Transcription
Hello everybody and welcome into Commodity Culture, where we break down commodities markets, sound money principles, and geopolitics, all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is April 30th, 2026, and I'm thrilled to be joined by Clive Thompson, an author, former director of wealth management with 47 years of experience in trusts, wealth management, and private banking. Clive thinks we are ultimately headed to new all-time highs for both silver and gold. And he outlines the drivers that he thinks stackers should be watching as both monetary and geopolitical chaos break out worldwide. Clive also shares his views on the war in Iran and its potential implications for precious metals and energy markets. And you're going to want to stick around to the end of the interview where Clive goes deep on his strategy for investing in gold and silver mining stocks, including when to enter, when to exit, and which kinds of companies will thrive as this precious metals bull market advances. So, strap yourselves in for my conversation with Clive Thompson. Clive Thompson, it is great to have you back on Commodity Culture. Um, some very exciting news you've put out recently. We're going to dive into a whole bunch of interesting topics today: silver market, gold market, war in Iran, all sorts of stuff. But very importantly, you recently put out a series of children's books on finance and investing, something I think is sorely needed in today's world. Why don't you tell us about that?
>> Well, thank you very much, Jesse, and uh, great to be on your show. Um, I put out a series of books called Little Trot. There's five of them. The first one's called Little Trot Learns to Save Money, and the second one is called Little Trot Discovers Inflation. Now, these are not financial books. They're not lessons. They're exciting stories, but they introduce children to well-known concepts relating to money, saving, investments, and they contain the kind of words that children need to know when they leave school. Uh, so, when I left school at 18, I didn't know half the words in these books. Words like inflation, words like tenancy, or words like uh, interest, or compound interest. So, these book, these were these books are uh, designed to introduce a level of vocabulary into children in a storytelling way. It's very exciting story, very colorful pictures, and they're great books to sit down with grandparents and or parents with a with a child. Uh, because there's an awful lot to talk about inside the book on the pictures. So, I'd love people to buy them on Amazon, but if you can't afford it on Amazon, go to my website, clivetoson.com, and you can click through to book one and get it for free.
>> Excellent. Well, I'm going to put links to that in the description below. And now I want to talk about silver because last time I had you on the show was early December of last year, and you said a violent move could be coming in silver, and you definitely were proven correct as silver then, uh, the the time of the recording, it was $58. It then surged to a close of $116, approximately new all-time high, before collapsing down to $70 and has largely turned sideways since then. We're at about $73 as of the time of this recording. Was that the peak of silver's bull run, or or do you think there's more upside ahead?
>> Well, first of all, it it shot up a lot faster and further than I actually expected at the time. Uh, and needless to say, there were a lot of people who came in much later after after our podcast. I think where was the price? It was uh, it was uh, late early...
>> $58. Yeah.
>> So, $58 and it shot up very quickly above $100. A lot of people came in at above $100 and now are wondering if they made a mistake. So, the answer to your question, was that the blow-off top? No, I don't think so. Um, in every bull market, we will have this type of uh, surge followed by a pullback. And the pullbacks can last many months. They can last seven months. Uh, for example, I'm just giving you an illustration. Could be longer, could be shorter. Uh, but silver is in a supply deficit. That is to say, mind silver is insufficient to meet the industrial demand for electronics, solar panels, automotive, military, and things like that. So, the the the way when you have a supply demand imbalance is uh, you have to use above-ground stocks, and the way way it will work in silver's case is higher prices. So, that's a lot of silver users towards the end of January or in uh, after December were starting to accumulate silver with a worry they may not be able to get their hands on it. So, they started to buy silver rapidly, and as the price rose, uh, they became more and more concerned about the supplies. So, instead of having a just-in-time supply, silver consumers, that's industrial companies, started to buy silver for to have several weeks' supply or even a month's supply. That that's part of the reason why the price was driven up so rapidly. But of course, when the subsequent collapse came, the worries about being able to lay their hands on silver diminished. Um, so we could be in for a long period of many months where the silver does not go past $100. But I think that, and this is not investment advice, I think that top that we saw above $100 will be surpassed again, uh, because that supply demand deficit is not going to go away. We're not going to start using less electronics than before. The growth in use of uh, silver in the electronics industry is only growing as things become smaller. The smaller it is, the more reliable you need your connections to be. You can't take, you can't use, you don't, you don't want to use a secondary metal like copper for microelectronics. Uh, now, so I, I, I think that going forwards, the bull market story for silver is intact, but we're going to have this period of ups and downs. Uh, and you can be using this current day, we're we're at a down today, although I see it's up, uh, two, two and a half% today, but by the time you watch this, it might be down. Uh, but forget the intraday fluctuations. This is a period where you can be acquiring slowly but surely, a little bit every month, and you'll get an average price. If you buy every month, you're sure you haven't paid the highest price ever. Uh, but you're not going to get the lowest price ever. So, but the people who are sitting on their hands waiting for the lowest price ever probably won't get filled.
>> Yeah, I think that's some great um, words of wisdom because a lot of people try to time the market. They think they know intuitively when things are going to go up or down. Usually, in the long run, that doesn't work out, although you can get lucky in the short term. I totally agree with your view on focusing on the fundamentals in the long-term story. What do you make of China restricting silver exports from the start of this year and importing record amounts of silver in March, as reported by Bloomberg? Do you think this is a strategic move on their end? And do you think they're stockpiling silver for industrial purposes, monetary purposes, or both?
>> Well, China's move to restrict, or rather control, silver exports, uh, is reflecting a broader push towards uh, resource security for China itself. They want to make sure that they can get their hands on that resource if and when they need it. Hence the the fact that companies who will export, and only a few can export, will need permission. So, it's serving from China's point of view, both as ensuring that the industrial needs can be met, but also it's serving as a kind of monetary hedging. The more silver they've got, the less they need to hold other currencies like the dollar. And we're in a world where, uh, we all know that, uh, every currency on the planet to some extent is being debased, particularly the, well, I say, I don't want to say particularly the dollar because the dollar is in the middle of the bunch, but we know that the currencies are being debased. So, why wouldn't you hold a precious metal, something which is in the longer run going to hold its value and obviously appear to have risen in value because the price or the value of money is going down? So, it's very, they're basically, it's both. They're de, they're protecting themselves to make sure they've got it where they need it for industrial use, and while they're waiting, they're using it uh, to uh, as a sort of monetary alternative.
>> Very interesting. How are you currently viewing the gold market? Because obviously, we saw new all-time highs this year. Gold and silver have pretty much performed in tandem. Of course, gold being the less volatile metal, but moving in the same direction. Do you view the two metals as inextricably linked? And what is the case for gold in a portfolio today versus silver?
>> So, gold is purely a monetary asset and a wealth preserver. Silver is both industrial and monetary. And of course, if we go back in time to before the 1930s, uh, silver was part of the coinage in every country. Uh, it had an intrinsic value because it was a a rare metal. Uh, so it, it's every bit a monetary resource. Now, if we go back in history, the gold to silver ratio was much lower than it is today. That means to say, uh, you needed less silver than you do today to buy an ounce of gold. What that implies is that, let's assume that gold, we, is not going to go, it's not going to go down much. I mean, a possibility of below $4,000 is possible, but I don't think it's going to go anywhere back to the figures we saw a couple of years ago. Uh, so that basically implies that if silver was to go back to its old ratios, the silver price has to rise uh, a lot to get to the old ratios. Even if gold stands still, and I don't think gold will stand still. So, coming back, so coming back to gold, um, like, like we've seen with silver, we had this huge spike up to $5,500, nearly, uh, and we're now nearly $1,000 below that. So, uh, it will take time of ups and downs before it goes past the all-time high. I think there's a good chance we will do that this year. Um, but I don't think it's going to be a straight line. It's definitely going to be, uh, we're going to have days where people are going to say, "Ah, Clive Thompson, who was recommending gold. Look at it, it's down today." And then six months later, I thank God I followed Clive because it went went up. Now, I'm not making investment advice. I'm just telling you what I think. But we're in a world where the confidence in international currencies is declining. The desire of central banks to have more gold in their reserves is, and it's a desire. They can't always do it, but it's a desire to hold more gold, uh, is there. Um, part of that will be accomplished through a higher gold price, and part of it will become accomplished by buying physical gold and putting it into their reserves. Uh, that's not going to go away, and investor demand is most definitely there. You know, any wobble in the stock market will have people thinking, shouldn't I have gold in my portfolio? I mean, mathematically, it's now been, not now been proven, it's been, it's been known, but it's proven that if you had gold in your portfolio over the last five or 10 years, it would have reduced your portfolio volatility and, depending on when you bought it, but at at most time, almost every time, would have increased your return. So, from a portfolio asset allocation point of view, it makes sense. Now, many funds cannot buy gold because that's not their mandate. The mandate is to hold equities or a 60/40 portfolio. But there's plenty of money out there which could buy gold, and I think it's only a question of time before gold starts to creep back into portfolios a bit more. We've already got quite a number of investment banks bringing out bullish forecasts for gold. But to what extent it's actually finding its way into the portfolios, it's, it's a very slow process. Uh, it's nowhere near the 5% which was traditional when I came to Switzerland in 1985. Um, I, I'm guessing it's one to two%, maybe even less than 1% at the moment. But in my opinion, there's a long way for it to go in terms of portfolio allocation, and I would, I would use this period of relatively low prices for those who want to stack physical gold to go along to the coin shops and see what they can buy.
The sponsor of today's episode is Arc Silver Gold Osmium. Owner Ian Everard is praised even by his competitors as one of the most honest and level-headed bullion dealers in the United States. They have some great prices. You can see some of them displayed right now on screen. Take advantage of these specials today by reaching out to Ian at 307-264-9441 or by email at ian@archsg.com. Make sure to tell them, of course, that Commodity Culture sent you. And now back to the interview.
Let's dive into the war in Iran and its implications for the global economy because every day Trump seems to say something about the war coming to an end in a peaceful manner, and the next moment he's threatening to destroy the whole country. It's been absolutely wild to see. But if we can home in on the investment implications here, how do you see this conflict affecting precious metals, energy, and broader financial markets?
>> Well, to tell the truth, I've never seen any evidence that in the short run, a war pushes up gold. Now, of course, that could have been the case in earlier years, but then we're on a fixed gold standard, so it didn't make any difference. So, I've not really seen evidence. I mean, let's take as an example, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Uh, gold went down when that happened. I think it was about $1800. Went down to around $1600, something like that, and stayed down for more than six months before it took off. Uh, so, in in my opinion, people, when when there's a war, yes, they do respond to uncertainty, but the natural reaction in the early stages is to rush into things like the US dollar, um, rush into uh, other assets first, and gold is more of a second thought as things become, as the norm becomes normalized or it starts to fade away. So, people, I think gold is not responding to wars because people don't feel the need to have it in their pockets to run away from an invasion. You know, people rather would like to uh, hold dollars. If they're running away from an invasion today, they'd like to hold dollars. But what they do react to, and this is the alternative, they react to a distrust in the currency. So, as we print dollars to finance a war, that creates a greater supply of dollars or whatever currency is being printed, and we're now, we're in a printing spree around the world. We've seen the uh, central bank expand the money supply. M2 money supply is rising rapidly in the last year or two. Uh, we've seen government debts, not because of the war, but generally rising rapidly. But of course, increased military spending, which we're seeing in Europe and the USA and everywhere else on the planet, increased military spending means that government debt has to increase. And as government debt increases, the confidence of people to hold it reduces. So, I think we, we'll get to a situation where, um, people will not because of the war, but because the government debt is increasing, because the amount of money on the planet is increasing, they'll start to say, "I need to have an allocation to something which is going to hold its value and protect me against whatever's coming with the currency."
>> Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Do you have any thoughts on energy markets here? Would, would you be entering the oil and gas trade at this point, for example? Because obviously, we've seen oil now ripped over $100 a barrel WTI crude, and, um, you know, some caution is certainly warranted as it could certainly come back down hard on the other end should some kind of meaningful peace ever be announced, or or the Strait of Hormuz look like it's opening up. What, what are your overall thoughts on energy markets here?
>> Well, first of all, um, I would strongly advise against uh, gambling on the futures or the contracts for difference or the oil price. I mean, let's face it, it can go either way, and big time. A few years ago, uh, there was a situation where the oil price on the futures exchanges went heavily negative, something like $30 something dollars. Uh, and the reason that happened was all the storage tanks were full and there was nowhere to put it. So, people who got the futures would have been legally obliged to take delivery. The people who got it didn't want it because they got nowhere to put it. Uh, and so there was a lot of people who effectively when they went, when the oil price went to zero, they said, "I'll have some of that," and then it went negative, and they suddenly found they lost a huge ton of money because they had to, they couldn't take delivery and they had to bail out of their contract. Uh, so do not, unless you are in the oil business itself, do not trade physical oil. But on the other hand, there are companies which are specialized in trading physical oil, and you can be a participant in them because they know where the storage facilities are. They know how to get delivery, and they've been doing it for donkeys years. So, you can go into oil that way. And of course, there's oil companies which have exposure to the Middle East, and oil companies which have no exposure to the Middle East. So, again, have a look around. But there's British oil companies, there's Norwegian oil companies which are not terribly exposed to the Middle East, and then there's plenty of companies around the world which are heavily exposed. So, if you're going to play oil, um, I would be looking at where that company is extracting its resources. Does it have to travel through the Strait of Hormuz or not? Or how much of it has to travel through the Strait of Hormuz? Go that way. And then you can make a judgment on whether you want to buy the the company which is most affected in the hope of a recovery, the ones which are going through the Strait of Hormuz, or whether you want to buy the ones which aren't affected at all, which are at higher prices. Now, I don't have the answer because if I knew the answer, I'd be telling you.
>> Yeah. I, I, I, I, I, I personally, uh, prefer to own, uh, large, well-run oil companies which are, uh, not really affected by the Strait of Hormuz, but I was lucky enough not to, uh, own those companies before the crisis happened anyway. So, it wasn't like I traded it.
>> Are you seeing any value in the gold and silver mining stocks at present? Because we're seeing the equities barely outperforming the metals at this point, not what most people expected as we're in the midst of a precious metals bull market. Is that gap going to widen with mining stocks eventually providing that leverage to the gold and silver price? And as a follow-up, how do you conduct due diligence when it comes to the gold and silver mining sector?
>> So, the first thing is, um, and this is a personal preference. I tend to prefer companies which are making profits and cash flow now. Now, I do realize that there are many, many companies out there who have got a lot of gold in the ground, uh, vast reserves in some cases and proven, and who, uh, whose plan is either to dig it up in the future or to sell their assets to a larger mining company. And I'm not knocking people who want to buy that. But I think when gold price, when when you want to have more immediate benefit, I would prefer the companies which are making a profit. Now, the problem with companies which are not making a profit, they may have vast reserves and be have billions of dollars in the ground, but they have to pay the bills. And how do you pay the bills when you don't have cash coming in the door? Now, many of them have raised capital. They do have some money in the door. But when you look at, uh, when you look at the finances, you'll discover that some of these companies have less than one year's runway. In other words, as their runway comes to an end, the pressure to do something, raise capital, or sell out becomes greater. When they raise capital, and it is easy, easier now to raise capital because the gold price looks like it's going to go higher. When it's easy to raise capital, it means that they're going to sell shares not to you and me. They're going to sell them to some large billionaire investor who will be getting those shares at a big discount compared to what you and I would have had to pay. So, that means you're getting dilution as a shareholder in these non-profitable companies. You're being diluted every time they raise capital because your share of the company goes down. It's great for these big investors because they're buying something worth $50 for $30 or $35, and there's an argument that if they were to issue shares to all and sundry, they'd have to reduce that the price would reduce to $35 anyway. But the fact is, it's going to a privileged few. So, I don't like very much going into these non-profitable companies, especially the ones which will have to raise cash. The other way they raise cash, of course, is by selling off their assets. But as that money starts to diminish, they're forced to sell some of their assets, or the pressure to sell and make a deal goes up, which means the buyer knows it, and the buyer can underbid. So, you may not be getting the value you think you deserve because under pressure to raise cash by any means possible. So, that's why I prefer cash-producing companies. Now, the next thing to look at is the, what they call the AISC, the all-in sustaining cost. That's the, uh, that's published by every gold mining company, more or less, and it tells you how much it costs them to dig the gold out of the ground. Now, the higher the all-in sustaining cost is, the more leveraged the company is to the upside. So, I'm going to give you a little bit of an extreme example. Let's say we have a company with an all-in sustaining cost of $4,000. That's what it costs them digging out of the ground. And the gold price is $4,500. They are making $500 an ounce of every ounce they dig out before other costs like research and marketing and management overhead. But before those costs, they're making $500. If the gold price jumps from $4,500 to let's say, uh, $4,000, let's say $5,000, for similarly, that's that's about a 10% slightly around a 10% increase in the gold price. They're now selling the gold at $5,000 instead of $4,500. So, the with the cost of $4,000, their profit has doubled from $500 to $1,000. So, you get a 100% increase with a 10% rise on the gold price. 10% rise in the gold price translates to 100% increase in profits. But that works both ways. So, when you have a declining gold price, you only need a small decline in the gold price for their profits to go to zero or turn potentially negative, or they got to shut down the mine, mothball it. Uh, so, what sort of companies do I prefer? I personally prefer the companies with the lowest possible all-in sustaining cost. But what does that mean? It means I'm missing out on the biggest gains if the gold price rises. So, those who are absolutely 100% the gold price is going to rise next month, next week, or in the next six months should be buying the ones which have got the highest all-in sustaining cost because that's where the leverage is greatest. And those who are like me, who are a little bit more conservative and say, "I don't know how long this routed gold will last because we don't know. I don't know if it's going up or down next week or next month. I don't want such big fluctuations in my share price." So, I'll buy the one with the lower all-in sustaining cost. That's the way forward. Uh, but certainly, I want companies which are making a profit so they can pay the bills, and I would like the the ones with lowest costs because they are more certain to survive because the higher the cost of digging the gold out, the more possibility there is that the gold price goes the wrong way and forces to mothball the project. Um, was there another part to your question? I think there was, Jesse, but I forgot what it was.
>> Uh, just about if, if you think now is a good time to enter the sector, and, and I'll tack on to that, you approach investing in the miners the same way you do stacking physical metals, in that you, you'd be more, uh, privy to put in, you know, dollar cost average as opposed to try to time the market?
>> Yeah. So, stacking and, and, and buying miners are completely different things and and serve different purposes. Uh, so, is it a good time to be, uh, stacking miners? Yes, I think, I think it probably is on the basis that it's pro, the gold price is probably going to go up from here over the next few years. So, yes, that's the case. Now, the difference between stacking gold, physical gold, and stacking miners, if you like, is that physical gold, you're not expecting, you shouldn't be expecting to sell it the next day, next week, next month. You're you're buying it as a long-term investment. Ideally, you'll be able to pass it on to future generations, never needing it. But in a worst-case scenario, it doesn't matter how bad the economy is, how bad the world is, you'll always be able to get a price for your gold. Someone somewhere will give you money for gold. There, it's not like it's going to zero. So, it might go down, you might not like the price, but you can always get a price for gold. You might not be able to get a price for your miners because they might have shut the stock exchange. So, you're buying the miners or you're buying ETFs with a view to holding on until you like the price. And when you like the price, the view is, I'll exit and go into something else.
>> Well, I think that's a great, uh, segue into discussing exiting positions because you recently posted a very informative video on your YouTube channel where you discuss best strategies for entry and exit of stocks. This is a question a lot of investors grapple with, asking themselves, should I try to buy at a certain level that appears undervalued by certain metrics? Should I just dollar cost average and not try to time the market? Um, and when should I start taking profits? And how should I take profit? Should I sell my whole position? Should I, you know, play, play with the house's money, essentially, take the initial investment off the table and let the rest ride? How do you approach that? Um, when it comes to not only gold and silver miners but but equities in general?
>> Most people do the wrong thing, and I did the wrong thing for the first 18 years of my investment career. And the wrong thing is to do what you want to do all at once. So, if I've decided to buy an equity and, uh, let's for illustration purposes say my normal investment size was $10,000. It is a mistake to put all $10,000 into that equity straight away because the next day, next week, next month, the price might go up, might go down, but if it goes down, I'm feeling like like a fool. The best thing is put in a third of what you want to do. And this is my strategy. I say a third because then I can sit back and look at what I've done. And there's two possibilities after I put in a, or three possibilities really. First is that the stock goes down. Second, it goes up. And the third, it does nothing at all. But that pause gives me a chance to re-evaluate. It's going up. I must have been right about my thesis. I can buy my next 1/3. Except good news. When I buy my next one/3, I don't need to buy quite as many shares because the 33% I invested is now worth, let's say, $50. So, to get to 66%, I only have to invest another 16% instead of another 33%. So, I could view that as good news. To get to 66% of my intended position, I haven't invested 66% of my money. That's if it goes up. On the other hand, if it goes down, I can look at it like this. It's fallen in price. I'm buying my next lot of shares, and I'm spending a bit more than 33% of my money for the next lot to get to 66, but I can buy the next lot of shares at a discount, meaning I'm buying more shares at a lower price than I paid for the first lot. And the third thing is the, the stock goes nowhere. I can still sit on it for a long time. I can sit on it for a week, a month, a year, multiple years if I want before I make my next purchase. But as I'm doing this, I can revisit the story about the stock. Is my thesis as to why it's a good investment still intact? If it is, I can increase. If not, well, I probably want to be thinking about whether I want to keep it at all. But you, I, when people say, "Should I buy this? Should I buy that?" I say, "Well, why not buy a third and then see how you feel?" And I know when people put 100% of the money into something and the next day or next week it goes down, I promise you they don't feel good. But when you want to buy, when you buy an investment, you want to feel good about it. So, either you want it to go up and you feel good because you made a great decision, or you want it to go down because you can buy more at a lower price. Both ways, you feel good. There's no loser. Buying everything in one go, there's a 50-50 chance you're going to feel bad.
>> Yeah, I like that approach.
>> On the on the exit side, I adopt the same, well, no, that's not the right saying the same approach. I adopt a slightly different approach. Uh, I divide my portfolio into two baskets. So, the first one is, I've, well, the first thing I'd say is, I've got a rule, and it's a a psychological rule for me, but I say, if I buy something, no matter what happens, unless it's very extreme, I will not sell for 12 months. And the reason I do that is because I know that if I have any other rule, I'm going to start looking at the stock and saying, "Oh, there's some good news, there's bad news, some good news," and you get rocked around by the good news, bad news. So, by having that rule, I say, "I bought. At the time of purchase, it looked like a good company. If I don't, if I'm not going to trade in it, there's no point in looking at it." So, I can forget all the ups and downs and swings which are going to make me feel emotional. Should I buy? Should I sell? So, that's my first point. But after a year, I can start to look at what happened, and I divide into two camps: the stocks which have gone up, and the stocks which have gone down. First of all, dealing with the stocks which have gone down. I'm looking for stocks. I'm looking for the reason why I got it wrong because I'm looking for, I'm really looking for a reason to sell. I want to sell the stock gone down. So, I go hunting. Why has it gone down? How did I get it wrong? Now, usually, I'll find that the profits weren't as good as expected. There was some disruption. They lost a customer, or whatever it happens to be. As soon as I find it, there's no, you know, no argument. I'm out of here. But sometimes the stock has gone down for reasons unrelated to the performance of its business. For example, maybe it dropped out of the index, and the index funds all had to sell the shares. Maybe the founder died, and the family have to sell shares in order to, uh, pay off their death duties. That's nothing to do with the business of the company, and that might be a reason to buy more at the lower price. But generally speaking, most of the stocks which are at losses, I can usually find a reason to discover my mistake and sell. On the other hand, I treat the basket which is at a profit completely differently. It's great. It's a great thing to have a portfolio of winners. So, in general, I don't like to sell my winners because selling your losers and keeping your winners makes your portfolio look wonderful, not only to you but to your family, to your accountant, to your banker, to anybody who, your children, anybody who's interested, uh, if you shout at all, even to, but even to yourself, it looks good to have a portfolio of winners. So, I like to see lots of green numbers and very little red numbers. So, I'm looking for a reason to keep those stocks. But of course, some of the stocks will be much higher. There'll be a small percentage which have gone up 100, 200%. And in those cases, I'm looking at what's called position sizing. I'm taking some of the profit. Let's say it's gone from $100 to $200. I might want to, as a first step, take 30 off the table. As a second step, later on, I might take another 30. Third step, I might take another 33, which brings me back to my original position size, but I'm looking to take some of the profit off the table to bring the size back towards my intended position size. So, all positions are roughly or close to being the same size. So, I'm looking to top slice a bit. Um, it depends how much it's gone up. If it's gone up a little, I won't do anything. Uh, but if it's gone up a lot, I'll be saying, "To what extent do I top slice?" If I'm not so hot about the stock anymore, I'll take a lot of the profit off. If I'm still feeling very, very bullish, I'll take some of the profit off the stock. But usually, when a stock has outperformed like that, it's usually because I was right about my thesis, the profits did go up, and it's now worth that much more, which means it's still a buy at the higher price, but you still want to get your position sizing right. Now, the, the combination of selling of top slicing some shares and selling some losers gives me a pot of money, which is great for the next year's purchases.
>> Yeah, I love that one-year pause after purchasing something to just see how it plays out and see how your original thesis develops. Um, that, that is an awesome approach. Now, I, I want to talk about M2 Money Supply because you brought this up earlier. You also posted a chart on LinkedIn recently of how sharply M2 money supply has been rising. We hear a lot of talk about how the fiat currency system is on its last legs, and all this money printing and debt accumulation will lead to a collapse. As some say, a return to a gold standard at some point. The issue with this, of course, is the political class will do anything to stop a gold standard from happening because all of their wealth and power comes from the fiat debt-based system. How do you see all of this playing out? Can this can just keep getting kicked down the road much longer than people realize? And do we need not only a collapse of the monetary system, but potentially a collapse of the political system to enact any kind of real change for the better at the end of the day?
>> Well, the plan of every government is to kick the can down the road, keep borrowing, and if we get into a situation, we'll invite the C, our central bank, where in each country, to buy our bonds so we can continue borrowing, uh, to keep the spending going. Nobody wants to stop the spending because everybody has a vested interest in their particular pet spending, and many, uh, you know, politicians in general want to be reelected to the same position. So, if you come into power, uh, as a left-wing par government or a right-wing government or a central government, it doesn't really matter, and you then force through changes which involve cuts in spending, and cuts in spending which are enough to stop the deficit from rising, the population is going to hate you because suddenly the gravy train comes to an end. Stocks stop going up, gold price stops going up, uh, whatever, pe, house prices stop going up. So, people are going to hate you. Okay, we know it's a dream, uh, in a way, for zero inflation. But everybody who owns assets likes that inflation. Those who, so, so, you know, you know, half the population owns a home. You know, when your home stops going up, you start, you, you don't feel as good because what, what's going on with the world? People are saying, "My house is worth double what I paid for it. I can spend that." You know, doesn't matter whether they're spending on a credit card or a mortgage or a, or whatever, they feel that their wealth is higher, therefore they can spend it. But if suddenly your property prices are going down, your equity portfolio is going down, your pensions going down, uh, then, uh, things get reined in. So, governments are not about to stop spending, which means that the debt is going to continue to rise, and a continued rising debt, as we do have, means that we're in a situation where today, at least, we can observe the debt to GDP level in most countries is close to all-time records. Where, I mean, I, when I say records, we're talking about the levels we saw, uh, uh, after the Second World War, which then came down substantially. But the difference today is the interest rates are higher, and it's unstoppable. Back then, it was stoppable. So, we, we're on a, a sort of spiral staircase which where it's the danger is it goes down faster. And what I think might happen, we might get a black swan event. Maybe it's a civil war. Maybe it's an external war. Maybe it's a pandemic. Maybe it's a natural disaster of some sort, which suddenly and unexpectedly shakes the confidence of the public at large, of the investing public, and we suddenly have massive speculation against a particular currency or massive speculation against the, uh, government bond market. You know, we, we saw that happen in the UK a couple of years ago in the, what's called the gilt crisis. Uh, and that was where, where suddenly many, many pension funds found themselves forced into a situation due to derivatives of having to bail out of their gilt holdings, driving yields up sharply. The situation was saved because the British government had a plan for that sort of situation, as they always do, which was basically to say to the Bank of England, "You buy the gilts, stop them falling, and we'll guarantee you, we'll protect you against losses." Now, that was a situation which was stopped in, stopped in its tracks, and it could, you know, if it starts to happen again, we could have that happen again. But when that happens, of course, it does mean monetary expansion because the government has to borrow money effectively to pay off the losses of the central bank, which has been buying the the thing, or either that, or the central bank just prints money at infinid item to buy the government bonds. So, if we do get into a situation of spiraling interest rates where they're starting to rise rapidly, the central banks, and this is the plan of the government, central banks will be invited to do their job and stop interest rates from from, I'm talking yields on bonds, really, rather than short-term interest. Stop the yields from spiraling out of control. But to do that, they have to print money to buy those bonds, which increase the money supply, which increases the inflation rate, which is actually where what the plan is. But the thing which could go wrong that is that it all happens too fast and basically closes the doors on you.
>> Now, you, you mentioned rising interest rates, and there does appear to be a potential crisis on the horizon when it comes to government debt. I just had Matthew Pipenberg on the show. He talked about an emerging crisis in the bond market. I'm in Japan right now. Japanese government bonds are at their highest yields in 30 years, some even more. UK gilts have been rising. Government debt across the world appears to be headed higher. Is this something investors should be watching? And what are the potential implications?
>> Watching it, great, but it won't do any good. You have to act. You know, it's not like watching the price of Japanese, the Japanese tenure, that you're going to know which day it is. You're going to be doing something. Um, but, you know, obviously, you could, if it, if, if there's a sudden collapse, you'll know it's happening. But if that collapse, then has a domino effect and it, it starts to feed through to other countries, what are you going to do? Well, the obvious thing to do is rush down to the gold shop and buy some gold coins. But when you get there, there's going to be a long queue outside because everybody else has got the same idea as you. And why are you buying the gold coins? Because you know this, the, the system as we know it, we don't know what's going to happen, but you fear it may be coming to an end. So, you need to have something which will get you to the other side. Uh, you can't go and buy a house tomorrow. You can't, uh, it's very difficult to know to buy stocks because they're falling too in this crisis. Uh, so you're panicking a bit, but you know that if you have some gold, it will still be there. Whatever comes out, whatever happens, when you get to the other side, it'll still be there. But you can't buy it because there's a queue of 20 people in in front of you, and each person is going to take 20 minutes. So, the shop will be closed before you get to the front door. So, when you have to act is right now. Now, just to sort of on that particular point, I went, uh, for the third time this year to a shop in Geneva called Dusa, which is where my preferred place for buying gold in Switzerland for physical gold. I was once again told, "Sorry, you'll have to wait 40 minutes due to other people." I never in previous years. I've been buying from them for donkeys years. I've been in Switzerland for 40 something years. So, you know, ever since, ever since I knew they existed, I've been buying there. This is the first, this year is the first year ever when three times I've not been able to get in the front door due to other customers.
>> Very interesting. And, and but I could, if I, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't like the end of the world like he said, you know, if you want to buy, come back at 8:00 in the morning, 9:00 in the morning when we open, uh, or just sit around. But that, so it could have been solved. But really, the problem will be the day you've got a real crisis, and it's not a question of 40 minutes or today or tomorrow. Uh, I tried to buy gold in January and was told, "You have to make," this was on a Monday, I was told, "You have to make an appointment. We're so busy. I'll give you an appointment on Thursday." I said, "No thanks. I'm not in town on Thursday." But that, that's what will happen in a crisis. You won't be able to get your hands on it anywhere.
>> So, the time to prepare is now. Uh, Clive, this has been a great conversation. You mentioned the children's books, which are awesome. Um, where else can people go who want to follow your work online?
>> clivetoson.com is a place where I publish my best videos, uh, and also where I, uh, put up lots of interesting things. As a, uh, probably what is the world's, uh, most comp, um, I say, complete chess program. It's got more features than any other chess program on the planet, as far as I can tell. It's, uh, uh, it's working. It's 90, 95% completed in terms of, uh, there's a few features I'm going to be adding. Um, it will go up on its own site shortly, but I just want to say that's up there too. And you can find my Little Trot books, details of them on my website.
>> Great.
>> Uh, otherwise, I'd much ra, much rather people pay for them on Amazon, uh, at, you put in Little Trot and Clive Thompson, and you'll find it in no time.
>> Great. I'll put links to all of that, as well as your YouTube channel where you post a lot of really informative content as well. Well, thank you once again, Clive, for coming on the show. It's been a blast.
>> Thank you very much, Jesse. Thumbs up. Thank you all your viewers. Be great to have you listening and watching.
>> Thank you for joining us today. This episode brought to you by Arc Silver, Gold, Osmium. They have some great prices on precious metals, bullion products. They're on your screen right now. These are subject to change and while supplies last. So, reach out to owner Ian Everard today at 307-264-9441 or by email at ian@archsg.com and pick up your stacks not fiat t-shirt, available in the Commodity Culture shop, backed by a 100% quality guarantee. And I'll see you guys in the next episode. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up to date with the latest episodes.