Latest / Man in America Podcast / Is $140K the New Poverty Line? Is This the End of America’s Middle Class?

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Is $140K the New Poverty Line? Is This the End of America’s Middle Class? · Man in America Podcast

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Man in America, a voice of reason in a world gone mad. I'm your host, Seth Holehouse. The average American these days is not living in what you'd call the golden age. And maybe I'm over overstating something here. Maybe you are.
• 0:33
  But everyone that I talk to, all the data that I see is showing that your average American is struggling to get by. And it's kind of tough because I felt that we're being gaslit and being told that we have this great economy and all these amazing things are happening. And, of course, there's some good things going on in the country, but if you look at just the day to day life and how many people are forced to put their kids in the childcare so they can work two jobs, how many people are working, you know, both spouses are working, they're working multiple jobs, even the amount of people that are living paycheck to paycheck. It's kind of wild. But what's really interesting is I came across an article recently that really blew my mind.
• 1:10
  So it's a guy named Michael Green, and this this sub sec post he put went, like, mega viral. And if you search for it, you see all kinds of news, you know, articles analyzing it, trying to debunk it. Basically, what he says here is that the poverty line in America is not what we have been told. So what they're saying is I think the poverty line is somewhere around 31,000 officially. What he is saying though is that the poverty line, based upon his calculations in America, should be a 140,000.
• 1:44
  Now when I first saw that, I thought this there's no way. This is absolutely nuts. But actually, I read the article, and you look at the information he's putting together, and it makes a lot of sense. So this is crazy to think that the poverty line, according to his data, which I tend to agree with most of what he's presenting, is 140,000. It's over $10,000 a month for your average American family, which is, you know, say if a family is making $60,000 a month, I remember growing up, I think it was in the nineties, my dad was making $60,000 a month, and my mom didn't have to work.
• 2:16
  We had a decent home. I mean, it wasn't a mansion, but we lived okay. And we had a couple cars, and it was very doable. These days, if you're making $60,000 a month, you're sharing a house with somebody, you're renting an apartment, you know, two bedroom apartment for $1,800. I mean, people are barely getting by.
• 2:33
  But to me, it's just wild to think that the poverty line could be a $140,000. Like, what's wrong? What has gone wrong in this country? But what's crazy is that there's more Americans living paycheck to paycheck now. I even saw a stat from Goldman Sachs, which we'll cover in today's show, that 40% of people making over $300,000 a year are living paycheck to paycheck.
• 2:58
  Now not because they're poor, but because maybe they're not handling their money properly, but it's still an indicator of something that's really off in this country. If you look at then also the skyrocketing debt, the skyrocketing defaults on mortgages, car loans, etcetera, there's a picture here that doesn't make sense, especially if you contrast it with the stock market, which is at an all time high. But amidst all of this, you've got silver, which is now over $60 an ounce at the time of recording. So how does this all fit together? How does this make sense?
• 3:31
  What's really going on? And so joining me today is my good friend Colin Plume, the CEO of Noble Gold, someone who understands the ins and outs of economics, but also understands the mechanisms of the, you know, suppression of silver and gold prices, how those play into things, what's happening with the central bank. So he brings a really broad, understanding of what's happening. And so in this show today, we're gonna try to dissect what's really going on in this country. Because one thing I can tell you from my own perspective is that what's happening is not what they're telling us.
• 4:03
  There's something else going on, and I don't think it's a good thing. So I hope you enjoy this interview with Colin. Before we jump in, a few quick notes. First off, every show I do is a podcast as well. So if you watch on the video on Rumble or something, if you wanna listen, just go to your favorite podcast app like Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
• 4:21
  Search for Man in America. You can find me on there. And, also, if you're watching on Rumble, thank you for supporting a free speech platform. Rumble is literally the single company that has allowed me to do this full time and support my family and bring this information to you nonstop. Rumble has played such an incredible role in helping me because I'm I'm so shadow banned on YouTube.
• 4:43
  And, also, I only put, like, a third of my content on YouTube anyway because I keep getting strikes on YouTube. So, anyway, if you're watching on Rumble, thank you. Make sure you subscribe to the channel. Make sure you hit the thumbs up button, and leave a comment if you'd like to. And lastly, if you love the show, please share it with a friend.
• 4:57
  Alright. Let's go and dive into this interview with Colin Bloom. Colin, it's great to have you back on the show. Thanks for giving us your time today. I'm looking forward to this discussion.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks, Seth. Nice to be here. And we're coming up on the holidays, so good time to check-in with you.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. There's there's a lot going on as usual. But think that the one thing that has really been weighing on my mind a lot lately is just what life is like for the average American. Right?
• 5:28
  Because I think that we're being very gaslit. We're being told that we're living in this great economy, the golden age. Yet if you look at the actual numbers, it tells a different story. And there's a few things that we'll be touching on, one of them being a kind of a perspective of a revised poverty level, which I think is really significant. But maybe we'll start with just looking at consumer sentiment.
• 5:51
  So if it's cool with you, I'll bring up an article on that, and we can just kinda help get us going. So this is an article, this is actually from last month, but you talk about consumer sentiment in November, saying consumer sentiment plunged in November to near record lows. So it says that consumer sentiment plunged to new record lows in November as the slowing job market, stubborn inflation, and the government shutdown post increasing problems for president Trump. And they said that the the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index dropped to 50.3% or to 50.3% in November, according to data released last Friday, down from 53% last month and 71% a year ago. So that's kind of crazy, it was at 71% a year ago.
• 6:35
  It says that the November consumer sentiment reading was the worst since the record low of 50 in June 2022, which came near the peak of the post pandemic inflation surge. So, I mean, this is this is really important because, like, this is a reflection of what life is like for the average American. And, like, what I'm seeing, like, I'm looking at my energy bill, look at the cost of groceries. It just like, the story I'm hearing over and over again is that people are living paycheck to paycheck. But, anyway, how do you interpret this?
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of government jobs have been lost. I think a lot of C suite jobs have been lost. They're not coming back. A lot of businesses have leaned out in terms of staff.
• 7:32
  So, think you have this overall, like, people that had these jobs, sort of comfortable jobs that they thought they would have for the foreseeable future are no longer there. And that's, I think that's the tough part when you go through this big change in the economy and how things are going. You do have an AI effect. The change in how people are spending money and spending their time has changed a lot. So, you know, it doesn't surprise me that the sentiment is low.
• 8:06
  Think that the interesting thing is people that I know that have gone through this and are still employed feel very confident because they actually felt, the sentiment that I've gotten a lot from people is that a lot of the people that were having those jobs were not doing work. They weren't. And when you're at a company and you have a lot of people that aren't doing work or aren't hitting their targets, it brings the whole company down. You know, I own, you know, I own four businesses. I have monthly bonuses at every business because I think that people should get paid.
• 8:49
  If we have a good month, you get a piece of the whole pie. And so what I found is that as we did some layoffs earlier this year, we just kind of leaned out in some positions we didn't have either, that the rest of the staff was actually relieved. And they felt great about the fact that there was just a lot of people that weren't helping them achieve their goals. Or I had one employee say that there was two people in her department, I went to one person, and that one person said, I'm more efficient now because the other person slowed me down. And so I think there's, I think the sentiment is, you know, you're taking a poll of a lot of people that were in jobs that weren't really doing a lot of work.
• 9:33
  And I think this is the new age where you have to require employees to be involved in the whole growth and sustainability of a company. Whereas before, I think people just thought like, oh, I'll just, it's a company, it doesn't matter how the company's doing, I'm just gonna have a job.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Clock in and I'll clock
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: clock in and clock out. And now it's like, now that we have more data, like companies are saying like every position has a sort of a goal, right? And we have that at our companies. Like every department has a different goal. Whether it's a sales goal or even the people that pick up the phone, we have goals for them, that they need to interact in a certain way with people, and they need to get to calls quicker, and they need to have, and we do surveys.
• 10:27
  So there's all these new technology that's like trying to see how people are working. And so I think what's happening is that part of the sentiment is that people are realizing you just can't go to a job and then, you know, fall asleep for nine hours, that you actively have to be involved. And if your company is not growing, you will no longer have a job. And I think that's a new mindset. And I think that's part of the reason the sentiment down.
• 10:56
  I think the other reason is just, you know, the the stock market's gone up, but it hasn't gone up as much as gold and silver and some of the other investments. Real estate is still in tough place. It hasn't recovered yet, even though they've dropped interest rates twice this year, right? Maybe there's a third one on the horizon. So I think there's a lot of people that are stuck in their home, maybe got laid off from a job, and now they're trying to figure out, like, what's my next career?
• 11:28
  What's my next job? And they realize that whatever that next job is, is that they're going to have to quantify the value that they're bringing to that company or that business. And I think that's a new we're sort of in a new world where, you know, for the last fifty years, you just went to college and got a degree in something and you want to work at a company and you can make enough money to survive, those days are gone. That normal income, that $60,000 $70,000 job is not as easy as it used to be and it isn't just going to get thrown out to anybody. I mean, they're really, every company is looking at every position really closely.
• 12:03
  And so I think the sentiment is, you know, do I have the right skills, and am I adding value to a company? And if I'm not, what do I have to do to do that? And that's why we're seeing a resurgence in trade jobs and plumbers and all these that like, it's very quantifiable if a plumber goes to your house and they don't fix your toilet, then they don't get paid, right? Well, I mean, I've had some plumbers that still try to get paid, but they shouldn't get paid, if if you know what I'm saying. I think there's a number of things happening, and I think it's affecting the consumer sentiment.
• 12:37
  But also that is, it's interesting because you have that and then you have the stock market still at an all time high, and those two things usually don't correlate either. Like usually if the sentiment's low then the stock market's pulled back and that hasn't happened. So there's interest if you look at the data, it's it that a lot of the data just doesn't make sense right now.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: It it doesn't. You're right. It's really confusing. And, actually, here's another piece of data. It's interesting.
• 13:02
  According to Goldman Sachs, they're saying that 40% of those earning over $300,000 annually are living paycheck to paycheck. And this is crazy. Now you could say that obviously, I think that's that some part of this, you could blame on inflation. I would argue that people that are making over $300,000 that aren't saving any money, they're living paycheck to paycheck, it's probably poor lifestyle. Right?
• 13:24
  Like, actually, they say lifestyle inflation eating away excess income as people upgrade housing, cars, vacations, or maintain maintain high fixed costs, even seemingly large paychecks end up covering basics. I think that's also, you know, there's something wrong with the average American person that's in that, you know, kind of bracket. But, again, it's it's show it's showing us something's really off though in the country.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. 300 k in today's world, you should not be leasing a car. And I know, like, it seems like, well, I want a new car every year. You shouldn't be. You know, I have people all the time that ask me questions about things.
• 14:04
  And, you know, I remember when I started the business and we were growing and, you know, I remember hitting that 300 ks mark and thinking like, I said, this isn't a lot of money. I mean, it's a lot, but it's not a huge amount of money that I should lease, get a 600 or $700 a month lease. Now those leases, because of interest rates, I've seen people that are in trucks, they're spending a thousand dollars a month. If you're spending a thousand dollars a month on a lease, you should be your income should be well above half 1,000,000. Well above.
• 14:40
  But I think people that are making 300,000 are buying those and leasing those. And and, it doesn't make sense. The cars are made better today than they've ever been made. Why not buy a car? Why not buy a used car?
• 14:51
  Get away from that payment. So there's a lot of people that are just, their lifestyles are going up and up, and they're buying the wrong assets, right? Like that car, when you buy that used car, it's just like, okay, I need to have a car, I can run this thing for ten years plus, I'm gonna secure a payment, pay it off for four or five years, and then I got five years of no payments. That's the smart way to do it. But people are like, you know, everyone's like, I gotta get a new car, I gotta get the new Tesla, or I gotta, and you know, I see Teslas everywhere now and I will always wonder, and they're always the new Teslas, I'm like, two are year old Teslas?
• 15:26
  Don't those still run? They, of course, they advertise more mileage and distance, but most people are not driving 200 miles a day. I mean, it's irrelevant to them. So I think that there's like, I do see the spending creeping as people make a little bit more. They're not like putting more money in their retirement.
• 15:45
  They're not buying more assets. They're just just buying more stuff. And so that 300 k number is not shocking me. And as much as it should be shocking, I'm not shocked by that by that number.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you make some good points there. And also, it probably has to do just with the overall psychology of people, like, in thinking that maybe people aren't seeing much hope for the future, right? So it's much more of mentality of, well, I've got it and just kinda take you kinda enjoy it while I've got it. Right? Which is also not a good thing.
• 16:17
  I wanna, I wanna pivot to this article because I think this also helps helps explain a lot of this that I mentioned. And this this, went this is a Substack post by a guy named Michael Green. And this went, like, mega viral over the past week and a half or so. And what he says and I'm not gonna read the whole thing. It's a long article, but I'll read a few paragraphs that really help make sense of it.
• 16:38
  But basically, what he's saying with this is that he believes that the new the poverty level of 2025 should be closer to $140,000 Basically saying that that's kind of cutoff. So say you're making a $100,000, you're actually living below poverty level. So I'll read, a few paragraphs here that just helps, helps to outline his research and where he came to this from. So let me I'll read this right here. It says, how a broken benchmark quietly broke America.
• 17:11
  I've spent my career distrusting the obvious. Markets, liquidity, factor models, none of these ever felt self evident to me. Markets are mechanisms of price clearing. Mechanisms have parameters. Parameters distort outcomes.
• 17:23
  This is a lens through which I learned to see everything. Find the parameter, find the distortion, find the opportunity. But there was one number I'd somehow never interrogated. One number that I simply accepted the way a child accepts gravity, the poverty line. I don't know why it seemed apolitical, an actual actuarial fact calculated by serious people in government offices, a line someone else drew decades ago that we used to define who is poor, who is middle class, and who deserves help.
• 17:50
  It was infrastructure, invisible, unquestioned, foundational. This week, while trying to understand why the American middle class feels poorer each year despite healthy GDP growth and low unemployment, I came across a sentence buried in a research paper. The US poverty line is calculated as three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963, adjusted for inflation. I read it again, three times the minimum food budget, I felt sick. So here he's gonna get into like kind of actually how he came up with this number.
• 18:19
  The measurement failure. The formula was developed by Molly Orszanski, an economist at the Social Security Administration. In 1963, she observed that families spent roughly one third of their income on groceries. Since pricing data was hard to come by for many items, like housing, if you could calculate a minimum adequate food budget at the grocery store, you could multiply by three and establish a poverty line. Orchansky was careful about what she was measuring.
• 18:44
  In her 01/06/1965 article, she presented that poverty thresholds are as a measure of income inadequacy, not income adequacy. This is quote, it's not if it's not possible to stay unequivocally how much is enough, it should be possible to assert with confidence how much on average is too little. So she was drawing a floor, a line below which families were clearly in crisis. For 63, that floor made sense. Housing was relatively cheap.
• 19:11
  A family could rent a decent apartment or buy a home on a single income. As we've discussed, health care was provided by employers and cost relatively little. Blue Cross averaged $10 a month. Child care didn't really exist as a market. Mother stayed home.
• 19:24
  Family helped or neighbors who likely had someone home watched each other's kids. Cars were affordable, etcetera, etcetera. So we continue here, he says, but everything changed between 1963 and 2024. Housing costs exploded. Healthcare became the largest household expense for many families.
• 19:43
  Employer coverage shrank while deductibles grew. Childcare became a market and that market became ruinously expensive. College went from affordable to crippling. Transportation costs rose as cities sprawled and public transport transit withered under government neglect. A labor model shifted.
• 19:59
  You asked a few other, you know, things in there. So, so what you're saying though is that the the composition of households being transformed completely. In 2024, food at home is no longer 33% of household spending. For most families, it's five to 7%. Housing now consumes 35 to 45%.
• 20:16
  Health care is 50 to 25. Child care for families with young children can eat 20 to 40% of their household income. If you keep Orshansky's logic, if you maintain a principle that poverty could be defined by the inverse of food's budget share, but the update but update the food share to reflect today's reality, the multiplier is no longer three, it becomes 16. Which means if you measured income inadequacy today, the way that Orshansky measured it in 1963, the threshold for a family of four wouldn't be 31,000. It'd be somewhere between 130 and $150,000.
• 20:50
  And remember, Orshansky was only trying to define too little. She was identifying crisis not sufficiency. If the crisis threshold, the floor below which families cannot function, is honestly updated to current spending patterns, it lands at a $140,000. What does that tell you about the $31,200 line that we still use? It tells you that we are measuring starvation.
• 21:13
  And so he goes further into it and breaks down why exactly, he says it's a 140,000, part partly being he this is this is kind of the budget he he kind of looks at, looking at the average, costs. Right? For, you know, using a conservative national average data, child care, 32,000, housing, 23,000, food, 14,000, transportation, 14,000, health care, you know, etcetera. Once you bring in taxes, that's where he basically lands at roughly around a 140,000. And so he goes into more detail and explains it.
• 21:44
  It's a really worthwhile article to read. But I think this actually helps to explain that consumer sentiment level, but also explain what I've seen in talking to a lot of Americans, how are things going? And a lot of people I talk to, even people that have good jobs or that their both parents are working, they're just they're barely getting by. Like, in a situation where if their AC goes out, they don't have $10,000 to go buy it, replace that They're gonna be forced to finance it, and they're gonna be paying, you know, 7% on it. They're forced to finance a car.
• 22:19
  They're paying 9% on a car. They're forced to finance a house, which they're, you know, paying, you know, 8% on a house. So it's like something really wrong is going on. But what are your thoughts on what what do you think about this guy's ideas?
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I I mean, I I think it makes a lot of sense. I think that, you know, we talked before we got on that I think our parents I remember my dad making $100,000 a year in the '80s, and it was like that was a good living in the '80s. And I remember housing, we lived in Los Angeles, housing was 200 to $500,000 for a house. So yeah, now it all makes sense if you think about it.
• 23:02
  If you're making 100, you can buy a house, I think a great house at that time was 500,000 or 450,000, then you're right in line. But now that same house in Los Angeles is 1,500,000.0, 1,200,000.0. And so the person making 300,000, as the gentleman before was saying, that 40 percent are living paycheck to paycheck, those numbers equate because it's such a far gap now. Housing was, as he said, it wasn't a big expense, and insurance wasn't what it is today on homeowners and health and all of those things are major line items for everyone. Yeah, so I think a lot of it is you do have to sort of restructure your thinking about how do we get to the numbers that we need, and then what things can you do to protect yourself against inflation?
• 24:09
  And that's really what it is. At the end of the day, it's inflation, right? That's what he's talking about. The inflation numbers for the poverty line are wrong, that they're using a statistic that is not poverty line, that it's a starvation line. And so what can you do to keep up?
• 24:28
  And look how gold and silver have reacted in the last few years. It makes sense that they've gone up the way that they've gone up because they are inflation hedges. They're there to protect you. And the nice thing about them is that you're buying them in total, right? You're not leveraging them like every other purchase that people are having to make nowadays.
• 24:57
  They're leveraging, if they have to fix air conditioning, they're borrowing and leveraging their house. So it makes sense that retail investors are buying gold and silver, that central banks, you know, China's buying so much, they bought, what, thirteen months in a row of gold. You know, silver has really taken off. It's up over 100%. This year, broke 60, which, you know, in my books, silver's a new oil, I predicted 58 the first quarter of next year.
• 25:32
  So it actually moved, I don't know if you remember when we spoke last year in December, I'd had a 58 as my number and people thought I was nuts. I mean, even my friend, my really good friend, read the book cover to cover in January and he said, Wow, 58? Like you really? And I said, I don't know, I felt comfortable at 58. Did I know it was going to blow through 60?
• 25:59
  No. And that's even with quantitative easing not even starting, and which I believe it's going to start. I think that I think when the new Fed chair is put in, and I know President Trump has somebody in mind for the new Fed position who's already said that he's going be much more aggressive on interest rates, and I'm assuming he's going be much more aggressive on dollar devaluation and getting more money out there. It all makes sense when you look at these numbers that gold and silver are a protection against what everybody's dealing with day to day.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a it's a really important point. Well, actually, I'll pull up the chart really quickly here because you mentioned, was curious, like, okay, what was silver at, say, January? And it was right around $30, Right? So that was a pretty ballsy statement to say, you think that silver is gonna basically double in one year, which rarely, you know, like, it's, in many ways, unprecedented. And here, you can see this is just in the past two years.
• 27:04
  It's up 164%. Right? And, you know, you're I agree with you completely in looking at what is this reflection of. Think, well, it's a reflection of a lot of things, but I think it's also a reflection of their A, they're losing the ability to control and manipulate the market. Right?
• 27:21
  Because I think that silver and gold have oftentimes it's like what David Jensen, one of my favorite guests on this this topic, has referred to that they're the canary in the coal mine. And that, you know, after we took the dollar off the gold standard in '71 and started printing, gold and silver started spiking. So they built the LBMA to be able to use paper silver to suppress the price and paper gold to suppress the prices. But those mechanisms are cracking now that people are seeing through it, and you're seeing this these silver squeezes that are happening. But it's just wild, though, that you made that prediction.
• 27:51
  And actually, just as we brought up before we, started recording, your book you hope you hope your book cover again really quickly now? It's alright, silver is the new oil, but here, this is wild. So this is a post over on x. December 2025 is the first time in recorded history that one ounce of silver is worth more than one barrel of crude oil. Let that sink in.
• 28:15
  I mean, this is wild. Yeah. I mean Yeah. What do you make of that?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, my book, Silver's a New Oil, really was the idea is that it's it was sort of a wrap around silver's a wrap around oil. Right? Like it's not replacing it entirely, it's just gonna supplement. And so I think it's doing that.
• 28:37
  I think it will continue to do that. And it's just like all these stats that are in my book that people just blew off for many years, that we had a 150 to a 180,000,000 ounce silver shortage for four years in a row. It was like, well, when is that gonna you know, I remember you and I talked about this. Like, what is that gonna show in the price? When are we gonna see that in the price?
• 29:02
  So I think the recap for me of 2025, there's some good takeaways that people should be thinking of. One, it has in some ways taken over some of the uses of oil. And, you know, when you talk about, well, what does that mean? Obviously, there's solar. Obviously, there's the usage in electric vehicles.
• 29:26
  Silver plays an important part of that. But let's talk about the new thing that everybody's talking about is AI. And I think the thing about AI that's interesting is that we don't know in two to three years what usage of AI is gonna be the most important. But we do know that for AI to work, the information needs to come into a data center. The data center that they're building, you know, how many of these they're building all over the world.
• 29:55
  And then that data center has to send out the information. Now, to do that, they have to keep it cool. Those data centers have to be cool, right? Like your computer, like it gets too hot, it doesn't The data centers have the same issue. Silver plays a part in the data centers in keeping it cool.
• 30:17
  So I look at like, it's kinda like the gold rush, right? It's like there's gonna be the people that are gonna try to find the gold, and then there's the people that sell the shovels. And silver is the shovel. And I think that's the thing that people need to realize is that everything around it is what's there. Because you know that that's gonna be around.
• 30:43
  Whether it's gonna be AI is gonna be used in whatever industry it's gonna be used in, they have to harness that into a place and then spit it back out. That's why they're building so many of these centers, and that's why NVIDIA because the chip, they need the chip, right? I mean, that's a big part of this whole equation, but they have to keep the chip cool. They have to keep those components cool, otherwise they overheat. Kinda like what happened in the CME over Thanksgiving.
• 31:12
  Right? I mean, you saw that. Mysteriously, as silver's running up to an all time high, the the CME is is basically shut down for ten hours, and and they can't do trades. And, you know, there's a whole scandal around that that basically over Thanksgiving weekend, silver shooting up. The market is offline because they had a glitch, and part of the glitch they believe is overheating glitch, and cooling issue.
• 31:46
  But the thing that's funny about this is that, like, any common sense person would say, like, they have to have redundancy, They have to have some other place, and they do, and they didn't use it. So why would they be offline when they have a whole so so basically, I I believe their center is in I think the data center that the big one is in Illinois. Their backup is in New York. They have it. It's ready to go.
• 32:14
  They already knew that this could happen. And basically their statement is that they thought it was gonna be like a 30 glitch, so they didn't think it was important. But what happens after an hour? What happens after two hours? And so, you know, I believe that there was some kind of collusion there that basically they saw the price running.
• 32:36
  Because when you woke up the day after Thanksgiving, silver was up dollar $52. Who knows? Maybe it's up $5, but but they couldn't trade. Nobody could trade. So I I think that is is really telling of where the world is going.
• 32:53
  That this major exchange that has redundancy, what had a glitch because of cooling. Think about what's gonna happen in the next one, two, or three years if there's situations where they have this where places overheat. There's gonna be whole systems, AWS and all of these online systems that will go down. So wherever the AI use goes, silver has to accompany it because they need to keep those data centers cool, if that makes sense.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, perfect sense. So what do you think what do think silver could go to? I know no one has a crystal ball, but I guess maybe you did somehow in your book, you had some sort of crystal ball that allowed you to make a pretty bold prediction that has actually been exceeded with where we're at right now. But because I think that the people I've talked to in my own research, it's like, it could be a $100 an ounce. It could be far more than that depending on Sure.
• 33:52
  You know, if it is a reflection of the dollar and the dollar is collapsing, the worn bricks and everything that's happening there, and there's a true price discovery, it's like you look at what's happened. Well, they've the price artificially for decades. So
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: What kind of momentum is, like, underneath of that system is being held down, held down? What happens if that system breaks? Which the CME event makes me think it's an indicator that the system is breaking.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think there's a few things that I will say is that one, a lot of the mining conferences, I was listening to the president of the Silver Institute, who, owned, he was the CEO of one of the biggest silver mines before he became the president of the Silver Institute. And he was saying, the word on the street in every conference this year was something that he had never heard before. And that was, you need to take possession of silver. Interesting.
• 34:51
  It's not contracts. And that's verbatim. I saw him in an interview a week ago and he was talking about the word on the street is take possession because you don't want to be in a contract situation. And so then you think, well, how many people that have contracts actually take possession? And it's, you know, what would the number be?
• 35:17
  And you think, oh, maybe it's 10% or 15% or 20%. It's less than 2%. So I think that's a very telling story in that if he's saying take possession and less than 2% is actually taking possession, what happens if it goes to 5%? What happens if it goes to 10%? There's already delays.
• 35:43
  They're not able to deliver. If you have a silver contract, you're not getting it in a week. You're getting it in three or four weeks. And that's based on only less than 2% actually calling in the contract. So where could it go?
• 35:59
  Silver leasing prices during Thanksgiving and a month or two before that hit record highs. So basically, they didn't have it. They wanted to get it. And so they had these leasing prices. So they had to lease it to cover what they're supposed to do in terms of their contracts.
• 36:17
  The leasing prices at some points hit well above 30% above the spot price. 30%. So these companies are willing to pay 30% above the current spot price to ensure that they have inventory because they don't have enough. So that's just, you know, that's something to to kinda chew on. Well, so Yeah.
• 36:46
  Sorry.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Go ahead. I was gonna say a quick point. So you know the the debt clock. Right? You know, think the world debt clock dot I forget the exact Yeah.
• 36:53
  But they have they have a listing of all the things. And one thing that they show on there is a silver, and gold to paper ratio. You mentioned that, like, what about 2% of people that have contracts are holding them. If you look at the actual the entirety of the silver the paper silver market, it stands somewhere at around 357 to one is the paper to silver ratio. And so this is It's
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: gone up a lot.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is insane. Right? So what this person here is saying is that says this is the the paper to physical ratio, which is, what should be used to calculate the true price. Paper is no substitute for physical. The paper to silver ratio is 357 to one silver.
• 37:32
  At the present moment, silver should be 16,000 per ounce. You know, it's looking at British pounds. And of course, it's not gonna just jump to that. Because, you know, these paper contracts are very complicated, you're getting into derivatives and everything. But I think the the the point here is that they've used this paper market to
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: To suppress.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: To suppress it, and they convince people that, hey. It's it's it's easier just to hold a contract, you know, like, it's it's convenient. You can trade it.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: You know, whatever. Sure.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, that's why I've like, I don't own any silver contracts. Like, I just have, you know, like, something like, I can go bury it in my backyard. Like, that's that's to me what it means to own something.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: And we've seen every collapse typically has a derivative element to it. Right? I mean, the two thousand eight collapse was a derivative collapse. Right? Because they kept selling the bonds over and over again, these bonds that were backed, supposedly backed by good real estate debt.
• 38:30
  But they went even farther because they would resell it multiple times. And that's why there was eventually when the contracts came due, wasn't enough there. There wasn't enough money too to back it. And also that debt was a lot worse. It wasn't class A debt, right?
• 38:48
  It was debt that was going to come back to the banks and that's what caused that hysteria. The same thing could happen in the silver and gold market if we continue to ask for it, if we continue to want it. And that's why I think the last time on your show, came to the for the first time in my whole career, I have come to the conclusion that I do believe at some point there will not be enough gold and silver for retail investors to buy it themselves. I do think eventually central banks, COMEX, and, industrial use will take over these metals that we you and I won't be you won't be able to buy that. The mints won't be able to get it to buy it.
• 39:36
  I I do think that's a that's a real possibility. Now, there could be a little bit left because of jewelry, right? And so maybe you'll turn in your gold and you'll melt it down or your silver and you'll melt it down. So there'll be some in circulation that could get turned into a bar. But if a company is willing to pay 30% over spot to lease it, if the government needs silver for drones and they're willing to pay a premium, then maybe it won't.
• 40:05
  Maybe all this silver and gold that gets messed down, it's going to go to industrial use. So I actually have come to the realization and it won't happen overnight, but I do think within ten years, there will not be that many gold and silver items available to buy. I think that people that own them now, if they can hold them, they will find out that eventually there'll be a supply and demand issue with owning the real stuff. And I think that that will create a scenario where there'll be a premium above the spot price, which is, you know, I think that'll create an amazing opportunity. Right now, you're getting everything very close to the spot price, so you're buying it at a discount, but I think that that will switch eventually.
• 40:50
  And we have seen that happen. I mean, you and I have talked about Silver Eagles selling at $8 or $10 over the spot price. If they can't make Silver Eagles anymore, and the bars that are coming out are shrinking, there will be a premium above the spot price for all these physical items, because people will still want to own them. They'll still want to have them. So I think that's pretty exciting.
• 41:13
  And then the thing that I would sort of wrap this with is that you have that idea of that so little in contracts actually being delivered. And then the other thing is the last sixty days, China and The US have said silver is a strategic metal. And when they say it's a strategic metal, silver, they're saying that they are gonna do whatever they can to acquire it. They're gonna do whatever they can to mine it. They're gonna do whatever they can to keep it and they're not gonna sell it.
• 41:43
  And it's not as important for the it's important for The US to say that, basically saying that it's important they need it, and this is part of this Trump's move towards ending globalization too, right, like us being more self sufficient, this is the idea. But China supplies a lot of the silver for the world, and they're saying next year they don't want to do that. So the world is gonna be really going, well, if I can't get it from China and if I can't get it from The US, like where am I gonna get silver? So there's gonna be shortages in other places of the world. And as more people, if more people go this way, and they start to just think about protecting their own country, and we're ending this idea of shipping our labor overseas because we think it's better and we're really trying to bring everything back home, a lot of the world is gonna be doing the same thing.
• 42:37
  Even Mexico, in theory, could do it. And most of the silver comes out of Mexico. Who knows? I mean, if Mexico said that they're not gonna ship silver, silver would go up, in my opinion, 10 times its current price because so much silver comes out of Mexico. And we saw that happen during COVID because the mines shut down in Mexico and the price went crazy, right?
• 42:58
  I mean, went from $13 to $28 in six months because we couldn't get it from Mexico. We didn't have enough here. So I think these are things that people should be watching as they were starting to hoard the metals. The more you start to hoard the metals, it becomes less readily available for COMEX and contracts and also for retail investors. And so I do think there will be a time in the future that it will be nearly impossible to buy for home ownership.
• 43:30
  I think the big players are gonna buy the majority of it. So whoever's left with it at that time, you're gonna be in an unbelievable position. And and I think the profit would be something we've never seen before.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I I couldn't agree more. Even the past, like, I bought some more silver at $53 an ounce, I think. And I remember at that time, was thinking like, okay, Mike, am I just drinking the Kool Aid here? You know, it's like, I'm really trying to evaluate.
• 43:57
  But then I look at now, it's up over $60. It's, you know, I'm like, oh, okay. Great. Well, it's already up, you know, 10% or something over that. And that's just, And I personally, you know, look, you know, anything could happen, but based upon all these factors, I don't see that changing.
• 44:13
  So, Colin, as we're wrapping up, I will bring up we've got a website, Gold With Seth. If anyone watching or listening, if you're interested in moving some of your money over into gold and silver, you know, Colin, his team is the top. You whether it's IRAs, even just, you know, direct cash purchases for shipping, I hear nothing but positive things from you, I've had a great experience as one of your customers as well. So, Colin, what do you recommend for people when they when they wanna contact you if they're interested in buying some gold or silver?
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I I think the first thing to do is call, build a relationship, you get a representative that's your person. All, anyone you talk to at Noble Gold has a minimum of five years experience in physical metals. That's one of the great things about our company. We have over 95% retention rate in terms of employees at Noble Gold.
• 45:05
  So you're gonna get somebody that not only owns gold and silver, but has been doing this for a long time. I have some people who have been doing it for ten years. But you're gonna get someone that understands this, that knows this, and you're gonna ask a lot of questions, spend time. If you wanna move forward, we do all the paperwork for you. We could walk you through how to move the IRA or old four zero one ks.
• 45:24
  I think it's a good time because if you're gonna do something, it's a good time at the end of the year to look at your accounts, see where they're at, see if you got the performance you wanted, see if you're diversified. These are all good questions. And, you know, at the end of the day, we focus on the customer service. We focus on the experience. And so if you call us and want to just build a relationship with somebody that this is all we do, I think it's a great time.
• 45:50
  And I promise you will be enjoy the experience you have with our representatives, from the shipping to the storage. You know, we're going to be here for the life of, you know, however you long own gold and silver. And really, this is what we do. This is what we do every day. We live and breathe this, and we love it.
• 46:09
  And I also think the one thing you'll find is that it will be a pleasurable and fun experience. Everyone that works for Noble Gold is fun and happy, and they're family people and they're patriots, and they support your show. So it it it's it's it's a relationship for us, and that's really what we focus on.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Which is which is key. I'll bring up the website one more time, and I'll put these these links in the description, for the show. It's goldwithseth.com. The phone number, (877) 646-5347. Colin, thanks for giving us your time.
• 46:42
  Know you're a busy man. I appreciate you coming on. And, you know, our our next show may not be until the New Year. We'll see. But, you know, it's let's, yeah.
• 46:51
  Hopefully, yeah. Everyone's year finishes strong, and, yeah. There's a lot going on, but just stay focused on on what's good. So, Colin Absolutely.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: Happy holidays. Yeah. And thank you and and looking forward to seeing you next year.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Alright, man. Thank you.