Transcription
We went from being peaceful and the price of oil coming down to full stage almost World War III. And we're in a 4 to [music] 500 year transition that could get very scary. Something that was relatively minor like the Epstein files could easily destroy the world economy. So, we know they're destroying the currencies. You can either take action and protect your assets or you could sit and wait for your assets to disappear.
>> Paul Mylchreest, precious metals and geopolitical analyst and founder of 321gold.com. It is a true pleasure to host you on Palisade Gold Radio today.
>> Well, it's a pleasure to be back and interestingly enough uh over the months I've discussed many aspects of this silly war and Iran and and it's got very critical in the last week with the attack of Ukraine on Iran and then Saudi Arabia on the Houthis and now the Houthis and Iran on Saudi Arabia. There are people who believe this could easily morph into World War III and unfortunately every day I tend think more and more that that's certainly possible.
>> Well, that's exactly where I would love to start off this this chat that we have today Paul because when we had you on last time in April, you already during a previous round of escalation Iran war called this the greatest turning point of your life. And now like you outlined of course, it seems like the war is taking up another shape while financial markets, if you look at WTI oil, it's currently trading below $85 a barrel and it seems like general financial markets are pricing in an imminent end to this war. So, I'll be very curious to hear from your perspective, where do you think big picture, and I know this is a great question to start off with as it's not an easy one to answer, but where do you think big picture this war is headed? And now that it's gone on for so long, 5 months already, and the escalation seemed to step up steadily, is this something structural?
>> Well, here's what's interesting. One word to answer to your question is it is it structural? And the answer is absolutely yes. That's two words, actually. But, I'll scare you. Okay. We know the temperatures in the Eastern Pacific are 3 and 1/2° degrees warmer. The The water temperature is 3 and 1/2° warmer because they record El Niño. And there is a hurricane in the Eastern Pacific that went from a tropical storm to a category 5 hurricane in 18 hours. And certainly you're aware that the northeast of the United States had a heat storm a week ago. And we had a heat storm in France and Spain a a month ago. And we're going to another one right now, and there are some giant forest fires in both Spain and France. So, the the simple answer to your question is yes, but not only is Ukraine, and not only Iran, it's the entire world. And we're in a 4 to 500-year transition that could get very scary. Now, I laugh at me. Strange enough, you see the background behind me. I live in a little tiny milk house. So, my clothes are up here, my jewelry matches up here, my Bandit's here, and a [snorts] 18 hours a day my dog is here. Uh I raise raspberries and black currants, and the heat 3 weeks ago was so hot it killed the plants. So, the scary thing and people accuse me of the doomer and gloomer and and to accept I am. But, if you know something that's bad is coming, then you can be prepared.
Now, let's let's make a transition into oil. I track the Brent crude ETF. And from the highest point it's been in 5 days to the lowest point that it's been in 5 days, which was yesterday, there was an 18% drop in the price of oil. Now, something similar would be true of the West Texas Intermediate. So, so the strange thing is we have this bizarre situation where in the middle of war that affects energy. Uh why why would the oil be going down 18% a week? And and the interesting answer is manipulation. We've got the SPR. The United States has has salt caverns in Texas, Louisiana. And we've been sucking on the SPR because we've got an emergency, and of course that lowers the price of fuel. We've got Cushing that stored a billion barrels of oil. Now that's a 10-day supply. We've got governments all over the world that had an SPR their own. We allowed Russia to export a few hundred million barrels of oil. We allowed you not Ukraine Iran to export a few hundred barrels of oil. The Chinese decreased their demand by 5 million barrels of oil a day. So we had headwinds against the price of oil. So instead of increasing 300% like it did in 1973, it went up. It it was a marginal increase and it came right back down and 2 weeks ago it stayed place it was February. Now here's what's the problem is. All of those headwinds are now tailwinds. The SPR it's being deleted. Cushing is flat. SPRs around the world have been deleted. Russia is not exporting oil. Iran is not exporting oil. And it just got really serious in the last couple of days. Ukraine attacked a Iranian vessel in the Black Sea. And I Iran's policy is when we're attacked, we will attack back. So they're going to do something to Ukraine and that's going to affect the price of energy. But at the same time, Saudi Arabia took it upon themselves to attack the Houthis, one of the airports of the Houthis. And the Houthis of course, attacked the Saudi Arabian refinery on the Red Sea. Now, they got a pipeline Saudi Arabia runs east to west. And it since they couldn't export oils through the Strait of Hormuz, they exported oil through the pipeline to the Red Sea, and then that south to to the Gulf of of whatever it is. So So, we got this situation where Saudi Arabia initiated an attack on the Houthis. And now the Houthis have attacked Saudi Arabian refinery. And at the same time, Iran has been attacked by the United States Saudi Arabia. So, Iran has attacked the refinery on the east coast of Saudi Arabia. This has the potential for going to a world-class World War III literally in a few days. It Saudi Arabia didn't have to attack the Houthis. The United States Saudi Arabia did not have to attack Iran. Iran is going to react, and the Houthis reacted. So, there we are. We went from being peaceful, and the price of oil coming down, to full-stage almost World War III.
>> Today's episode of Palisades Gold Radio is proudly brought to you by our parent company, Palisades Goldcorp, Canada's leading junior resource investment vehicle trading on the Toronto Venture Exchange under ticker symbol PALI, with equity and warrant positions in over 200 companies, ownership of mineral projects and royalties, and a significant stake in New Found Gold. Palisade offers investors powerful leveraged exposure to precious metals, uranium, copper, and other critical minerals. Palisade shareholders directly benefit from our team's extensive industry knowledge and access to deal flow, opportunities historically reserved for a small group of investors. To learn more, visit us at palisade.ca and join us in our mission to level the playing field for investors. Now, back to the show.
>> That's for sure an incredibly bleak picture that you're outlining here. What [snorts] do you think the real reason is behind so many peace talks that we have seen thus far? Is it an in- incapacity, not enough capacity to be able to broker a peace deal, or is there something behind the scenes there that we might be missing from the surface where it's strategic to pause in between before the next round of escalation comes comes along?
>> Well, here's a situation.
>> [clears throat]
>> When I was in high school 60 years ago,
>> [snorts]
>> we used to ask each other rhetorical questions. And one of the questions was, "What do you have when you have an irresistible force that meets an immovable object?" And the answer that we came up with was immeasurable energy. We have three main players and we have 10 minor players. This war belongs to Israel. And as much as Donald Trump wants to be the bride at every wedding and the stiff at every funeral, this is Iran is Israel's war on Iran they have intended to pursue for 40 years. Donald Trump does want to be at the bride at every wedding, so he has co-opted Israel and he participated big time and he made it his war instead of Israel's war. But if Americans think about it, Iran didn't threaten the United States. Iran was not a problem for the United States and there was absolutely no reason to attack Iran, especially doing it for the second time right in the middle of negotiations. Now, let's go back to the immovable object. Israel's intent is to destroy Iran. They will talk about regime change and they lie about everything they do. It's not about regime change, it's about destroying Iran. Iran, on the other hand, is not a big fan of letting Israel destroy them. So, Iran is fighting back and they've had 47 years of sanctions to prepare for war that they knew was coming. So, we've got Israel who who initiated the war, Iran who's responded to the war, and Donald Trump has interjected the United States into the war. Well, those are the main players and that's what their objective is. But you've got Saudi Arabia, you've got the other five countries in the GCC. [snorts] You've got the Houthis, you've got Turkey, you've got literally Kazakhstan they have is involved, Russia is involved. So, you have all of these players and what they do is important. Now, Russia has stopped exporting diesel and I didn't realize this, but Russia was exporting 2% of the diesel in the world. So, when they stopped exporting diesel, that was a significant contribution to the to the uh tailwinds for diesel fuel. We have a crisis now, and what very few people understand is as long as Strait of Hormuz is closed, and as long as the Red Sea cannot be used for export, every day the Houthis and Iran become more powerful. Now, Israel is literally uh Bebe Netanyahu is literally in Washington D.C. with Donald Trump today. And I'm convinced that Donald Trump has been blackmailed by Israel. This war is expensive. There is no possible way the United States can win it. And I'm convinced that Bebe Netanyahu flies to Washington. He shows him videos from the Epstein files and then tells Donald Trump exactly what he expects him to do. So, we got a situation that is dangerous now, and it becomes more dangerous every single day.
>> Well, we have seen, if I'm not mistaken, over the past few weeks also strikes on civilian infrastructure, power plants, desalination plants, etc. From your perspective, how much damage has been done on that front, and how worried should we be that the leaders have have taken the decision to strike those targets um and escalate in that direction?
>> Okay, now, which country are you talking about that's being attacked?
>> I believe
>> desalination plants were were attacked.
>> I believe there were reports of multiple countries being struck on desalination plant front.
>> Well, here's what's happened, and it gets very interesting. You have two sides, and you have two stories and one side lies constantly and the other side tells the truth constantly. The United States and Israel, that tag team, lies about everything. Donald Trump literally claimed victory 39 times in a row before the latest half escalation. Iran has made it crystal clear if their infrastructure is hit, if their desalinization plants are hit, they will attack the Arab countries in both the infrastructure and the desalinization. Now, here's what's interesting. Israel is a very target-rich country. There are five desalinization plants and they supply 80% of the water. The fuel to to feed these plants comes from gas field off of Gaza and Israel. It It would be an absolute piece of cake for Iran to take out either all five of the desalinization plants or the gas infrastructure. They have chosen not to do that. Now, no question the United States had a desalinization plant in Iran. I was talking about Israel being a target-rich environment. Iran is three times the size of Europe. They get 2% of their water from desalinization. Their Their infrastructure is spread out over hundreds of thousands of kilometers. So, while Israel is target-rich and Saudi Arabia is target-rich and Oman is target-rich and Kuwait is target-rich. Iran is not target-rich. We conducted we the United States and Israel we have conducted a couple of hundred thousand strikes and they're totally meaningless because the country is so spread out but somebody attacked a deep salinization plant I think in Kuwait and the Kuwaitis immediately would blame Iran for it but Iran had absolutely no reason to. Israel fights dirty wars and there was no indication whatsoever of there being drones or ballistic missiles from Iran but there are absolutely indications it was actually Israel sneaking in and try to make it look as if Iran was attacking Kuwait. Israel does that all the time. They fight everything dirty. They don't obey any rules, no treaties, no international law commit war crimes on a constant basis and then blame everybody else. Well, they're at war with eight countries right now. They are not the victims. But this has the potential for getting 10 times worse. Somebody went to Ukraine and convinced Ukraine to attack an Iranian vessel and they did that and they killed one person and of course they know Iran is going to reciprocate and Iran is doing that. But literally in the last day the Houthis have attacked a major refinery on the west coast Saudi Arabia. Iran has attacked a major refinery on the east coast of Saudi Arabia. The price of oil has shot up and it's only started. This is going to get worse and it's not only going to get worse, it's going to get far worse, far quicker than anybody realizes.
>> Well, great transition towards the oil markets as opposed like you outlined earlier, the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. We've seen further disruptions um at the Bab al-Mandab Strait um south of the of the Red Sea. No significant damage in the Middle East on oil infrastructure, also refining infrastructure like you outlined earlier. Let yet as we're speaking right now, WTI is trading at around $82 $83 a barrel. And I know you already outlined earlier you believe this is due to manipulation. I'll be very curious to hear from your perspective, where should oil be trading right now if we had fair markets and there was no manipulation, where would you say WTI should be at?
>> Well, that's a really good question, and I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer it. Let's talk about manipulation just a minute. Every time I do an interview and the word manipulation is used, some idiot will put in the comments that Moriarity's always saying gold and silver are not manipulated. And that's really funny because I have consistently said all financial markets are manipulated, and that certainly includes gold, and it certainly includes silver. But there are two con men, one was in the gold space and one was in the silver space, and they elected themselves gurus. The guy who was in the gold space had been kicked out of commodities on a permanent basis by the CFTC for stealing from 200 of its own customers. The guy in the silver space who wanted to be a silver guru Had been kicked out of the commodity space by the CFTC because he had tried to corner the orange juice market. So, these guys literally were trying to get even with CFTC. So, they started this whole concept of it being important that commodities are manipulated. Now, if all commodities are manipulated that and they're manipulated by everybody involved all of the time, how important is it? The answer it's not very important. Now, sometimes it is important. Now, given the fact that we've had a a fairly major reduction in the amount of pet- uh petroleum being produced today, what The numbers that I've seen indicate 100 million barrels a day of supply. And there it's been somewhere between 11 and 13 million barrels a day reduction in supply. So, that's fairly significant. It's a lot bigger than it was in 1973 or 1979. If you go back to 1973, the price of crude went from $4 a barrel to $12 a barrel. So, could crude triple? Absolutely could. However, for a lot of reasons, there've been a lot more players. Fuel efficiency is far higher now. I think the highest the price of gas increased in the United States was only about 50%. It wasn't a giant increase and frankly, it wasn't particularly significant. We could see it go a lot higher. But literally in the last 2 days, there has been another reduction of 3 to 5 million barrels a day, and that is going to be important, and we're going to see that very soon.
>> With gold trading at new all-time highs, gold producers are printing money. And this means that for the first time in years, money is beginning to flow into exploration. This is a trend that we at Palisades Gold Corp have long anticipated, which is why we spent the last decade assembling the largest junior held mineral claim package in the United States through our subsidiary Maiden America Gold Corp. Maiden America Gold Corp holds over 700 square kilometers of prospective ground, located exclusively within America's most prolific gold mining trend, the Battle Mountain-Eureka Trend. Maiden America's properties are nestled amongst several of Nevada's largest gold mines and resources, making it highly prospective for a potential discovery. To find out more, visit palisades.ca and join us on our mission to make Nevada's next multi-million ounce gold discovery. Now, back to the show.
>> Bob, I'll be very curious to hear from your perspective also, how close are we actually to a real crisis in petroleum-based products on the gasoline and diesel side?
>> Yesterday. Okay, let's talk about some things that other people don't talk about. And what I tried to do is I tried to do the research into the things that other people may miss. Now, we know the United States has dipped into the SPR and done an incredibly effective job of keeping the impact of the war away from people buying fuel. However, what they're doing is draining the salt caverns in Texas, Louisiana, and very soon, if not already, it's going to get to a crisis period. Now, there's something important that people don't understand and I haven't seen anybody talk about. The way they get oil out of the SPR is they suck the oil out with pumps. As you lower the quality quantity of oil in the reservoir, you eventually get to a point where it takes too much energy to suck the oil out. So, what they do is they pump water in and water is denser than crude oil, so the crude oil goes up and the water goes to the very bottom. But, you're putting water into a salt cavern. And when you do that, the crude oil doesn't dissolve the cavern, but water will. You are literally risking destroying the cavern by pumping water in and that's exactly what we're doing and we're not going to know until the war ends and we actually look and see how much oil we've got left. We're not going to know if if any damage has been done, but there's an excellent chance that we will destroy some or all of the salt caverns by reducing the the quantity of oil in the cavern to a level that's too low. This is very much political. I mean, I'm going to give somebody in the the administration credit. They have been planning this war since Trump took office. They knew this war was coming and they had planned for every contingency to keep the price of oil down and they've been incredibly successful, but some of what they're doing is so dangerous that it could destroy the SPR permanently.
>> What do you think the likely chain of events is? Of course, right now we're seeing an incredible tightness in refineries measured through the crack spread, the spread between the price of a barrel of diesel or barrel of gasoline compared to WTI or Brent oil. So, incredible margins for refineries, hence the tightness. Are we likely to see that trickle down into crude or will it, you know, develop in a different manner?
>> Okay. Let me Let me define the crack spread. When you you have crude oil, you make various products from it. Now, you've got light crude, which is WTI, and you've got sour crude, which comes from Canada and from uh the Middle East. And each of them requires a different process for actually refinery. And basically, what they do is they heat it up, and the dense material stays at the bottom, and the lightest material goes to the top, and they suck the gas off at the top, and then they suck the diesel off, and then they suck the the heavy crude off. Here's the key. If you add how much diesel you produce and how much gasoline you produce and how much heavy heavy oil you produce, that's called the crack spread. Okay? The interesting thing is, the crack spread is implying the actual cost of oil is far higher than the paper price for WTI or Brent crude actually reflects. Now, I believe that's It's And I believe that that the US government has been manipulating the price of oil through the paper markets. And of course, this is what people have been accusing of gold and silver for years. And I've never felt it was particularly important for gold and silver because gold and silver move up and they move down and that's no big deal. But when you have a situation where every indication is saying the price of oil should be higher, including the crack spread, it's [snorts] entirely possible that WTI is $82, but the actual price paid by the refinery is $115, $120. You can do that and you can manipulate the paper market until you can't. Now, one thing that that none of the the uh gold worshipers understand is the commodities are a zero-sum game. Every contract has a buyer. Every contract has seller. You can buy first, but if you do, eventually have to sell. Or you can sell first, and if you do, eventually you have to buy. So, if you want to dump 100,000 contracts of WTI in the market, you can do that and it will force the price of WTI down. However, and this is where it gets really important, this is not shake uh naked short selling. This is just short selling, which is perfectly legal. So, they're doing it to if they're if I'm right, if they're doing it to manipulate it, let's say they dump 100,000 contracts of WTI in the market and it forces the price down $2 a barrel. What is going to happen when they have to buy those 100,000 contracts back? It's going to force the price up $2 a barrel. And I think there's an excellent chance that the Trump administration is going to get mouse-trapped. I don't think they understand that every single day the Strait of Hormuz is closed, things get more dangerous. Every single day the the Red Sea is closed, things get more dangerous. Russia not exporting oil, things get more dangerous. Iran not selling oil, things get more dangerous. Kazakhstan not selling oil, things get more dangerous. China just coming back to what they were buying before the war is very dangerous for oil. So, they've had all of these headwinds for the price of oil in the past, and all of those headwinds have turned into tailwinds. If Donald Trump gets mouse-trapped, you can watch the price of of crude oil go from 120 to 150 to 200 barrels $200 a barrel literally overnight. And I think there's an excellent chance. I do not think Israel and the United States actually understand the danger of what they're doing. They have the ability to destroy the world's economy.
>> For sure, an incredibly bleak picture. It almost sounds like the perfect storm to have that overnight pop like you outlined earlier, because normally when you have a supply crisis to this extent, you would expect higher prices, which would then force demand down, process called demand destruction. We haven't seen that thus far, which of course makes the inevitable cliff, if we were to hit that, shortage all the steeper.
>> Well, it's very good that you made that point and that's a great phrase. Now, I I know what perfect storm is and your viewers know what a perfect storm is, but whatever the opposite is of a perfect storm, that is what we have had. However, that has changed and all of these things that worked to keep the price of oil and gas and kerosene and diesel, all of the factors that have kept the price low, including manipulation, don't exist anymore. And you could see an explosion in the price of fuel. Some of this I I I don't think anybody really understands the implications of Iran attacking Saudi Arabian refineries and the Houthis attacking Saudi Arabian refineries on the west coast. That is a really important because it could take years for those refineries to recover. Now, Saudi Arabia had the larger refinery in the world on the west coast of Saudi Arabia and the Houthis just hit it and did an enormous amount of damage. Some things like Oman uh, exporting natural gas, okay? The tanks that they move the natural gas from the processing plant to the ship cost hundreds of millions of dollars a piece and take years to build. So, all you have to do is blow up a few of those tanks and and Iran has done that and you create something that's going to take three to five years to get back to normal. Now, here's what's funny about Trump. Trump wants the Strait of Hormuz open. But he was the one who closed it. Okay? Prior to February 28th, the Strait of Hormuz was open. So, we've got a situation. They had an MOU. Trump signed the thing at at the at Versailles. And it's very funny because the very next day, he cleared the MOU. The MOU said the Iran is in charge of the Strait of Hormuz. And the very next day, Donald Trump tried tried to sneak vessels through. I believe that the entire Trump administration, these guys are dealing They're not dealing with full deck. These people are crazy. Okay? And they're doing things that are exceptionally dangerous. And they're doing it on behalf of Israel because Bibi Netanyahu is threatening Donald Trump with the Epstein files. So, something that was relatively minor, like the Epstein files, could easily destroy the world economy.
>> And since almost the first sort of this conflict, we've been hearing that a you know, shortage was around the corner. Originally, it was the tankers, the last pre-war tankers, that were set to arrive in in end of middle to end of April, I believe. Since then, of course, multiple deadlines have been set by analysts where we were supposed to see shortages. Why would this time be different? Why would it really be around the corner right now?
>> Well, because all those shortages add up. If you're losing 15 barrels million barrels a day through the Strait of Hormuz, if you go from producing 100 million barrels a day to 85 million barrels a day, that shortage is going to show up someplace. And there is a point at which it becomes critical. My belief is absolute. We are at that point now. Cushing is dry. The SPR is nearly dry. We're risking destroying the salt caverns. Oman cannot produce, cannot deliver natural gas. Saudi Arabia is now being affected and that's going to take somewhere between 3 and 5 million barrels a day off. So, we've gone from a situation where it looked like there was 11 million barrels a day shortage to now it looks like there's a 17 or 18 million barrels a day shortage and everything's going to run out at exactly the same time. Now, if you go to Thailand or if you go to Philippines or if you go to Taiwan or if you go to Japan, they're in a crisis mode right now. And that's right around the corner for the United States and some things like we know the the food output in the world is going to be a lot lower this year because farmers cannot afford fertilizer. We had a crisis that started in February that gets worse every single day and because they've kept the price of fuel down, it's hidden it and that's
>> [snorts]
>> when you manipulate any market okay, you're creating unintended consequences that you cannot possibly predict. So, they've done an extraordinary job of keeping the price of fuel and diesel down. However, all those headwinds are now tailwinds and the price of fuel is going to rocket higher and and literally businesses are going to start going out of business very quickly.
>> Yeah, well, it sounds like an incredible headwind for the global economy, but potentially an incredible tailwind for oil producers. How do you How are you currently thinking about the selling proposition that those names offer? Is this the perfect storm almost to go long oil producers?
>> Well, strange enough, that's that's a very valid point. Now, I'm an investor. I I'm not a large investor, but I'm an investor. And I looked at the price of Brent crude and said, Brent crude should be a lot higher, and it wasn't. And I bought some of the Brent crude ETF, the BNO. And as of yesterday, I had actually broken even. But then I looked at the numbers from a week ago, and the numbers yesterday I said, "This Nothing goes down 18% in a week, okay? When the war is still going on, and could explode any day now." So, I picked up few more shares of the Brent ETF yesterday. Now, the Brent ETF went down 8% the day before yesterday. It went down 4% yesterday, and it's up almost 5% today. So, I got in very near the low, because people look at manipulation as a negative. If you can identify manipulation, and the manipulation is significant, it's a tremendous opportunity. My problem with the gold silver nuts is they were told, "You should buy gold and silver because the price is manipulated." Now, there's 1,143 reasons why you should go own gold and silver, and manipulation [snorts] is not one of them. Uh silver hit $50.75 an ounce on January 21st, 1980, and then dropped $5 an ounce 5 years later. I didn't look that manipulation. I realized that silver had got curvilinear in December and January of of '79 and '80, and I realized that $5 an ounce silver was was dirt cheap. And that silver went up to $50 again in in 2011, and I actually predicted the top on the very day of the top. So, when it dropped back down, I thought that was wonderful. Uh I like ETFs, not because of manipulation. I like ETFs because of their liquidity. If you go to March of 2000, when we had that bioterrorism action by the United States government called COVID, which was total fraud, uh uh the the Sprott Silver ETF, you could buy at a 10% discount to the price of silver. So, the the paper price of silver, I think, was $12 an ounce, but you could actually buy the Sprott Silver ETF for $11 an ounce. I said, "That's a deal." And I bought some. And 8 months later, it had gone from uh $12 an ounce in nominal terms to $30 an ounce in nominal terms. So, if you can identify manipulation that is significant, you can make a lot of money. Now, I I I was convinced this week that Brent was being manipulated, and it was being over-manipulated, and I put my chips on the table, and so far I've been right.
>> I would actually love to also get your take on gold currently trading below $4,100 an ounce, and it seems to be trading down every time we have an escalation in this war when the war seems to go on for longer than anticipated. Why do you think that is? As I believe, you know, the the debasement that this war will inevitably cause will be a structural tailwind for gold.
>> Uh yes, that's true. That's correct, but let me point something out. I I've been doing this for 25 years, and I've been an investor for 50 years. You You can go out, and no matter what you believe, there's someone who will support your position. So, if you think gold is going to go to zero tomorrow, there's somebody who will support that position. If you think gold is going to go to $50,000 an ounce tomorrow, there will be somebody to support that position. If you want to be popular as a TV preacher or as a politician or as a gold or silver guru, what you do is you tell people what they want to hear. But, the problem is when you tell people what they want to hear, you're always lying to them. So, the guys that I talked to about them earlier, the the one gold guru and the one silver guru, were always lying to the people who listened to them, but because they were telling them what they wanted to hear, they were very popular. They just never made any money for the people they were supposedly advising. The gold guru never made a cent for investors. Silver guru never made a cent for investors. So, why would you bother? But, I and and everybody who's got a financial publication of whatever time in paper, in videos, on the internet, I can go to and they will give me a code word so I can read what they've got to say. And I do that. Of course, I do that. I'm getting free information that could be valuable. So, I'm not a big fan of saying there are 50 guides out there that you can listen to who will make money for you because there aren't. But, I read a book by Porter Stansberry and he came up with a very good theory and he's made very accurate predictions as to the price of gold in the past that have held true. And he's just come out with a book called 2029, The End of America, and he makes a very valid point that Rome collapsed because they destroyed their currency. They took the silver out of their money. The United States is doing exactly the same thing today. I've been saying for 15 years the debt based system of the West and the United States in general is going to collapse and you've got an opportunity if you will buy hard commodities. And I own gold and I own silver and I own platinum as an insurance policy against chaos. But, I I was reading Porter Stansberry's book and he came up with a mathematical formula where you're looking at the growth in money supply and he predicted the range for gold for this year to be between $4,000 an an and $6,000 an ounce and he backed it up with what appears to be reasonable data. So So, I I would highly advise people to go buy his book and read it because I think it's accurate and you're absolutely correct. I mean, gold's come down and it's dipped down below $4,000 three or four times now, but $4,000 seems to be the basement and every time it goes below there, it wants to go back up. Uh There's so much irrationality in trading. This This uh automatic the war starts to go gold's down is not a form of investing, okay? Gold does not have a war premium any longer, but I I think that Porter Stansberry's theory is valid and I think the range for this year will be $4,000-6,000. And he makes the point in the book and of course we should talk about investing. I advocate owning the metals in physical form as an insurance policy. Now, if you want to make money, if you're actually an investor, you should be investing something that is a hard commodity. The United States government and Europe as a whole have destroyed their currencies and someday people will recognize, but when they recognize it, the dollar and and the euro and the British pound, they're all going to be a lot lower. So, this is an excellent opportunity. It's doom and gloom, but the fact of the matter is we know they're destroying the currencies. You can either take action and protect your assets or you can sit and wait for your assets to disappear.
>> What is the least default position of the precious metals miners today? How great of an opportunity is it to pick up some of these high quality producers now at a significant discount compared to the January high?
>> But do you support state lead?
>> I I would say my answer is probably no, Bob.
>> No, your answer is probably yes. If you're buying gold juniors or silver juniors or platinum juniors or even oil juniors today, you are state lead. They are the lowest they have ever been in relative terms. Now, if the price of gold goes from $1,800 to $4,000, the juniors should absolutely be in a lot better shape and they haven't got up as much as price of gold have. So, the gold juniors, silver juniors, and metal juniors, look at I mean, even copper has turned into a precious metal. Even zinc has turned into a precious metal because if you hold them in their hand and you drop it and it hits your toe, it's going to hurt you. And anything you can hold in your hand and drop on your toe that hurts is a good investment.
>> What do you think the best place is to start researching right now? For example, de-leveraging names perhaps, taking on a bit more geopolitical risk, or going the complete opposite side where you want the highest quality names to provide the most leverage?
>> That's a really good question. If you go back to 1929 and and you were looking at Bernard Baruch or if you were looking at Joseph Kennedy, these guys were the wealthy oligarchs of the day. They knew what was coming. But if you went to a person who was a secretary who or who worked at a as a clerk in Bloomingdale's, or was a taxi driver, how much did they understand about what was going on in the economy? None. None. They had no clue whatsoever. It certainly wasn't in the New York Times, okay? So, we've got a situation now where people have access to more information than they have ever had in recorded history, and that should absolutely give investors a leg up if one, they'll learn to think for themselves, and two, they're contrarians. There are some great people today, and I follow a lot of them, and I'll compliment you guys. You guys had a great interview by Rick Rule. There are 10 or 15 people doing interviews. Now, here's the deal with the internet. 50% of the information you get on the internet is 53% is now generated by by AI, okay? And it's But, if you go to the New York Times, or if you go to CNN, or if you go to Fox, 100% of what they tell you is a lie. So, the internet only lies to you half the time, but CNN lies to you 100% of the time. Uh Dr. Fauci is testifying today. I I mean, literally, physically, today to Congress. It's really funny because uh his diary was subpoenaed, and what he was telling the public was exactly the opposite of what he put in his diary. It's really funny. The guy was lying through his teeth about everything. Now, I recognize it because I'm an independent thinker. I highly advise people learn to think for yourself. There are no gurus. And if you find somebody that you agree every word that he says, he's probably lying to you. You need [snorts] to disagree with something that people say. And you need to learn to measure it and ask, "Does this guy have any idea of what he's talking about?" A lot of people do. And And certainly people have got access to information. They should be using access to information. And you can make a lot of money from. There There are literally hundreds of juniors out there that are selling for 1/10 of what they should be selling for. And that is going to change. Now, private credit is collapsing. The The The Japanese carry trade is collapsing. The US bond market is collapsing. The entire economy of Europe is collapsing. You have the opportunity to take protection now. But you have to learn to think for yourself. Most people refuse to do that.
>> What are the most important pitfalls to prevent or circumvent, specifically in the juniors and in the perhaps the the minors as well?
>> Well, strange enough, you need to learn what the name of the game is. If I own 50 juniors, and I probably do own 50 juniors, 20 of them or more, 20 or 30 of them, I've lost money on. And I have access to everybody in the industry. I've dealt with 500 different companies. Every guy that I've ever dealt with knows he can pick up the phone and I'll answer the phone and we could talk and they listened to me and I listened to them. And I still lose money at 20 or 30 of the juniors that I've got because basically the game is rigged because most juniors are never going to go into production. Most juniors are never going to find a deposit. However, if 30 of 50 juniors lose money, then that means 20 of 50 are going to actually make money. And what's really going to happen is five to 10 of them will have gains that are so extraordinary that it'll more than make up for the for the losers. Uh this is a dangerous field, but I can't tell you how many stocks I've bought that had 100% potential in a week.
>> The risk-reward in that sense is of course truly incredible. Bob, this interview has been incredible. Thank you very much for managing the best internet connection on my side. I would love for you to talk about 321gold.com as well as 321energy.com.
>> Thank you. That's very kind of you to do. My wife and I started 321gold uh right at uh strange enough today's 29th. Tomorrow is our 25th anniversary. And we've worked and we posted stuff every single day. Since then up until about five years ago, I was traveling 2/3 of the time. My wife was quite happy to have me out of the house. So, we had a relationship that worked very well. Uh unfortunately, she had heart problems. She died and I've been bored silly since then. So, I [snorts] I literally spend 10 or 12 hours a day on the internet, but that gives me access to a lot more information than most people. But, 321gold and 321energy are free websites. We will post any reasonable point of view. I I'm not a guru. I don't want to be a guru, and I don't pretend I'm a guru. And I will certainly accept the fact that there are people that I disagree with and and disagree with me have a valid point of view. Some things like uh your interview with Rick Rule, I I really like because he pointed out some really important factors. There are five to 10 good interviewers who give good information. I highly highly suggest people look at as many as possible. But, we've got a free website. We update it 7 days a week. I work every day of the week. And we provide the best information. You cannot take something that's said to have been said about the difference between 321gold and 321energy. 65% of Americans are invested in energy. About 2% of Americans are invested in gold and silver. And the interesting thing is that gold and silver have a community, but energy does not have a community. So, uh of all the interviewers and the guys writing stuff about gold and silver, and there are dozens of people doing this. There are very few people doing the same thing with energy. So, our energy site gets about 5% of the hits that the gold silver site uh gets. But, frankly, even in my opinion, I think the gold and silver site's a lot more interesting. I am a uh reader. Uh I I read 50 to 100 books a year. I used to read a book a day. Uh and I'm also a writer and I published half of it and I published about 12 books. So, if they go to Lulu or if they go to Amazon, they can read the book. I've won three uh Wall Street Journal best sell I've been on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list three times. And I've written about fiction and I've written non-fiction and and the books are very funny.
>> Well, Bob, we'll certainly put the links in the description. Thank you very much for your time and insights today. It's tremendously appreciated.
>> Well, we managed to do well because both of us had technical issues with Wi-Fi, but I always enjoy doing interviews with you. You do great interviews and you guys are really remarkable.
>> Thank you, Bob. You are remarkable as well. Thank you very much.
>> This podcast is for general information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to buy or sell any securities. The views expressed are those of the host and guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of the company or their affiliates. Guests on the show are not compensated for their appearance. Certain discussions may include forward-looking statements subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Listeners should do their own research, consult a licensed financial advisor, and not base any investment decisions solely on the information discussed. For a full disclaimer, please visit our website, and for full disclosure and risk factors of any companies referenced, please see full available disclosure and risk factors on their Cedar Plus at www.cedarplus.ca.