The Next ‘Black Swan’: Expert Warns Of Market 'Time Bomb' | Matthew Piepenburg
Summary
Gold: Presents a secular bull case for gold as a hedge against systemic currency debasement and rising sovereign debt, noting central bank accumulation and BIS treatment as tailwinds.
Silver: Highlights a structural supply deficit colliding with surging industrial demand (EVs, solar) and market frictions (LBMA/COMEX), while warning of high volatility despite strong technicals.
Commodity Supercycle: Argues we are in early innings of a multi-year commodities upcycle, citing S&P vs. GSCI extremes and growing flows from overvalued risk assets to real assets.
Hard Assets: Emphasizes rotation from soft to hard assets for long-term wealth preservation, advocating gold and silver over fiat amid persistent inflation and policy-driven liquidity.
Market Outlook: Sees a dovish Fed and potential additional rate cuts as bullish for risk assets short-term, but flags stretched equity valuations and rising long-end yields as key risks.
Systemic Risks: Warns about massive derivatives exposure and potential delivery failures in metals markets that could trigger broader commodity contagion.
Geopolitics & Currency: Notes de-dollarization dynamics with greater gold use in settlement (BRICS and others) and the destabilizing effects of shifting global alliances on markets.
Transcript
They know the rain is coming. Central banks know it. The BIS knows it. That's why they hold more gold than US treasuries now. It's insane. You got to watch what they do, not what they say. Even stable coin issuers take their profits of stable coin and invested in gold. We buy gold not because we want it to go to 10,000, because we're afraid it'll go to 10,000. That may sound disingenuous, [music] >> but what we're saying when we said is when gold is at 10 20,000 that is again confirmation of what we've been warning for the last 15 20 years that [music] the global monetary and credit system is no longer sustainable. It isn't. >> Let's say gold goes to $10,000 in the next 5 years. >> I'm not saying it will. I'm not saying it won't, but let's just suppose it does. What does the world look like in that environment? It looks very the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Joining me is Matthew Peepenberg, partner at Von Greer's AG. And Matthew's been spot on all year about his calls with not just rising geopolitical tensions, but the direction of gold >> and of course the direction of the deficit and debt issues all around the world, not just in the US. So, first of all, congratulations, Matthew, >> for having been rather appreci when you were on the show >> making a number of correct calls. You were very bullish in 2024, I believe, on the on the stock market. >> You were a little bit more cautious last year, I remember. >> So, the stock market did rally a little bit more, but not as much as prior year. >> How are you feeling now in 2026? Let's start here with your sentiment. >> Look, there's the best of times and the worst of times for for the S&P and the Dow in the US markets. There's a clear uh bull and bear case right now. >> Yeah. >> And we'll have to kind of decide where we stand. But I think on the bull side, look, as we talked about in prior interviews, even including one here, when I was very bullish, when the Fed is doubbish, markets tend to respond. And look, we have a very Pavlovian Fedentric S&P, Dow, and NASDAQ. And so what we're seeing, they're pricing in two rate cuts this year. I think they're going to have to price in more because we have 25% of Uncle Sam's bar tab maturing in the next 12 months at 3.75% rates. We need to print more money to help monetize that. And we need to keep rates lower. So it's very doubbish policy, which by the way is very good for gold, but also very good for the S&P, which by every metric is classically overvalued. Uh but that doesn't mean this frothy top can't get frothier. That's one clear bull case is just the Fed. There's another thing that's kind of hidden and not talked about, but a lot of my friends who are risk managers still and running, you know, risk asset funds. The one of the things they're looking at is kind of off the radar is the consequences of the Trump tax cut in 25. There's about four and a half trillion money coming in that's related to the tax cut. Starting in April, there's going to be a lot of refund money going into the markets. That's over a trillion. Around July, they're going to see a lot of taxdriven foreign money repatriated back into the markets into the US. And then finally in Q4 there's a lot of capex driven about trillion and change in capex driven money coming to the US from these tax bills. So that is a $4.5 trillion potential tailwind for an otherwise overvalued market. And I joke that >> you've got guys like Michael Bur who I who've called 10 of the last three corrections. You know he's so nervous. But I don't mock him because he he like Warren Buffett can't make sense of these Charlie Mccay euphoric markets. And rather than try and go long or short, he's just admitting they're past the Rubicon of rational. I can't make a long or short bet based on the stimulus from the Fed and based on these crazy fundamentals which have left the window, left the building since the Fed centrally took over the markets years ago. So long and short, I look at what the Fed's doing. If the Fed is doubbish, I'm I'm relatively bullish. On the flip side of that though, and I'll just end with this, you do have rising yields on the long end of the curve that can be very detrimental to a very overvalued S&P. You have to consider also there's been a a real flow from basically tech growth in US markets to global value outside of the US. It outperformed tech in the last year by 40%. So there's a shift from from from growth tech US to global value and that's very smart money is going that way. And there's also a clear shift obviously from soft assets to hard assets from overvalued uh risk assets and over certainly very dangerous bond markets into hard assets. And we're really just at the very first innings of a what Ronnie Surf would correctly would call a um a currency I mean a commodity super cycle. If you look at the S&P versus uh the GSCI, which is a commodity index basket, we're the Kamay are really at the bottom lows right now and they're ready to curve up. That's a 57year pattern. But if you're thinking ahead rather than just quarterto quarter longerterm investing, there's a play to be made there and that could take some flows out of the S&P. But it's a very bipolar dysfunctional market with a very strong bullcase based on the Fed primarily and a doubbish Fed for 26. And then just the fundamentals and yet the fundamentals haven't really mattered for a long time. So it's hard to make a directional bet. That's why I'm very hedged on any risk asset exposure. But I'm looking I'm always looking 10 20 years out cycles which is why gold and silver have been so obvious for most of us. Yeah. >> And which is why a commodity cycle is coming. And there's massive derivative risk as well in the S&P which could perk its head anytime or no time. I mean derivatives are four times the value of all global assets right now. They're massively overlevered and we're at 10 times the leverage we were preleman. That's just a ticking time bomb. And I'm just waiting for some type of failure of delivery. And we should even talk about that on the comics markets cuz we could see a failure of delivery in silver for example. That would be a contagion into gold, copper, wheat, other metals. That could be a potential black swan. But again, we're all just looking at the different needles pointed at this very big red market balloon. And uh to answer your question, I'm neither bullish nor bearish. I'm a little bit confused this year. It's just so uh contradictory. >> What do you need to see change in the US or around the world when it comes to politics, geopolitics or markets that would bring you a little more clarity and less confusion about the direction? >> Oh, first of all, we need honesty and cander and and I think that sounds polyianish, but look, I've said this flippantly many times, the Wizard of Oz can't solve our debt crisis and can't save frothy markets. What I think we really need in addition to again if you were at a boardroom at a corporate boardroom or if you're with your spouse having a budget discussion or with your partners at a business if your debt is three times your income you have to have an honest discussion about cutting back about austerity and about less ebulent thinking. Uh politicians have a very hard time in a democracy to stay elected telling the truth about things like that. And I think what we're going to see, I think what has to happen and it's not pleasant is what Van Misus and Schumer called constructive destruction. We need to have uh a reversion to the mean to rational prices. That's very hard to do politically. Um it's very hard to admit that you're in debt up to your ears with no easy scenario left. Uh you can support the markets with QE and low rates, but that's going to be at the expense of the currency and the invisible theft tax of inflation. Or you can let these markets do a Bob Ferrell mean reversion and get back to normal prices, but that's going to cause a lot of tax receipt failure from the S&P capital gains that helps Uncle Sam. So there's really no easy solution. We are past any rational metric of valuation. There's no policy that's going to change this. And throughout 2025, we saw all kinds of policies from Doge, the Genius Act, you know, Stablecoin, Tariffs, Liberation Day, uh, US Aid, even Venezuela. These are all desperate, aggressive acts, but they don't solve our debt crisis. They don't solve our bubble crisis. And when we're at this much debt, when debt is this far beyond GDP, you cannot grow your way out of it mathematically. That's David Hume 1750. That's Thomas Gresham. Again, it's academic, but it's also historical. So, I'm not trying to be negative. You can still have a frothy market despite rational, you know, metrics. But there is no solution to it other than pushing it up higher at the expense of the currency or letting it crash. I I would let it crash, but that's very draconian and politically impossible to confess. >> Before we continue with the video, let's talk about a company that's building serious gold leverage for the long term. Our sponsor today, Stellar Gold, is sitting on three major Canadian projects. Tower and Colac are among the largest undeveloped gold sites in the country. The tower project alone could be worth $2.5 billion after tax at a $3,200 gold price assumption. And the prices go higher, so does its value. Colum expands over 1,000 square kilometers of greenstone deposits and could be Canada's next big gold camp. They also have Holler Tailings, a cleanup project that could deliver near-term cash flow. Across all projects, they've drilled over 16 million ounces of gold, which would cost over $2 billion to replicate today. With a seasoned team, Stellar Gold is one company to watch. Scan the QR code here on screen or visit stellargold.com/davidlin to learn more. >> You're in the gold market uh on grayers. Uh so let's talk about your sentiment on gold and your client sentiment on gold right now. The first question I think a lot of people have in their minds is right now, how sustainable is this gold rally? 50% gain last year, 50% gain the year before. That's two years in a row. And now at $5,000 gold, the fable $5,000 point that people have been waiting for for literally decades now. Does this remind you of >> 2007 or 2000 right before the tech bubble burst or 1980? >> Mhm. >> Well, certainly in terms of the movement, but it's a fundamentally different type of bull market. It's a fundamentally different type of bull market. And this is not just sellside bias. Look, I was in the do bubble. I was there in the great final crisis as a risk asset manager. I watched Lucen, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Nvidia go up into the moon and Amazon go down to the bottom of the ocean floor. Those were bubbles and busts and and certainly on the, you know, when I think of gold, it's a very different, frankly, far more disturbing type of bull market because it's not a trend or a sentiment or momentum just because it's sexy and in the headlines. What it really is a signal of it's a symptom of absolute currency debasement to monetize debts that have gone from 250 billion in 71 to 38 trillion today. That is adding water to wine that is diluting the currency and gold and silver are ripping primarily because the US dollar or all fiat money is falling. So when you look at this appalling 5,000 price in gold or breaking 100 in silver and people are looking at how can this be? It's so dramatic for the price. What it's really dramatically indicating is not the gold is so high, it's that that's how weak fiat money has become. That's being ignored completely. And I think even on a technical basis, uh Dave, look, you've seen these gold bearish troughs that go to bullish highs. And twice in the last 50 years, there's been 8x moves in gold. There was one in uh I gosh, I think it was uh 76, another in 2001 where you had a bearish low, they went 8x up. Same thing in 2001, bearish low, 8x up. In 2015, we hit another bearish low cycle at the price of 1050 gold. I won't spend a lot of time on the wonkiness, but since that move, we've only gone up 4x from that last bearish low. If we had another 8x cycle, even at 5,000, we're only halfway to that technical indicator. So, there's technical support, but far more importantly, the fundamentals haven't changed. There's a reason central banks are dumping IUS, dumping the dollar, dd dollararizing. There's a reason the BIS has made gold a tier one asset. There's a reason Morgan Stanley's pushing for it or Jeffrey Gunlack or Ray Dalio or Draen Mueller or Paul Tudtor Jones. Even those like myself who used to trade risk assets, if they understand history in cycles, this bull market in gold is not even finished by any stretch. But it's not a bull market. It's a center of a very sick global monetary system. And I will say I am secularly very very very bullish on gold and silver. But I will never say and never suggest that investors um think that this is only up into the right. We've seen major moments where gold's in a bull run from 71 to 80 for example or midyear through a gold run. It can break hearts. Same with silver post 1980. So anyone who comes into the metal space, especially gold does it for monetary reasons. If you're looking at silver, you have to be informed about risk so you're not shaken out of a bull market and you have to pick your exits carefully. And silver in particular, gold you just hold because it's better than fiat money. So, there's a lot going on. Um, but uh I am uh very very convinced that we're not even close to peak gold right now or peak silver. But silver is another conversation because it's a lot more volatile. Uh but we're seeing a perfect a perfect collision of supply and demand mismatch in the metals colliding with a a Comx and a London exchange which can no longer price fix these metals. So that's >> what gold for you look like? Let's say gold goes to $10,000 in the next 5 years. I'm not saying it well. I'm not saying it won't, but let's just suppose it does. What does the world look like in that environment? >> It looks very bad. That's why we've always said any of us in the space from Egon, myself, Rick Rule, we buy gold not because we want it to go to 10,000, because we're afraid it'll go to 10,000. That may sound disingenuous, >> but what we're saying when we say it is when gold is at 10 20,000 that is again confirmation of what we've been warning for the last 15 20 years that the global monetary and credit system is no longer sustainable. It isn't. And gold is only reflecting that. When gold's at 10,000, the price of a of a couch or a pair of shoes is going to be very different, too. It's not a get-rich trade. It's a preservation trade from dying fiat money. It's very important people understand that. Once you do, $10,000 gold is far easier to comprehend than $2 million Bitcoin. In other words, it's it's it's just a reflection of the currency system and the debt system, not gold being a a craze or a euphoria. And that's why it's so scary to see it at these levels. And uh look, I I think um the reason you see this stacking by central banks, the reason you see these conversations, the World Economic Forum, the reason you see Dalio and others pushing gold, the reason you see the BIS and Morgan Stanley pushing gold is they they're building their arc before the rain. As I keep saying, they know the rain is coming. Central banks know it. The BIS knows it. Hey, that's why they hold more gold than US treasuries now. It's insane. You got to watch what they do, not what they say. Even stable coin issuers take their profits from stable coin and invest it in gold. So watch what they're doing, not what they're saying. And sadly, this this move, this dramatic move towards the metals is actually a very depressing sign for the condition of the global fiat currency system and the global economies. And there's a very nervous world out there. Our clients are from 90 countries. Every conversation they're coming in and look, they come to us already converted. We're preaching to the converted. Um their question isn't even about peak gold. It's just, you know, how quickly can they get it? And again, that sounds flippant. Uh they're holding it for 10, 15, 20, 30 years. And even if the price was dramatically retraced in that period, they know that that bar of gold is going to hold its value better than whatever currency they're coming home from. >> Just on that note, you've talked to your clients, the kind of conversations you're having with your clients. Why are they buying gold now at above, let's say above $4,700? Because they haven't been just buying since last week. They've been buying for quite some time. Above $4,700, what was the reasoning? And how have the rationale differed this time versus when gold was still at $2,000? >> Look, I you know, Egon, my partner, started buying gold at 300. He'll still be buying as long as he lives because yes, I wish I had bought at 300, too. I bought closer to 1,800, but I've had conversations over the years where again, clients are calling, they're convinced of gold, but they're thinking, I think I think 1900 is too high. I think 2,300 is too high. 2,800 is way too high. That's becoming less and less. Of course, no one wants to buy at an all-time high in any asset, but the gold investors are fairly sophisticated. Our minimums are very high. So, they're these are people with a great deal of wealth, some decent uh sophisticated advisors behind them or in front of them. They see the gold play 20 years out. They're not traders. They're not speculators. And because they see it that way, yes, they would have preferred buying it three years ago, but they're really asking, you know, not what the gold price is. They're just kind of agreeing that whatever the gold price is down the road, it's going to be more valuable than the fiat money they're trading in. But of course, I don't like buying gold at these highs either. But I know that 20 years from now when my kids inherit this gold or my grandkids are using it, gold's going to be higher than 5,000 or 10,000. I won't care as much then. But would I have rather bought gold at 300? Absolutely. Of course I would. No one likes this. But our clients really aren't asking about whether they're buying at a top. They want to get in. It's not FOMO. It's just realizing now the writing's on the wall. I wish I had been there. Should have been there yesterday. I wish I'd been there. I I wish I had done this earlier. But of course, it's hard to buy at the top. I think silver is a little bit of a different conversation that could be a little more volatile. Even though the technicals and fundamentals are good for it, um the only way you can buy gold at these numbers with confidence and conviction is to have a much longer term view than you would say in Nvidia or Qualcomm or Lucent or or certain private credit pools or private equity pools because this is a much longer play. It is a preservation play only. Those who wish to speculate and buy entries and exits and metals. I know a lot of them. Few do it well. That's a very different mindset. I'm not against it. It's a very different mindset than the clients we have. Um but honestly, even clients that have been there for decades are just buying more. And the new ones are coming in just finally convinced. And and of course, they wish they had seen this earlier. Now, these prices are shocking them, not because they waited too long, but that's proof that the system's breaking. But again, these prices can retrace and people want to wait for there could be a 30% retracement if the markets crash, for example, or there's a recession. The question is, will gold retrace 30% from 5,000 or from 10,000? Because if you're waiting for a 30% retracement and you wait too long, you could better off buy now. I do not know. No one knows. And that is the dilemma. And I'm not going to just say ever, ever with any credibility that gold only goes up into the right. Of course it doesn't. And I'd remind anyone investing, if you're buying for the right reasons, prepare for retracements and pullbacks, but be a big boy. Be a big girl about it if you're holding for a reason. >> There may be monetary reasons for why gold went to $5,000. Let's talk about $100 silver. Um, several people have told me that silver has gone up the way it has because of shortages um realized in industry. Tesla, Samsung, other companies couldn't acquire silver in the quantities that they need, especially and maybe perhaps because of the exports that uh export restrictions rather that China has imposed late last year. And so at some point the market will reach equilibrium. It usually always does. >> Um what needs to happen before that happens? >> Look, silver is fascinating and certainly the the the topic dour because of the exponential moves it made this year. I mean broke 50, 60, 70, 89. It's incredible. It had a 60-year cup and handle formation. It broke through that on the technical side too. Remember >> 1979 1980. It broke through its gold silver ratio and broke through it and went up 5x. The same thing happened in 2010 2011 in 7 months 2 and 1 halfx move because the gold silver ratio breakout we had a similar breakthrough in November of 2025. So technically the setup for go excuse me for silver I keep conf the technical setup for silver is fantastic and look you can measure silver historically against the M2 money supply in 1980 you could say it's $900 silver should be the right price that's obviously sounds crazy or adjusted for inflation it should be at least 250. So there is a lot of technical and historical ways you could argue the bull case. I think the the the simple fundamentals haven't changed though, David, because look, we have a 5x supply deficit in in silver. That hasn't changed. What happened in 25 that made it so different? Why is it suddenly spiking now? And I think the answer is that supply deficit is colliding with much higher industrial demand, whether that's electric vehicles, solar, Samsung components, AI power stations, massive demand drive. At the same time, there's a supply tightening. And then of course, let's not forget the LBMA market in London seized up in in October. They didn't have the silver to deliver. It's supposed to be a cash and carry exchange T+1 delivery. It was like T plus 8 weeks. So you had a breakdown in the old systems that were traditionally putting a permanent short in New York and London on the silver price. But because of demand for metals, monetary and industrial, there's just not enough silver to make that play to play that game. And as we saw in December of 2025, they tried to raise the margins on silver that got created a temporary selloff because of the margin hike, the buyin on the poker table. But then what happened? The industrial buyers didn't panic when they saw that margin hike. They went out and bought it on sale and pushed the price up 4% within a week. So the the old tricks to manipulate these markets are getting weaker. So we're getting more natural price discovery in silver. So those are huge tailwinds for silver. But again, remember $200 silver, $300 silver sounds sounds fantastic. But if we had had this conversation here, guys, I said we'd be at 100 plus. That would sound fantastic. And I think again, you can just adjust it for inflation or look at the technos there's a strong case. But also remember silver can be, as Egon says, very hard not for widows and orphans. And and and you remember post 1980, it could go from 50 to five. I think we're in a very different environment now than 1980. But you've got to look at silver much more as a more volatile monetary industrial metal than gold. Gold's a pure monetary metal. I look at silver, it's like the it's like the NASDAQ versus the golden Dow. It's a lot more of a little speedboat that churns faster in a bull market but can sink faster in rough seas. And so you have to be very different mindsets for silver and gold. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said at Davos that the world is seeing a rupture right now in the world order. You said that the old world order is not coming back. What does the new world order according to Carney or perhaps yourself look like? >> I mean Carney's many things. Look, he's a former central banker >> in in the UK and Canada, which I can't quite understand how he's able to do that, but it's the Commonwealth. And anyone who's watched or listened or read anything that I've done knows what I think of central banks and central bankers. Look, they're mavens to the establishment. They're pure careerists and they're all about self-promotion and they have a fantastic narrative, a fantastic platitudes to hide extremely bad math. The new world, the old world order has been gone for a long time. You could argue since 1913, certainly since 1971. In my opinion, this notion that central banks are having any real control over inflation or employment is laughable. Their their primary mandate is to buy bonds and debt of instruments of countries that are going broke. That's how they work. So he's very concerned. His language in Davos was really directed I think more towards Donald Trump just like Powell was directing openly language towards Donald Trump trying to remind Trump that the Fed is independent. We won't be bullied by politics depending on your view of the Fed whether it's dependent or independent is clearly a private central bank with private shareholders. It is not constitutionally recommended by our founding fathers etc etc. But one thing it definitely is is an invisible fourth branch of government. It has power. It determines the price and supply of our money supply. So when Trump is trying to bully someone like Powell, someone like Carney in Canada is very sensitive to that. When Trump is trying to bully foreign policy, tax policy, tariff policy, including military policy, >> that upsets the Davos globalization mindset. It's a complete threat to them. And what what what Trump is, love him or hate him. He's more like a neo mercantalist, the America first, America first. Uh that's the exact opposite of the entire foundation of the Claus Schwab industrial complex and those jackals in Davos. So Carney's taking a stab at Trump, I think, in that way. and he's and and certainly Powell has already taken a direct stab. But this notion that we had a functional global world order any time in the past is laughable. It's certainly benefited the top 10 to 20%. >> Well, the shift in global order has direct impacts on the market. So if everybody is moving away from from Donald Trump's America as an ally, >> one could reasonably assume that these countries may dump US assets as well. Yeah. >> Do you think this interplay between Trump and the Europeans over Greenland and Carney over >> Canada and China? By the way, Trump just threatened the 100% tariff on Canada if Canada actually goes through ahead >> with his deal with Xi Jinping. But anyway, that aside, do you think this >> is just a facade behind the scenes? They're all actually all just friends or do you actually think there's a fundamental shift in alliances going on right now? >> Well, I think Trump, no matter what you think of Trump, it's not all just friends. Trump is a me firster and an America firster and he's a atypical politician. He's a revolutionary in that sense. Even Robert Kenny Jr. would say that he is not of the establishment, but anyone in the White House has to cater to the K Street lobbyists and the big money, the big media, the big pharmace. So, he's caught in this huge paradox. He's got to make his base happy, but to stay politically alive, he needs the money and the big money, and he has to make policy for the big money, including the military-industrial complex. gets complex. But look, he's also not technically able to be reelected, so he should be able to act more autocratically and not think about election, but he is thinking about the midterms. But backing up from all this disorder again, whether it's military, whether it's financial, whether it's tariffs, whether it's stable coin, whether it's CBDC, whether it's all this legislation and executive orders, it's all a lot of headless chickens. the reaction from the EU, the reaction from Carney, the reaction from Davos, the reaction from Brussels, it's all making headlines. It's all relevant, but it's ultimately just fog because the real lighthouse and problem in this global disorder or this global order is that nobody, elected or unelected, can now wave a magical wand and solve the fact that the world has gone from 30 30 trillion in debt in 1997 to 354 trillion today. That's the real crime. It doesn't matter whether you're left or right in Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, or Zurich or DC or or Ottawa or anywhere else. These these mental midgets, this island of misfit toys that's been running monetary policy to stay elected and to extend and pretend a global system based on solving a debt crisis with more debt is failing. And rather than take any accountability, they'll blame it on the bad guy desour the headline during dictator or uh you know whatever fits the blank. But the real problem lays directly in the bathroom mirror of every one of these left, right or center clowns. Well, going back to what you said earlier, also what Dio said, Ray Dalio said at Davos, the global monetary fiat system is breaking. We're already dead. What does that mean practically though for the average person? And I know it translates well to hard currencies like gold, but how will our lives be different when the fiat system dies? >> Well, we already see how our lives for I come from the middle class. I come from the Midwest. >> Sure, >> we already see how our lives are different there. I see it. >> It's already happening. It's been death by a thousand cuts. It's an incremental debasement of your currency. The thing you measure your wealth and your freedom. There's a reason your generation can't afford houses, can't get a loan, can't come up with a down payment. They take it personally. It's not their fault. They are the surfs in a neofistic system where they are not ever going to make it to the lord status because the generation prior to them, the policy makers prior to them debased their purchasing power and didn't give wage increases or opportunities commensory with the debasement. >> Let me just posit a hypothetical dream fantasy. What if the government says, "Matthew, you and every other American will get $500,000. >> At the same time, we're going to put a cap on prices for everything." >> Yep. and we can print this money out of thin air, make everybody richer, >> and at the same time mandate that inflation be illegal, which is what they did in the Soviet Union. >> Yeah. >> I mean, in that fantasy, what would that >> What does that look like, smell like, and taste like to you, though? >> I I >> Is that capitalism? Is that democracy? Or is that centralized control? And again, is that freedom, rich or poor? >> You know, as Benjamin Franklin says, if you give up security, uh if you give up freedom for security, you deserve neither. If we become an assisted nation, a welfare state, then we're we're surfs. We're slaves and we're happy obedient slaves. And the lord and serve class, the insider class, which is really what they are, are the leaders. And if if that makes you happy for security reasons, well, that's individual. >> Would you rather have sovereignty or no inflation is I think you know, >> listen, [laughter] I think Hemingway put it best. I'd rather I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. I would rather be free than just be taken care of. And uh that may sound like a a smug thing to say from someone doing well in this in in the gold space or in Switzerland. Uh but I've been rich and I've been poor. What's never made me happier than just being autonomous in my thoughts, my actions, and my freedom. And there's no amount of money on earth I would sacrifice that for. That may sound very bravado, >> but that's the Virginia in me. Live free or die. Don't tread on me. That's what makes uh America to me the old America, the America that was waving the flag on Euima or fighting big government and uh trusted their government. But Americans today don't trust their government left or right. They don't trust the system and they've been robbed by the invisible theft and tax inflation for decades and it's cracking. From identity politics to transgender bathrooms, it's cracking. And look, anyone who's been in a relationship, think about it. When you're broke, are you having a good time with your spouse, your partner? Are you are you enjoying life? You're stressed. When you're stressed, you're not your best. When you're not your best, you're pointing at other people. That's America right now. That's Europe. That's Frankfurt. That's parts of Paris. People are stressed. I'm not trying to be too reductionist, but when you're broke, you'll get in anyone's car and believe anything if it makes you feel like there's hope. Your generation has very little hope, very little trust, which is part of the reason they're out there taking massive walks on the on the risk branch for yield or return. in a lot of risky investments including Bitcoin which have made some rich and many poor but you guys have nothing to lose. 10,000 here there roll the dice. When when I grew up in my 20s it was as F. Scott Fitzgerald said it was like a menu. You could pick your future. You believed in it. You got purchasing power. You could qualify for a mortgage. You could get the down payment. Your generation is running uphill in roller skates and your quote unquote leaders are blaming it on somebody else but themselves. >> As my generation were younger would say were cooked. So what what does that mean for the next generation? What do they have to do to get ahead? What do they have to study? What do they have to learn? What do they have to put their money in? >> Well, unfortunately now they have no choice but to take excessive risk because what are they going to do? Practical things. Preserve their wealth in gold. They don't have wealth to preserve in gold. Uh you're not going to get rich quick on buying a couple ounces of gold if you're 28 and have very little money and are trying to catch up. Um so you have to take more risk there. That's everyone's opinion is different. Personally, look, obviously there are plenty of miners around here. Yeah. >> And the junior minor space, the exploration space, uh there's historical precedent to suggest that risk could be well well repaid in this environment, but again, you have to take that risk now or you have to, I hate to be smug, elect better officials. But you can't. You have to choose between Tweedle D and Tweedle Dumb. You don't have great options. And even if you did, the only one you could elect would be someone who'd say, "By the way, we're going to be in austerity for years. It's going to get ugly before it gets better." But that doesn't give you guys an immediate solution. So what what do you is it pitchforks? Is it guillotines? I mean that's where it gets crazy. I don't think there's enough. I think there's enough NFL games, enough cable TV, enough Netflix to keep the masses numb, but there's a lot that are fed up. And I think I don't have any easy answer for that generation. I don't have My kids are in that generation now. I don't have an easy answer for them. It's objectively empirically different than my opportunities at the same age when I was their age. I see it. I've lived through it. I've traded through it. I've won and lost through it. Um, it's fascinating intellectually, but it's very frustrating. I've had so many conversations today from young people who want to know what to do because they feel so disenfranchised and screwed. And I don't have an easy answer for them. I wasn't smarter than them. I wasn't bolder from them. It's uh I was just born at a different time in a different window. It was the last window. And it's not the end of the world, but it's going to be extremely tough. I'm sorry for your generation. I don't see an easy quick fix. You're going to have to speculate and look for alpha in dangerous places. Uh, and uh, I would say mining, junior miners, that's some risk. I could say silver. You could that you could look at hard assets, but it's not a get-richquick scheme. And whatever you're getting in wages or even what you're getting in returns, but after taxes and invisible theft of inflation, is that going to be enough to get that down payment on prices here in Vancouver or in Toronto or in Montreal or Ottawa or in New York or San Francisco? Look, Paris, I Zurich, good luck. Good luck. And so that's that's the great wealth transfer that the guys in Davos are trying to pretend is somebody else's fault. >> Yeah, >> I know a lot of young leader, global leaders in Davos. I went to school with them. None of them give a damn about the masses or your generation. That is a networking event. >> One of the themes that came out of Davos that's pretty much consistent with every speech I've heard is that individual nations need to stand on their own and rely less on each other. Even Carney speech he said that globalization was weaponized. People use tariffs on each other as a weapon and he insinuated that the end of globalization is what countries need to pursue which is >> an extraordinary statement from any >> it's contrary because in a way the world economic can reform is all about globalization. What he's basically saying is basically it's like a Brexit mentality. >> What does that mean for investors? >> It means crisis. Crisis as the confusion say can also be opportunities though. And so when there's destabilization, sell-offs in markets definitely shifts from risk assets into hard assets. If you can get in early with enough capital and be patient and have conviction, you can get multiples of return. If you do your homework and don't rely on a YouTube video with me or some other expert, become an expert in some asset class or some area and wait for blood in the streets to buy low. The commodity super cycle is a perfect example. But will that reward you in 3 years or 5 years? It could be a while, but you got to pick your targets very carefully, have high conviction, and if you have enough money to invest, let it run. I think when there's breakdowns of the global order, Italy, Spain, France, Germany split in the European community. We talked about this Ronnie Sturfla, will the European community last the next 20 years? That'd be a major watershed event. It will only break up when there's economic uhoh moment. And when that does happen, there will be chaos, frustration, hopefully not social unrest to the point of dysfunction. >> But there will be opportunities for those who've basically made the mental and financial preparation for what asset or what area are they going to pick to put all their efforts into. You guys have a much higher mountain to climb to get there than I did in my generation. Absolutely. And that's not condescending. It's the absolute truth. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. You're going to need to be extremely exceptional, extremely focused, and extremely disciplined, and be willing to sleep on a lot of couches and eat a lot of pasta before you get the Range Rover. But as someone who quote unquote has the Range Rover, sounds polyianish, the new car smell goes away at some point. >> Unfortunately for me, I like couches and pasta. >> Yeah, I'm just saying [laughter] I've been there. I've been on many couches and had many ramen noodles when I was young. But when you there's nothing worse than being financially tapped out or stressed. But whenever you do get that kind of breathing room, that velocity speed that financial freedom gives you. That's great. You need it. But you'll find I was just talking to Villa Middlein about this. Once you have enough, you don't need more to be happy. The problem with your generation is you can't even get enough to be happy. >> And that that again is the wealth transfer. You guys are the plankton of the Wall Street whales. You are the fodder and the cannon of this global system. And >> well, let's talk about that subject to close off. you wrote about the great wealth transfer that is not only happening now but will continue. >> Mhm. >> Um what does that look like in the next 10 years? >> Well, again, you know, this the wealth transfer is really going back to the currency crisis and the currency crisis is a derivative of the debt crisis. When you have debt that is well past the the bounds of reason or the Rubicon of repayable or global since we can never grow out of this mathematically, we will debase the currency to monetize the debt. That means inflation which is everyone knows is misreported. We're at double digit inflations right now. We're also a double digit unemployment. As Charles Goodhart said, when you politicize data, you're lying about data. Everyone on Wall Street knows the CPI scale is an open fiction. We know that it's not an exaggeration. You've interviewed John Williams. You could talk to Nick Ebershot or others about labor or inflation uh data. It's all it's all fiction. It just is. That sounds sensational. So, if you're getting a major compounding effect of double-digit inflation, that means your dollar bill is losing 10 cents every year. Well, in 3 years, that's 30 cents. That's a wealth transfer because your generation didn't have the real estate or the stocks when the inflation came and the QE came and inflated risk asset bubbles like real estate and stocks. You guys didn't have the stocks already in or the real estate already bought to enjoy that inflation. So, you've been you've been robbed. You've been stolen from and that is the wealth transfer. And how does that end? Does that end in social unrest? Does that end in patience and an election of a much younger, smarter, more bold Jave Mala like leader? Because Malay is outside of politics and he's making progress in Argentina. But that only happened because Argentina literally had no choice. They had nothing to lose. And when will Canada or the home of the world reserve currency, the United States get to that type of point? That can be decades from now. I don't know. But the Argentine effect could happen in a country near you. And uh again, I wish I had better news. I'm not saying we're going to have a a Malayike revolution in Canada or the US. We're probably not. There's just enough mediocrity in DC and just enough complacency uh to sustain this longer. >> I'll just end on this note. Um a lot of Latin American countries, actually countries around the world, emerging economies can dollarize to stabilize or hyperinflation. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> The dollar in the US literally can't dollarize to something else. >> So what does the country do to fight high inflation here in the US? Well, this is the classic DXY debate, a dollar relative versus absolute. But again, as many like the the rebel capitalists and others have said like I've been and I've been to Argentina. I'm there often and I've certainly been to to Istanbul in Turkey in Europe. I would much rather have a dollar or dollariz than a peso or a Lero >> and it's a lot easier than trying to carry gold bars around if you don't have the money. And so I think there's still a case to be made that you know on a relative basis the dollar is still king and the dollar can still be dollarized in these third world countries especially if it's e dollarized or stable coined. But I think uh for now Latin American countries third world countries u bitcoin is not going to save them. They don't have enough gold stack to win that contest. And so there is still that sucking sound of demand for dollars. Um and that's why the dollar doesn't die. It gets repriced. The world reserve of currency doesn't end tomorrow. It's not going to be replaced by the ruble or the yuan or the reality of the rupee. It's not going to happen. Uh but what's going to happen is gold is going to be far more central in settle settling trades especially in the east in the bricks and south america. So gold will continue to rise on that frankly that tailwind is becoming a net settlement asset not a world deserved currency asset. >> Okay. All right Matthew I appreciate your thoughts. Where can we go to follow you? Uh you've got a great resource for um you know for your written work. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That I've been quoting throughout the interview. Where can we go to follow that? >> Well, goldswitzland.com or vg.g gold for von griers. Gold. There's a section on why gold which just gives you a free education on all the different questions about jurisdiction silver markets. Obviously all the articles and interviews that myself Egon and others like our adviserss like Alistister Mloud or Ronnie Sturfla can be found there. There's a lot of my articles there. A whole library going back decades. So you can get a free education on on a topic or at least our view on it and clearly we have a bias but we have a high conviction and uh everything can be found there. >> All right, thank you very much Matthew. Appreciate your time. >> Thank you Dave. Real pleasure. >> Thank you for watching. Don't forget to follow Matthew Paperberg down links below. Thank you for watching.
The Next ‘Black Swan’: Expert Warns Of Market 'Time Bomb' | Matthew Piepenburg
Summary
Transcript
They know the rain is coming. Central banks know it. The BIS knows it. That's why they hold more gold than US treasuries now. It's insane. You got to watch what they do, not what they say. Even stable coin issuers take their profits of stable coin and invested in gold. We buy gold not because we want it to go to 10,000, because we're afraid it'll go to 10,000. That may sound disingenuous, [music] >> but what we're saying when we said is when gold is at 10 20,000 that is again confirmation of what we've been warning for the last 15 20 years that [music] the global monetary and credit system is no longer sustainable. It isn't. >> Let's say gold goes to $10,000 in the next 5 years. >> I'm not saying it will. I'm not saying it won't, but let's just suppose it does. What does the world look like in that environment? It looks very the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Joining me is Matthew Peepenberg, partner at Von Greer's AG. And Matthew's been spot on all year about his calls with not just rising geopolitical tensions, but the direction of gold >> and of course the direction of the deficit and debt issues all around the world, not just in the US. So, first of all, congratulations, Matthew, >> for having been rather appreci when you were on the show >> making a number of correct calls. You were very bullish in 2024, I believe, on the on the stock market. >> You were a little bit more cautious last year, I remember. >> So, the stock market did rally a little bit more, but not as much as prior year. >> How are you feeling now in 2026? Let's start here with your sentiment. >> Look, there's the best of times and the worst of times for for the S&P and the Dow in the US markets. There's a clear uh bull and bear case right now. >> Yeah. >> And we'll have to kind of decide where we stand. But I think on the bull side, look, as we talked about in prior interviews, even including one here, when I was very bullish, when the Fed is doubbish, markets tend to respond. And look, we have a very Pavlovian Fedentric S&P, Dow, and NASDAQ. And so what we're seeing, they're pricing in two rate cuts this year. I think they're going to have to price in more because we have 25% of Uncle Sam's bar tab maturing in the next 12 months at 3.75% rates. We need to print more money to help monetize that. And we need to keep rates lower. So it's very doubbish policy, which by the way is very good for gold, but also very good for the S&P, which by every metric is classically overvalued. Uh but that doesn't mean this frothy top can't get frothier. That's one clear bull case is just the Fed. There's another thing that's kind of hidden and not talked about, but a lot of my friends who are risk managers still and running, you know, risk asset funds. The one of the things they're looking at is kind of off the radar is the consequences of the Trump tax cut in 25. There's about four and a half trillion money coming in that's related to the tax cut. Starting in April, there's going to be a lot of refund money going into the markets. That's over a trillion. Around July, they're going to see a lot of taxdriven foreign money repatriated back into the markets into the US. And then finally in Q4 there's a lot of capex driven about trillion and change in capex driven money coming to the US from these tax bills. So that is a $4.5 trillion potential tailwind for an otherwise overvalued market. And I joke that >> you've got guys like Michael Bur who I who've called 10 of the last three corrections. You know he's so nervous. But I don't mock him because he he like Warren Buffett can't make sense of these Charlie Mccay euphoric markets. And rather than try and go long or short, he's just admitting they're past the Rubicon of rational. I can't make a long or short bet based on the stimulus from the Fed and based on these crazy fundamentals which have left the window, left the building since the Fed centrally took over the markets years ago. So long and short, I look at what the Fed's doing. If the Fed is doubbish, I'm I'm relatively bullish. On the flip side of that though, and I'll just end with this, you do have rising yields on the long end of the curve that can be very detrimental to a very overvalued S&P. You have to consider also there's been a a real flow from basically tech growth in US markets to global value outside of the US. It outperformed tech in the last year by 40%. So there's a shift from from from growth tech US to global value and that's very smart money is going that way. And there's also a clear shift obviously from soft assets to hard assets from overvalued uh risk assets and over certainly very dangerous bond markets into hard assets. And we're really just at the very first innings of a what Ronnie Surf would correctly would call a um a currency I mean a commodity super cycle. If you look at the S&P versus uh the GSCI, which is a commodity index basket, we're the Kamay are really at the bottom lows right now and they're ready to curve up. That's a 57year pattern. But if you're thinking ahead rather than just quarterto quarter longerterm investing, there's a play to be made there and that could take some flows out of the S&P. But it's a very bipolar dysfunctional market with a very strong bullcase based on the Fed primarily and a doubbish Fed for 26. And then just the fundamentals and yet the fundamentals haven't really mattered for a long time. So it's hard to make a directional bet. That's why I'm very hedged on any risk asset exposure. But I'm looking I'm always looking 10 20 years out cycles which is why gold and silver have been so obvious for most of us. Yeah. >> And which is why a commodity cycle is coming. And there's massive derivative risk as well in the S&P which could perk its head anytime or no time. I mean derivatives are four times the value of all global assets right now. They're massively overlevered and we're at 10 times the leverage we were preleman. That's just a ticking time bomb. And I'm just waiting for some type of failure of delivery. And we should even talk about that on the comics markets cuz we could see a failure of delivery in silver for example. That would be a contagion into gold, copper, wheat, other metals. That could be a potential black swan. But again, we're all just looking at the different needles pointed at this very big red market balloon. And uh to answer your question, I'm neither bullish nor bearish. I'm a little bit confused this year. It's just so uh contradictory. >> What do you need to see change in the US or around the world when it comes to politics, geopolitics or markets that would bring you a little more clarity and less confusion about the direction? >> Oh, first of all, we need honesty and cander and and I think that sounds polyianish, but look, I've said this flippantly many times, the Wizard of Oz can't solve our debt crisis and can't save frothy markets. What I think we really need in addition to again if you were at a boardroom at a corporate boardroom or if you're with your spouse having a budget discussion or with your partners at a business if your debt is three times your income you have to have an honest discussion about cutting back about austerity and about less ebulent thinking. Uh politicians have a very hard time in a democracy to stay elected telling the truth about things like that. And I think what we're going to see, I think what has to happen and it's not pleasant is what Van Misus and Schumer called constructive destruction. We need to have uh a reversion to the mean to rational prices. That's very hard to do politically. Um it's very hard to admit that you're in debt up to your ears with no easy scenario left. Uh you can support the markets with QE and low rates, but that's going to be at the expense of the currency and the invisible theft tax of inflation. Or you can let these markets do a Bob Ferrell mean reversion and get back to normal prices, but that's going to cause a lot of tax receipt failure from the S&P capital gains that helps Uncle Sam. So there's really no easy solution. We are past any rational metric of valuation. There's no policy that's going to change this. And throughout 2025, we saw all kinds of policies from Doge, the Genius Act, you know, Stablecoin, Tariffs, Liberation Day, uh, US Aid, even Venezuela. These are all desperate, aggressive acts, but they don't solve our debt crisis. They don't solve our bubble crisis. And when we're at this much debt, when debt is this far beyond GDP, you cannot grow your way out of it mathematically. That's David Hume 1750. That's Thomas Gresham. Again, it's academic, but it's also historical. So, I'm not trying to be negative. You can still have a frothy market despite rational, you know, metrics. But there is no solution to it other than pushing it up higher at the expense of the currency or letting it crash. I I would let it crash, but that's very draconian and politically impossible to confess. >> Before we continue with the video, let's talk about a company that's building serious gold leverage for the long term. Our sponsor today, Stellar Gold, is sitting on three major Canadian projects. Tower and Colac are among the largest undeveloped gold sites in the country. The tower project alone could be worth $2.5 billion after tax at a $3,200 gold price assumption. And the prices go higher, so does its value. Colum expands over 1,000 square kilometers of greenstone deposits and could be Canada's next big gold camp. They also have Holler Tailings, a cleanup project that could deliver near-term cash flow. Across all projects, they've drilled over 16 million ounces of gold, which would cost over $2 billion to replicate today. With a seasoned team, Stellar Gold is one company to watch. Scan the QR code here on screen or visit stellargold.com/davidlin to learn more. >> You're in the gold market uh on grayers. Uh so let's talk about your sentiment on gold and your client sentiment on gold right now. The first question I think a lot of people have in their minds is right now, how sustainable is this gold rally? 50% gain last year, 50% gain the year before. That's two years in a row. And now at $5,000 gold, the fable $5,000 point that people have been waiting for for literally decades now. Does this remind you of >> 2007 or 2000 right before the tech bubble burst or 1980? >> Mhm. >> Well, certainly in terms of the movement, but it's a fundamentally different type of bull market. It's a fundamentally different type of bull market. And this is not just sellside bias. Look, I was in the do bubble. I was there in the great final crisis as a risk asset manager. I watched Lucen, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Nvidia go up into the moon and Amazon go down to the bottom of the ocean floor. Those were bubbles and busts and and certainly on the, you know, when I think of gold, it's a very different, frankly, far more disturbing type of bull market because it's not a trend or a sentiment or momentum just because it's sexy and in the headlines. What it really is a signal of it's a symptom of absolute currency debasement to monetize debts that have gone from 250 billion in 71 to 38 trillion today. That is adding water to wine that is diluting the currency and gold and silver are ripping primarily because the US dollar or all fiat money is falling. So when you look at this appalling 5,000 price in gold or breaking 100 in silver and people are looking at how can this be? It's so dramatic for the price. What it's really dramatically indicating is not the gold is so high, it's that that's how weak fiat money has become. That's being ignored completely. And I think even on a technical basis, uh Dave, look, you've seen these gold bearish troughs that go to bullish highs. And twice in the last 50 years, there's been 8x moves in gold. There was one in uh I gosh, I think it was uh 76, another in 2001 where you had a bearish low, they went 8x up. Same thing in 2001, bearish low, 8x up. In 2015, we hit another bearish low cycle at the price of 1050 gold. I won't spend a lot of time on the wonkiness, but since that move, we've only gone up 4x from that last bearish low. If we had another 8x cycle, even at 5,000, we're only halfway to that technical indicator. So, there's technical support, but far more importantly, the fundamentals haven't changed. There's a reason central banks are dumping IUS, dumping the dollar, dd dollararizing. There's a reason the BIS has made gold a tier one asset. There's a reason Morgan Stanley's pushing for it or Jeffrey Gunlack or Ray Dalio or Draen Mueller or Paul Tudtor Jones. Even those like myself who used to trade risk assets, if they understand history in cycles, this bull market in gold is not even finished by any stretch. But it's not a bull market. It's a center of a very sick global monetary system. And I will say I am secularly very very very bullish on gold and silver. But I will never say and never suggest that investors um think that this is only up into the right. We've seen major moments where gold's in a bull run from 71 to 80 for example or midyear through a gold run. It can break hearts. Same with silver post 1980. So anyone who comes into the metal space, especially gold does it for monetary reasons. If you're looking at silver, you have to be informed about risk so you're not shaken out of a bull market and you have to pick your exits carefully. And silver in particular, gold you just hold because it's better than fiat money. So, there's a lot going on. Um, but uh I am uh very very convinced that we're not even close to peak gold right now or peak silver. But silver is another conversation because it's a lot more volatile. Uh but we're seeing a perfect a perfect collision of supply and demand mismatch in the metals colliding with a a Comx and a London exchange which can no longer price fix these metals. So that's >> what gold for you look like? Let's say gold goes to $10,000 in the next 5 years. I'm not saying it well. I'm not saying it won't, but let's just suppose it does. What does the world look like in that environment? >> It looks very bad. That's why we've always said any of us in the space from Egon, myself, Rick Rule, we buy gold not because we want it to go to 10,000, because we're afraid it'll go to 10,000. That may sound disingenuous, >> but what we're saying when we say it is when gold is at 10 20,000 that is again confirmation of what we've been warning for the last 15 20 years that the global monetary and credit system is no longer sustainable. It isn't. And gold is only reflecting that. When gold's at 10,000, the price of a of a couch or a pair of shoes is going to be very different, too. It's not a get-rich trade. It's a preservation trade from dying fiat money. It's very important people understand that. Once you do, $10,000 gold is far easier to comprehend than $2 million Bitcoin. In other words, it's it's it's just a reflection of the currency system and the debt system, not gold being a a craze or a euphoria. And that's why it's so scary to see it at these levels. And uh look, I I think um the reason you see this stacking by central banks, the reason you see these conversations, the World Economic Forum, the reason you see Dalio and others pushing gold, the reason you see the BIS and Morgan Stanley pushing gold is they they're building their arc before the rain. As I keep saying, they know the rain is coming. Central banks know it. The BIS knows it. Hey, that's why they hold more gold than US treasuries now. It's insane. You got to watch what they do, not what they say. Even stable coin issuers take their profits from stable coin and invest it in gold. So watch what they're doing, not what they're saying. And sadly, this this move, this dramatic move towards the metals is actually a very depressing sign for the condition of the global fiat currency system and the global economies. And there's a very nervous world out there. Our clients are from 90 countries. Every conversation they're coming in and look, they come to us already converted. We're preaching to the converted. Um their question isn't even about peak gold. It's just, you know, how quickly can they get it? And again, that sounds flippant. Uh they're holding it for 10, 15, 20, 30 years. And even if the price was dramatically retraced in that period, they know that that bar of gold is going to hold its value better than whatever currency they're coming home from. >> Just on that note, you've talked to your clients, the kind of conversations you're having with your clients. Why are they buying gold now at above, let's say above $4,700? Because they haven't been just buying since last week. They've been buying for quite some time. Above $4,700, what was the reasoning? And how have the rationale differed this time versus when gold was still at $2,000? >> Look, I you know, Egon, my partner, started buying gold at 300. He'll still be buying as long as he lives because yes, I wish I had bought at 300, too. I bought closer to 1,800, but I've had conversations over the years where again, clients are calling, they're convinced of gold, but they're thinking, I think I think 1900 is too high. I think 2,300 is too high. 2,800 is way too high. That's becoming less and less. Of course, no one wants to buy at an all-time high in any asset, but the gold investors are fairly sophisticated. Our minimums are very high. So, they're these are people with a great deal of wealth, some decent uh sophisticated advisors behind them or in front of them. They see the gold play 20 years out. They're not traders. They're not speculators. And because they see it that way, yes, they would have preferred buying it three years ago, but they're really asking, you know, not what the gold price is. They're just kind of agreeing that whatever the gold price is down the road, it's going to be more valuable than the fiat money they're trading in. But of course, I don't like buying gold at these highs either. But I know that 20 years from now when my kids inherit this gold or my grandkids are using it, gold's going to be higher than 5,000 or 10,000. I won't care as much then. But would I have rather bought gold at 300? Absolutely. Of course I would. No one likes this. But our clients really aren't asking about whether they're buying at a top. They want to get in. It's not FOMO. It's just realizing now the writing's on the wall. I wish I had been there. Should have been there yesterday. I wish I'd been there. I I wish I had done this earlier. But of course, it's hard to buy at the top. I think silver is a little bit of a different conversation that could be a little more volatile. Even though the technicals and fundamentals are good for it, um the only way you can buy gold at these numbers with confidence and conviction is to have a much longer term view than you would say in Nvidia or Qualcomm or Lucent or or certain private credit pools or private equity pools because this is a much longer play. It is a preservation play only. Those who wish to speculate and buy entries and exits and metals. I know a lot of them. Few do it well. That's a very different mindset. I'm not against it. It's a very different mindset than the clients we have. Um but honestly, even clients that have been there for decades are just buying more. And the new ones are coming in just finally convinced. And and of course, they wish they had seen this earlier. Now, these prices are shocking them, not because they waited too long, but that's proof that the system's breaking. But again, these prices can retrace and people want to wait for there could be a 30% retracement if the markets crash, for example, or there's a recession. The question is, will gold retrace 30% from 5,000 or from 10,000? Because if you're waiting for a 30% retracement and you wait too long, you could better off buy now. I do not know. No one knows. And that is the dilemma. And I'm not going to just say ever, ever with any credibility that gold only goes up into the right. Of course it doesn't. And I'd remind anyone investing, if you're buying for the right reasons, prepare for retracements and pullbacks, but be a big boy. Be a big girl about it if you're holding for a reason. >> There may be monetary reasons for why gold went to $5,000. Let's talk about $100 silver. Um, several people have told me that silver has gone up the way it has because of shortages um realized in industry. Tesla, Samsung, other companies couldn't acquire silver in the quantities that they need, especially and maybe perhaps because of the exports that uh export restrictions rather that China has imposed late last year. And so at some point the market will reach equilibrium. It usually always does. >> Um what needs to happen before that happens? >> Look, silver is fascinating and certainly the the the topic dour because of the exponential moves it made this year. I mean broke 50, 60, 70, 89. It's incredible. It had a 60-year cup and handle formation. It broke through that on the technical side too. Remember >> 1979 1980. It broke through its gold silver ratio and broke through it and went up 5x. The same thing happened in 2010 2011 in 7 months 2 and 1 halfx move because the gold silver ratio breakout we had a similar breakthrough in November of 2025. So technically the setup for go excuse me for silver I keep conf the technical setup for silver is fantastic and look you can measure silver historically against the M2 money supply in 1980 you could say it's $900 silver should be the right price that's obviously sounds crazy or adjusted for inflation it should be at least 250. So there is a lot of technical and historical ways you could argue the bull case. I think the the the simple fundamentals haven't changed though, David, because look, we have a 5x supply deficit in in silver. That hasn't changed. What happened in 25 that made it so different? Why is it suddenly spiking now? And I think the answer is that supply deficit is colliding with much higher industrial demand, whether that's electric vehicles, solar, Samsung components, AI power stations, massive demand drive. At the same time, there's a supply tightening. And then of course, let's not forget the LBMA market in London seized up in in October. They didn't have the silver to deliver. It's supposed to be a cash and carry exchange T+1 delivery. It was like T plus 8 weeks. So you had a breakdown in the old systems that were traditionally putting a permanent short in New York and London on the silver price. But because of demand for metals, monetary and industrial, there's just not enough silver to make that play to play that game. And as we saw in December of 2025, they tried to raise the margins on silver that got created a temporary selloff because of the margin hike, the buyin on the poker table. But then what happened? The industrial buyers didn't panic when they saw that margin hike. They went out and bought it on sale and pushed the price up 4% within a week. So the the old tricks to manipulate these markets are getting weaker. So we're getting more natural price discovery in silver. So those are huge tailwinds for silver. But again, remember $200 silver, $300 silver sounds sounds fantastic. But if we had had this conversation here, guys, I said we'd be at 100 plus. That would sound fantastic. And I think again, you can just adjust it for inflation or look at the technos there's a strong case. But also remember silver can be, as Egon says, very hard not for widows and orphans. And and and you remember post 1980, it could go from 50 to five. I think we're in a very different environment now than 1980. But you've got to look at silver much more as a more volatile monetary industrial metal than gold. Gold's a pure monetary metal. I look at silver, it's like the it's like the NASDAQ versus the golden Dow. It's a lot more of a little speedboat that churns faster in a bull market but can sink faster in rough seas. And so you have to be very different mindsets for silver and gold. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said at Davos that the world is seeing a rupture right now in the world order. You said that the old world order is not coming back. What does the new world order according to Carney or perhaps yourself look like? >> I mean Carney's many things. Look, he's a former central banker >> in in the UK and Canada, which I can't quite understand how he's able to do that, but it's the Commonwealth. And anyone who's watched or listened or read anything that I've done knows what I think of central banks and central bankers. Look, they're mavens to the establishment. They're pure careerists and they're all about self-promotion and they have a fantastic narrative, a fantastic platitudes to hide extremely bad math. The new world, the old world order has been gone for a long time. You could argue since 1913, certainly since 1971. In my opinion, this notion that central banks are having any real control over inflation or employment is laughable. Their their primary mandate is to buy bonds and debt of instruments of countries that are going broke. That's how they work. So he's very concerned. His language in Davos was really directed I think more towards Donald Trump just like Powell was directing openly language towards Donald Trump trying to remind Trump that the Fed is independent. We won't be bullied by politics depending on your view of the Fed whether it's dependent or independent is clearly a private central bank with private shareholders. It is not constitutionally recommended by our founding fathers etc etc. But one thing it definitely is is an invisible fourth branch of government. It has power. It determines the price and supply of our money supply. So when Trump is trying to bully someone like Powell, someone like Carney in Canada is very sensitive to that. When Trump is trying to bully foreign policy, tax policy, tariff policy, including military policy, >> that upsets the Davos globalization mindset. It's a complete threat to them. And what what what Trump is, love him or hate him. He's more like a neo mercantalist, the America first, America first. Uh that's the exact opposite of the entire foundation of the Claus Schwab industrial complex and those jackals in Davos. So Carney's taking a stab at Trump, I think, in that way. and he's and and certainly Powell has already taken a direct stab. But this notion that we had a functional global world order any time in the past is laughable. It's certainly benefited the top 10 to 20%. >> Well, the shift in global order has direct impacts on the market. So if everybody is moving away from from Donald Trump's America as an ally, >> one could reasonably assume that these countries may dump US assets as well. Yeah. >> Do you think this interplay between Trump and the Europeans over Greenland and Carney over >> Canada and China? By the way, Trump just threatened the 100% tariff on Canada if Canada actually goes through ahead >> with his deal with Xi Jinping. But anyway, that aside, do you think this >> is just a facade behind the scenes? They're all actually all just friends or do you actually think there's a fundamental shift in alliances going on right now? >> Well, I think Trump, no matter what you think of Trump, it's not all just friends. Trump is a me firster and an America firster and he's a atypical politician. He's a revolutionary in that sense. Even Robert Kenny Jr. would say that he is not of the establishment, but anyone in the White House has to cater to the K Street lobbyists and the big money, the big media, the big pharmace. So, he's caught in this huge paradox. He's got to make his base happy, but to stay politically alive, he needs the money and the big money, and he has to make policy for the big money, including the military-industrial complex. gets complex. But look, he's also not technically able to be reelected, so he should be able to act more autocratically and not think about election, but he is thinking about the midterms. But backing up from all this disorder again, whether it's military, whether it's financial, whether it's tariffs, whether it's stable coin, whether it's CBDC, whether it's all this legislation and executive orders, it's all a lot of headless chickens. the reaction from the EU, the reaction from Carney, the reaction from Davos, the reaction from Brussels, it's all making headlines. It's all relevant, but it's ultimately just fog because the real lighthouse and problem in this global disorder or this global order is that nobody, elected or unelected, can now wave a magical wand and solve the fact that the world has gone from 30 30 trillion in debt in 1997 to 354 trillion today. That's the real crime. It doesn't matter whether you're left or right in Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, or Zurich or DC or or Ottawa or anywhere else. These these mental midgets, this island of misfit toys that's been running monetary policy to stay elected and to extend and pretend a global system based on solving a debt crisis with more debt is failing. And rather than take any accountability, they'll blame it on the bad guy desour the headline during dictator or uh you know whatever fits the blank. But the real problem lays directly in the bathroom mirror of every one of these left, right or center clowns. Well, going back to what you said earlier, also what Dio said, Ray Dalio said at Davos, the global monetary fiat system is breaking. We're already dead. What does that mean practically though for the average person? And I know it translates well to hard currencies like gold, but how will our lives be different when the fiat system dies? >> Well, we already see how our lives for I come from the middle class. I come from the Midwest. >> Sure, >> we already see how our lives are different there. I see it. >> It's already happening. It's been death by a thousand cuts. It's an incremental debasement of your currency. The thing you measure your wealth and your freedom. There's a reason your generation can't afford houses, can't get a loan, can't come up with a down payment. They take it personally. It's not their fault. They are the surfs in a neofistic system where they are not ever going to make it to the lord status because the generation prior to them, the policy makers prior to them debased their purchasing power and didn't give wage increases or opportunities commensory with the debasement. >> Let me just posit a hypothetical dream fantasy. What if the government says, "Matthew, you and every other American will get $500,000. >> At the same time, we're going to put a cap on prices for everything." >> Yep. and we can print this money out of thin air, make everybody richer, >> and at the same time mandate that inflation be illegal, which is what they did in the Soviet Union. >> Yeah. >> I mean, in that fantasy, what would that >> What does that look like, smell like, and taste like to you, though? >> I I >> Is that capitalism? Is that democracy? Or is that centralized control? And again, is that freedom, rich or poor? >> You know, as Benjamin Franklin says, if you give up security, uh if you give up freedom for security, you deserve neither. If we become an assisted nation, a welfare state, then we're we're surfs. We're slaves and we're happy obedient slaves. And the lord and serve class, the insider class, which is really what they are, are the leaders. And if if that makes you happy for security reasons, well, that's individual. >> Would you rather have sovereignty or no inflation is I think you know, >> listen, [laughter] I think Hemingway put it best. I'd rather I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. I would rather be free than just be taken care of. And uh that may sound like a a smug thing to say from someone doing well in this in in the gold space or in Switzerland. Uh but I've been rich and I've been poor. What's never made me happier than just being autonomous in my thoughts, my actions, and my freedom. And there's no amount of money on earth I would sacrifice that for. That may sound very bravado, >> but that's the Virginia in me. Live free or die. Don't tread on me. That's what makes uh America to me the old America, the America that was waving the flag on Euima or fighting big government and uh trusted their government. But Americans today don't trust their government left or right. They don't trust the system and they've been robbed by the invisible theft and tax inflation for decades and it's cracking. From identity politics to transgender bathrooms, it's cracking. And look, anyone who's been in a relationship, think about it. When you're broke, are you having a good time with your spouse, your partner? Are you are you enjoying life? You're stressed. When you're stressed, you're not your best. When you're not your best, you're pointing at other people. That's America right now. That's Europe. That's Frankfurt. That's parts of Paris. People are stressed. I'm not trying to be too reductionist, but when you're broke, you'll get in anyone's car and believe anything if it makes you feel like there's hope. Your generation has very little hope, very little trust, which is part of the reason they're out there taking massive walks on the on the risk branch for yield or return. in a lot of risky investments including Bitcoin which have made some rich and many poor but you guys have nothing to lose. 10,000 here there roll the dice. When when I grew up in my 20s it was as F. Scott Fitzgerald said it was like a menu. You could pick your future. You believed in it. You got purchasing power. You could qualify for a mortgage. You could get the down payment. Your generation is running uphill in roller skates and your quote unquote leaders are blaming it on somebody else but themselves. >> As my generation were younger would say were cooked. So what what does that mean for the next generation? What do they have to do to get ahead? What do they have to study? What do they have to learn? What do they have to put their money in? >> Well, unfortunately now they have no choice but to take excessive risk because what are they going to do? Practical things. Preserve their wealth in gold. They don't have wealth to preserve in gold. Uh you're not going to get rich quick on buying a couple ounces of gold if you're 28 and have very little money and are trying to catch up. Um so you have to take more risk there. That's everyone's opinion is different. Personally, look, obviously there are plenty of miners around here. Yeah. >> And the junior minor space, the exploration space, uh there's historical precedent to suggest that risk could be well well repaid in this environment, but again, you have to take that risk now or you have to, I hate to be smug, elect better officials. But you can't. You have to choose between Tweedle D and Tweedle Dumb. You don't have great options. And even if you did, the only one you could elect would be someone who'd say, "By the way, we're going to be in austerity for years. It's going to get ugly before it gets better." But that doesn't give you guys an immediate solution. So what what do you is it pitchforks? Is it guillotines? I mean that's where it gets crazy. I don't think there's enough. I think there's enough NFL games, enough cable TV, enough Netflix to keep the masses numb, but there's a lot that are fed up. And I think I don't have any easy answer for that generation. I don't have My kids are in that generation now. I don't have an easy answer for them. It's objectively empirically different than my opportunities at the same age when I was their age. I see it. I've lived through it. I've traded through it. I've won and lost through it. Um, it's fascinating intellectually, but it's very frustrating. I've had so many conversations today from young people who want to know what to do because they feel so disenfranchised and screwed. And I don't have an easy answer for them. I wasn't smarter than them. I wasn't bolder from them. It's uh I was just born at a different time in a different window. It was the last window. And it's not the end of the world, but it's going to be extremely tough. I'm sorry for your generation. I don't see an easy quick fix. You're going to have to speculate and look for alpha in dangerous places. Uh, and uh, I would say mining, junior miners, that's some risk. I could say silver. You could that you could look at hard assets, but it's not a get-richquick scheme. And whatever you're getting in wages or even what you're getting in returns, but after taxes and invisible theft of inflation, is that going to be enough to get that down payment on prices here in Vancouver or in Toronto or in Montreal or Ottawa or in New York or San Francisco? Look, Paris, I Zurich, good luck. Good luck. And so that's that's the great wealth transfer that the guys in Davos are trying to pretend is somebody else's fault. >> Yeah, >> I know a lot of young leader, global leaders in Davos. I went to school with them. None of them give a damn about the masses or your generation. That is a networking event. >> One of the themes that came out of Davos that's pretty much consistent with every speech I've heard is that individual nations need to stand on their own and rely less on each other. Even Carney speech he said that globalization was weaponized. People use tariffs on each other as a weapon and he insinuated that the end of globalization is what countries need to pursue which is >> an extraordinary statement from any >> it's contrary because in a way the world economic can reform is all about globalization. What he's basically saying is basically it's like a Brexit mentality. >> What does that mean for investors? >> It means crisis. Crisis as the confusion say can also be opportunities though. And so when there's destabilization, sell-offs in markets definitely shifts from risk assets into hard assets. If you can get in early with enough capital and be patient and have conviction, you can get multiples of return. If you do your homework and don't rely on a YouTube video with me or some other expert, become an expert in some asset class or some area and wait for blood in the streets to buy low. The commodity super cycle is a perfect example. But will that reward you in 3 years or 5 years? It could be a while, but you got to pick your targets very carefully, have high conviction, and if you have enough money to invest, let it run. I think when there's breakdowns of the global order, Italy, Spain, France, Germany split in the European community. We talked about this Ronnie Sturfla, will the European community last the next 20 years? That'd be a major watershed event. It will only break up when there's economic uhoh moment. And when that does happen, there will be chaos, frustration, hopefully not social unrest to the point of dysfunction. >> But there will be opportunities for those who've basically made the mental and financial preparation for what asset or what area are they going to pick to put all their efforts into. You guys have a much higher mountain to climb to get there than I did in my generation. Absolutely. And that's not condescending. It's the absolute truth. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. You're going to need to be extremely exceptional, extremely focused, and extremely disciplined, and be willing to sleep on a lot of couches and eat a lot of pasta before you get the Range Rover. But as someone who quote unquote has the Range Rover, sounds polyianish, the new car smell goes away at some point. >> Unfortunately for me, I like couches and pasta. >> Yeah, I'm just saying [laughter] I've been there. I've been on many couches and had many ramen noodles when I was young. But when you there's nothing worse than being financially tapped out or stressed. But whenever you do get that kind of breathing room, that velocity speed that financial freedom gives you. That's great. You need it. But you'll find I was just talking to Villa Middlein about this. Once you have enough, you don't need more to be happy. The problem with your generation is you can't even get enough to be happy. >> And that that again is the wealth transfer. You guys are the plankton of the Wall Street whales. You are the fodder and the cannon of this global system. And >> well, let's talk about that subject to close off. you wrote about the great wealth transfer that is not only happening now but will continue. >> Mhm. >> Um what does that look like in the next 10 years? >> Well, again, you know, this the wealth transfer is really going back to the currency crisis and the currency crisis is a derivative of the debt crisis. When you have debt that is well past the the bounds of reason or the Rubicon of repayable or global since we can never grow out of this mathematically, we will debase the currency to monetize the debt. That means inflation which is everyone knows is misreported. We're at double digit inflations right now. We're also a double digit unemployment. As Charles Goodhart said, when you politicize data, you're lying about data. Everyone on Wall Street knows the CPI scale is an open fiction. We know that it's not an exaggeration. You've interviewed John Williams. You could talk to Nick Ebershot or others about labor or inflation uh data. It's all it's all fiction. It just is. That sounds sensational. So, if you're getting a major compounding effect of double-digit inflation, that means your dollar bill is losing 10 cents every year. Well, in 3 years, that's 30 cents. That's a wealth transfer because your generation didn't have the real estate or the stocks when the inflation came and the QE came and inflated risk asset bubbles like real estate and stocks. You guys didn't have the stocks already in or the real estate already bought to enjoy that inflation. So, you've been you've been robbed. You've been stolen from and that is the wealth transfer. And how does that end? Does that end in social unrest? Does that end in patience and an election of a much younger, smarter, more bold Jave Mala like leader? Because Malay is outside of politics and he's making progress in Argentina. But that only happened because Argentina literally had no choice. They had nothing to lose. And when will Canada or the home of the world reserve currency, the United States get to that type of point? That can be decades from now. I don't know. But the Argentine effect could happen in a country near you. And uh again, I wish I had better news. I'm not saying we're going to have a a Malayike revolution in Canada or the US. We're probably not. There's just enough mediocrity in DC and just enough complacency uh to sustain this longer. >> I'll just end on this note. Um a lot of Latin American countries, actually countries around the world, emerging economies can dollarize to stabilize or hyperinflation. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> The dollar in the US literally can't dollarize to something else. >> So what does the country do to fight high inflation here in the US? Well, this is the classic DXY debate, a dollar relative versus absolute. But again, as many like the the rebel capitalists and others have said like I've been and I've been to Argentina. I'm there often and I've certainly been to to Istanbul in Turkey in Europe. I would much rather have a dollar or dollariz than a peso or a Lero >> and it's a lot easier than trying to carry gold bars around if you don't have the money. And so I think there's still a case to be made that you know on a relative basis the dollar is still king and the dollar can still be dollarized in these third world countries especially if it's e dollarized or stable coined. But I think uh for now Latin American countries third world countries u bitcoin is not going to save them. They don't have enough gold stack to win that contest. And so there is still that sucking sound of demand for dollars. Um and that's why the dollar doesn't die. It gets repriced. The world reserve of currency doesn't end tomorrow. It's not going to be replaced by the ruble or the yuan or the reality of the rupee. It's not going to happen. Uh but what's going to happen is gold is going to be far more central in settle settling trades especially in the east in the bricks and south america. So gold will continue to rise on that frankly that tailwind is becoming a net settlement asset not a world deserved currency asset. >> Okay. All right Matthew I appreciate your thoughts. Where can we go to follow you? Uh you've got a great resource for um you know for your written work. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That I've been quoting throughout the interview. Where can we go to follow that? >> Well, goldswitzland.com or vg.g gold for von griers. Gold. There's a section on why gold which just gives you a free education on all the different questions about jurisdiction silver markets. Obviously all the articles and interviews that myself Egon and others like our adviserss like Alistister Mloud or Ronnie Sturfla can be found there. There's a lot of my articles there. A whole library going back decades. So you can get a free education on on a topic or at least our view on it and clearly we have a bias but we have a high conviction and uh everything can be found there. >> All right, thank you very much Matthew. Appreciate your time. >> Thank you Dave. Real pleasure. >> Thank you for watching. Don't forget to follow Matthew Paperberg down links below. Thank you for watching.