Transcription
Hello everybody and welcome into Commodity Culture, where we break down commodity markets, sound money principles, and geopolitics, all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodity sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is April 23rd, 2026, and I'm thrilled to be joined by Alistair Mcloud, a 40-year veteran of the finance industry, an expert in precious metals, and the author of the Mcloud Finance Substack.
In March of this year, China imported the most silver ever in a single month, along with placing major export restrictions on the metal as of the start of 2026. And this combination of events is setting up an epic silver squeeze that Alistair believes could easily send prices to $300 or higher an ounce this year. Alistair also explains why he thinks both Russia and China will inevitably implement a gold standard in their countries while fiat currency plummets to zero, along with diving into the implications of a coming credit bubble burst that could send the global economy into oblivion. So, strap yourselves in for my conversation with Alistair Mcloud.
Alistair Mcloud, it is great to have you back on Commodity Culture. I want to start with a very interesting statistic coming out of China, and that is that in the month of March this year, they imported the most silver ever in a single month. Last time we talked, you said China could be considering backing the yuan with silver. Do you think this is connected to such an initiative, and how will this massive intake of silver affect the supply side of the market?
>> I don't think it's connected with that. I mean, uh, whether, um, the Chinese are thinking about, um, putting the domestic yuan onto a silver standard while it's on a gold standard for international trade is obviously a speculative, um, uh, suggestion. No, the problem I think is that there is a clash between, uh, industrial demand, which is soaring off the charts, and, um, uh, investor demand, or, if you like, uh, demand on a monetary basis. Um, I mean, it was interesting because the chart which everybody saw was posted by Bloomberg. Now, what Bloomberg did not post where, um, was a chart showing, if you like, the, uh, China's exports of silver. Now, this is, this is very, very important because China exports silver in the form of bullion, um, or it did, rather, in the form of of of bullion, um, and, uh, powder and so on. So, um, you know, the export statistics cover all that. Now, what the, um, Chinese government has been doing is it's been supplying silver into the western markets, which explains why, uh, we have, um, the last seven years of deficit, if you like, between supply and demand without knowing really where, you know, that imbalance was really sorted out. It was really being done by China out of her accumulated stocks of silver. She was trying to control the price. The interesting thing is that if you look at, um, her exports, she has been exporting, I think, I, I made a note of the numbers. Um, in 2024, she exported 42,000, uh, tons, sorry, um, 4,200 tons. In '23, 4,083 tons, etc. Now, we're looking at figures like, you know, sort of 137 million ounces is what she did in 2024. If you look at that Bloomberg chart showing the imports, um, in that year, she imported a figure like 300 odd tons, I guess, 300, I don't know, 330 tons. Now, um, what is absolutely amazing is that in 2025, China ceased exporting silver entirely. The figure for 2025 is zero, absolutely zero. So, why is this? I think, basically, um, China has sort of realized that, uh, the demand for silver, I mean, with with nations like India getting into the photovoltaic industry, um, you know, producing huge, huge amounts and of of, um, of these solar panels and all the rest of it, um, plus obviously also the the defense applications and all the rest of it around the world, electronics applications all around the world and all the rest of it. The draw down on her silver stocks, which she has accumulated over the last, I think, sort of four or five decades, has been massive. So, there had to come a point where, you know, they sort of said, "Stop," and I think that's basically what happened in 2025. Plus obviously politics, would you know, geopolitics was beginning to, uh, play into this. Um, I mean, it was in September that, uh, we had, um, rare earths, um, suddenly halted the export of rare earths. Why? Because President Trump threatened China with an extra 100% tariffs or something. I can't remember the details, but, um, and interestingly, it was literally within a couple of weeks of that, that was end September last year. Within about a couple of weeks of that, I think on about October the 9th, um, the lease rate in London suddenly shot up to 40%. I mean, suddenly there was a huge great shortage of physical silver, um, available for delivery. So, this is fascinating. So, if you look at the, um, that Bloomberg chart, which, um, you, I think you're probably referring to because it's all over the, the, um, internet, the social media, um, there is a big difference, I think, between previous years because if you look at the, uh, figures for previous years, the amount of, um, silver being exported by China is well in excess of the imports, recorded imports. In other words, there was a, um, if you like, they were, they were literally feeding on a net basis, silver into, um, into, into, into, uh, the rest of the world. That has now stopped, and not only that, but if you look at, I mean, there's a premium now, um, has been for some time, premium about sort of 12, 13, 14% for silver, um, in Shanghai. Now, a lot of this is explained by, um, the fact that imported silver has to bear a VAT of around about 13%. But nonetheless, um, domestic buyers of silver in China are prepared to pay a premium. Okay, it includes that, but they're still prepared to pay it. So, you know, what's what's happening is that silver is basically being sucked out of the West in exactly the same way as gold has been sucked out of the West over the last, um, 30 odd years. So, you can see, um, this is actually a major, major turnaround, and, um, it's leading, I think, I mean, we saw this, you know, the initial squeeze in last October, reflected in a 40% lease rate on, uh, on the LBMA. I think we're heading for another squeeze. I really do. Um, and the real conflict is this industrial demand, which is soaring off the charts, plus, um, uh, monetary demand, if you like, uh, from all around Asia because, um, I mean, the last, um, monetary metal which they tied their currencies to was silver. So, you can see that, uh, there's a greater predilection for silver, if you like, as protection from the debasement of fiat currencies, um, in Asia than there is with us. I mean, we've always seen it as the minor monetary metal, the the real monetary metal being gold. So, this is a, it's, it's, um, it's a fascinating juncture. You got this clash, and it's really, really going to accelerate, I think, in the coming months. So, that's basically the background to what's going on. Um, and I, you know, when I look at the report coming out of major bullion houses and so on and so forth, I mean, I was just absolutely amazed. You had, uh, UBS forecasting, uh, a 300 million ounce, uh, deficit, um, uh, supply deficit, um, in in, uh, the current year. And they were saying, "Well, it'll drive the silver price up to $100, and then it'll come back down to $83 or something by March the following, you know, March '27." These guys, they don't understand there is a geopolitical dimension to this as well. I mean, for a start, they don't understand the monetary angle. Let's face it, because they're all Keynesians, basically. That's what they were taught. Um, so, uh, this is a, you know, this, I think everybody's being caught out by what's going on. The geopolitical thing is quite simple. There's no way that China is going to continue to supply, uh, silver into the global market when the US has decided that it is a critical mineral and they've got to start accumulating it. So, are the Chinese going to supply it to America? Are they hell like? They certainly are not. So, you can see that, you know, this is this is a real crisis developing.
>> 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. You can take advantage of these specials today by reaching out to Ian at 307-264-9441 or by email at Ian@archsgo.com. Make sure to tell him, of course, that Commodity Culture sent you. And now back to the interview.
I want to get to what this means for the price of silver in just a moment, but first, I want to talk about China also importing large amounts of gold. They've stacked 365 tons year to date. And it is largely believed, of course, that China has far more gold in reserve than they state publicly, and they are also the top gold-producing country in the world, a fact that I don't think is stated enough. Surely they are preparing, or I shouldn't say surely, but it appears to me that they are preparing for some type of monetary reset. Would you agree? And and what do you think that endgame looks like?
>> I would agree with that entirely. Um, and I mean, you can see the footprints as clear as daylight. They've been doing this for a very, very long time. Um, I mean, I've written so many times that the original legislation or regulations appointing the People's Bank of China to act as the national, the sole national dealer in gold and silver, dated 1983. So, we're talking about a policy that goes way, way back. Now, um, you know, underlying this policy was, um, if you like, a belief and the and, uh, really, I think the Chinese, uh, had more classical economics in them than than than, um, macroeconomics. Um, and the Marxist universities sort of added to this by saying that capitalism had the seeds of its own destruction, and, uh, you know, how would that be manifest? It would be manifest in the collapse of the fiat currencies. Of course, it would. So, you can see that China, right from the outset, understood that while it was going to play the West's capitalist game, it had to protect its currency from the consequences of playing that game. That's why they have, um, been, and the way I describe it is Hotel California for gold. You know, gold goes in, but it never comes out. And I had this confirmed way back in 2014. I interviewed a, uh, director of one of the major Swiss refiners, refineries. And I asked him, "Do you ever see, uh, Chinese gold in the market?" He said, "No, never, never, ever. It just doesn't." So, in other words, you know, the the gold goes to China, but my God, it doesn't come out. I asked him subsequently, I think about three or four years later, whether he had seen any, uh, you know, just to see whether things had changed, and he said no, but he had heard reports from one of the other refineries that the, that three or four 1-kilo bars had actually turned up. Uh, and so, you know, with that sort of quantity, I mean, really, we're looking at smuggling, I think, rather than anything else. So, nothing comes out of China. It's that simple. So, they've been accumulating for a very long time. And then, of course, uh, we had, uh, last year, we had, um, Trump's liberation day. I don't know if you remember that. That's when he stood up with all those boards announcing these new tariffs and so on and so forth. The following week, President Xi did a whistle-stop tour around, uh, Southeast Asian nations, the ones with Chinese diasporas, basically, um, and, uh, secured the sort of ASEAN free trade, um, area. And I mean, it was quite clear that he was saying, "Look, you know, with America putting in all these tariffs and so on, we've got to stick together. We've got to be a free trade area ourselves, and that way we can protect ourselves." Fine. What, uh, we didn't know at the time, but subsequently we suspect, is that he was also talking not just about trade, but also trade settlement because a few months later, the Shanghai Gold Exchange, which is wholly owned and controlled by the People's Bank under those regulations that I referred to earlier, the 1983 regulations, um, announced that it was going to open, uh, a vault in Hong Kong, a gold vault, and also a gold vault in Saudi Arabia. Now, Hong Kong, we can understand. I mean, this is a departure, incidentally, a radical departure from previous policies. Um, Hong Kong, we can understand. Um, Saudi Arabia needs to be explained a little bit, and basically, the Middle East is the source of, um, uh, Western Asia's, um, sorry, Eastern Asia's, uh, uh, oil. It's as simple as that. So, this, this was, if you like, the other center. The point about these, um, SGE vaults is that you can buy and sell gold for Chinese yuan, not for any other currency. That's the whole point about it. So, the setup is there now for the Chinese government, when they think it's appropriate, to turn around and fix the rate. They will say, "The exchange rate for gold and yuan is X," and then they're on the gold standard for trade settlement purposes. So, this would be, if you like, a sort of modeled, in a sense, on, uh, the old Bretton Woods system, whereby at a national level, you could, um, swap your yuan for gold at a fixed rate. Um, but this is something which is not available to, uh, Chinese citizens. Now, I don't know whether, I mean, what they should do. I mean, if if they consulted me, I would say, "Well, look, the answer is quite simple. You've just got to make the yuan, uh, exchangeable for gold, full stop. Do away with exchange controls." And, um, you know, I mean, the benefits to your industry would be absolutely enormous. Um, and not only that, but, uh, because every, you would force everybody that you trade with to, um, adopt the same sort of system or use, you know, use your currency, whatever. I mean, basically, you'd be creating the conditions which we had in, uh, in, in, in Britain, uh, really between about 1750 and the first World War, where the industrial revolution made this very, very small nation the most important economy in the world, you know. So, that's what they should do. But my guess is that what they will do is they will look at it for trade settlement purposes, and they will only introduce a fixed rate between the yuan and gold when it is quite obvious that the fiat currency system is failing. They will do it, if you like, as a means of self-p protection rather than a means which is which could be seen to be designed to destabilize western currencies. This is a very, very important point, and that's why they haven't done it so far. I think, incidentally, that, uh, Russia is also facing the same problems. Uh, I mean, interest rates in Russia are in the order of sort of 15, 16%. Um, or even more, and I think it's, uh, it's actually quite stifling. Well, it's obviously very, very stifling. Um, and, uh, you know, Russia is on a war, you, well, it's not actually on a war economy basis, um, uh, which, you know, some people would argue it should be. Um, but, you know, if Russia actually introduced, uh, put the ruble on the gold standard, then what would happen is that, uh, first of all, the Russian banks and banks dealing with Russia would actually take gold out of western vaults, um, sell it into, uh, the central bank of Russia, um, for rubles, where they would, at the moment, earn those rubles. They would earn, as a gold substitute, they would earn roughly 15%. What would it cost them to get out of the west? Lease rate of 1%. I mean, 1% into 15%. Yes. Come on, let's do it. So, what would happen is that the, uh, the interest rates in, in, in, in Russia would actually fall very significantly, um, basically to reflect the growing confidence that, uh, a gold standard for the ruble is actually real and going to stick. In other words, the ruble becomes a gold substitute. You don't need to hold the gold. What you do, basically, is you get gold, lease it from whatever, whatever, and just ship it over, and, you know, you're making loads and loads of money. I mean, that's basically the way it works. So, Russia could do it tomorrow. Um, and they've got the economy to be able to do it. I think it would help if they stopped, uh, the special military operation against against Ukraine. But anyway, that also is in the works. In the West, we cannot do this because we would have to abandon our welfare states. We would have to abandon, um, the Keynesian idea that, um, deficit spending, uh, budget deficits, if you like, stimulate the economy. No, they don't. They destroy the economy. But anyway, that's something that we're now learning, perhaps. So, you can see that we won't be able to follow this. Our currencies are going down the pan. I mean, it's quite simple. Um, China and Russia at some stage will go onto a gold standard for their two currencies. Um, certainly for international trade purposes in the case of China, and I really do think that, uh, that is going to happen. It's been planned, if you like, for an awful long time. So, all this talk about currency resets and all the rest of it. Yeah, China and Russia know what they're doing. We don't. We don't.
>> Great summary, and it'll be so fascinating to watch how how the situation evolves. I want to touch on the silver price for a moment here because Michael Oliver, whom I've had many discussions with alongside you over on the VR Media channel, recently came on this show and predicted that silver would rise to $300 to $500 an ounce at some point this year. He's watching momentum-based technical charts and and he has his own method of analysis that he's used to reach that conclusion. But do you think this is a realistic price target, and what are your overall thoughts on how the silver market will play out for the remainder of 2026?
>> Yeah. Well, I have the greatest respect for Mike. Um, and, uh, you know, when he came out with that, I thought, "Hold on a minute, I better actually have a look at the underlying situation and try and, uh, uh, approach it from a fundamentalist point of view." Uh, and as a result, I put out a Substack article, I think it was yesterday or the day before, uh, which looked at China's imports, um, its exports, which is now completely ceased, uh, the rationale behind it, etc., etc. And I have to say that, um, looking at these fundamentals, I think it is certainly very, very likely that, uh, uh, Mike's forecast will be correct, will prove to be correct. Um, I mean, it's, we're heading for another silver squeeze. Um, it's, it's really the best way to describe it. I think is the combination of China has been, um, supplying the market up until, uh, the end of 2024. It ceased doing that completely. The market has been in deficit for the last six years. As we're into our seventh year of deficit, which, according to the, um, Silver Institute, is only something like 76 million ounces, but according to UBS is about 300 million ounces. 296 is, I think, was the figure they came up with. So, um, yeah, it's going to be quite a bit greater, perhaps, than the Silver Institute actually forecast. Um, you have, um, the production of solar panels accelerating. Oh, and incidentally, the Chinese actually turned around to their solar panel industry and said, "Please, can you slow down your production?" Now, I think this is further confirmation that they're a bit worried about the stocks having run out and, uh, future demand, if you like, for industrial demand for silver, and the way, um, individuals, um, are stacking silver in China. Remember, you've got about, what, 1.4, 4 billion individuals there. Um, you know, and, uh, they are savers. The savings rate in China is like 30 to 35%. I mean, we're looking at over $5 trillion of savings looking for a home every year. And that's in addition to what is already there. Where do they go? Property? No. Stock market? Maybe, but not really. It's all been going into bank deposits, and bank interest rates in China have been dropping. So, that's less attractive. So, you can see why it is that individuals feel that, well, you know, the best thing we can do is buy gold, buy silver. That's what they're doing. So, I think this, um, to answer your question, the idea that silver could easily go up to somewhere like three or $500, uh, uh, uh, dollars an ounce, I think is is is eminently possible. And on top of that, if you look at the price of gold, so we're now linking it, if you like, through the gold-silver ratio, um, I mean, basically, what the price of gold is doing is it's reflecting a declining purchasing power of the dollar. Uh, we are going to see a massive decline in the purchasing power of the dollar by the end of this year. Now, the reason I say that is because of the knock-on effects of, uh, Hormuz being closed. I wouldn't be surprised if the Houthis start kicking off at the Mandeb, uh, Mandeb, uh, straits at the bottom of the Red Sea and close off effectively, uh, 6 million, um, uh, barrels a day coming out of Yanbu and, uh, effectively closing off Suez. So, um, yeah, you know, there's, uh, the implications of this are going to be really quite terrifying. And I mean, one of the big things which people latched on to earlier on is that, of course, the downstream petrochemical products, particularly things like fertilizers, phosphates, and sulfur, and so on and so forth, uh, uh, that's going to really push up, um, food prices. Now, what China has done is it's turned around and has banned the export of, um, of fertilizers. So, what you have got is a knock-on effect. Not just what's happening in the Gulf, but you've also got major exporters of these vital commodities saying, "Well, hold on a minute. We better hang on to what we've got." Which basically, if you're a net importer of these things, you are out in the cold. So, um, yeah, this is very, very serious. And how does the Fed respond to this? Well, for a start, it drives up bond yields through the roof. It puts all G7 into a debt trap. Um, and, uh, they have to raise interest rates, unless, of course, uh, they decide that, uh, it's actually politically better not to, in which case they're sacrificing their currencies. So, you know, I mean, if you ask me what gold is going to be at the at the end of this year, I mean, it's just going to go through the roof on the on the back of these dynamics. It's as simple as that. So, then you link through the, um, gold-silver ratio into silver. Yeah. And you could be seeing $3,500 quite easily. We'll see what happens. Anyway.
>> You wrote an article on the Mcloud Finance Substack recently titled, "Gold and Commodities Are Set to Soar," where you wrote, "Suddenly, gold and silver appear to have bottomed out and are marching higher. Led by energy, the entire commodity complex is donning its marching boots and setting off for higher pastures." Does this tie into what's going on with the conflict in the Middle East right now? We're seeing a huge amount of oil supply get taken offline. Natural gas, the same. Urea fertilizer, other fertilizer inputs. Um, just a general reshaping of global supply chains appear to be at least driving energy prices much higher. You believe overall the commodity complex as a whole is going to be driven higher as well. How much of that is connected to what's going on, um, with Hormuz and the war in the Middle East right now, and how much of it is just an idea whose time has come based on, you know, decades of underinvestment in the sector?
>> Yeah. I mean, basically, um, I mean, I think the, you know, the, there is no doubt that the Middle Eastern conflict, uh, has brought forward, uh, what is happening. If you look at the value of commodities priced in real money, which is gold, rather than in fake money, which is, uh, um, currencies, then you will see that on any long-term basis, commodities have become extremely undervalued, even though in paper currency terms, um, you know, they may be in a bull market. I mean, if you look at copper, for example, this sort of thing. But I mean, that basically, you know, what this tells us is that, uh, you're going to see a very, very, um, uh, serious fall in the purchasing power of currencies, and it's being brought forward by events in the Middle East. That was going to happen anyway, but it's being brought forward, it's being exposed, if you like, by, uh, developments in the Middle East. So, this is why I think that, um, you know, I mean, we don't know whether whether tomorrow's price is going to be up, down, sideways, whatever. We really don't. Uh, we've yet to see, but I think the balance of probabilities are that, um, we've probably seen the low, I think, in gold and silver, um, following the peak in, uh, the end of January. And on that basis, uh, yeah, I mean, anybody who does hold off and thinks, "Oh, you know, we'll wait until things are a bit more certain," I think could be making a huge mistake. Um, I've always, um, advised, uh, people looking at, um, gold and silver to look at it, look at them as money, real money without counterparty risk, rather than as a trading trip. If you try and, uh, trade it, then good luck to you. You may be cleverer than 80% of those who do try and trade it and lose. That is your affair. But when it comes to actually protecting, uh, your wealth, then the answer is to get out that, get out of credit and get into, uh, um, gold, physical gold, um, and to an extent, physical silver, but particularly physical gold from that monetary point of view. So, um, yeah, I mean, I think that what we're looking at is a, is a situation where fiat currencies are on their deathbed. They're going to go down to zero. And, uh, you don't want to be holding anything that's going to go down to zero. It's actually as simple as that.
UK government bond yields are now rising to fairly dizzying heights, with the 10-year currently somewhere around 5%. In my opinion, this is far too low of a yield actually for for a country I believe is in terminal decline. But nonetheless, this is the highest yield since 2008 on the 10-year. Is the UK facing a bond crisis right now? And if so, what could the implications be?
>> Yeah, it certainly is. Um, I think, I mean, I, I agree with you entirely. Uh, and I mean, the trigger for this, I mean, basically, government finances are in a huge great mess. You have a left-wing, stroke communist government. Um, Karma is under threat. Uh, his position is under threat. Uh, if he does go, um, it's likely to be as a consequence of a combination of the Peter Mandelson, um, problem, and also, uh, what's going to happen in the local elections. The local elections threaten to really damage Labour, the Labour Party hugely, and I think at that stage, the parliamentary Labour Party, which basically the Labour, uh, members of parliament, um, will no longer back him, and I think that intellectually, they, they are inclined more to the left than they are to the right. So, what you could see is an even more left-wing, uh, Labour Party leader replacing, uh, Karma. So, that, I think, would be extremely dangerous. I really do. Uh, and, um, I think at that point, a lot of the foreign investors in UK gilts would probably start to flee the scene. Um, now, as to your point about, um, gilt yields being too low, I mean, you know, a lot of hedge funds actually, I mean, you know, they don't only, uh, say, sell Japanese yen to buy dollars, they also sell Japanese yen to buy sterling. They're all in there for the yield pickup, basically. But there will come a point, I think, where, um, you know, loss of confidence trumps any return that you you could see, if you like, from the carry trade, and we're heading to disaster. We're heading to exactly the same situation that we saw in 1973, when the IMF at the end of 1973 came in and, um, bailed us out. The condition of the loan, which I think was something like $2 billion, was simply, um, uh, you know, we had to balance the books, and not only balance the books, but it meant cuts in public spending, which meant that left-wing, uh, um, cabinet ministers like Michael Foot resigned, um, and, uh, taxes were were raised, if you like, to ensure that we had a budget surplus. Now, we were extremely lucky because, um, literally, uh, just shortly after that, the Forties field in the North Sea was discovered. So, we became a pro-country, if you like, not petrol currency. So, all that revenue came in, was a huge, huge bonus which nobody really expected. We don't have that now. We can restart what we're doing in the North Sea. But if the left-wing, uh, gain the ascendancy, uh, over the centrists, if you like, in the Labour Party, you can forget the idea of North Sea because they're all hung up on this climate change thing, which to them is, you know, is, I mean, quite honestly, ideologically, it's the way in which they seek to destroy capitalism. That's the only way you can really describe it. So, that's what we faced. We don't have the IMF coming in this time to rescue us. I can't see that because, well, we have these problems. The owner or the controller of the IMF, which is the United States of America, will be having similar problems with this budget. So, you know, no North Sea oil, no IMF. Where do we go? Hell in a handcart.
>> I want to talk. Speaking about hell in a handcart, I want to talk about insider trading. And we all know it's been going on with the political establishment for a long time. But now it seems to be getting more blatant than ever with massive trades being made minutes before certain announcements by President Trump that move markets in one direction or the other. I mean, not to mention he started his presidency by launching a scam cryptocoin, and then his wife launched a scam cryptocoin, and then they rug-pulled everybody. I mean, it just seems like there's no regulation anymore. Is this a sign of the end of empire where the leaders just blatantly loot everything they can before the whole thing burns down?
>> I think it's one, it's one sign of end of empire. Uh, the thing that's really extraordinary is how the regulators, um, haven't said anything. And I mean, they have a duty, if you like, to deal with this problem. I suspect they're playing politics. I suspect that what the regulators are doing is they're gaining all the information, um, and when Trump falls, fails, falls, whichever you want, then I think they'll go for him. Then I think they'll go for whoever was inside trading on the back of that information, which clearly, clearly came out of the White House. We don't know who it is. We can only guess. Um, and it would be wrong, if you like, to point fingers, um, ahead of the evidence. I think this is going to happen. I think, um, you know, we, we all know that Netanyahu is sort of, um, terrified of, uh, losing his position because he's, he's going to be on corruption charges and and all the rest of it. But I think the same thing is mounting for, um, the senior, the senior people in the White House, which goes from Trump to, um, it's a very, very sad thing that this sort of thing happens. I think in America, we have seen, I mean, this is anecdotal evidence. We have seen, uh, politicians lining their pockets, um, by trading, um, on what amounts to inside information, um, coming out of government. So, this is, if you like, a continuation of that and an acceleration of it. It is disgraceful, of that there is absolutely no doubt, and in the broader context, we have lost all moral compass, which, you know, is is regrettable. Let's just put it that way.
>> I completely agree with you on the moral compass thing. It seems like the world has become a very degenerate place, and that's now looked on as normal. Um, now, despite all the insanity we've been talking about today, the S&P 500 recently hit new all-time highs. I mean, you wrote about this on your Substack as well, saying, "Surreal hardly describes it." Now, there's been talk for several years now that a crash in the broad market is inevitable, and yet it keeps grinding higher. Why do you think this is? And assuming it does all fall apart, how big of a decline do you think we could see on the other side?
>> That's a very, very interesting, uh, topic. Um, what drives stocks? Good fundamentals? Charts? No, it's credit. Credit. And it's the printing of credit. The printing of credit by, um, uh, uh, commercial banks aimed at the financial system, basically, is inflating everything in the financial system. The moment that slows down, you've got a problem. So, um, that, I think, is the thing to watch. And this has been reflected, if you look at the, uh, FINRA figures, um, on, uh, margin debt. I mean, it soared from, I think, at the time of, uh, the Great Financial Crisis, 2008-9, it was around about $200 billion, something like that. We're now $1.2 trillion. And this doesn't include major hedge funds and so on and so forth. This is just the retail end, sort of mainly retail. Um, I mean, the big, big hedge funds and all the rest of it, they just go straight to the banks. So, it doesn't include those figures. This is a bubble. It's a credit bubble. It's as simple as that. The problem with calling an end to a credit bubble is not, um, you know, you shouldn't be sort of looking at the index. You should be looking at what the banks are doing. And the moment they start, you know, pulling the rug out from under under the market, it's going to fall quite, quite sharply. Now, uh, as to how far down it's likely to go, um, there are two answers to this. The first is measured in gold, it'll go down, it'll lose 95%. Something like that. I mean, like almost everything. Uh, measured in fiat dollars, it will probably decline somewhere between, um, I don't know, I mean, I'm just throwing numbers out out in the air, somewhere to roughly where a third of it is today and perhaps two-thirds of where it is today. Now, the reason for that is that as the credit bubble implodes, you will find that the value of that credit is also declining. I'll give you an example. If you look at, um, what happened in Germany in 1921, the end of 1921, there had been a roaring stock market. I think it went up something like 300%. Um, and there had been a temporary period of currency stability. In sort of October, November, December, December in particular, um, the stock market began to crash. Now, what happened was that measured in gold, it lost over 90% of its value. Measured in declining Reichsmarks, it lost a quarter of its value. That was all. And I think that is, if you like, a sort of template for what we're likely to see when this current bubble goes.
>> For those who want to follow your work at Mcloud Finance Substack, could you tell us about that?
>> Yeah. Um, I write about, um, economics. I write about geoeconomics. I write about credit money in particular. Um, I don't advise people, you know, what to buy, what to sell, anything like that. So, I'm, you know, it's, it's, it's really a question of educating people as to what is actually happening and encourage them to look at, um, their wealth, if you like, as something that they should protect rather than something that they should, um, strive to to to increase because this is, this is not a time for speculation. It really is not. Um, and, uh, you know, I try and write in such a way that, um, intelligent people who are not necessarily, um, familiar with, uh, financial markets can actually understand it. It's quite a difficult thing to do in a sense, but, um, you know, I try and do that. So, I'm, I'm trying to help the ordinary man, if you like, ordinary woman, uh, protect, um, their hard-earned savings, is really what what it boils down to. Uh, so, it's, it's, it's, um, it's trying to get people to look at things from a very, very different way, from the way in which the investment community, the press, and, uh, the political class, uh, would like to have you believe. Um, and it's, you know, it's mcloudfinance.com. Go there and, you know, please go and have a look. Hopefully, it might, it might improve your life.
>> Yes, I've, I've read several of your pieces, and I can attest to the fact that they are very digestible, very well written, and extraordinarily informative. So, check it out. I'm going to put the link in the description below. Alistair, always a blast having you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on.
>> Thank you for having me, Jesse.
>> Thank you for joining us today. This episode is brought to you by Arc Silver, Gold, Osmium. They have some great prices on gold and silver bullion products. They are 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 make sure to tell him that Commodity Culture sent you. And of course, pick up your exclusive "Stack Silver, Not Fiat" t-shirt in the Commodity Culture shop, backed by a 100% quality guarantee. Use the link below, and I'll see you guys in the next episode.
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