This Isn’t a Gold Bubble — It’s a Currency Breakdown | Matthew Piepenburg
Summary
Precious Metals: Gold at $5,000 and a sharp silver rally are framed as signals of systemic currency dysfunction rather than a speculative bubble.
Fiat Debasement: Persistent monetization of debt and managed yields imply ongoing hidden inflation, driving sustained demand for hard assets.
Monetary Reset: Discussion of an imminent shift toward a new monetary regime, with gold signaling the breakdown of the current fiat system.
CBDC: Expectation of central bank digital currencies emerging from a Bretton Woods 2.0-style response, potentially with some role for gold to restore credibility.
Gold Revaluation: Potential U.S. gold revaluation could inject trillions into the Treasury General Account, effectively QE via gold without explicit money printing.
Sovereign Debt: Policymakers face a choice between protecting bond markets or the currency, with the likelihood of prioritizing debt markets and tolerating inflation.
Market Structure: Strains in COMEX/LBMA price discovery suggest freer pricing and additional upside for gold and silver.
Wealth Preservation: High-net-worth investors focus on storing wealth in physical gold (often in Switzerland), citing inflation and geopolitical risks.
Transcript
Hello and welcome back from the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Welcome back to Soore Financially. My name is Kai Hoffen. I'm the Edrin guy over on X and of course your host of this channel and I can't wait to speak again with Matthew Peepenberg. He's the partner over at Fan Kayat Gold. Matthew, it's great to see you again. >> Yeah, we were just together in Zurich not too long ago and now we're both in Canada today. So, it's crazy. >> Special coverage from the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference is brought to you by First Majestic Silver. There's no substitute for silver and it feels like it's a different completely different environment, completely different world. Like would you have expected that we're talking about $5,000 gold today? >> No, honestly, we're we're shocked, not surprised, but shocked. It's it's the scope and speed of this rise is pretty incredible. >> Absolutely. Um Matthews, like maybe the goal of this conversation is really to figure out like how close are we to a monetary reset? What is $5,000 gold, $100 silver telling us? like let's start very high level and we'll get a bit more granular to focus on some of the problems maybe underlying problems but 30,000 foot view >> how close are we >> I don't know I don't know and honestly what it's what it's telling us now at least it's a it's a signpost and it's it's also a warning signal it's a signpost what's to come timing that is is very difficult uh it's a symptom more than anything else though that we can know we can know the problem and if you know the problem that's easier to find the solution ution. Looking at silver ripping through 50, 60, 70, 80, looking at gold go past 42, 43 in in where it's headed now already in 2026. It's natural to think of this as a bubble. And it's natural to compare it to other bubbles. And it's natural to scratch your head and wonder, are we at peak gold, peak silver, are we at some kind of hysteria, some kind of euphoria? The short answer is that's actually not true. It is a difference between a bull run and a bubble in my mind. And really what it is signaling is not the staggering price of gold and silver. To me, and I've said this countless times, it all comes down to the bond market, which is credit, and that's debt. What gold and silver prices are signaling isn't some mania in gold and silver. What it's signaling is a complete dysfunction of global currencies in general and the US dollar in particular and the sovereign bonds that they represent. And that is more scary than a bull run in a tech stock. That's more scary than mispriced MBS and ABX index indices. Uh that's more scary than just a typical kind of phase in a commodity cycle. Um, this is again a symptom of things that you and I have been discussing for years while gold has been steadily outperforming risk assets despite the bubble they're in. And and it's coming now from the incremental stage. I love that Ronnie Sturflauses calls his fund increment because gold and these assets are incrementally rising because fiat money is incrementally by death by a thousand cuts losing trust, credibility and purchasing power. We've gone from an incremental rise in gold and silver to reference that into now an exponential and therefore questionable rise. And I think what we're seeing with gold and silver is now finally the karmic reality from 1971 to today where the debt is has gotten too high. The debasement of currencies to monetize that debt has gotten too far. That was true by 2022. When we weaponized that currency and IOU, it just went farther and faster. But really what we're we're seeing is a symptom of a sick system, a sick currency system. Um that in and of itself is scary. Uh it doesn't mean gold and silver want to go up into the right from here. We're far from peak gold because there is no easy solution to saving paper money. And even the world reserve currency, even the greenback, even the home of I said many times, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and the Denver Broncos is not immune from the sins of the fantasy that you can solve a debt crisis with more debt and monetize that debt with money and mouth out of nowhere and then weaponize that debt and then expect the world, like they did in the 70s, when was our currency, your problem, to buy that sandwich and eat that sandwich for decades. So, we're at a turning point. Um, again, it doesn't necessarily even mean the world reserve currency ends tomorrow or the dollar ends tomorrow. We're going to see a repricing, but it's really symptomatic of things breaking down and a lot of headless chickens from Davos to to the Constitution A and the Fed and the Eckles building and the guard and ECB in Brussels all trying to do what all generals in a losing army do. Stay calm. uh use a lot of powerful words, stand in nice suits, but miss the math. And so, look, it's been breaking down for a while. It will continue to break down. when it dies. It won't die, but when it becomes necessary for emergency chest compressions and CPR and some type of new narrative, usually a dishonest one, some type of new bad guy to justify some type of reset, whatever that means. Um, we can talk about, but we're there. We're in history right now. It's not Weimar Germany. It's not Yugoslavia in the '90s. It's not France in 1789. It's not guillotines and Napoleon, but it's a shift >> and gold is referencing that. But the problem isn't gold being so terrifyingly high. It's the dollar and paper money being that desperately rotten. >> Maybe a bit of a naive follow-up because if I look at the S&P 500, if I look at the Dixie, which is the dollar index, if I look at bond yields until recently, they didn't move at all and we're stagnant, right? So, it's really difficult to get a read on where we at in this cycle, like how close are we to that reset. How do you interpret that? >> Right. Well, look, for bond yields, certainly on the short end, not on the long end. Um, I mean, yields have been rising in France. They've been rising not so much relatively in Germany compared to France, but in the UK, certainly Japan, uh, and of course the US. Um, rising bond yields are an indication of less demand for bonds, and rising bond yields also indicate higher costs of debt. So, they're scary for systems that are highly in debt. But again, you can control bond yields on the short end and you can create the illusion of demand when your central bank is that source of demand. And when you do that, of course, technically, you could also have an S&P that never really goes below a dip that can't be recovered. You can monetize anything uh with fake money. If you and I had a a legalized money printer in our basement, anytime there was a bill to be paid that we didn't otherwise have the funds to do, who wouldn't be tempted to push the button and use it? >> I thought it was called credit card. >> Well, we paid and Americans paid 22% interest on that. Uh but if you could do it for free with impunity, who wouldn't be addicted to that? We've gotten way past our currency, our your problem in 70s to now our currency, our problem because we have gone too far in debt. We've issued too many IUs. We've weaponized it. the world doesn't love it the way they did. And so now we have to monetize that debt. So we can keep yields under control. We can even go into FX and keep others yields under control. But we can't do that without a cost. And the cost is that slow, hidden, misreported, invisible theft of inflation. And and that's the real victim here. And that's the currency. And currencies that are debased mean real money, hard assets are going to go up. And again, this is why gold and silver going up. And this is why it's really more about paper money than it is about ridiculously high gold prices. And again, when you combine that with a Comx and London exchange that are falling apart, free price discovery in these metals is doing something hasn't done in decades. So, it's a lot of things happening at one sky. >> We talked about the policy makers and I do feel for them a little bit because it seems like they're caught between a rock and a hard place, right? And >> they they got to work. They got to eat the sandwich. They've been served, right? Um, do they even have a good option left? >> No. As Neil Qashqari said years ago, there are no good scenarios left. You have to choose between saving the bond market, which is everything in a debt based system, or killing the currency or saving the currency. You know, letting rates rip, let the dollar go stronger. That kills your trade kills your trade exports, your your trade surpluses get burnt because every American toaster with a higher price dollar is less attractive. So, you choose between the currency and the and the bond market. Since we live on debt, we're not going to let the bond market go. So, we're going to have to choose the lesser of two yields, kill the currency, misreport inflation, tell the masses who are being robbed in this great wealth transfer that it's the fault of COVID, which is what the IMF tried to do. >> Taking advantage of you. >> Yeah. Or it's Putin or it's some other nefarious bad actor or some unforeseeable black swan to come to justify some other event. But the guilt lies in the bathroom mirrors of policy makers. You're right. Do you have some sympathy for the Fed? It's like Thomas Hernigo. I I respect he was a former I think a Kansas City Fed president. You know, he had said for years he was always the one who vetoed Bernani and these guys. He was one of the lone voices of caution because his attitude was if we're truly representing fiduciaries of the people, then we need to make plans 20 years out, not one cycle out. We need to be thinking long term and letting the short term take care of itself. And even though that means some pain, but he was a lone voice. And I think he said, "You can't blame the Fed altogether for mouse clicking money to save a system when the Congress and the Senate is spending beyond their means. We're just there to try and help them." There's some truth to that, but we have created a moral hazard at the Fed. Just knowing it's there to mouse click and print is allowing these politicians to think that they can have deficits without tears, print with immunity, to base the currency, tell the BLS, which is take the L out the BS department to lie about actual inflation. But it's a virtuous it's a it's a it's a vicious circle of bad acting and it's a moral hazard because since 1971 every every leader every Congress left or right blue or red has spent well beyond GDP and tax receipts. >> So you're saying like maybe turning this around the main mistake was made in 71 when the US took uh the dollar off the gold standard. That was >> the root of the root of the or the beginning of the end. Certainly the main mistake was 1913 December 23rd when uh Woodro Wilson right before Christmas when half the Congress was gone under the name of banking reform signed the Federal Reserve Act and made the central bank into law because it's a violation of article 1 section 8 of our constitution. Our founding fathers whatever you think of them the first article of this constitution was only Congress determines the power of our currency and that by the way is going to be a hard asset back currency. Why did they know that in the 1780s? Because they had seen what happened in 1720. John Law era. They'd seen what was going on in France with the Aenol and the debasement of the currency and the arrival of the guillotine and the revolution. In other words, they may have been flawed, but they knew economics a lot better than most people. They knew history a lot better than any of the uh the mental midgets running our system right now. And they warned against this very thing. This was a Hamilton and Jefferson warning. We do not want a central bank controlling the supply and cost of our precious currency. And we don't want leaders in the future to do what other leaders in the past have done, which is debase the currency to stay elected. It has to be hard asset backed. Obviously by 1913 that was over. We then had a gold back dollar up after Bretton Woods in 1944. We restored some legitimacy. But by 1971 the game was over. We were off. This is exactly what our founding fathers were worried about. This was the end of their idea of sound money. This was the end of their idea of an independent Congresscontrolled currency, not a private central bank whose shareholders were other banks and bankers. That was an anathema to Thomas Jefferson. He said, "I'd rather see a foreign army on my shores than a central bank determining these things. These were right there to see." But of course, 99% of our Congress and Senate doesn't read history, know their founding fathers. They put a hand on the Bible, swear to the Constitution. They never read it. So that was the turning point. 1971, you take away that chaperone, you take away that anchor. You can now spend as much as you want because you don't have to tie it to gold. And then you have a central bank that'll buy your IUs if no one else will. But in the 70s we had the petro dollar. We had OPEC buying US treasuries. The revenues they made from a dollar-based system. We even had China and Japan buying our US treasuries. It was the world reserve currency. It's our currency. Your problem. We hear it. Whether it's the Euro dollar market, derivatives, oil, the dollar will be absorbed. We'll export our inflation. You'll eat that sandwich. And that that worked for decades. Now we're at a turning point, Kai. We're at a turning point. >> Can Can we get back to a Bretonwoods 2.0 I don't know perhaps and maybe start backing it with something again just to get that confidence somewhat back like it's come it comes back to that option like are there any options left like is there a way to instill confidence again in the currency that's badly flawed >> well there's a way to instill centralization which is always what follows desperation and what's always follows a system that's broke the IMF literally called it the Bretton woods 2.0 I know Vent is talking about a new Bretton Woods. This came out during the co hysteria in the madness of co when Christina Georgima IMF had this wonderful video. You can literally have so many times you can go to the website and see it for yourself. It's a cartoon. It's a joke where effectively they are saying co is the cause of the greatest debt crisis on earth. And then you had clwab co is a the greatest crisis of mankind time. No, it was an opportunity for these people. They could now blame decades of mismanaging their debt and printing money to monetize it and blame it on a Wuhan rat or turtle or whatever it is that caused that virus. God knows they could now blame it on CO and they could even compare COVID to World War II. You and I as Europeans know that World War II and what our forefathers went through, whether it was the East Front, the West front. You can't compare Roderdam, Berlin, Dresden, the occupation of France, the destruction of Italy, the Ukraine to CO. Whatever you think of CO, that's an insult to history, to Europe, to American soldiers, anyone who fought in that thing, the losses, the 85 million dead. No, don't do that. But again, because they assume the masses are too dumb to compare the math of COVID to World War II, they were able to say, "We're going to have we're going to have to do another Bretton Woods just like cuz this is like World War II, 1944. It's not our fault. And by the way, whatever this new system is, centralized central bank digitized currency for it to have any credibility, it has to have some type of gold coverage. That was interesting. You may not like CBDC or the complete dishonesty of the IMF in its history, but even they knew that to have any credibility in this uh-oh moment to come, they were telegraphing in 2020 what's going to happen whenever this thing breaks. And what that's going to be is more centralization masquerading as efficiency, counterparty risk eliminated because your money will be coming right from the central bank, those trustworthy central bankers. And you know, it will be uh with the gold coverage, it's actually good for gold in the long run because like the east and the bricks, they don't trust each other. They just gold. Their bricks currency isn't a gold back currency. It's a trade settlement. And the central bank digital currency to come out of this nonsense, this crisis that we're going to be in will have some type of role for gold. which is why central bankers are buying their gold now before the combat. They're loading their guns now. They're is getting as much gold and ammunition as they can. I don't like central banks. I don't like the BIS. But look what they're doing now. What they're saying, they're stocking up before the whatever reset comes, however dysfunctional is. And to your original question, when will that happen? I don't know. Will it be a black swan? Will it be a false flag? Will it be a crisis of their own making blamed on someone else? I don't know. I don't. But it's coming. It's already happening in a lot of ways. your dollar is and your euro is and your Swiss Frank is already drowning and dying by a thousand cuts. So, uh, anyone feels that, anyone who believes the CPI scale, do you does your life feel 2.7% more expensive or a lot higher? Right. And so, we all know it. >> Yeah. >> So, gold is at $5,000. What kind of optionality does that provide the policy makers? You touched on like, oh, maybe we'll introduce a CBDC. Like, how is a higher gold price beneficial in that scenario >> or other scenarios for that matter? The big headline or the big conversation in 25 was will it be, you know, the Fed papers came out in July and May of gold revaluation. Maybe take those 260 million ounces that are still priced at post, you know, $421 gold. We could we could revalue those at spot and then depending what the spot price is, if it's 5,000, that's well, that's 2 and a half trillion in liquidity. It's not printing money. It's not embarrassing QE. We're just doing QE with gold. take that spot price, revalue those certificates and put that into the TGA and take some of our debt. If that was true, they want they're going to want gold to be much higher before they hit that button because then if you if gold's at 10,000 and then you repric, that's 5 trillion of debt off the books. That's one option. Um I don't think it'll ever be a gold back US dollar. That would be suicide because then they can't then then then there's a cap on what they can print >> and and >> you'd be automatically the world's strongest currency. You would be, but you wouldn't be able to spend at the levels you spent to stay elected because that would require some constructive destruction. You would be a respected currency again, but you would not be able to cover the entitlements and the costs and the and the things needed and the promises made to stay elected and and so that would be political suicide. The real politique of it is no sovereign wants a gold back currency because then you can't debase when you need. So what will happen is I think it will be more of a trade settlement. The US dollar will not disappear. it will become a strong regional currency with less global hedgeimonyy and it's already happening in practice uh just not in form uh what's happening in substance and so again not the end of the dollar uh there's still great sources of dollar demand the milkshake theory the straw sucking sound from the derivatives the euro dollar markets FX swaps are still very powerful I just think that like like the the vestall or the imaginal line enemies of the enemies of this currency the Japanese excuse me the Chinese and the Russian aren't going to replace or attack the dollar. They're going to go around the imaginal line, go to the Arden, you [laughter] know, >> in three days. >> Yeah, exactly. And and and just be realistic about it. The the Chinese don't want to gold back yan. They don't mind. The question is who has the most gold because maybe they they don't mind being devalued against gold because they have a lot of gold. >> We just don't know how much. I don't know how much the US has. We still haven't had that, you know, famous audit. That will be interesting because as Kissinger said, who he who has the most gold wins, but be careful. You ask for if we if we value the gold and someone else has more. The truth is it's it's hard to know. >> Yeah. Like I want to wrap up the conversation a little bit. Get some insight from fun gold. Like what are your clients telling you? Why are they buying gold right now? What are they >> maybe like we have to say like afraid of? What are they fearing like and what's the sort of the feedback you're getting? >> No, it's great. I mean we have clients from 90 countries. They're fairly sophisticated. Our minimums are very high in vanets and uh only because we can't service everyone. So we have a higher minimum. We talk to everyone. They can listen, think or question what we're saying, but that's free. But for those who want to become clients, you're looking at 5 million to be in the vaults in the al in the Alps and at least 500,000 Swiss Franks to be in Zurich. So that's that's a unique class. To answer your question, frankly, and I've been there for now 6 years, the questions are really they come semiconverted already. They're fairly conscious of what's happening with fiat money whether that's >> what are they most concerned about like fiat money like the value of their dollar or their >> well they preservation they're it's clearly wealth preservation which is Egon's elite motif and it's mine as well um look at that at this point and I don't want to be smug they have a higher class problem of trying to preserve what they've had they're not looking to make more they're trying to stay rich not get rich they know that that melting ice cube even if it's a Swiss Frank or a euro or a dollar is not the best way to stay rich. Um, and they're not speculating anymore. They're saving in precious metals and when they need liquidity for a purchase, converting it to fiat to make a purchase, they have no problem with that. Even at 5,000 or 4,400 or 54 or you know I the question is never I think it's too high. Some will ask, well, should I wait for a pullback and those kind of things, but if you're holding gold for 10 or 15, 20, 30 years, we just say, look, we don't know what the price is going to be. By the way, Egon and I never talk about the price of gold. We're certainly watching it now. It's fascinating. Egon bought at 300. He doesn't gloat today >> and he didn't worry when gold was flat for years. He just knew it was a better store of value than any paper money. He came from the banking system. We all did. We know how the sausage is made. But again, it's not it's not meant to be smug because there are many listening who don't have wealth to preserve. they're trying to find some wealth and that's a very different uh mindset and profile. I have nothing against it. It's just not the best reason to become in our space, not just our clients, but that's not why we look at gold. Certainly, Egon's wealth has increased from $300 gold to 5,000 and many many others, even myself. Nothing to the level of Egon. But he he saw something 20 years ago. He saw the problem. He knew the solution. The solution is still gold. um it's just more expensive solution today, >> but 20 years from now, I don't think we'll be really looking at whether it was 5,000 or 4,200 where it should be. Um and I think that's how we're helpful and that's the way we look at it. It's not helpful to those trying to figure out what to do now. Um and to your other question, what are they really worried about? inflation and geopolitics and whether they're coming from Germany or France and literally I've talked to them all. They're coming from Australia, coming from the US, they're all asking about where they should go. >> The grass seems greener somewhere else. Things are so bad in America, Matt. You got to see it. Matt, things are so bad in Paris. It's not safe, Matt. Things are so bad in Germany. You wouldn't recognize it. It's not the country. So, they're all kind of thinking, well, I maybe can't get myself to Switzerland. I certainly want a firewall between my country and my gold. So, they want their gold in Switzerland. The truth is where are we going to go? Uruguay, Argentina, I don't know. Tahiti, maybe it's that's a personal question. There is no safe place to get away from the crisis in our currency. If you're worried about safety in your city x, y, or z, that's a different decision. But no one seems very happy. Everyone thinks their country, whether it's America, Germany, France, is less recognizable for the UK. That's interesting. And they're worried about uh geopolitics, war. What What kind of war are we going to have in a nuclear era? I I don't know, you know, I I I personally am not worried about Putin marching down to Zurich. I'm just not that we've got much bigger problems at that point um in a nuclear era. So, look, but yeah, they're worried about the the purchasing power of their money, which has lost 99% since 71 versus gold. That's just a reality. Should they try to fight inflation in an inflated stock market that's topping? That's hard. Do they try and find safety in bonds? That's hard. So they're worried about these things and they have the high class problem of being able to allocate a decent amount of money to ensure against dying fiat paper by buying real assets. And so they are better protected and less worried about the price. It's this younger generation or the people that are just trying to get into the space now who are seeing the problem. And look, retail allocations to gold is still less than 1%. The big money movers in gold are the central banks, the ones I like the least, but don't fight them. Again, watch what they do, not what they say. They're stacking for a reason. >> Absolutely. Matthew, what a wonderful conversation as always. I tremendously appreciate you joining us here. It's always good to see you. >> Good to see you. >> Where do we find more of your work? How can we reach out to you? >> Yeah, look, gold switzelland.com or vg.g gold for vonjards.gold and uh all our articles and videos and conversations will be there and uh it's a free source of data. Always second check everything we think and say. We have our own convictions, our own biases clearly. Uh but it's just another another thing that people should be looking at. I think information is power. That's free. And whether you're crypto, Bitcoin, commodities, miners, you got to just get informed. You should have knowledge. [music] That's free. >> Yeah. Fantastic. The common denominator is always the same anyway. Wealth preservation and making sense of it all, right? Absolutely. Matthew, thank you so much. And to everybody else, thank you so much for tuning in here to sore [music] financially from the floor of the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Really appreciate you watching. If you haven't done so, hit that like and subscribe button. Helps us out tremendously. We just appreciate it. So, thanks so much for doing that and uh take care out there.
This Isn’t a Gold Bubble — It’s a Currency Breakdown | Matthew Piepenburg
Summary
Transcript
Hello and welcome back from the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Welcome back to Soore Financially. My name is Kai Hoffen. I'm the Edrin guy over on X and of course your host of this channel and I can't wait to speak again with Matthew Peepenberg. He's the partner over at Fan Kayat Gold. Matthew, it's great to see you again. >> Yeah, we were just together in Zurich not too long ago and now we're both in Canada today. So, it's crazy. >> Special coverage from the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference is brought to you by First Majestic Silver. There's no substitute for silver and it feels like it's a different completely different environment, completely different world. Like would you have expected that we're talking about $5,000 gold today? >> No, honestly, we're we're shocked, not surprised, but shocked. It's it's the scope and speed of this rise is pretty incredible. >> Absolutely. Um Matthews, like maybe the goal of this conversation is really to figure out like how close are we to a monetary reset? What is $5,000 gold, $100 silver telling us? like let's start very high level and we'll get a bit more granular to focus on some of the problems maybe underlying problems but 30,000 foot view >> how close are we >> I don't know I don't know and honestly what it's what it's telling us now at least it's a it's a signpost and it's it's also a warning signal it's a signpost what's to come timing that is is very difficult uh it's a symptom more than anything else though that we can know we can know the problem and if you know the problem that's easier to find the solution ution. Looking at silver ripping through 50, 60, 70, 80, looking at gold go past 42, 43 in in where it's headed now already in 2026. It's natural to think of this as a bubble. And it's natural to compare it to other bubbles. And it's natural to scratch your head and wonder, are we at peak gold, peak silver, are we at some kind of hysteria, some kind of euphoria? The short answer is that's actually not true. It is a difference between a bull run and a bubble in my mind. And really what it is signaling is not the staggering price of gold and silver. To me, and I've said this countless times, it all comes down to the bond market, which is credit, and that's debt. What gold and silver prices are signaling isn't some mania in gold and silver. What it's signaling is a complete dysfunction of global currencies in general and the US dollar in particular and the sovereign bonds that they represent. And that is more scary than a bull run in a tech stock. That's more scary than mispriced MBS and ABX index indices. Uh that's more scary than just a typical kind of phase in a commodity cycle. Um, this is again a symptom of things that you and I have been discussing for years while gold has been steadily outperforming risk assets despite the bubble they're in. And and it's coming now from the incremental stage. I love that Ronnie Sturflauses calls his fund increment because gold and these assets are incrementally rising because fiat money is incrementally by death by a thousand cuts losing trust, credibility and purchasing power. We've gone from an incremental rise in gold and silver to reference that into now an exponential and therefore questionable rise. And I think what we're seeing with gold and silver is now finally the karmic reality from 1971 to today where the debt is has gotten too high. The debasement of currencies to monetize that debt has gotten too far. That was true by 2022. When we weaponized that currency and IOU, it just went farther and faster. But really what we're we're seeing is a symptom of a sick system, a sick currency system. Um that in and of itself is scary. Uh it doesn't mean gold and silver want to go up into the right from here. We're far from peak gold because there is no easy solution to saving paper money. And even the world reserve currency, even the greenback, even the home of I said many times, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and the Denver Broncos is not immune from the sins of the fantasy that you can solve a debt crisis with more debt and monetize that debt with money and mouth out of nowhere and then weaponize that debt and then expect the world, like they did in the 70s, when was our currency, your problem, to buy that sandwich and eat that sandwich for decades. So, we're at a turning point. Um, again, it doesn't necessarily even mean the world reserve currency ends tomorrow or the dollar ends tomorrow. We're going to see a repricing, but it's really symptomatic of things breaking down and a lot of headless chickens from Davos to to the Constitution A and the Fed and the Eckles building and the guard and ECB in Brussels all trying to do what all generals in a losing army do. Stay calm. uh use a lot of powerful words, stand in nice suits, but miss the math. And so, look, it's been breaking down for a while. It will continue to break down. when it dies. It won't die, but when it becomes necessary for emergency chest compressions and CPR and some type of new narrative, usually a dishonest one, some type of new bad guy to justify some type of reset, whatever that means. Um, we can talk about, but we're there. We're in history right now. It's not Weimar Germany. It's not Yugoslavia in the '90s. It's not France in 1789. It's not guillotines and Napoleon, but it's a shift >> and gold is referencing that. But the problem isn't gold being so terrifyingly high. It's the dollar and paper money being that desperately rotten. >> Maybe a bit of a naive follow-up because if I look at the S&P 500, if I look at the Dixie, which is the dollar index, if I look at bond yields until recently, they didn't move at all and we're stagnant, right? So, it's really difficult to get a read on where we at in this cycle, like how close are we to that reset. How do you interpret that? >> Right. Well, look, for bond yields, certainly on the short end, not on the long end. Um, I mean, yields have been rising in France. They've been rising not so much relatively in Germany compared to France, but in the UK, certainly Japan, uh, and of course the US. Um, rising bond yields are an indication of less demand for bonds, and rising bond yields also indicate higher costs of debt. So, they're scary for systems that are highly in debt. But again, you can control bond yields on the short end and you can create the illusion of demand when your central bank is that source of demand. And when you do that, of course, technically, you could also have an S&P that never really goes below a dip that can't be recovered. You can monetize anything uh with fake money. If you and I had a a legalized money printer in our basement, anytime there was a bill to be paid that we didn't otherwise have the funds to do, who wouldn't be tempted to push the button and use it? >> I thought it was called credit card. >> Well, we paid and Americans paid 22% interest on that. Uh but if you could do it for free with impunity, who wouldn't be addicted to that? We've gotten way past our currency, our your problem in 70s to now our currency, our problem because we have gone too far in debt. We've issued too many IUs. We've weaponized it. the world doesn't love it the way they did. And so now we have to monetize that debt. So we can keep yields under control. We can even go into FX and keep others yields under control. But we can't do that without a cost. And the cost is that slow, hidden, misreported, invisible theft of inflation. And and that's the real victim here. And that's the currency. And currencies that are debased mean real money, hard assets are going to go up. And again, this is why gold and silver going up. And this is why it's really more about paper money than it is about ridiculously high gold prices. And again, when you combine that with a Comx and London exchange that are falling apart, free price discovery in these metals is doing something hasn't done in decades. So, it's a lot of things happening at one sky. >> We talked about the policy makers and I do feel for them a little bit because it seems like they're caught between a rock and a hard place, right? And >> they they got to work. They got to eat the sandwich. They've been served, right? Um, do they even have a good option left? >> No. As Neil Qashqari said years ago, there are no good scenarios left. You have to choose between saving the bond market, which is everything in a debt based system, or killing the currency or saving the currency. You know, letting rates rip, let the dollar go stronger. That kills your trade kills your trade exports, your your trade surpluses get burnt because every American toaster with a higher price dollar is less attractive. So, you choose between the currency and the and the bond market. Since we live on debt, we're not going to let the bond market go. So, we're going to have to choose the lesser of two yields, kill the currency, misreport inflation, tell the masses who are being robbed in this great wealth transfer that it's the fault of COVID, which is what the IMF tried to do. >> Taking advantage of you. >> Yeah. Or it's Putin or it's some other nefarious bad actor or some unforeseeable black swan to come to justify some other event. But the guilt lies in the bathroom mirrors of policy makers. You're right. Do you have some sympathy for the Fed? It's like Thomas Hernigo. I I respect he was a former I think a Kansas City Fed president. You know, he had said for years he was always the one who vetoed Bernani and these guys. He was one of the lone voices of caution because his attitude was if we're truly representing fiduciaries of the people, then we need to make plans 20 years out, not one cycle out. We need to be thinking long term and letting the short term take care of itself. And even though that means some pain, but he was a lone voice. And I think he said, "You can't blame the Fed altogether for mouse clicking money to save a system when the Congress and the Senate is spending beyond their means. We're just there to try and help them." There's some truth to that, but we have created a moral hazard at the Fed. Just knowing it's there to mouse click and print is allowing these politicians to think that they can have deficits without tears, print with immunity, to base the currency, tell the BLS, which is take the L out the BS department to lie about actual inflation. But it's a virtuous it's a it's a it's a vicious circle of bad acting and it's a moral hazard because since 1971 every every leader every Congress left or right blue or red has spent well beyond GDP and tax receipts. >> So you're saying like maybe turning this around the main mistake was made in 71 when the US took uh the dollar off the gold standard. That was >> the root of the root of the or the beginning of the end. Certainly the main mistake was 1913 December 23rd when uh Woodro Wilson right before Christmas when half the Congress was gone under the name of banking reform signed the Federal Reserve Act and made the central bank into law because it's a violation of article 1 section 8 of our constitution. Our founding fathers whatever you think of them the first article of this constitution was only Congress determines the power of our currency and that by the way is going to be a hard asset back currency. Why did they know that in the 1780s? Because they had seen what happened in 1720. John Law era. They'd seen what was going on in France with the Aenol and the debasement of the currency and the arrival of the guillotine and the revolution. In other words, they may have been flawed, but they knew economics a lot better than most people. They knew history a lot better than any of the uh the mental midgets running our system right now. And they warned against this very thing. This was a Hamilton and Jefferson warning. We do not want a central bank controlling the supply and cost of our precious currency. And we don't want leaders in the future to do what other leaders in the past have done, which is debase the currency to stay elected. It has to be hard asset backed. Obviously by 1913 that was over. We then had a gold back dollar up after Bretton Woods in 1944. We restored some legitimacy. But by 1971 the game was over. We were off. This is exactly what our founding fathers were worried about. This was the end of their idea of sound money. This was the end of their idea of an independent Congresscontrolled currency, not a private central bank whose shareholders were other banks and bankers. That was an anathema to Thomas Jefferson. He said, "I'd rather see a foreign army on my shores than a central bank determining these things. These were right there to see." But of course, 99% of our Congress and Senate doesn't read history, know their founding fathers. They put a hand on the Bible, swear to the Constitution. They never read it. So that was the turning point. 1971, you take away that chaperone, you take away that anchor. You can now spend as much as you want because you don't have to tie it to gold. And then you have a central bank that'll buy your IUs if no one else will. But in the 70s we had the petro dollar. We had OPEC buying US treasuries. The revenues they made from a dollar-based system. We even had China and Japan buying our US treasuries. It was the world reserve currency. It's our currency. Your problem. We hear it. Whether it's the Euro dollar market, derivatives, oil, the dollar will be absorbed. We'll export our inflation. You'll eat that sandwich. And that that worked for decades. Now we're at a turning point, Kai. We're at a turning point. >> Can Can we get back to a Bretonwoods 2.0 I don't know perhaps and maybe start backing it with something again just to get that confidence somewhat back like it's come it comes back to that option like are there any options left like is there a way to instill confidence again in the currency that's badly flawed >> well there's a way to instill centralization which is always what follows desperation and what's always follows a system that's broke the IMF literally called it the Bretton woods 2.0 I know Vent is talking about a new Bretton Woods. This came out during the co hysteria in the madness of co when Christina Georgima IMF had this wonderful video. You can literally have so many times you can go to the website and see it for yourself. It's a cartoon. It's a joke where effectively they are saying co is the cause of the greatest debt crisis on earth. And then you had clwab co is a the greatest crisis of mankind time. No, it was an opportunity for these people. They could now blame decades of mismanaging their debt and printing money to monetize it and blame it on a Wuhan rat or turtle or whatever it is that caused that virus. God knows they could now blame it on CO and they could even compare COVID to World War II. You and I as Europeans know that World War II and what our forefathers went through, whether it was the East Front, the West front. You can't compare Roderdam, Berlin, Dresden, the occupation of France, the destruction of Italy, the Ukraine to CO. Whatever you think of CO, that's an insult to history, to Europe, to American soldiers, anyone who fought in that thing, the losses, the 85 million dead. No, don't do that. But again, because they assume the masses are too dumb to compare the math of COVID to World War II, they were able to say, "We're going to have we're going to have to do another Bretton Woods just like cuz this is like World War II, 1944. It's not our fault. And by the way, whatever this new system is, centralized central bank digitized currency for it to have any credibility, it has to have some type of gold coverage. That was interesting. You may not like CBDC or the complete dishonesty of the IMF in its history, but even they knew that to have any credibility in this uh-oh moment to come, they were telegraphing in 2020 what's going to happen whenever this thing breaks. And what that's going to be is more centralization masquerading as efficiency, counterparty risk eliminated because your money will be coming right from the central bank, those trustworthy central bankers. And you know, it will be uh with the gold coverage, it's actually good for gold in the long run because like the east and the bricks, they don't trust each other. They just gold. Their bricks currency isn't a gold back currency. It's a trade settlement. And the central bank digital currency to come out of this nonsense, this crisis that we're going to be in will have some type of role for gold. which is why central bankers are buying their gold now before the combat. They're loading their guns now. They're is getting as much gold and ammunition as they can. I don't like central banks. I don't like the BIS. But look what they're doing now. What they're saying, they're stocking up before the whatever reset comes, however dysfunctional is. And to your original question, when will that happen? I don't know. Will it be a black swan? Will it be a false flag? Will it be a crisis of their own making blamed on someone else? I don't know. I don't. But it's coming. It's already happening in a lot of ways. your dollar is and your euro is and your Swiss Frank is already drowning and dying by a thousand cuts. So, uh, anyone feels that, anyone who believes the CPI scale, do you does your life feel 2.7% more expensive or a lot higher? Right. And so, we all know it. >> Yeah. >> So, gold is at $5,000. What kind of optionality does that provide the policy makers? You touched on like, oh, maybe we'll introduce a CBDC. Like, how is a higher gold price beneficial in that scenario >> or other scenarios for that matter? The big headline or the big conversation in 25 was will it be, you know, the Fed papers came out in July and May of gold revaluation. Maybe take those 260 million ounces that are still priced at post, you know, $421 gold. We could we could revalue those at spot and then depending what the spot price is, if it's 5,000, that's well, that's 2 and a half trillion in liquidity. It's not printing money. It's not embarrassing QE. We're just doing QE with gold. take that spot price, revalue those certificates and put that into the TGA and take some of our debt. If that was true, they want they're going to want gold to be much higher before they hit that button because then if you if gold's at 10,000 and then you repric, that's 5 trillion of debt off the books. That's one option. Um I don't think it'll ever be a gold back US dollar. That would be suicide because then they can't then then then there's a cap on what they can print >> and and >> you'd be automatically the world's strongest currency. You would be, but you wouldn't be able to spend at the levels you spent to stay elected because that would require some constructive destruction. You would be a respected currency again, but you would not be able to cover the entitlements and the costs and the and the things needed and the promises made to stay elected and and so that would be political suicide. The real politique of it is no sovereign wants a gold back currency because then you can't debase when you need. So what will happen is I think it will be more of a trade settlement. The US dollar will not disappear. it will become a strong regional currency with less global hedgeimonyy and it's already happening in practice uh just not in form uh what's happening in substance and so again not the end of the dollar uh there's still great sources of dollar demand the milkshake theory the straw sucking sound from the derivatives the euro dollar markets FX swaps are still very powerful I just think that like like the the vestall or the imaginal line enemies of the enemies of this currency the Japanese excuse me the Chinese and the Russian aren't going to replace or attack the dollar. They're going to go around the imaginal line, go to the Arden, you [laughter] know, >> in three days. >> Yeah, exactly. And and and just be realistic about it. The the Chinese don't want to gold back yan. They don't mind. The question is who has the most gold because maybe they they don't mind being devalued against gold because they have a lot of gold. >> We just don't know how much. I don't know how much the US has. We still haven't had that, you know, famous audit. That will be interesting because as Kissinger said, who he who has the most gold wins, but be careful. You ask for if we if we value the gold and someone else has more. The truth is it's it's hard to know. >> Yeah. Like I want to wrap up the conversation a little bit. Get some insight from fun gold. Like what are your clients telling you? Why are they buying gold right now? What are they >> maybe like we have to say like afraid of? What are they fearing like and what's the sort of the feedback you're getting? >> No, it's great. I mean we have clients from 90 countries. They're fairly sophisticated. Our minimums are very high in vanets and uh only because we can't service everyone. So we have a higher minimum. We talk to everyone. They can listen, think or question what we're saying, but that's free. But for those who want to become clients, you're looking at 5 million to be in the vaults in the al in the Alps and at least 500,000 Swiss Franks to be in Zurich. So that's that's a unique class. To answer your question, frankly, and I've been there for now 6 years, the questions are really they come semiconverted already. They're fairly conscious of what's happening with fiat money whether that's >> what are they most concerned about like fiat money like the value of their dollar or their >> well they preservation they're it's clearly wealth preservation which is Egon's elite motif and it's mine as well um look at that at this point and I don't want to be smug they have a higher class problem of trying to preserve what they've had they're not looking to make more they're trying to stay rich not get rich they know that that melting ice cube even if it's a Swiss Frank or a euro or a dollar is not the best way to stay rich. Um, and they're not speculating anymore. They're saving in precious metals and when they need liquidity for a purchase, converting it to fiat to make a purchase, they have no problem with that. Even at 5,000 or 4,400 or 54 or you know I the question is never I think it's too high. Some will ask, well, should I wait for a pullback and those kind of things, but if you're holding gold for 10 or 15, 20, 30 years, we just say, look, we don't know what the price is going to be. By the way, Egon and I never talk about the price of gold. We're certainly watching it now. It's fascinating. Egon bought at 300. He doesn't gloat today >> and he didn't worry when gold was flat for years. He just knew it was a better store of value than any paper money. He came from the banking system. We all did. We know how the sausage is made. But again, it's not it's not meant to be smug because there are many listening who don't have wealth to preserve. they're trying to find some wealth and that's a very different uh mindset and profile. I have nothing against it. It's just not the best reason to become in our space, not just our clients, but that's not why we look at gold. Certainly, Egon's wealth has increased from $300 gold to 5,000 and many many others, even myself. Nothing to the level of Egon. But he he saw something 20 years ago. He saw the problem. He knew the solution. The solution is still gold. um it's just more expensive solution today, >> but 20 years from now, I don't think we'll be really looking at whether it was 5,000 or 4,200 where it should be. Um and I think that's how we're helpful and that's the way we look at it. It's not helpful to those trying to figure out what to do now. Um and to your other question, what are they really worried about? inflation and geopolitics and whether they're coming from Germany or France and literally I've talked to them all. They're coming from Australia, coming from the US, they're all asking about where they should go. >> The grass seems greener somewhere else. Things are so bad in America, Matt. You got to see it. Matt, things are so bad in Paris. It's not safe, Matt. Things are so bad in Germany. You wouldn't recognize it. It's not the country. So, they're all kind of thinking, well, I maybe can't get myself to Switzerland. I certainly want a firewall between my country and my gold. So, they want their gold in Switzerland. The truth is where are we going to go? Uruguay, Argentina, I don't know. Tahiti, maybe it's that's a personal question. There is no safe place to get away from the crisis in our currency. If you're worried about safety in your city x, y, or z, that's a different decision. But no one seems very happy. Everyone thinks their country, whether it's America, Germany, France, is less recognizable for the UK. That's interesting. And they're worried about uh geopolitics, war. What What kind of war are we going to have in a nuclear era? I I don't know, you know, I I I personally am not worried about Putin marching down to Zurich. I'm just not that we've got much bigger problems at that point um in a nuclear era. So, look, but yeah, they're worried about the the purchasing power of their money, which has lost 99% since 71 versus gold. That's just a reality. Should they try to fight inflation in an inflated stock market that's topping? That's hard. Do they try and find safety in bonds? That's hard. So they're worried about these things and they have the high class problem of being able to allocate a decent amount of money to ensure against dying fiat paper by buying real assets. And so they are better protected and less worried about the price. It's this younger generation or the people that are just trying to get into the space now who are seeing the problem. And look, retail allocations to gold is still less than 1%. The big money movers in gold are the central banks, the ones I like the least, but don't fight them. Again, watch what they do, not what they say. They're stacking for a reason. >> Absolutely. Matthew, what a wonderful conversation as always. I tremendously appreciate you joining us here. It's always good to see you. >> Good to see you. >> Where do we find more of your work? How can we reach out to you? >> Yeah, look, gold switzelland.com or vg.g gold for vonjards.gold and uh all our articles and videos and conversations will be there and uh it's a free source of data. Always second check everything we think and say. We have our own convictions, our own biases clearly. Uh but it's just another another thing that people should be looking at. I think information is power. That's free. And whether you're crypto, Bitcoin, commodities, miners, you got to just get informed. You should have knowledge. [music] That's free. >> Yeah. Fantastic. The common denominator is always the same anyway. Wealth preservation and making sense of it all, right? Absolutely. Matthew, thank you so much. And to everybody else, thank you so much for tuning in here to sore [music] financially from the floor of the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Really appreciate you watching. If you haven't done so, hit that like and subscribe button. Helps us out tremendously. We just appreciate it. So, thanks so much for doing that and uh take care out there.