happy customer before they offered to support the
- 16:18channel. You'll find they have the best
- 16:20prices, quality, and service. I think Pimbex is best, and you
- 16:25will too. And be sure to tell him that
- 16:27you're from Ron's basement. Have you ever heard this notion,
- 16:31Chris, that some people say the price of silver is manipulated?
- 16:35Have you have you ever heard that once or twice over the
- 16:37years? I've I've heard it once or
- 16:39twice. I've talked about it more than
- 16:41once or twice. And yes, it's certainly a
- 16:47pricing system we have. So, so I have a question for
- 16:50you. I want to get your take on this.
- 16:53It dawned on me the other day. Currently as you pointed out
- 16:55earlier, we're sitting at about $22.50 silver right now.
- 17:01If the market were functioning properly and the and the market
- 17:05were really determining the price at $22.50, wouldn't supply
- 17:11and demand for silver on an aggregate be about equal?
- 17:15And I guess the point I'm trying to make is the fact that we have
- 17:19according to the Silver Institute and a number of other
- 17:21people that are studying the supply and demand numbers and
- 17:25silver, we have a big deficit in the silver market.
- 17:28Wouldn't that just quite simply on its own, indicate that the
- 17:31real market price of silver should be higher?
- 17:36I would think so. And perhaps it's similar to what
- 17:40we've seen in the uranium space where for years Rick Rule was
- 17:44out there talking about how either the price of uranium is
- 17:47going up or we're going to stop using electricity.
- 17:50And it it was a tough wait for a lot of people who were invested
- 17:54in the uranium space and then eventually it did go up to
- 17:57resolve that imbalance. Similar with silver, now you
- 18:02have the deficit that you mentioned.
- 18:05We've seen declines in the COMEX inventories in the LBMA Silver
- 18:11Holdings, which you, you and I talked a little bit before over
- 18:16the last week before we recorded and seeing those declines at the
- 18:20same time that we are seeing the deficits.
- 18:23And even though it's interesting, Comex and LBMA have
- 18:28kind of stabilized for over a year now, we saw that
- 18:32significant decline that began back in 2021, right around the
- 18:36same time as the Silver Squeeze and LBMA and Comex inventory
- 18:42levels were falling pretty sharply for about a year and a
- 18:47half until let's call it I believe around November Ish of
- 18:512022. So we've seen those levels stay
- 18:55flat for about a year. And what's interesting is that
- 18:58as we ran another deficit last year, we've seen the ETF
- 19:03holdings go down. So a lot of SLB and some of
- 19:06these other funds. And I've wondered if that's how
- 19:09the deficit has been funded over the past year.
- 19:13So we can have deficits as we've seen, can see the price stay the
- 19:17same. Although when you look at all
- 19:19right, well, how does this get resolved?
- 19:22What are the pieces that you want to look at moving forward
- 19:26now? We have an environment where, as
- 19:29I know a lot of your listeners are familiar that are invested
- 19:32in the mining stocks you've had. What I've had many people
- 19:38describe who've been doing this for decades were sentiment
- 19:41they've seen with the miners. For any of your primary miners,
- 19:46a lot of them, this is close, the price is close to their all
- 19:50in costs. So it's not as if we're in an
- 19:55environment where we're running a deficit, but people are out
- 19:58there milling the heck out of silver and finding new deposits
- 20:02and bringing them to surface. So that I think is going to be a
- 20:07big issue at some point because if we're running a deficit now,
- 20:10you're not getting the new investment to go in there.
- 20:15That's a problem. And especially when you think
- 20:18about how long it takes between getting something permitted
- 20:22going out and drilling and then bring it to production.
- 20:25If you do have a shortfall of silver, you there's not a switch
- 20:29that you can flip on. And next year, all right, here
- 20:32is a big new supply of silver that's coming on to the market.
- 20:38So a lot of these things take longer then we might be ideal.
- 20:43I mean, do we, are we living under the efficient market
- 20:45hypothesis where everything gets factored in by everyone
- 20:48perfectly at the same time? No, it doesn't work like that,
- 20:52especially when a lot of the pricing is driven by bestman
- 20:57speculation and what the Fed is doing and you can have these
- 21:01periods and we're not seeing it just in silver.
- 21:03There's other commodities that the supply and demand dynamics
- 21:09aren't lining up, let alone if someone is expecting that we're
- 21:13going to hit any of these green mandates, you don't, you don't
- 21:18have the mining supply there to do so and it's not a quick
- 21:23process that happens overnight. So I think that's where
- 21:26ultimately we see the price forced to react to that.
- 21:31Does it lead us to a situation where there is a shortage of
- 21:35silver available to meet industrial demand, let alone if
- 21:42we have a monetary event that really spikes in investment
- 21:45demand higher as well It it certainly seems to me like we're
- 21:49on track to have that when that plays out again we'll see and
- 21:54people want to keep watching what's going on in Ron's
- 21:56basement of course, but that's that's where it's lining up
- 22:01right now and we'll we'll we'll see how that holds.
- 22:05Yeah, yeah, you're you're, you're getting me excited
- 22:07because I'm, I'm looking at the facts again, right, that in a
- 22:11properly functioning healthy market, when demand is greater
- 22:16than supply, the price goes up to fix that, which encourages
- 22:20more people to to invest into things like silver.
- 22:23That has not been happening. I guess the theory would be that
- 22:27this the deficit has been plugged temporarily by what had
- 22:33been some excess above ground inventories.
- 22:36But at some point the market will prevail.
- 22:40In theory if if demand does indeed continue to outstrip
- 22:45supply and like you said, we do know that supply coming from the
- 22:49mining companies for a number of factors has been going down.
- 22:54So we could have a, a point at which there are no more or a
- 22:59limited amount of above ground inventories to satisfy that
- 23:03deficit and at that point possibly you know we could see
- 23:07higher silver prices. Now on top of that and I want to
- 23:10get your opinion on this Chris and and I think you touched on
- 23:13this investment demand for silver fluctuates and that's
- 23:18I've heard some people say that's that's kind of like the
- 23:21marginal demand number and that's what can to a certain
- 23:24degree really move the price. So if we work off this theory
- 23:29that let's say in the West, in the United States, maybe, I like
- 23:33to say maybe maybe one in 200 people invest in physical
- 23:38silver. If we focus in on silver, that
- 23:40if, if, if, if, if there's a big uptick, maybe because of
- 23:45financial issues, whatever the case may be in investor demand
- 23:49for silver and that number goes to 2 and 200 or 4 and 200, you
- 23:54start to look at multiple amounts of money coming into the
- 23:58silver sector. Maybe what happened a little
- 24:01less than a year ago with the banking crisis in 2023 is a good
- 24:06example of what can happen where it's you know I would go to my
- 24:09local coin shop and there there was no silver and they were you
- 24:13know I was saying hey you need to wait six weeks or 8 weeks
- 24:15whatever the case may be on top of that.
- 24:19So you have that that prospect of of of increased investor
- 24:24demand. But on top of that also we all,
- 24:28we also know that as the price of silver goes up silver
- 24:31investors we and I'll include myself tend to buy more as at
- 24:36the price goes up that we could have like AI don't want to say a
- 24:39perfect storm but I'm trying to be optimistic here that we could
- 24:43get into a period of time where where where where the demand for
- 24:47silver becomes quite robust and a a point at which the market
- 24:51can't supply the silver that's needed.
- 24:55Yeah, absolutely. I think that makes a lot of
- 24:57sense. And one of the things that draws
- 25:00people to silver sometimes in in some cases more so than gold
- 25:05where you have a very small market that if you see a lot of
- 25:11interest come in which you know we've we've had glimpses of at
- 25:16various points in the past couple of years, although
- 25:20they've died out somewhat quickly yet.
- 25:23You know if you see money come in and I mean it's a billion oz
- 25:27market at 23 bucks that's silver supply 23 billion or so.
- 25:33I mean that's relative to the size of a lot of other markets
- 25:37is a small market. Certainly people who get into
- 25:40the mining stocks, especially some of the silver juniors and
- 25:44explorers, if you have any significant amounts of money
- 25:49come into these spaces, that's going to have to push things up.
- 25:53So I've wondered what things will look like when you see
- 25:58silver over $30. Again, we live in a world where
- 26:01there's a lot of investing on momentum and people wait until
- 26:05things start moving up to pile in.
- 26:07And certainly that creates an environment where with a rising
- 26:11solar price, if you do see, I wouldn't say even when you do
- 26:15see that investment come in, that necessarily has to push
- 26:19things up in a bit of a substantial way.
- 26:24And it's it's it can be tough to wait, tough to sit on yet when
- 26:34when you have a credit event. We again looking back to what
- 26:37happened last year, I mean there was a stunning surge in retail
- 26:41physical silver investment. A lot of shops are running out
- 26:45of product and that's something that we've also seen several
- 26:50times over the past couple years during silver Squeeze, a couple
- 26:53times in between. Then when to it's a bit of a
- 26:57bipolar environment in which it works where for the last couple
- 27:02months things have been really on the slower side, but when
- 27:06things heat up, things quickly go unavailable.
- 27:09So that certainly has been the history of silver, especially in
- 27:14these past couple of years. And I would expect that we'll
- 27:17get that again because if you have the industrial demand
- 27:21continuing to grow, which all of the reports and data that we've
- 27:25seen have suggested that's the case and is forecast to happen
- 27:28again in 2024. Then if you have a ongoing surge
- 27:35in investment demand, certainly that throws A variable into the
- 27:40equation somewhere to what we saw last year where there was a
- 27:42big spike. If that doesn't come down
- 27:45quickly, yes, that's when you could see the potential for a
- 27:50gap between that supply and demand to really exacerbate
- 27:54things. And I think when, yeah, when you
- 27:57have that happen, there's going to be a day where you can see
- 28:01things move pretty quickly. And I think we'll be worth the
- 28:04wait for people are testing in this little space, even aside
- 28:08from, you know, some of the bigger monetary implications,
- 28:11like you said, just the small size of it and fitting money
- 28:14into that, it's going to have an impact.
- 28:17Yeah, it it you know I like to point out I I always check on
- 28:20Yahoo Finance every morning and at the top of the page they have
- 28:26the tickers you know the NASDAQ, the S&P and you know the the
- 28:31Russell 2000 and then they have gold and then they have silver.
- 28:35And it just you know boggles my mind I think how you know if if
- 28:38silver's not that important why does why you know it's a 20 like
- 28:42you said $23 trillion worth of silver is mined every year and
- 28:46when you compare that to billion I'm sorry, I'm sorry billion.
- 28:51And you compare that compare that though to the trillions
- 28:54that you know that the market caps of companies like Home
- 28:57Depot even or just, I mean it's it's a very small market that I
- 29:03guess I forget who says it, but you know that if money starts to
- 29:07come in, it's like trying to drain Hoover Dam with a garden
- 29:11hose. I forget who who said that, but
- 29:13it it to me that makes sense. Yeah.
- 29:17And I I think that's one of the things that really catches the
- 29:20eye of a lot of people who get into silver, perhaps draws them
- 29:24in some cases away from gold where most of the gold's still
- 29:28out there versus silver. So much of it being consumed by
- 29:31industry, so not much leftover for that monetary component.
- 29:38And it'll be an interesting dynamic.
- 29:41Well, we haven't seen central banks buying any silver yet.
- 29:45Certainly that would be quite a game changer if that did take
- 29:51place, although strong demand of silver from China.
- 29:56We've seen India slow down but there's a lot of a lot of places
- 30:00especially in the Far East where we're we're seeing a lot of
- 30:03demand for silver and at some point you reach that break point
- 30:09where it's just not there and if you don't have money going into
- 30:13increasing the supply, we don't know the timing on how all that
- 30:17shakes out, but you can you can see where it's headed in
- 30:20advance. Similar to the same way I think
- 30:23a lot of people who were looking in the right places saw what was
- 30:26going to happen to the housing market in advance.
- 30:29It's just tough in a world where investment horizons often very
- 30:34short term day trading or a lot of funds or banks marking by the
- 30:39quarter of the year. Doesn't make it easy if people
- 30:43have that mindset to be looking at something that's more long
- 30:47term before you see that payout. But you can see the the pieces
- 30:52and certain things that are going to have to evolve and and
- 30:55follow through whenever that that day and time comes.
- 31:00Yep, Yep. And we could, we could talk
- 31:02about the bricks for hours in this.
- 31:06You know, we are seeing a a shift, a slow gradual shift
- 31:10though towards new markets for the metals being developed as
- 31:14well. The Shanghai Gold Exchange, for
- 31:16instance, where I keep hearing that an ounce of silver on the
- 31:20Shanghai Gold Exchange sells for sometimes two, sometimes $3 more
- 31:25than what they're selling for in the Comex.
- 31:28Yeah. We've seen those increased
- 31:29spreads. The gold spread got pretty wide,
- 31:32I believe it was back in early September.
- 31:34Silver premiums have remained elevated and you know there's
- 31:40going to be some degree to which we see some of these things are.
- 31:43We've seen a lot of gold go over to China in these past couple
- 31:47months and I believe there's a lot of silver going over there
- 31:50as well. And you see the the way that
- 31:54countries are speaking about this situation, they they they
- 31:57taught you see Putin say the same thing that gold and silver
- 32:00investors are one like with the with the way the dollar is used
- 32:03as a weapon. They don't like how borrowing is
- 32:07just papered over with more printed dollars.
- 32:09And that's a big change that we've seen in these last couple
- 32:13years because 1020 years ago it was one thing to say all right
- 32:17countries don't like how the US is is pulling people around and
- 32:21using the dollar as the financing mechanism.
- 32:25Now they're standing up in ways that decade or two ago would
- 32:28have been unimaginable to believe.
- 32:32And it's not just some smaller countries that are more easily
- 32:36pushed around, but large nations with large resource bases that
- 32:41are actively moving away. And this is let alone the the
- 32:45possibility that don't think we know how it's going to play out
- 32:49yet, but we've heard the White House talk about taking the 300
- 32:53billion that was frozen of Russian assets and now
- 32:58considering taking it and just sending it to Ukraine.
- 33:02And if foreign countries were a little concerned about the
- 33:05safety of reserves that could be frozen at any point, they were
- 33:10already concerned about that. Should that go through, I've
- 33:14read some interesting research papers in the last couple weeks
- 33:19imagining how Putin might respond to that.
- 33:24Obviously you would imagine he's not going to be particularly
- 33:26thrilled and same time when they've been studying, we we
- 33:32don't know what the ultimate outcome but certainly we've seen
- 33:35enough out of Russia. They had that temporary soft peg
- 33:38to goal shortly after the invasion.
- 33:41Sergey Glasyev has been one of the top lieutenants in Russia,
- 33:46has been studying ways to move and transition towards this
- 33:49system. There's a lot of speculation.
- 33:51Maybe something would happen at last year's BRICS meeting, which
- 33:55it didn't happen overtly yet. I don't get the feeling that
- 33:58it's not that it's been dropped behind the scenes and we see
- 34:02enough coming out. And you can also look at the
- 34:05reasons why countries are responding like this.
- 34:08So another dynamic added on that leaves you feeling a little less
- 34:15than ideally safe in some of the current traditional legacy
- 34:19assets like a dollar in the US Treasury, Yeah.
- 34:22Yeah. Well, Chris, thank you.
- 34:25This has been great. I think we, we, we looked at
- 34:28some of the base fundamental factors affecting the silver
- 34:32market. We zoomed out and looked at the
- 34:34geopolitical factors and I think you and I could talk for a lot
- 34:37longer, but on behalf of everyone who's joined us today,
- 34:41I want to say thank you. Like I said at the beginning,
- 34:44you have years of experience, your respected voice within the
- 34:47precious metals community. I think we also share a channel
- 34:53sponsor, Fortuna Silver sponsors my channel.
- 34:56Also, one of your sponsors will say thanks to them for making
- 35:00this video possible. They're intermediate, global
- 35:04gold and silver miner. And if people want to learn more
- 35:10about you, Chris, in Arcadia Economics, how do they do that?
- 35:14Well, best way is just go to YouTube and find us at Arcadia
- 35:18Economics. We have show Daily actually
- 35:22about to be introducing some new a new schedule with some
- 35:27different things that I think people will enjoy.
- 35:29Fortunate to have a couple other posts on there that have
- 35:32different perspectives and talk about the markets from different
- 35:35angles, but certainly with a focus on the metals and our
- 35:41channels at Arcadia Economics. And as you mentioned it's, it's
- 35:47been nice following your progress along as you built your
- 35:50channel up. And I I think it's great that
- 35:52there are people out there talking about these things.
- 35:55I know you're going at this every day and just letting
- 35:58people know about some of the things that aren't covered in
- 36:01many other of the financial media, which I think are
- 36:04important to know. I think it's good to have a
- 36:07balance to a lot of these things get different sources of
- 36:10information. But certainly appreciate, I
- 36:13enjoy watching your show and appreciate that there's there's
- 36:16Someone Like You that's taking a step back and looking at some of
- 36:20these bigger issues and helping people to be prepared for some
- 36:24of the things that are happening and coming.
- 36:26And just nice to catch up with you again today.
- 36:28Absolutely. And some of my favorite guests
- 36:31that Chris has on Arcadia Economics, Rafi Farber, Dave
- 36:35Kramzler, is it Jim Willey, is that correct?
- 36:39He's he's one of my favorites as well.
- 36:41From time to time, always, always playing to say for Jim.
- 36:45Yes. And in many more, I think Bill
- 36:48Holter, I've seen, I mean you you get some of the top people
- 36:53and some of the most insightful people.
- 36:55So I would encourage all of our viewers right now to go, if you
- 36:59haven't already, most people know of Arcadia economics, but
- 37:02if you haven't already, go check out Arcadia.
- 37:05Chris, Thank you and I'll look forward to talking to you soon.
- 37:09Thanks, Ron. Appreciate it.
- 37:11And we'll we'll look forward to doing this again soon, my
- 37:13friend.