And so you know, when you see this kind of sophistication, coordination,
this kind of well, it should be something that shouldn't be taken or shouldn't
be underestimated, and it should be taken very very seriously. So yeah,
you know, I think it's just beginning. But it's not just China.
If you look at India, they bought their reserve bank bought one and a
half times the amount of gold they bought all of last year, just in
the first four months of this year. And following a theme that we continue
to see across the globe, they then repatriated one hundred metric tons from the
Bank of England, which means they're holding almost all of their gold right now.
That gold has been there since nineteen ninety one, much of it.
They would leave gold these countries at the Bank of England to trade on the
LBMA and at the New York Fed to trade on the Colmax. Well,
what did we just see? We just saw what banks? Did we just
see pull their metal out of the Colemax. You were listening to Carrie Letz's
Financial Survival Network, where you get valued information you just can't find anywhere else
to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial Survival Network now more
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to and watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz.
With us is the esteemed Andy Sheckman. You know him well from Miles Franklin
dot com. One of the largest bullion dealers in the country and in fact
the only one that I personally trust, having gone back nearly fifteen years.
And Andy, we used to say when you buy the ship, you know,
crazy things going out there, going on out there. I mean gold
hit twenty four fifty hold back ever so slightly. As we're talking now in
midje it's twenty three eighteen and change for gold silver hovering just under thirty bucks
again at twenty nine point forty. What should you take from all that's going
on? Now? You know, it seems to me over the last several
months carry and first of all, it's good to be here and crazy how
fast fifteen years flies by. I guess as you get older, it just
my dad always says, like a roll of toilet paper, it spins faster
and faster and faster. When you're young, you don't notice the passage of
time nor the depletion in the role. But as it starts to get closer,
as you get older, you see it spinning faster. You notice the
cardboard a little sooner. But anyways, it's good to be back. Yeah.
It's like the gold and silver markets almost seem to be playing by a
new set of rules, and things seem to be very different. There's certainly
a battle being waged between you know, the cartel bullion banks who are wickedly
short, and the commercial banks and the central banks who have insatiable appetite for
commodities, which to me seem to be there's a growing realization that these commodities
are worth more than the currencies that purchase them, and that's a big deal.
So yeah, I think if I were to sum it up, I
would say that what for decades has been this trend of the price being set
by the Western banks and the Western institutional investors seems to be breaking down.
And I think the underestimation of the West, or the significance of the Western
goal shifting eastward and commodities in general eastward is. The underestimating of this significance
is baffling to me, and I think it will be a big mistake.
So, yeah, things are changing, that is for sure, and commodities
in particular seem to be at the center of this change, and I don't
think that will change anytime soon. Yeah. Well, I talked with our
mutual friend Rick Rule last week and gave me some real insights. You know,
a market that was like almost completely neglected natural gas. He likes to
buy really cheap when things are trading at prices that they can't possibly keep going
at, and then just be patient and don't lose conviction and hang around.
And you know, we saw it with gold, We saw it with silver.
You know, my good friend Nick Santiago called the bottom of silver at
seventeen bucks and it's never looked back. I mean, how high can these
prices go in terms of dollars? Well, a lot higher than people think
possible. And I've heard Rick say that many times that the most money he's
ever made it would be buying assets that have been you know, left for
dead. And that's the whole idea between buying low and selling high. We
all learned that when we were little kids, but no one ever really does
it. But when you realize, as an example, that the lbma AS
is trading two hundred and ninety two million ounces of silver per day and twenty
million ounces of gold per day, but yet admits that their platform is trading
actually ten times the volume. They say that they're settling. In other words,
if I buy ten and sell twenty, or let's say I sell twenty
and buy ten, and that result is ten, and so they'll just publish
those ten, not the thirty trades, which would mean they're trading what two
hundred million ounces of gold per day at two point nine billion ounces of silver
per day. That re hypothication, the issuing of way more contracts than there
are bars behind it enables the price to be suppressed. But what's different now,
and I would say this time it is different, and really been culminating
over the last few years, is the sophistication, the understanding, the coordination
and the wealth of the countries in the global South and Southern hemisphere that understand
that this is a new game as old an poser says, all about commodities
and they are standing for delivery using the brain dead suppression that these bankers put
on the exchanges to support the illusion of bond supremacy and of a strong dollar
to their advantage, and they're draining the world's exchanges. The LBMA is down
to its second lowest level of silver in history. The Shanghai Gold Exchange down
to their lowest level of silver in I don't know how many years the comes
we've been talking about, all the deliveries off of comex. It's not just
silver. Five weeks ago Friday, we saw five hundred billion ounce of five
hundred billion dollars rather worth of goal delivered off of Comex and it ended up
in Hong Kong. And I don't think a lot of people understand this,
but there was a contract that was developed in two thousand. Let me see
if I can find the actual date. There was a contract that was developed
in twenty fifteen. And this contract, what it allows for is the delivery
of gold to a Comex based warehouse in Hong Kong. It's a Brinx facility
in Hong Kong. And just about anything that is delivered to Brings Hong Kong
has done on what's called an exchange for physical basis, where the contract is
bought in the West and then delivered in the East. And five weeks ago
Friday, we saw five hundred million dollars worth of gold. The number was
seven five hundred and sixty kilo bars of gold, which is what the mini
contract is on COMEX and it is what is traded on the London Metals Exchange.
So you're talking, you know, who's got that kind of bread for
seventy five hundred and sixty kilo bars or just over five hundred million dollars worth
of gold delivered to Hong Kong. And the idea or the thought is is
that these bars are then immediately put into a truck and driven to the Shanghai
Gold Exchange, where they are then disseminated to the countries who are accumulating physical
metal using the Western suppression to do so. And so you know, when
you see this kind of sophistication, coordination, this kind of well, it
should be something that shouldn't be taken or shouldn't be underestimated, and it should
be taken very very seriously. So yeah, you know, I think it's
just beginning. But it's not just China. Like you look at India,
they bought their reserve bank bought one and a half times the amount of gold
they bought all of last year, just in the first four months of this
year. And following this theme that we continue to see across the globe,
they then repatriated one hundred metric tons from the Bank of England, which means
they're holding almost all of their gold right now. That gold's been there since
nineteen ninety one, much of it they would leave gold these countries at the
Bank of England to trade on the LBMA and at the New York Fed to
trade on the Comax. Well, what did we just see? We just
saw what banks did we just see pull their metal out of the colemes We
saw I don't know if I have it here, I can tell you was
Egypt, it was Saudi Arabia, and a half a dozen African countries they
did the exact same thing. I don't have it written down, but I
read it just recently. Where you know, all of these banks over the
last month and a half, these central banks have been repatriating their goal both
from the New York Fed and from the Bank of England. And this is
a constant theme of removal of counterparty risk And can you blame them when you
see the House say we're going to confiscate, not just sanction and freeze the
five billion that were holding of the Russian assets. We're going to take it.
We're going to give it to the Ukraine in the form of weaponry.
And then you have the European Union that said we're going to freeze, of
course not steal outright yet, but we're going to steal the interest from the
securities that we are holding of Russian assets and use it to fund the Ukraine.
So it's one thing to sanction, it's another thing. And again half
of the world believes it, the West in particularly the United States, in
the UK and it believes that we are hypocritical for all the things that we
do that have no recourse. Yet other countries do things that have great recourse.
Well, these countries, it's one thing to sanction, it's nothing to
steal and to use it to fight or to fund the country that you stole
it from that they're in a war with. This is a line in the
sand you don't come back from very easily. This is breaking a glass against
the wall and then thinking you can put it back together before mom and dad
come home. I don't see it happening. So, yeah, gold and
silver have never been more important, not for any other reason. Then you
can see the biggest and most well informed money in the world making concerted effort
to accumulate it under the cover of Western market suppression and then repatriate it with
little or no media attention. But when you see all these countries, in
particular Saudi Arabia repatriot their gold from the New York fed, these countries don't
trust us anymore. And this is all about counterparty risk or the removal of
counterparty risk, all right, So let's bring it more personal. Your business,
all right. I know it's been booming for the past eighteen months,
almost to the day you moved down to Florida. Things like took off.
It's like you did the ultimate short sell. You shorted, you shorted to
Minnesota and you bought long in Florida and kind of that's what's been happening in
your business. Basically, your clients are getting out of dollars and getting into
physical assets. Correct. Yeah, And but what's interesting, Harry, is
that I would say in large part since December of last year through maybe four
weeks ago, it's changed lately. But you know, the first first almost
the first half of this year has been characterized by a lot of selling into
the market. You look at the global or the US ETF holdings are falling
at a forty five degree angle, which would Bill Holter will tell you that's
the big money backdoor in gold out of the ETFs. But a lot of
it has to do with the traders, or not the traders, the investors
who have been selling GLD and maybe chasing things like in video or bitcoin,
who knows, or maybe paying bills in this highly inflationary world we live in,
where the cost of living has accelerated so much, I don't know,
but there has been a good deal of selling into the market, and which
confuses me in a great great way. I mean, looking at what Rick
says to me, that's a contrarian indicator, and where you see the public
selling at the same time the smartest and most well funded and informed money in
the world, the commercial and central banks have been massively accumulating it. So
we've seen a little bit of reversal here lately. But when I look around
and I see the idiocy of our policy abroad and here at home, where
the borders and the immigration process the electoral process and judicial system, the lawlessness
in the cities. All of these things are not lost on the rest of
the world and horrify me. I you know, I'm surprised that people would
be letting go of their metal in search of quick returns in things like in
video or bitcoin, because I think this is the time, more than ever
where you need to really fold on tight to your conviction and have strong fingertips
because things are about to change, I think in a meaningful way. When
you see these central banks accumulate the way that they are and then repatriate the
way that they are, that's significant. Then it shows a lack of trust
and the lack of faith in the Western system and lack of trust in the
governments that control it. So, yeah, things are shifting. Things are
moving, no question about it. Yeah, and for good reason too.
And that's and your business has been a direct beneficiary of this. I think
a lot of individual rules are starting to catch on. And look even China,
right the real estate market is crumbled, it's imploded. So people in
China if they do have any money left, and you know, literally hundreds
of millions of people who were gladly included in the middle class are now out
of the middle class, but the ones left, they don't trust the yuan
by any stretch. And I remember I was there in twenty and seventeen and
guy was telling me, no, no, I'm not into gold. I'm
into real estate. Real estate's where it's at. And I haven't talked to
this guy in a while, but I guarantee it his attitude has changed.
Yeah, I'm sure it would change, and rightfully so. But I think
you could say the same thing about the dollar about our markets in general.
You know, our bond market, which was its worst performing year ever maybe
in twenty twenty three, as they raised rates five hundred basis points in a
year where the first time ever in forty five years. Anyway, the price
of gold had less volatility than the ten year treasury. So I think what
you see there is the best laid plans need to be reevaluated from time to
time. But all of this, you could argue, is that you know
the symptom of a over leveraged and undercapitalized world where everything is on leverage and
just as bullish as it was for asset prices in a low infrastrate, easy
money, leveraged environment. The deleveraging in an environment where when this stuff starts
to break as it appears, I think it's bound to anyway, the lack
of credit or the contraction of credit will be something that will amaze people,
because the amount of credit that is applied everywhere in this asciety is what makes
the system move. And if you start to rein in and liquidity dries up,
as banks begin to feel pressure, and again, you know everyone talks
about rates going down, I see rates ultimately going higher. Yeah, the
Fed may try to lower the short term rates, but the ultimate you have
to ask yourself, who in their right mind would buy treasuries of any duration
in the country who has chosen to weaponize the treasury market, confiscate Russian assets,
Russian treasures and give them to the country that they're fighting. Who would
trust that in an environment where the treasury market has gotten walloped as rates rose
at the hand of the Fed, and then a country that has chosen inflation
over austerity always and will continue to do that. We were printing, We're
adding a trillion dollars every hundred days, that two hundred years to do that,
Why would anyone buy our treasures? And even if the budget was balanced
today, which it's not. Who's going to pay for the ninety nine trillion
dollars shortfall in Medicare Part B, the twenty two trillion dollars shortfall Medicare Part
D, the seventy seven trillion dollars shortfall in Social Security, government military pensions
and entitlements that are all off balance sheet and not funded. Who's going to
pay for that? And you got the Congressional Budget Office, which is a
nonpartisan group, maybe the last one in Washington, who said, by twenty
thirty one, one hundred percent of tax revenue will go just to pay the
interest on the debt and the mandatory of titlement spending like Social Security. And
that doesn't even take into account the the seventeen million people that are in here
illegally. Who's going to pay for them their food, they're clothing, they're
housing, they're schooling. And if you realize that military spending is discretional,
not mandatory, it was going to porrow money to an insolvent broke country that's
lost their bearing to fund their military that's going around the world bullying people nobody.
And so when you talk about rates going lower, it's a bunch of
crap. Ultimately they have to go higher. And in an environment where rates
go higher and the strain on an overleverage, under capitalized system becomes real,
yeah, you'll see an unwinding of credit that will, I think, be
exponentially more devastating than the extension of easy credit and cheat money. In essence,
the inverse in this world that is as leveraged as it is could be
very shocking. So this is not about buying gold and silver to become wealthy
carry It's because it is wealth and the biggest money in the world, the
central banks who know the playbook. They're not only their rampant accumulation, but
their removal of counterparty risk by repatriating is huge. I think it should not
be underestimated. And this flow of gold and commodities, whereby commodities are becoming
worth more than the currency that buys them, this flow from west to east,
it shocks me how underestimating the talking heads are at looking at this.
They're underestimating the significance of this, and it's a big deal. So yeah,
I think now more than ever it's time to be a contrarian, or
you'll end up being a victim. Yeah, I could not agree with you
more. And you know, it's just you really don't have a lot of
choices. How do you feel about bitcoin these days? I mean it's trading
mid sixties now. I generally buy a little bit every Sunday night as I
find the prices pulled back on the weekends. Generally not always, but a
little bit here, a little bit there. Have accumulated a nice little position
in it. It's up. It's up forty percent from when I started.
I would swing traded for a while, and then after it started making getting
close to new highs, I ended that practice just accumulated. Obviously, you
can't put it in your hand, you can't hold it, you can't touch
it, you can't bite it to make sure it's real. But it still
appears to be an asset that has value. Yeah, I mean it does.
I guess I look at things from I mean, look, I don't
want to be in a position, Carrie where I look back and say,
damn it, I should have done that. I knew I should have done
that. Most of us do that in our lives at some point or another.
We don't trust our intuition. And while I don't truly feel the same
way about bitcoin in any way, shape or form that I do about physical
commodities. I have largely due to some conversations I've had with guys like Mark
Moss and Natalie Burnell. I've been dipping my toe in, little little bit
at a time. Every couple of weeks I had a little bit of bitcoin
to my portfolio. I don't own a lot, but I own enough to
where I will not punch myself in the ear if I was wrong. Look,
the one asset that all the central banks are buying is gold and physical
commodities. But I would be remiss if I didn't at least have a toe
in the water as it pertains to bitcoin. Last time I said something like
this publicly, I got an email, first one I've gotten a long time
from our old friend who you know, who's saying what about me? I
told you about this a long time. Going to his credit, he did,
he just lacked the decorum in the way of speaking in a way that
resonated with me. So in having lunch with Mark Moss and Natalie Burnell in
Vancouver, their manner and method of disseminating the information was such that it resonated
with me, and so I've added a little bit, and so I'm not
adversarial with it. And I think it's a mistake for our two camps to
be adversarial. We should be complementary because in essence we both I think see
the reason the same, and that is, you know, the idiocy and
irresponsibility of our fiscal policy and the brain dead monetary policy. The different it
really to me is that one camp wants to get wealthy and the other camp
wants to not lose what they've made. And so if we marry those two,
you can have the exponential growth potential a bitcoin and the savings, the
historical savings and keeping pace with inflation value of gold. And so you take
chips off the table that you profit and you put it into the other pocket
that's gold. So we should be complementary of one another, not adversarial.
And that's really the most important thing here. So I can't go around in
good faith saying this if I don't own a little bit of it. So
I have been buying a little bit, and I'm glad that I did.
But I'm a hard asset commodity in your hand type of guy. So It's
not an easy thing for me to do, but I understand the argument enough
to where I've acquiesced and I am doing it. Hey, totally, I'm
totally agreeing with you. And same here. I was always a died in
the wole hard asset investor, for sure, and I like having the hard
metal in hand. But on the other hand, you know, it's like
you have to be a fool not to recognize that when you have ETFs all
over the place, right and everybody is more and more people are pouring into
this asset class not a currency. I will never call it a currency until
I could send Miles Franklin my bitcoin and get gold. But yeah, well
we do take it through bit and pay. No pay is a a is
a group where you we issue a bit pay link and the funds go to
the crypto goes to bit pay, they pay us dollars. So it shocked
me how efficient it is. I had someone do a very large order using
a theorium that was like three million dollars and the money came to us in
literally seconds and cleared and we shipped it out right away. That's something that
certainly you could argue that cryptocurrency is far more efficient than the ant equated swift
and wire system that didn't take a long time and has to go through intermediary
banks and the whole nine yards. So yeah, you know, there are
certain part of this whole process that really is intriguing. But you know,
it's like I'm afraid to even put my thumbnail thing, thumb drive thing into
the computer. I mean, it scares me. I don't know what the
hell I'm doing, have a friend who helps me do it, and you
know, again, it's like I'm like an old timer who the kids laugh
at, you know, but you know what you know, right, and
and I'm good at what I do, and every time I've tried to do
something else, I'm really not so good at it. So I but I'm
acquiescing here. You know, the old dog can learn some new tricks,
begrudgingly, and we'll see what happens. You know, I don't want to
go back and say, damn it, I knew I should have done that,
So stake. The moral of the story is trust your gut, listen
to your voice, and if you're wrong, it's easier to be wrong when
you did it on your own volition and weren't talked into it, and when
you're right, it's a whole lot better. It's it's kind of like clients
when you're telling you you present them with something and they do it and it
goes the right way, they're a genius. But when it doesn't, you're
an idiot. And what goes on? I would write it, I listen
to you. Yeah, I'd rather take accountability for my actions. Yeah,
hey, same here in the end, you are always responsible, whether you
will like to blame it on somebody else or not. It's you wrote the
check, you put it button right you. But just on bitcoin, I've
got four tenths of the bitcoin floating out there, and luckily when I lost
it because I had upgraded my iPhone and it wiped out my password and I
could never get it back. Back then it was two hundred dollars. The
problem is now it's thirty thousand. Now I would have probably never kept it
that long anyway. But I'm thinking of going to a hypnotist to try to
remember what my what my tey is. You know, I cannot luck on
it. Good luck on that. If that works, well, I'll go
and see hypnotists too. For a myriad of other things that I've probably forgotten
over the years. But that has more to do with my social life and
growing up in a house where my parents were hippies, and oh well that
then probably anything else. But you know what, Hey, we all make
mistakes along the way, and that, to me is the thing that scares
me the most about cryptocurrency. But you know, there are some people who
laugh that away. And it just is like anything. It's like the first
time you ever fire a handgun at a range. You're scared and you don't
know what to do. And the first time you pull the trigger and you
know, and maybe if you get it jammed, what do you do?
You're afraid. After you've done it for a lot of time, it's no
bigger you know, I love you, and I just think that it's like
anything. It takes time and repetition and experience and and know how so I'm
slowly time. First time you pull that trigger, man, you don't know
what you've unleashed. Chief, right, I must be I must be insane.
Here is that the power? You know? The whole think, But
that's called empowerment control? Right, So, hey, you're going to be
at Rick Rules conference, though, of course I wouldn't miss it. It's
the only one so well. That and the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, Jay
Martin, those are the two that I would never miss And so yeah,
I will be there. It's my backyard, as you know, it's not
too far away. And look forward to seeing you there. And now hopefully
some of the people listening to this show, it will be nice to see
some put some some faces to the people I talk to online all the time.
All right, hey, we appreciate you coming. Miles Franklin dot com
online system ready operating it is. We have a new one also coming out
at the end of the month where upgrading at version two will be a lot
more user friendly. And if you want prices or questions on anything you've heard
on the show or anything else, send an email to info at Miles Franklin
dot com and say carry Lots or the Financial Survival Network sent us because the
prices that we have that we don't post online, we only allow limited purchasing
up to ten grand online. If you send us an email and request that
price list, you'll see that the prices that we will send you are as
good, are better than anywhere in North America. But we keep that closer
to the vest. So info at Miles Franklin dot com with any questions or
just the price list, but make sure you say the Financial Survival Network or
Carrie send me and it would be very important to us to know where it
came from. And I will treat your listeners with white glove. That's my
promise. We've never had a customer complaint fortunately, and one on thirty five
years. Will make damn sure your listeners are not the first. And I'm
just going to read something because I was just scanning the company see if there's
anything I don't know about, and I came up with a review on LinkedIn
and it says is is Miles Franklin legit? And I'm just going to read
you what it says here. I think you know it says it all.
Miles Franklin has been in business since nineteen eighty nine, making them incredible and
experienced precious metals firm. They have earned positive reviews on Trust Pilot and hold
a Better Business accreditation for many years. They're extensive history and customer satisfaction attest
to the legitimacy in the industry, and I would add to that where many
others who are thought to have been at one time legitimate have been proven otherwise.
Yeah, I don't know. I've never seen that. I don't know
who wrote that, but thank you whoever did. Look. You know,
in a world that where information is so readily available at our fingertips, it's
an easy thing to research, and we're very proud of it. And you
know, even though I live here in Florida, not too far from you,
I left my corporate entity in Minnesota, even though it has saved me
money, because it is the only sting America that regulates what is a federally
non regulated industry, so we are held to a far higher standard. Most
companies in America boycott Minnesota as a result of this regulation or this accreditation,
this licensing and this bonding that is expensive and invasive in terms of privacy and
continuing education and compliance. It's a drag, but when in the end we
are all to a higher standard, and I realize that, and that is
a benefit to us and to the to the end user. So that's why
I left it there, and it's some more very proud of and we embrace
regardless of how onerous it truly is. But coming on a show with a
guy like you who you know for years. Your reputation is your currency,
and we take that very seriously. And you know, I don't want to
disappoint you, my friend, or anyone else, or hurt anyone by any
stretch of the imagination. So it is our really our mission to uphold this,
this amazing, this amazing track record that I still can't believe is in
place. And because we've made mistakes, but I think a person is defined
not by the mistakes they make, but how they make good or rectify or
deal with said mistakes. So we were pretty good at that as well too.
So for what it's worth, thank you for the kind words. Thank
you for the year's worth of friendship and this relationship that whereby you trust me
to come on your show where trust is your currency and information, and we
take that seriously. And I look forward to picking up where we left off.
We'll have to do one in person at rep show, but at any
time that the world beckons or information is worthy to speak about, let me
know it's always an honor to be here with you. Carrie, you got
it, and the gentleman who left that it was just recent May twenty fifth
of this year is Yasuki Kohara appears to be a client, and I have
no idea who Usuki is, but thank you, Ysuki. I really appreciate
you. Brother. He's on LinkedIn. I'm going to put a link in
the show notes to his review because I think it's Hey, I can say
you're great, you can say you're great, But when you have a third
party who you don't even know who the guy is and he says you're great,
that carries more weight. That's called social proof. And I don't need
any more proof. I mean I used to. I used to say when
Andy would come on, I'd say, you know, Miles Franklin, when
you buy they shit, Because believe me, I've been. I haven't been
totally screwed over on gold. But partially I've waited months from a company where
the owner I could visit him if I want to, because I think he's
in the federal lock up. Well that be, that'd be, that'd be
don't even have to tell me. That would be the one up in Washington
to say if they were known for that, yeah, less territorial menu,
you know what, there's all over, Yeah, you know what, and
that's a big deal. Look it's federally non regulated industry, so it lends
itself into this kind of chih aigains, let's say. But in any case,
I do appreciate it, Carrie, and I look forward to picking up
where we left off. I know you and I have a lunch plan in
the near future, so I look forward to seeing in person. And in
the meantime, thanks for having me on and we'll do it again soon,
all right. Got a question for Andy myself. The email address is kl
at Carrie Lets dot com. The link to Miles Franklins in the show notes
below, And while you're at the site Financial Survival Network dot com, please
sign up for your free newsletter and Andy, we will see you soon.
See you, my man, Stay well, Carrie, Thanks for listening to
Carrie Lets's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times. For the
latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever,