'Insiders Are Selling': Frank Giustra On $40,000 Gold, 'Unwinding' Of Global Economy
Summary
Gold Market Outlook: Frank Giustra predicts a long-term bull market for gold, potentially reaching $10,000 to $40,000 per ounce, driven by a loss of faith in fiat currencies and a potential reset of the global monetary system.
Geopolitical Dynamics: The world is bifurcating into Western and BRICS financial systems, with China and other countries developing alternatives to the US dollar, including the Mbridge project for digital currency settlements.
US Dollar Decline: The decline of the US dollar is attributed to excessive debt and geopolitical tensions, with gold becoming a preferred safe haven over the dollar.
Central Bank Gold Purchases: Central banks are increasingly buying gold to diversify away from US dollars, which is contributing to the rising gold prices.
Investment Strategy: Giustra emphasizes the importance of owning gold and critical minerals like copper and nickel, given their strategic importance and potential for high demand in the future.
US Economic Challenges: The US faces significant economic challenges, including high deficits, potential inflation, and a need for a monetary reset, with interest rates being a critical factor.
Market Bubbles: The current stock market and Bitcoin valuations are seen as bubbles fueled by retail investors and debt, with insiders selling and a potential market correction anticipated.
Future Outlook: Giustra remains focused on gold mining and critical minerals, anticipating a continued bull market in precious metals and a significant role for gold in any future economic reset.
Transcript
I still think we're in the beginnings of what's going to be a very long-term gold market. It's going to be very different than what we experienced in 1971, 2009 over 2020. Even at 20% or 40% backing in today's world, the gold price will have to be much much higher. It's anywhere between 10,000 and $40,000 an ounce, which may sound crazy, right? But that's what it would take to do a backing of 20 to 40% of China's money supply or America's money supply. [Applause] [Music] It's a great pleasure to welcome to the show Frank Gustra here in person. He's the CEO of Fury Group and he is the co-chair of the International Crisis Group. He's a well spoken person on the topics of philanthropy, mining, media, geopolitics, politics, and the economy. Uh we've had him on the show before. Check out our last interview link down below. And um we'll discuss today his take on the deteriorating economic data around the world, geopolitics, gold hitting new all-time highs, uh precious metals being a hot topic in the investment world, and of course, his views on the macroeconomic landscape and what's next. There's a lot to talk about with you, Frank. It's always good to see you. Thank you for joining us on the program. >> Yes. Thank you. >> You were on the show a couple of months ago and I've seen you on other media. Uh well, last year rather and uh I've seen you on their media talking about how the world will change this year and uh you've been calling for the decline of the dollar. DXY has fallen from over 100 uh points to now below that. Uh gold has risen like you predicted. Geopolitical hotspots have risen like you've predicted. Is the world progressing in 2025 the way you expected to when you made these calls in 2024? >> Yes. Uh it is. And uh uh specifically with gold, I think gold has surprised many people um how much it's risen just in the last couple of years almost non-stop. Um now I've been predicting a much higher gold price and I still do. I still think we're in the beginnings of what's going to be a very long-term gold market for a whole number of reasons. is going to be very different than what we experienced in 1971, what we experienced in 2009, what we experienced in 2020. I think we're going to go through a transition of the global monetary system where gold is playing a central role that's happening. >> Okay, $3,600 gold. What does that signal to you? >> It signals a loss of faith in fiat currencies. I think globally and especially in the West, fiat currencies are in their death rows. It's we need a reset here. There's just too much debt in the system. Uh and there's too there's been too much money printed and u and these deficits keep on going and going as far as the eye can see. I don't know if you saw the CBO Congressional Budget Office forecast the other day. They're saying that the US deficit is going to hit 150 US debt is going to hit $150 trillion by 2055. I mean, just think about that number. It's it's insane. you know, it's at 37 trillion now. Uh, so I think that there's a reset coming much like the reset that happened in 1945. And this is so I think it's going to be that type of dynamic that's going to play out. And whether it plays out smoothly or with a a tremendous amount of turmoil is yet to be seen because I'm not, you know, you've got the the world's bifurcated now into two camps. You got the western le camp and you got the China le bricks camp and they're competing. They're going to create they're going to have different global financial systems. China the China le initiative is creating an exact mirror system to the entire western financial uh system including payment settlement depository currency swaps development banks you name it they're doing it all and it's all sits outside the US dollar system. So I think that that that is happening. A lot of people still don't believe it, but I think a lot more people are believing it today than I was when I was talking about it 3, four years ago. Um, and it's nice to no longer be a fringe lunatic player, you know, because all I heard when I debated this topic starting 5 years ago actually was it'll never happen. And they used the TINA excuse. There is no alternative to the dollar. That's what everybody believed. Where are they going to run to? How are they going to do this? Well, it's happening right in front of your eyes with the M Enbridge project, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Would you like me to describe the Mbridge project? Please go ahead. Because Embridge was a pilot project set up by China, Hong Kong, UAE, and Thailand starting about 5 years ago. And it's a digital central bank digital currency settlement arrangement between countries. And so the the basic principles is that everything is settled and with a central bank digital currency that represents that country's local currency and bypassing the US dollar completely. Okay. And now Saudi Arabia's joined. There are 27 countries that are observing the Embbridge system and that's meant to basically replace Swift and every everything that's US dollar based the western system is going to as far as the bricks are concerned and they're trying to enlist all the global south into this system to compete to to be completely outside the US dollar system. The additional feature which is what I predicted 5 years ago is that gold was going to play a role. I wasn't quite sure how but I I suggested that when countries have bilateral trade agreements and they want to trade outside the US dollar system because most global trade has been done in US dollars as you might know but if they want to trade outside that system with local currencies even if they're digital currencies one country is going to end up with a surplus one country with a deficit trade surplus trade deficit. So the argument against this type of system working was why would anybody use a system where they're going to end up with a whole bunch of unwanted currency. And I'll give you an example. Let's say Saudi Arabia is trading with China oil for other goods. And at the end of a period there is a yuan surplus that Saudi Arabia has because they've sold more oil than they've bought goods from China. What are they going to do with those with with all of those unwanted yuons? And I suggested a number of years ago that the solution was to settle net settle those deficits with gold. It was a it was an idea. It's exactly what's happening. I don't know if you saw that China just announced they've created a uh a deposit a vault in Hong Kong to store physical gold so that now you can go to the uh sell your yuan exchange your yuans on the Shanghai gold exchange for physical gold and then if you want to take delivery it's going to be sitting in a vault in Hong Kong and they're talking about setting up these vaults in other countries. I think next is going to be Saudi Arabia and I would imagine they'll do one in Latin America somewhere and that addresses the problem of of the unwanted currency and that's why China in my opinion has been buying a lot more gold than they've disclosed. As I've been saying for years and years and years, what China discloses as their official reserves of gold is not what they have. They have because you just have to look at the physical flows, their mine production which they're not allowed to export. They're the largest gold miners in the world. They're the largest importers of gold around the world. And it just didn't make sense that they only had 2,300 tons of gold in their official reserves. And I've been saying that forever. Goldman Sachs just came out with a report last month suggesting that they may have have up to 10 times more gold than they've officially reported. Yeah. And that's that's plausible. I I I could believe that could be it could be that amount. Goldman Sachs also issued a report recently saying that gold could hit 4,000 soon if buying continues. Going back to the reset that you're talking about, what could that look like? Ray Dallio straight up tweeted on X that he thinks a return to the gold standard is possible. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not right away, but he listed his reasons why. >> It used to be the case that the US dollar was backed by gold and US government said, "If you don't like these pieces of paper, we'll give you gold." And ultimately, we we ended that. We're never going to go back to that presumably, right? >> Probably presumably that's right. But not if you watch these gold s these cycles that because you have the devaluation then um people feel don't have confidence in the fiat system over a period of time and through history they've at that point the way that works is you print all this money then you pay the debt with the cheap money and then but nobody wants to hold it so then they go back and link it again. It is conceivable that you can see a relinking of gold to money, but that's way in the future. >> And I agree with him. I agree with I think I don't think the world is ready yet. I think that'll be a work in progress. I think you're going to have a a number of hodgepodge methods of bypassing the dollar including Mbridge. >> Yeah. And um but eventually I think because just look at the amount of gold that every foreign central bank is buying it's every year they're buying you know a thousand tons a thousand tons a thousand tons of gold and that's what has driven the gold price up the last 2 three years it's been central bank buying and they're buying it for a reason they're diver diversifying out of US dollars to the point now where gold is a larger holding than US dollars and all foreign central banks. >> Yeah. >> So, we've seen that and that's going to continue and I think at some point gold will be reinccorporated as money not just in the way I described with the Mbridge settlement. >> Sure. >> Idea, but actually either pegged or backed for a certain percentage based on the money supply of a certain country. Okay. So you if you go back to preWorld War II, you know, the gold backing of the US dollar or the gold backing of the British pound was anywhere between 20 and 40% of their money supply. So it's not 100%. It's never 100% backing. You don't need that. But even at 20% or 40% backing in today's world, the gold price will have to be much much higher to do a backing, a full backing. Like lots of people have done calculations. is anywhere between$10,000 and $40,000 an ounce, which may sound crazy, right? But that's what it would take to do a backing of 20 to 40% of say China's uh money supply or America's money supply. Yeah. You know what the uh American central bank, the Federal Reserve is not publicly disclosing is how much more gold they're interested in buying right now. That's not a priority for the Trump administration. They're they're shifting more towards crypto. You're issuing a Bitcoin strategic reserve. You >> the Treasury or the Fed? >> Uh, it's the Treasury. Yeah, the Treasury. Yeah, that's what I meant to say. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I listen, all we all all I know is that in the first 4 and 1/2 months of this year of 2025, an insane amount of physical gold came into the US >> starting last December. >> Yeah. >> I can't remember how many tons it was, but it was an insane number. And we're no one's quite sure where that went. you know, it could have gone to the, you know, the bullion banks, it could have gone to institutions, but it it was such a large amount that it felt government sponsored somehow to me. Now, again, I don't know, but no one's ever answered that question. Um but uh I think everybody that understands what's going on out there is preparing better have their h better have their gold in their own territory which you you've seen all this repatriation of gold from London vaults and New York vaults to countries in Eastern Europe. Okay. People wanted in their own territory for a reason. Did you see that in I'll show you a bit of this. The Russians accuse the US of using stable coins, crypto to devaluate devalue the dollar and wipe out their $35 trillion of debt. alternative. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. My reaction is that's exactly what I thought before they said it yesterday. >> Okay. I I I I thought why why the Genius Act? And my answer is it was an ingenious approach to find new pockets to stuff US treasuries into at a time when the old pockets the foreign buyers have disappeared. And if you think about it, between by 2028, this is a really good number. By 2028, you're going to have an uh Treasury rollovers coming due of $20 trillion and another 9 trillion of additional deficits that have to be financed. The entire US savings pool is only $5 trillion. Where are you going to put all of these treasuries when the demand is disappearing from foreign central banks? And I always thought the stable coin, the genius act, >> yeah, >> using stable coins, which have to be backed by US treasuries or gold, but mostly US treasuries. What a brilliant way to find if you if you make stable coins the preferred method of transactions around the world and they have to have US treasuries. They have to buy US treasuries. >> That's right. >> I totally agree. and and the part that he said about the devaluation is completely feasible because America did that once before in 1933. So what did they do? They first confiscated asked every every citizen to turn in their gold when gold was priced at 2760 an ounce. So they made it illegal for Americans to own gold. Suggested that they told them to turn it in for dollars. Once they had all the gold they wanted, they devalued the dollar by raising gold to 35 an ounce. So they screwed the American public to the tune of 67%. Why wouldn't they do that again? Stuff as much debt into these stable coins and then devalue it. Sounds all fair and love and war. >> Yes. But let's just let's walk through what would happen if they go through go ahead with this on the decline of the dollar. This is what Scottison had to say about uh the Genius Act. This is a statement issued on the Treasury website. Stable coins represent a revolution in digital finance. The dollar now has an internet native payment rail that is fast, frictionless, and free of middlemen. This groundbreaking technology will buttress the dollar status as a global reserve currency and expand access to the dollar economy for billions across the globe. Is that what's going to happen? >> Well, I don't know if it's going to happen, but that's c certainly their intent. Yeah. >> Okay. And so I see this stable coin being a replacement for the petro dollar scheme that they set up in 1974. Yes. >> Okay. Because the petro dollar thing may go away now. Especially with the middle east dealing with China now. And that's why Saudi Arabia, UAE are part of the December bridge project. So I think America's seeing the writing on the wall, the disappear disappearance of buyers, the move away from the petro dollar and this is an ingenious replacement to create demand which is exactly what the petro dollar did all those years. You can only trade if you can only trade oil and dollars you need dollars and so that there's a demand and I think again I think that that's exactly what they're doing. What do you make of the fact that the bricks recently met um in Shanghai and it was the largest meeting of the bricks hosted by China in China. Western nations were not invited of course and it was basically their own version of a brick summit. Uh notably there were several moments when Putin and Modi for example had private meetings in their car away from the press. What do you think could have been discussed behind closed doors? What do you think they're planning right now? Well, they're planning how to deal with Trump's tariffs. You know, Trump has declared a tariff war on on the entire planet, which I I think from a tactical point of view was probably a mistake. I'm not sure what they're thinking and how erratic these tariff agreements and how vague they are and when I I just don't get the approach. which I understand what he's trying to do but basically he's taking on the whole world and the whole world is now going okay the whole non-western world you know excluding the EU and Japan are basically saying we need to find a different way and we have to come together and figure out a new not only a new financial system but new trading relationships and even western allies Canada and Europe and Japan have to be thinking about alternative trade relationships and they A lot of them are saying it and you know that that's though that change happens over long periods of time but what America is basically doing is driving old adversaries to India and China into each other's arms which I thought was a blunder. I didn't think that that was very smart. Um but what the BRICS nations are trying to do is to create an entire new system and court the global south to be part of that system. let and and be and be and trade within that system more than they trade with the American dollar system. I think that that's the whole purpose. You know, when you know Trump's declared war on the world and the bricks are going, China must be loving this. They're just it's like Napoleon said, never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake. And so it's like their their time has come. Do you think Trump is making a mistake or do you have do you think he has some longerterm vision that maybe isn't playing out now? Like he said famously in the press a couple months ago, I'm okay with short-term pain as long as there's long-term gain. >> But his his long-term gain is based on recreating a manufacturing economy in the United States. >> Yeah, >> I think that's going to be very difficult and many corporate leaders have told him so. I don't know. So I don't know what he's thinking about that. And by the way, this this idea that he's playing 3D chess or the administration. I don't get it. Maybe I'm not smart enough, but I don't get this 3D chess they're doing because at the end of the day, they're driving away business. They're driving away trade relationships towards the bricks. They're driving people out of the US dollar. Um I don't understand what how this benefits Americans. I just don't get it. you know, he's create he's going to create inflation in the US with as these tariffs really start to kick in, if you know, if if they stick, if if the Supreme Court basically uh uh sides with the lower courts that they were they were not legal. >> Yeah. >> And I, by the way, I think the Supreme Court will side with Trump as he they have all along for the past few um uh rulings. Um but I just don't understand what they're trying to achieve. I don't get it. I It It doesn't make any sense to me. And I think that they're just creating a lot of problems for for their own economy. I think they're going to create a lot of problems for consumers. You know, you've seen the slowdown in jobs and the economy is slowing down. We're going to go we're going to have a recession at some point. The US is going to have a recession at some point. And you know what? What does that mean when there are job losses and inflation? cost of goods are going up, goods and services going through. It's not very good for the for for the American public. So, I still don't understand what the desired outcome is, what they what they're really thinking. I know what they're saying, but I'm not sure. I believe it um and I'm not sure how are they going to achieve it. >> There's some sort of conflict going on between um the Treasury side and the Federal Reserve side. This is a statement that Treasury Secretary Scottet issued on X just yesterday. He said the Federal Reserve is among the foremost drivers of inequality in America. >> I agree. >> By failing Okay, we'll talk about that. By failing to deliver on its inflation mandate. I'll ask you for your opinion on that. The Fed allowed class and generational disparities to grow worse, expanding the divide between asset owners and lower income Americans. The Fed must regain its independence and stop serving the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. I'll actually comment on every single one of those points. I find the last statement ironic. The Fed must regain its independence while at the same time >> with the exception of that last statement, I agree 100%. Okay. >> 100%. Everything you said until that last statement, 100%. The Fed is responsible for creating the inequality that we're seeing in the US, which then has its own repercussions. the social unrest, the the the uh polarization of the two parties, you know, the all all of the crazy stuff that you're seeing in America today is a function of unhappy people that don't understand why they've been left behind. Like people don't have a grasp of how we got here. And you know, obviously politicians will blame all sorts of things to find the scapegoat, but the true culprits were the Fed basically enabling Congress to keep running these big deficits >> by bailing them out with low rates or printed money. Okay. And yes, I agree with that completely. I I think Congress has no desire whatsoever to cut spending. You know, Elon Musk said this morning, he said it said, "I tried. It was hopeless. There's no hope. There's there's no hope to cut costs at the federal level." And I agree because the system is wired in a way that's almost impossible to address the deficit in any meaningful way. >> You think because you well doge >> attempted >> attempted and Musk just came out this morning. I saw a little video basically saying it it was hopeless. It it'll never happen. >> Okay. >> Okay. And I agree. >> Yeah. >> Because if you think about it, what makes up that federal deficit? 86% of it is either uh non-discretionary spending, which you're not allowed to touch, military spending, which they've actually jacked up. >> Yes. >> And interest. >> Yes. >> So that's the reason Trump I'm telling you, that's the real reason Trump wants interest rates down to 1%. Is cuz if you think about the average service cost of that debt a couple of years ago was 2%. It's not 4%. >> Yeah. It's now a trillion dollars. It's now more than the military spending. >> Exactly. And that's exactly as Neil Ferguson, the economist, has always said when you pass that threshold where your interest costs are more than your military spending, it's the decline of a of an economy. And that's what's happening in the US. >> So Trump doesn't want the interest rate lower just for his real estate business. >> Well, I'm sure I'm sure it's if >> he's $3 billion richer now after his presidency, >> you know, good for him. Um but uh but in terms of the American economy, I I he listen, the US government cannot afford 4% rates on a $37 trillion debt pile that's growing by two trillion a year. >> Yeah, >> it it's unsustainable. >> What what surprised me this year, Frank, was the DXY declined when tariffs were implemented. That was not the case in this first term. Every time Remember when >> cuz the dollar used to be the safe haven and it's not anymore. People are rushing to gold as a safe haven. >> Yeah. >> All and I've been doing this for 45 years. Every time there's a crash or some, you know, crazy thing goes on in the world, everybody rushed to US dollars cuz it was the safest bet. They're not doing that any longer. They're rushing to gold now. Gold is the money, not the dollar. And that's that's exactly what's happening. That's why it went down when, you know, liberation day came along. Do you why do you think there's this bifurcation between global markets where equities in particular risk risk assets and economic growth right now just this week the BLS uh revised down their jobs growth by 911,000 again the biggest jobs revision in many years wage real wage growth is stagnating according to the Atlanta Fed like you pointed out tariff uncertainty still persists for businesses >> why are stocks at all-time highs why why is Bitcoin 116,000 We are living in a bubble uh environment which was fueled by all that cheap money that came in before. Free money, new money, cheap money. Um and the uh psychology of the marketplace in the US is very much casino mentality right now. Everybody's there to get rich. Everybody's feeling FOMO that his neighbor got richer on Bitcoin or something else. AI stocks, the Magnificent 7, you know, the Magnificent 7 reminds me of the Nifty50 from that you had in the '60s. >> Yeah. >> And collapsed in 1969 and brought down the entire market for what 12 13 years. It was a 13-year bare market from 69 to 82. Um, and I think the US stock market is overvalued more so than it ever has been in history. And it's a bubble and all bubbles burst. And the only thing you can predict is when because bubbles can exceed your expectations of when they're going to burst by years sometime. But that bubble will burst. It has no choice. All bubbles burst. >> Where did this liquidity come from this year and last? The Fed wasn't injecting QE. I mean, maybe they tapered off a bit of QT, but we would we didn't see a huge surge in M2. It's growing steadily. Like, you know, M2 is at historical highs as well. >> Trill of course. Yeah, it's growing, but it wasn't, you know, exploding like the during the pandmic. >> I think people are ser they're gambling with debt. There's a lot of leverage in the marketplace. I mean, even at the consumer level, credit card debt just hit an all-time high. Uh, mortgage debt, uh, student loans, everybody, this whole economy is run on debt, >> right? >> Okay. And at some point, it unravels. And it'll be, I'm telling you, David, it'll be an event that'll take place. It could be a geopolitical event, financial collapse of an institution, something will trigger the start of the unwinding and it will spiral quickly because of debt because everybody's on margin. Margin accounts are at all-time highs. Re the retail market has come into this last phase of this bull market. It's all retail buying. The big smart players are selling. The insiders, if you've seen insider filings lately, they're selling. So insiders are selling. The big institutional players aren't selling. Who's buying? It's the retail market. And they're always the one that gets stuffed with left holding the bag at the end of the day. And it's happening right now in front of your eyes. And they're probably playing with margin. Who knows what they're doing? >> I mean, it's only retail people that use margin accounts, >> right? So, do you think retail was primarily the driver of this >> this last this last part of the run? Yes. >> Yeah. >> That's my guess. >> By the way, uh Jerome Pal may not be head of the Fed anymore next year. If you were here, he won't be. Yeah, he won't be. Well, we'll see who replaces him. >> It would be someone that Trump that agrees with Trump that rates will go to 1%. >> Hypothetically, if you replaced him, what would you do? >> I'd replace the Fed, >> I think. No, no. I'm saying, listen, the Fed has been the reason why money has been devalued. Okay? Money's lost all value because of Fed policies over the years. They're not there. Listen, I'm going to be very harsh. I think you can only make one of two assumptions with the Fed. They're either complete idiots or they're or or or they're complicit. And and I don't think they're complete idiots. So, that leaves only one thing. They're complicit. They know what they're doing. They know that their actions when they Greenspan should have known take keeping rates down at whatever was 1% for years and years would lead to a bubble. >> Yeah. Bernani should have known that printing money you could never unwind the balance sheet completely. But he well while while they're in power they always tow the line and say what they're supposed to say. The minute they leave they start to criticize. Okay. So I think they're all complicit. And I think that they're serving Wall Street. They're serving Wall Street's interests. It's a ro it's it's a revolving door of you know the Janney Ellen steps down as the Fed chair and she gets paid what how many millions of dollars for giving speeches to who? Wall Street players. You know it it's a corrupt system. The system is corrupt and it's broken. >> You don't think they've managed unemployment well? >> No. No. >> You mean the numbers? >> Yeah. >> No, they they obviously haven't. They always revise and it's always never revising upwards. is always downwards. So, it's got to tell you something. >> By the way, you as a businessman, how do you view this revision process? Trump fired the commissioner of the BLS. >> I don't I don't like I don't like it because only it it it sends a signal that he's going to put someone in there whether he does or doesn't, it sends a signal he's going to put someone in there that will be more generous with their numbers. Now, whether that's true or not doesn't matter, but that's the implication that is G. So once you start to lose faith in government statistics, whether they're job numbers or the the GDP or whatever, if no one can trust the numbers, it's going to scare away capital into into places where you can't trust the numbers. >> Do you trust the numbers? >> No, I never have. I wrote an entire article about five six years ago about uh the um how the CPI is manipulated and has been manip manipulated over the last 80 year uh sorry since the 1980s to make it seem like inflation is lower. >> Yeah. >> And using all sorts of little tricks. You can look up that article. It's was in the Toronto Star. Um, and I did all the research on it and they use a number of methods to understate inflation. And I always said that whatever the when inflation was 9% last couple years ago, it was actually 18%. If you use the same calculation methods they used in 1982 and they've slowly changed it about 30 times, they've changed it to with a different calculation approach using all sorts of formulas. And if you read my articles, there's actually a very funny formula that actually included in there how they calculated one thing. You can make any sense of this thing. But it's all to understate inflation. And the reason they do that is cuz it's the inflation expectations that cause inflation to go up. If your expectations are that prices are going up, what are you going to do? You're going to spend instead of save, and you're going to you're going to drive that inflation further. you're going to ask for higher wages. Pension plans that are indexed have to be indexed according to the inflation to the CPI. So, governments purposely keep inflation the numbers down as as they report them so that they don't have to pay the extra amounts and so that and the Fed uses the term the anchoring of inflation expectations. And what that means is they have to make the public believe that inflation is under control because if they lose that expectation, it just starts to spiral. >> People will start buying things now in anticipation of higher prices >> and want higher wages. It starts to it it happened in the 1970s. You had this this period of stagflation where infla, you know, wages were chasing prices and it was it just got out of control. And when you see it in economies where there's hyperinflation, it gets really extreme at that point. That's where I remember my father lived in Argentina. We lived in Argentina till I was nine. And he had the good sense to get us out of there in 1966 because he saw the writing on the wall what was happening in the country and brought us to Canada. Sadly, he left. He had some investments with some businesses in Argentina that he was trying to unwind and it took him a few years to unwind to get his money. By the time he got his money, his pesos, they were worth zero. And I mean zero. You, it was toilet paper. So in an inflationary uh hyperin or high high high inflationary environment or hyperinflation, you know, people would take their paychecks, rush to the bank, cash that check, and go buy their groceries that same afternoon before the prices went up. Prices go up daily in a hyperinflationary environment. So, so we've never experienced this in North America. We don't believe it's going to happen. And it happens. It happens. Once you lose control of your currency, it happens. Now, I'm not predicting that, >> but I'm saying it's a possibility. >> You lose control of your currency when there's too much debt, when interest expenses are too high, it's a long way. >> And then you have you have to print money to get yourself out of that problem. See, if if Trump gets his Fed chair in and they drive rates down to 1%, that's the that's a short-term rate. He can't control, the Fed does not control the longer term, the 10-year treasuries unless they use QE. >> And what's QE is printing of money. And I'm predicting if Trump gets his way and rates go to 1%, the long-term rates will go higher. >> Well, by the way, why do you think long-term rates in Europe and in Asia are moving up higher than in the US? >> Because all those economies out of control as well. every everybody's running huge deficits right now and they can't seem to find a way to fund those deficits by raising taxes. You see the the jam the UK got itself into by changing the non-domicile rules >> to it was another pocket they could get some money out of. And what happens? All the millionaires leave. They all leave, you know. And what does that mean for the economy? All the wealthy people in London have gone to Spain or Italy or Portugal or the UAE. And um so they're in a box and there I'm sorry there's no way to get out of this box unless you have a total reset of the monetary system >> and you have to dev people are it's going to hurt. It's going to really hurt. >> I'm going to ask you for your outlook on how the world's going to change the next decade or so. But I'll ask you in a slightly different way. You've been on the right side of history for most of your career. You've been the captain of mining. You've helmed u media companies. You founded Lionsgate. If you had to those are just some examples. If you had to start your own a new company today or a new line of businesses, what industry would you be in? What would that look like? >> Gold mining. >> No, I'm serious because that's the only asset class that I have personally, this is my own opinion, 100% faith in, >> okay? >> Is that gold will survive all the other things that are going to go wrong. So, I'd be a gold miner. I'd own a gold mine >> privately. >> Yeah. >> Just keep my gold. >> Okay. If if that if you give me the choice, I don't see I don't know with AI. >> Yeah. >> I'm not sure about any career in the future. I really don't know where. I think AI and robotics combined are going to be capable of displacing most jobs in the world. Most jobs you can think of are going to be displaced by AI and robotics. There are very few that are that are out of the reach of AI and robotics. lawyers, doctors, you name it. Architects, you know, truck drivers, it's it's all going to be mechanized and driven by AI. And what what do corporations do? They're always looking for cost savings for their shareholders. So, and you're seeing it already with corporations announcing layoffs because they can replace those workers with AI. It's you're seeing it every day. You read Bloomberg or you read CNBC and it's happening. And we were not even started. I mean, this AI craze is moving very very quickly and robotics are moving very very quickly. >> Not that you want to start a robotics company. >> Well, I would love to except that I just don't know anything about it. Yeah, I know about gold mining. >> Your robotics company can mine the gold for you, Frank, and reduce your costs. Um, what do you think of Robert Freeland's claim that in the next 25 years more copper will be needed and mined in the last 10,000 years? >> Yeah, I don't know ex Listen, Robert is he's a good friend of mine and and I love Robert. Um, I I don't know about that number, but certainly in the next 10 to 15 years, you're going to need the number I use, four times as much copper as we've ever used before. So, I don't know how that trans translates. He did a different calculation. >> Well, where I'm going with this, Frank, is are you interested in the base metals business? >> 100%. I've got next metals company we took control over in Botswana. Uh, copper, nickel, >> cobalt, and uh, PGMs. >> Yeah. and uh it was an existing mine. Anyway, long story, but we love it. We think could be a world class mine as we do certain things and I you know that's my exposure. And then I've got a copper exploration play in Colombia which I'm very excited about called copper giant. Um it's exploration so you have to put that caveat in there. There's a lot of risk but we think it's could be a massive massive pfery and it's copper molly. Um, yeah, but mostly I'm in gold and silver. Mostly. >> Are you um are you actively scouting for US deposits under the new Trump administration that's trying to deregulate mining policies? >> We are, but um I'll be honest, I haven't found anything yet. >> Okay. >> But we're looking. >> Yeah. All right. >> But everybody else is as well. >> Yeah. >> And uh what do you the fact that the US is so behind on China, the critical mineral supply chain globally, what does that mean? That means that they have an incredible challenge to catch up. And this is why you're the talk I gave yesterday, I was asked about Africa and what role Africa plays in all this. And I said two things. First of all, Africa represents 30% of all the critical mineral reserves in the world. >> Yeah. >> So it's the most prolific continent for critical minerals. But it's also on the other hand, it's also the most favored region to play as a battleground for competing geopolitical players. And I went through the laundry list yesterday of, you know, you've got China versus the US and they're doing their thing in parts of Africa. You've got the Russia through the Vagner group. You've got even Saudi Arabia and the UAE competing against each other in Sudan. um you've got uh the French being kicked out of the Sahel in Western Africa and and in a lot of these places it ends up in some form of conflict but certainly it's a number of geopolitical players positioning themselves either diplomatically or with you know security forces whatever it takes to access those critical minerals and so it is the favorite battleground which is an Africa is a big continent and it varies widely in terms of governance and security you have some really great countries Bosswana and maybe a Ghana, you know, at the one end of the spectrum. At the other end, you've got Mali. >> Yeah. >> And you've got Sudan, which is in the middle of a civil war. Um, with a number of geopolitical players playing different roles. So, yeah, it's you got to be you got to be very selective. But Africa's, you know, it's an amazingly rich continent. >> Yeah. And the the lithium and critical minerals surrounding batteries, where is the right jurisdiction to be in now globally for that sector? with lithium. I don't I'm not a player in lithium. I obviously Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. That's that's where the reserves are. Yeah. >> And you know, China's in there, United States is in there making >> not veiled threats, but you know, making suggestions about the way the these countries should. >> What What do you think of the Department of Defense taking positions, equity stakes in some precious met not precious metals, but um critical mineral companies in the US? They're m they're mimicking China. That's all I can say. And I think you got to understand if you believe what Freeland said and I do that we're going to have this huge deficit especially in copper. >> Yeah. >> And you're behind the eightball. >> What are you going to do? You you got to move quickly and you got to do things that were might have been considered unconventional a few years ago. Sure. But they're desperate. They need to secure those mineral supply and start to figure out the processing and refining which is the part that China really controls because it's not just you know you can go find all the rare earths you need but if you don't have the processing which China controls most of it >> it's useless to you >> well if you were an investor how would you feel about that do you do do you like that >> well I looking at it from just a dispassionate point of view if I believe that all these things that I just said and Freeland said are True. I want to own a copper mine. >> Sure. >> I want to own a cobalt mine. Okay. >> Nickel, you know, you you need to own everything that's used in either uh clean energy transition, batteries, etc. Defense, you know, >> and by the way, the government is not just doing this with mining companies. They're taking they want to take stakes in Nvidia, right? They want revenue share. >> Yeah. >> Intel as well. They want to stake in Intel. >> Yeah. I can only address the uh the minerals part of it. Um but I understand why they would do it. You know, it's it's not the capitalist system as America's known all these years, but you know, desperate times require desperate measures. >> Let's let's let's end on your outlook for the future. I've been told by some economists, this is a theory that there's going to be a vi bifurcation of the world. There's going to be a decoupling between the west and the east, and there's going to be two trading blocks. the east bricks and then NATO in the west. How do you do business in that environment if it were true? >> Well, it is true. It's happening. >> Sure, >> it's happening. Now, the question is which way the global south goes in terms of and I think from their perspective, they would like to have relationships with both the west and and the bricks. So, it's really what you're thinking, what you're talking about is the US and Europe versus China, India and Russia and Brazil, you know, in terms of who's pushing for a change. But how do you do business in it? Well, I don't know. It's day by day. I mean, I don't know how the US is going to react if things really go sideways. And there is a real run on the US dollar. Um, they've already made threats, you know, about anybody that undermines America's interest with respect to the dollar, it's going to get tariffed 100%. Trump made that threat a few months ago. um you don't know how you know as I said yesterday in in a talk I said it is my opinion that the US dollar reserve status is as important as its military in terms of its national security and my fear is that if they lose the former they're going to resort to the latter to get their way. >> Yeah. >> And you know what it's been done in the past and the only thing that really scares me is war. You know we can get through difficult economic times. It's happened before, but the world is on such shaky ground right now, especially with this China US rivalry, and then you got the Middle East, you got Russia with Europe. It's on fragile ground at the moment. And I and you know, if if if things really start to fall apart, you know, it could be an excuse for war. Always has been in the past. History has history has taught us actually that uh whenever there's not one superpower but a you know one not one hedgeman >> any one rising >> yes there's going to be a rising conflict and especially when there's multiple competing superpowers that's when conflict arise >> yeah and that's scary in today's world that's really scary >> yeah and then that's that's where gold comes in >> that's where gold comes in but you listen gold's not going to save you in a world war okay you know if it gets that bad You could have gold, you might as well have cans of tuna and, you know, guns and, you know, whatever else you need. I mean, we hope it doesn't get there. >> Has anyone tried to final question, has anyone tried to convince it to mine Bitcoin? >> Yeah, lots of people. >> Yeah. And what did you say? >> No. >> Have you Are you changing your mind now? It's at 100,000. >> No. Cuz I don't It's to me it's not This is the the part that I always get the people misunderstand what I'm saying. Okay. You want to buy Bitcoin because you think it's going higher and it has performed really well, >> right? >> Go for it. But don't tell me that Bitcoin is gold cuz it doesn't behave like gold. >> Sure. >> And I don't care what Michael Sailor can come up with every reason under the sun why gold is going to zero. And I think some of the stuff that he says would make Jordan Belelfford blush. Okay? And I mean he and and a lot of the Bitcoin maxis have these outrageous ideas about where Bitcoin is going. I've never said that I had anything against Bitcoin. I just don't believe it's gold. It's not the same. And why is every central bank in the world and every big sovereign player buying gold in instead of Bitcoin, you know, and I you know, and I'm not saying that Bitcoin is going to go away, but don't tell me it's gold. It's something. But every time they come up with a a reason, a utility to it, and it doesn't work. The last one was, oh, you know, the US is going to create a Bitcoin reserve. BS. I called BS on that right away. It wasn't feasible. It wasn't, it wasn't logical. Now they're playing this corporate treasury game, which is run its course now, and all these stocks are collapsing now below their net asset value of what they bought the Bitcoin for. So, that game is over. And at some point that those bit that Bitcoin that was purchased is going to unwind. I suspect that Bitcoin is going to have a correction to now get rid of all of that that was bought on speculation that it was going higher because of the corporate treasury strategy that that Michael Sailor started. Um so now he's got to come up with a new thing. I don't know what that's going to be. It's not a currency. It's not useful as a currency, which was the original plan. >> Yeah. Um, and it's it may, you know, he's touting a store of value that remains to be tested in a crisis. Okay? Cuz you can only test store value, true store value when you have a crisis. So, Bitcoin has not had that yet. Like a real crisis when people panic and they want to sell everything. >> Yeah. >> Let's see what happens to Bitcoin then versus gold. And you know, I may be wrong and they may may both go up or they may both go down, but my guess is that gold will go up after a crisis more so than Bitcoin. >> Let's just take the micro strategy business model would apply it to gold. Would that work? Issuing debt to acquire gold. In theory, your company would trade higher than the gold nav in your balance sheet. >> Why isn't it being done? >> It would lots of people are in the in the It's in the works. Oh, >> okay. >> It's in the works. Lots of people are doing it. >> What's next for uh the Fury Group? What's next for you? >> We are so busy right now. We have um we've I think we have about 10 companies under our stable in various parts of the world doing different things. We're getting a lot obviously because of our the reputation, our brand, the fact that we're able to raise money when other people can't. Um we're seeing a lot of deal flow like a lot. And the trick now and especi now especially with the the gold place price ramping up. Now the trick is to choose the good ones, the good opportunities. We know how to assemble management teams. We know how to raise capital. We know how to market stories. Uh we know the M&A game. Um so we're busy. We're extremely busy. And um and I suspect that we're in the beginnings of a bull market in gold and silver that's going to last a number of years. Okay. until we get a reset. And I have no idea exactly what that reset will look like, but I guarantee you gold will have a role. >> Yeah. And where do you see you fit into that role in the next 5 years? >> I'm just going to keep doing what I love, creating mining companies, you know, creating uh creating wealth um and running my foundations. I have four different foundations doing different things around the world. >> That's the biggest part of my life. And so I need to make money to do those things, >> right? >> So I like making money in the in the mining business and then giving it away. >> Yeah. You're big on philanthropy. So we appreciate that. I want to ask you one final question before we go. In theory, what would make you sell your gold? What would have to happen in the world such that you would think, okay, it's time to rotate? I think every every bull market since 1971, there's been three, okay? 71 to 80, 2001 to 2011 and the one that started when gold broke 1900 just recently. Every gold market has a parabolic move at the end. 1971 Yes. >> to in 1980 it shot from 500 to 850 like overnight. >> Yeah. In 2011, it shot from,00 to,900 practically overnight. It was just a straight line up. When you see that happen, >> take some profits. >> All right. >> Thank you very much, Frank. I really appreciate your time. >> We appreciate you. >> Thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe, follow Frank down in the links below.
'Insiders Are Selling': Frank Giustra On $40,000 Gold, 'Unwinding' Of Global Economy
Summary
Transcript
I still think we're in the beginnings of what's going to be a very long-term gold market. It's going to be very different than what we experienced in 1971, 2009 over 2020. Even at 20% or 40% backing in today's world, the gold price will have to be much much higher. It's anywhere between 10,000 and $40,000 an ounce, which may sound crazy, right? But that's what it would take to do a backing of 20 to 40% of China's money supply or America's money supply. [Applause] [Music] It's a great pleasure to welcome to the show Frank Gustra here in person. He's the CEO of Fury Group and he is the co-chair of the International Crisis Group. He's a well spoken person on the topics of philanthropy, mining, media, geopolitics, politics, and the economy. Uh we've had him on the show before. Check out our last interview link down below. And um we'll discuss today his take on the deteriorating economic data around the world, geopolitics, gold hitting new all-time highs, uh precious metals being a hot topic in the investment world, and of course, his views on the macroeconomic landscape and what's next. There's a lot to talk about with you, Frank. It's always good to see you. Thank you for joining us on the program. >> Yes. Thank you. >> You were on the show a couple of months ago and I've seen you on other media. Uh well, last year rather and uh I've seen you on their media talking about how the world will change this year and uh you've been calling for the decline of the dollar. DXY has fallen from over 100 uh points to now below that. Uh gold has risen like you predicted. Geopolitical hotspots have risen like you've predicted. Is the world progressing in 2025 the way you expected to when you made these calls in 2024? >> Yes. Uh it is. And uh uh specifically with gold, I think gold has surprised many people um how much it's risen just in the last couple of years almost non-stop. Um now I've been predicting a much higher gold price and I still do. I still think we're in the beginnings of what's going to be a very long-term gold market for a whole number of reasons. is going to be very different than what we experienced in 1971, what we experienced in 2009, what we experienced in 2020. I think we're going to go through a transition of the global monetary system where gold is playing a central role that's happening. >> Okay, $3,600 gold. What does that signal to you? >> It signals a loss of faith in fiat currencies. I think globally and especially in the West, fiat currencies are in their death rows. It's we need a reset here. There's just too much debt in the system. Uh and there's too there's been too much money printed and u and these deficits keep on going and going as far as the eye can see. I don't know if you saw the CBO Congressional Budget Office forecast the other day. They're saying that the US deficit is going to hit 150 US debt is going to hit $150 trillion by 2055. I mean, just think about that number. It's it's insane. you know, it's at 37 trillion now. Uh, so I think that there's a reset coming much like the reset that happened in 1945. And this is so I think it's going to be that type of dynamic that's going to play out. And whether it plays out smoothly or with a a tremendous amount of turmoil is yet to be seen because I'm not, you know, you've got the the world's bifurcated now into two camps. You got the western le camp and you got the China le bricks camp and they're competing. They're going to create they're going to have different global financial systems. China the China le initiative is creating an exact mirror system to the entire western financial uh system including payment settlement depository currency swaps development banks you name it they're doing it all and it's all sits outside the US dollar system. So I think that that that is happening. A lot of people still don't believe it, but I think a lot more people are believing it today than I was when I was talking about it 3, four years ago. Um, and it's nice to no longer be a fringe lunatic player, you know, because all I heard when I debated this topic starting 5 years ago actually was it'll never happen. And they used the TINA excuse. There is no alternative to the dollar. That's what everybody believed. Where are they going to run to? How are they going to do this? Well, it's happening right in front of your eyes with the M Enbridge project, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Would you like me to describe the Mbridge project? Please go ahead. Because Embridge was a pilot project set up by China, Hong Kong, UAE, and Thailand starting about 5 years ago. And it's a digital central bank digital currency settlement arrangement between countries. And so the the basic principles is that everything is settled and with a central bank digital currency that represents that country's local currency and bypassing the US dollar completely. Okay. And now Saudi Arabia's joined. There are 27 countries that are observing the Embbridge system and that's meant to basically replace Swift and every everything that's US dollar based the western system is going to as far as the bricks are concerned and they're trying to enlist all the global south into this system to compete to to be completely outside the US dollar system. The additional feature which is what I predicted 5 years ago is that gold was going to play a role. I wasn't quite sure how but I I suggested that when countries have bilateral trade agreements and they want to trade outside the US dollar system because most global trade has been done in US dollars as you might know but if they want to trade outside that system with local currencies even if they're digital currencies one country is going to end up with a surplus one country with a deficit trade surplus trade deficit. So the argument against this type of system working was why would anybody use a system where they're going to end up with a whole bunch of unwanted currency. And I'll give you an example. Let's say Saudi Arabia is trading with China oil for other goods. And at the end of a period there is a yuan surplus that Saudi Arabia has because they've sold more oil than they've bought goods from China. What are they going to do with those with with all of those unwanted yuons? And I suggested a number of years ago that the solution was to settle net settle those deficits with gold. It was a it was an idea. It's exactly what's happening. I don't know if you saw that China just announced they've created a uh a deposit a vault in Hong Kong to store physical gold so that now you can go to the uh sell your yuan exchange your yuans on the Shanghai gold exchange for physical gold and then if you want to take delivery it's going to be sitting in a vault in Hong Kong and they're talking about setting up these vaults in other countries. I think next is going to be Saudi Arabia and I would imagine they'll do one in Latin America somewhere and that addresses the problem of of the unwanted currency and that's why China in my opinion has been buying a lot more gold than they've disclosed. As I've been saying for years and years and years, what China discloses as their official reserves of gold is not what they have. They have because you just have to look at the physical flows, their mine production which they're not allowed to export. They're the largest gold miners in the world. They're the largest importers of gold around the world. And it just didn't make sense that they only had 2,300 tons of gold in their official reserves. And I've been saying that forever. Goldman Sachs just came out with a report last month suggesting that they may have have up to 10 times more gold than they've officially reported. Yeah. And that's that's plausible. I I I could believe that could be it could be that amount. Goldman Sachs also issued a report recently saying that gold could hit 4,000 soon if buying continues. Going back to the reset that you're talking about, what could that look like? Ray Dallio straight up tweeted on X that he thinks a return to the gold standard is possible. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not right away, but he listed his reasons why. >> It used to be the case that the US dollar was backed by gold and US government said, "If you don't like these pieces of paper, we'll give you gold." And ultimately, we we ended that. We're never going to go back to that presumably, right? >> Probably presumably that's right. But not if you watch these gold s these cycles that because you have the devaluation then um people feel don't have confidence in the fiat system over a period of time and through history they've at that point the way that works is you print all this money then you pay the debt with the cheap money and then but nobody wants to hold it so then they go back and link it again. It is conceivable that you can see a relinking of gold to money, but that's way in the future. >> And I agree with him. I agree with I think I don't think the world is ready yet. I think that'll be a work in progress. I think you're going to have a a number of hodgepodge methods of bypassing the dollar including Mbridge. >> Yeah. And um but eventually I think because just look at the amount of gold that every foreign central bank is buying it's every year they're buying you know a thousand tons a thousand tons a thousand tons of gold and that's what has driven the gold price up the last 2 three years it's been central bank buying and they're buying it for a reason they're diver diversifying out of US dollars to the point now where gold is a larger holding than US dollars and all foreign central banks. >> Yeah. >> So, we've seen that and that's going to continue and I think at some point gold will be reinccorporated as money not just in the way I described with the Mbridge settlement. >> Sure. >> Idea, but actually either pegged or backed for a certain percentage based on the money supply of a certain country. Okay. So you if you go back to preWorld War II, you know, the gold backing of the US dollar or the gold backing of the British pound was anywhere between 20 and 40% of their money supply. So it's not 100%. It's never 100% backing. You don't need that. But even at 20% or 40% backing in today's world, the gold price will have to be much much higher to do a backing, a full backing. Like lots of people have done calculations. is anywhere between$10,000 and $40,000 an ounce, which may sound crazy, right? But that's what it would take to do a backing of 20 to 40% of say China's uh money supply or America's money supply. Yeah. You know what the uh American central bank, the Federal Reserve is not publicly disclosing is how much more gold they're interested in buying right now. That's not a priority for the Trump administration. They're they're shifting more towards crypto. You're issuing a Bitcoin strategic reserve. You >> the Treasury or the Fed? >> Uh, it's the Treasury. Yeah, the Treasury. Yeah, that's what I meant to say. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I listen, all we all all I know is that in the first 4 and 1/2 months of this year of 2025, an insane amount of physical gold came into the US >> starting last December. >> Yeah. >> I can't remember how many tons it was, but it was an insane number. And we're no one's quite sure where that went. you know, it could have gone to the, you know, the bullion banks, it could have gone to institutions, but it it was such a large amount that it felt government sponsored somehow to me. Now, again, I don't know, but no one's ever answered that question. Um but uh I think everybody that understands what's going on out there is preparing better have their h better have their gold in their own territory which you you've seen all this repatriation of gold from London vaults and New York vaults to countries in Eastern Europe. Okay. People wanted in their own territory for a reason. Did you see that in I'll show you a bit of this. The Russians accuse the US of using stable coins, crypto to devaluate devalue the dollar and wipe out their $35 trillion of debt. alternative. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. My reaction is that's exactly what I thought before they said it yesterday. >> Okay. I I I I thought why why the Genius Act? And my answer is it was an ingenious approach to find new pockets to stuff US treasuries into at a time when the old pockets the foreign buyers have disappeared. And if you think about it, between by 2028, this is a really good number. By 2028, you're going to have an uh Treasury rollovers coming due of $20 trillion and another 9 trillion of additional deficits that have to be financed. The entire US savings pool is only $5 trillion. Where are you going to put all of these treasuries when the demand is disappearing from foreign central banks? And I always thought the stable coin, the genius act, >> yeah, >> using stable coins, which have to be backed by US treasuries or gold, but mostly US treasuries. What a brilliant way to find if you if you make stable coins the preferred method of transactions around the world and they have to have US treasuries. They have to buy US treasuries. >> That's right. >> I totally agree. and and the part that he said about the devaluation is completely feasible because America did that once before in 1933. So what did they do? They first confiscated asked every every citizen to turn in their gold when gold was priced at 2760 an ounce. So they made it illegal for Americans to own gold. Suggested that they told them to turn it in for dollars. Once they had all the gold they wanted, they devalued the dollar by raising gold to 35 an ounce. So they screwed the American public to the tune of 67%. Why wouldn't they do that again? Stuff as much debt into these stable coins and then devalue it. Sounds all fair and love and war. >> Yes. But let's just let's walk through what would happen if they go through go ahead with this on the decline of the dollar. This is what Scottison had to say about uh the Genius Act. This is a statement issued on the Treasury website. Stable coins represent a revolution in digital finance. The dollar now has an internet native payment rail that is fast, frictionless, and free of middlemen. This groundbreaking technology will buttress the dollar status as a global reserve currency and expand access to the dollar economy for billions across the globe. Is that what's going to happen? >> Well, I don't know if it's going to happen, but that's c certainly their intent. Yeah. >> Okay. And so I see this stable coin being a replacement for the petro dollar scheme that they set up in 1974. Yes. >> Okay. Because the petro dollar thing may go away now. Especially with the middle east dealing with China now. And that's why Saudi Arabia, UAE are part of the December bridge project. So I think America's seeing the writing on the wall, the disappear disappearance of buyers, the move away from the petro dollar and this is an ingenious replacement to create demand which is exactly what the petro dollar did all those years. You can only trade if you can only trade oil and dollars you need dollars and so that there's a demand and I think again I think that that's exactly what they're doing. What do you make of the fact that the bricks recently met um in Shanghai and it was the largest meeting of the bricks hosted by China in China. Western nations were not invited of course and it was basically their own version of a brick summit. Uh notably there were several moments when Putin and Modi for example had private meetings in their car away from the press. What do you think could have been discussed behind closed doors? What do you think they're planning right now? Well, they're planning how to deal with Trump's tariffs. You know, Trump has declared a tariff war on on the entire planet, which I I think from a tactical point of view was probably a mistake. I'm not sure what they're thinking and how erratic these tariff agreements and how vague they are and when I I just don't get the approach. which I understand what he's trying to do but basically he's taking on the whole world and the whole world is now going okay the whole non-western world you know excluding the EU and Japan are basically saying we need to find a different way and we have to come together and figure out a new not only a new financial system but new trading relationships and even western allies Canada and Europe and Japan have to be thinking about alternative trade relationships and they A lot of them are saying it and you know that that's though that change happens over long periods of time but what America is basically doing is driving old adversaries to India and China into each other's arms which I thought was a blunder. I didn't think that that was very smart. Um but what the BRICS nations are trying to do is to create an entire new system and court the global south to be part of that system. let and and be and be and trade within that system more than they trade with the American dollar system. I think that that's the whole purpose. You know, when you know Trump's declared war on the world and the bricks are going, China must be loving this. They're just it's like Napoleon said, never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake. And so it's like their their time has come. Do you think Trump is making a mistake or do you have do you think he has some longerterm vision that maybe isn't playing out now? Like he said famously in the press a couple months ago, I'm okay with short-term pain as long as there's long-term gain. >> But his his long-term gain is based on recreating a manufacturing economy in the United States. >> Yeah, >> I think that's going to be very difficult and many corporate leaders have told him so. I don't know. So I don't know what he's thinking about that. And by the way, this this idea that he's playing 3D chess or the administration. I don't get it. Maybe I'm not smart enough, but I don't get this 3D chess they're doing because at the end of the day, they're driving away business. They're driving away trade relationships towards the bricks. They're driving people out of the US dollar. Um I don't understand what how this benefits Americans. I just don't get it. you know, he's create he's going to create inflation in the US with as these tariffs really start to kick in, if you know, if if they stick, if if the Supreme Court basically uh uh sides with the lower courts that they were they were not legal. >> Yeah. >> And I, by the way, I think the Supreme Court will side with Trump as he they have all along for the past few um uh rulings. Um but I just don't understand what they're trying to achieve. I don't get it. I It It doesn't make any sense to me. And I think that they're just creating a lot of problems for for their own economy. I think they're going to create a lot of problems for consumers. You know, you've seen the slowdown in jobs and the economy is slowing down. We're going to go we're going to have a recession at some point. The US is going to have a recession at some point. And you know what? What does that mean when there are job losses and inflation? cost of goods are going up, goods and services going through. It's not very good for the for for the American public. So, I still don't understand what the desired outcome is, what they what they're really thinking. I know what they're saying, but I'm not sure. I believe it um and I'm not sure how are they going to achieve it. >> There's some sort of conflict going on between um the Treasury side and the Federal Reserve side. This is a statement that Treasury Secretary Scottet issued on X just yesterday. He said the Federal Reserve is among the foremost drivers of inequality in America. >> I agree. >> By failing Okay, we'll talk about that. By failing to deliver on its inflation mandate. I'll ask you for your opinion on that. The Fed allowed class and generational disparities to grow worse, expanding the divide between asset owners and lower income Americans. The Fed must regain its independence and stop serving the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. I'll actually comment on every single one of those points. I find the last statement ironic. The Fed must regain its independence while at the same time >> with the exception of that last statement, I agree 100%. Okay. >> 100%. Everything you said until that last statement, 100%. The Fed is responsible for creating the inequality that we're seeing in the US, which then has its own repercussions. the social unrest, the the the uh polarization of the two parties, you know, the all all of the crazy stuff that you're seeing in America today is a function of unhappy people that don't understand why they've been left behind. Like people don't have a grasp of how we got here. And you know, obviously politicians will blame all sorts of things to find the scapegoat, but the true culprits were the Fed basically enabling Congress to keep running these big deficits >> by bailing them out with low rates or printed money. Okay. And yes, I agree with that completely. I I think Congress has no desire whatsoever to cut spending. You know, Elon Musk said this morning, he said it said, "I tried. It was hopeless. There's no hope. There's there's no hope to cut costs at the federal level." And I agree because the system is wired in a way that's almost impossible to address the deficit in any meaningful way. >> You think because you well doge >> attempted >> attempted and Musk just came out this morning. I saw a little video basically saying it it was hopeless. It it'll never happen. >> Okay. >> Okay. And I agree. >> Yeah. >> Because if you think about it, what makes up that federal deficit? 86% of it is either uh non-discretionary spending, which you're not allowed to touch, military spending, which they've actually jacked up. >> Yes. >> And interest. >> Yes. >> So that's the reason Trump I'm telling you, that's the real reason Trump wants interest rates down to 1%. Is cuz if you think about the average service cost of that debt a couple of years ago was 2%. It's not 4%. >> Yeah. It's now a trillion dollars. It's now more than the military spending. >> Exactly. And that's exactly as Neil Ferguson, the economist, has always said when you pass that threshold where your interest costs are more than your military spending, it's the decline of a of an economy. And that's what's happening in the US. >> So Trump doesn't want the interest rate lower just for his real estate business. >> Well, I'm sure I'm sure it's if >> he's $3 billion richer now after his presidency, >> you know, good for him. Um but uh but in terms of the American economy, I I he listen, the US government cannot afford 4% rates on a $37 trillion debt pile that's growing by two trillion a year. >> Yeah, >> it it's unsustainable. >> What what surprised me this year, Frank, was the DXY declined when tariffs were implemented. That was not the case in this first term. Every time Remember when >> cuz the dollar used to be the safe haven and it's not anymore. People are rushing to gold as a safe haven. >> Yeah. >> All and I've been doing this for 45 years. Every time there's a crash or some, you know, crazy thing goes on in the world, everybody rushed to US dollars cuz it was the safest bet. They're not doing that any longer. They're rushing to gold now. Gold is the money, not the dollar. And that's that's exactly what's happening. That's why it went down when, you know, liberation day came along. Do you why do you think there's this bifurcation between global markets where equities in particular risk risk assets and economic growth right now just this week the BLS uh revised down their jobs growth by 911,000 again the biggest jobs revision in many years wage real wage growth is stagnating according to the Atlanta Fed like you pointed out tariff uncertainty still persists for businesses >> why are stocks at all-time highs why why is Bitcoin 116,000 We are living in a bubble uh environment which was fueled by all that cheap money that came in before. Free money, new money, cheap money. Um and the uh psychology of the marketplace in the US is very much casino mentality right now. Everybody's there to get rich. Everybody's feeling FOMO that his neighbor got richer on Bitcoin or something else. AI stocks, the Magnificent 7, you know, the Magnificent 7 reminds me of the Nifty50 from that you had in the '60s. >> Yeah. >> And collapsed in 1969 and brought down the entire market for what 12 13 years. It was a 13-year bare market from 69 to 82. Um, and I think the US stock market is overvalued more so than it ever has been in history. And it's a bubble and all bubbles burst. And the only thing you can predict is when because bubbles can exceed your expectations of when they're going to burst by years sometime. But that bubble will burst. It has no choice. All bubbles burst. >> Where did this liquidity come from this year and last? The Fed wasn't injecting QE. I mean, maybe they tapered off a bit of QT, but we would we didn't see a huge surge in M2. It's growing steadily. Like, you know, M2 is at historical highs as well. >> Trill of course. Yeah, it's growing, but it wasn't, you know, exploding like the during the pandmic. >> I think people are ser they're gambling with debt. There's a lot of leverage in the marketplace. I mean, even at the consumer level, credit card debt just hit an all-time high. Uh, mortgage debt, uh, student loans, everybody, this whole economy is run on debt, >> right? >> Okay. And at some point, it unravels. And it'll be, I'm telling you, David, it'll be an event that'll take place. It could be a geopolitical event, financial collapse of an institution, something will trigger the start of the unwinding and it will spiral quickly because of debt because everybody's on margin. Margin accounts are at all-time highs. Re the retail market has come into this last phase of this bull market. It's all retail buying. The big smart players are selling. The insiders, if you've seen insider filings lately, they're selling. So insiders are selling. The big institutional players aren't selling. Who's buying? It's the retail market. And they're always the one that gets stuffed with left holding the bag at the end of the day. And it's happening right now in front of your eyes. And they're probably playing with margin. Who knows what they're doing? >> I mean, it's only retail people that use margin accounts, >> right? So, do you think retail was primarily the driver of this >> this last this last part of the run? Yes. >> Yeah. >> That's my guess. >> By the way, uh Jerome Pal may not be head of the Fed anymore next year. If you were here, he won't be. Yeah, he won't be. Well, we'll see who replaces him. >> It would be someone that Trump that agrees with Trump that rates will go to 1%. >> Hypothetically, if you replaced him, what would you do? >> I'd replace the Fed, >> I think. No, no. I'm saying, listen, the Fed has been the reason why money has been devalued. Okay? Money's lost all value because of Fed policies over the years. They're not there. Listen, I'm going to be very harsh. I think you can only make one of two assumptions with the Fed. They're either complete idiots or they're or or or they're complicit. And and I don't think they're complete idiots. So, that leaves only one thing. They're complicit. They know what they're doing. They know that their actions when they Greenspan should have known take keeping rates down at whatever was 1% for years and years would lead to a bubble. >> Yeah. Bernani should have known that printing money you could never unwind the balance sheet completely. But he well while while they're in power they always tow the line and say what they're supposed to say. The minute they leave they start to criticize. Okay. So I think they're all complicit. And I think that they're serving Wall Street. They're serving Wall Street's interests. It's a ro it's it's a revolving door of you know the Janney Ellen steps down as the Fed chair and she gets paid what how many millions of dollars for giving speeches to who? Wall Street players. You know it it's a corrupt system. The system is corrupt and it's broken. >> You don't think they've managed unemployment well? >> No. No. >> You mean the numbers? >> Yeah. >> No, they they obviously haven't. They always revise and it's always never revising upwards. is always downwards. So, it's got to tell you something. >> By the way, you as a businessman, how do you view this revision process? Trump fired the commissioner of the BLS. >> I don't I don't like I don't like it because only it it it sends a signal that he's going to put someone in there whether he does or doesn't, it sends a signal he's going to put someone in there that will be more generous with their numbers. Now, whether that's true or not doesn't matter, but that's the implication that is G. So once you start to lose faith in government statistics, whether they're job numbers or the the GDP or whatever, if no one can trust the numbers, it's going to scare away capital into into places where you can't trust the numbers. >> Do you trust the numbers? >> No, I never have. I wrote an entire article about five six years ago about uh the um how the CPI is manipulated and has been manip manipulated over the last 80 year uh sorry since the 1980s to make it seem like inflation is lower. >> Yeah. >> And using all sorts of little tricks. You can look up that article. It's was in the Toronto Star. Um, and I did all the research on it and they use a number of methods to understate inflation. And I always said that whatever the when inflation was 9% last couple years ago, it was actually 18%. If you use the same calculation methods they used in 1982 and they've slowly changed it about 30 times, they've changed it to with a different calculation approach using all sorts of formulas. And if you read my articles, there's actually a very funny formula that actually included in there how they calculated one thing. You can make any sense of this thing. But it's all to understate inflation. And the reason they do that is cuz it's the inflation expectations that cause inflation to go up. If your expectations are that prices are going up, what are you going to do? You're going to spend instead of save, and you're going to you're going to drive that inflation further. you're going to ask for higher wages. Pension plans that are indexed have to be indexed according to the inflation to the CPI. So, governments purposely keep inflation the numbers down as as they report them so that they don't have to pay the extra amounts and so that and the Fed uses the term the anchoring of inflation expectations. And what that means is they have to make the public believe that inflation is under control because if they lose that expectation, it just starts to spiral. >> People will start buying things now in anticipation of higher prices >> and want higher wages. It starts to it it happened in the 1970s. You had this this period of stagflation where infla, you know, wages were chasing prices and it was it just got out of control. And when you see it in economies where there's hyperinflation, it gets really extreme at that point. That's where I remember my father lived in Argentina. We lived in Argentina till I was nine. And he had the good sense to get us out of there in 1966 because he saw the writing on the wall what was happening in the country and brought us to Canada. Sadly, he left. He had some investments with some businesses in Argentina that he was trying to unwind and it took him a few years to unwind to get his money. By the time he got his money, his pesos, they were worth zero. And I mean zero. You, it was toilet paper. So in an inflationary uh hyperin or high high high inflationary environment or hyperinflation, you know, people would take their paychecks, rush to the bank, cash that check, and go buy their groceries that same afternoon before the prices went up. Prices go up daily in a hyperinflationary environment. So, so we've never experienced this in North America. We don't believe it's going to happen. And it happens. It happens. Once you lose control of your currency, it happens. Now, I'm not predicting that, >> but I'm saying it's a possibility. >> You lose control of your currency when there's too much debt, when interest expenses are too high, it's a long way. >> And then you have you have to print money to get yourself out of that problem. See, if if Trump gets his Fed chair in and they drive rates down to 1%, that's the that's a short-term rate. He can't control, the Fed does not control the longer term, the 10-year treasuries unless they use QE. >> And what's QE is printing of money. And I'm predicting if Trump gets his way and rates go to 1%, the long-term rates will go higher. >> Well, by the way, why do you think long-term rates in Europe and in Asia are moving up higher than in the US? >> Because all those economies out of control as well. every everybody's running huge deficits right now and they can't seem to find a way to fund those deficits by raising taxes. You see the the jam the UK got itself into by changing the non-domicile rules >> to it was another pocket they could get some money out of. And what happens? All the millionaires leave. They all leave, you know. And what does that mean for the economy? All the wealthy people in London have gone to Spain or Italy or Portugal or the UAE. And um so they're in a box and there I'm sorry there's no way to get out of this box unless you have a total reset of the monetary system >> and you have to dev people are it's going to hurt. It's going to really hurt. >> I'm going to ask you for your outlook on how the world's going to change the next decade or so. But I'll ask you in a slightly different way. You've been on the right side of history for most of your career. You've been the captain of mining. You've helmed u media companies. You founded Lionsgate. If you had to those are just some examples. If you had to start your own a new company today or a new line of businesses, what industry would you be in? What would that look like? >> Gold mining. >> No, I'm serious because that's the only asset class that I have personally, this is my own opinion, 100% faith in, >> okay? >> Is that gold will survive all the other things that are going to go wrong. So, I'd be a gold miner. I'd own a gold mine >> privately. >> Yeah. >> Just keep my gold. >> Okay. If if that if you give me the choice, I don't see I don't know with AI. >> Yeah. >> I'm not sure about any career in the future. I really don't know where. I think AI and robotics combined are going to be capable of displacing most jobs in the world. Most jobs you can think of are going to be displaced by AI and robotics. There are very few that are that are out of the reach of AI and robotics. lawyers, doctors, you name it. Architects, you know, truck drivers, it's it's all going to be mechanized and driven by AI. And what what do corporations do? They're always looking for cost savings for their shareholders. So, and you're seeing it already with corporations announcing layoffs because they can replace those workers with AI. It's you're seeing it every day. You read Bloomberg or you read CNBC and it's happening. And we were not even started. I mean, this AI craze is moving very very quickly and robotics are moving very very quickly. >> Not that you want to start a robotics company. >> Well, I would love to except that I just don't know anything about it. Yeah, I know about gold mining. >> Your robotics company can mine the gold for you, Frank, and reduce your costs. Um, what do you think of Robert Freeland's claim that in the next 25 years more copper will be needed and mined in the last 10,000 years? >> Yeah, I don't know ex Listen, Robert is he's a good friend of mine and and I love Robert. Um, I I don't know about that number, but certainly in the next 10 to 15 years, you're going to need the number I use, four times as much copper as we've ever used before. So, I don't know how that trans translates. He did a different calculation. >> Well, where I'm going with this, Frank, is are you interested in the base metals business? >> 100%. I've got next metals company we took control over in Botswana. Uh, copper, nickel, >> cobalt, and uh, PGMs. >> Yeah. and uh it was an existing mine. Anyway, long story, but we love it. We think could be a world class mine as we do certain things and I you know that's my exposure. And then I've got a copper exploration play in Colombia which I'm very excited about called copper giant. Um it's exploration so you have to put that caveat in there. There's a lot of risk but we think it's could be a massive massive pfery and it's copper molly. Um, yeah, but mostly I'm in gold and silver. Mostly. >> Are you um are you actively scouting for US deposits under the new Trump administration that's trying to deregulate mining policies? >> We are, but um I'll be honest, I haven't found anything yet. >> Okay. >> But we're looking. >> Yeah. All right. >> But everybody else is as well. >> Yeah. >> And uh what do you the fact that the US is so behind on China, the critical mineral supply chain globally, what does that mean? That means that they have an incredible challenge to catch up. And this is why you're the talk I gave yesterday, I was asked about Africa and what role Africa plays in all this. And I said two things. First of all, Africa represents 30% of all the critical mineral reserves in the world. >> Yeah. >> So it's the most prolific continent for critical minerals. But it's also on the other hand, it's also the most favored region to play as a battleground for competing geopolitical players. And I went through the laundry list yesterday of, you know, you've got China versus the US and they're doing their thing in parts of Africa. You've got the Russia through the Vagner group. You've got even Saudi Arabia and the UAE competing against each other in Sudan. um you've got uh the French being kicked out of the Sahel in Western Africa and and in a lot of these places it ends up in some form of conflict but certainly it's a number of geopolitical players positioning themselves either diplomatically or with you know security forces whatever it takes to access those critical minerals and so it is the favorite battleground which is an Africa is a big continent and it varies widely in terms of governance and security you have some really great countries Bosswana and maybe a Ghana, you know, at the one end of the spectrum. At the other end, you've got Mali. >> Yeah. >> And you've got Sudan, which is in the middle of a civil war. Um, with a number of geopolitical players playing different roles. So, yeah, it's you got to be you got to be very selective. But Africa's, you know, it's an amazingly rich continent. >> Yeah. And the the lithium and critical minerals surrounding batteries, where is the right jurisdiction to be in now globally for that sector? with lithium. I don't I'm not a player in lithium. I obviously Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. That's that's where the reserves are. Yeah. >> And you know, China's in there, United States is in there making >> not veiled threats, but you know, making suggestions about the way the these countries should. >> What What do you think of the Department of Defense taking positions, equity stakes in some precious met not precious metals, but um critical mineral companies in the US? They're m they're mimicking China. That's all I can say. And I think you got to understand if you believe what Freeland said and I do that we're going to have this huge deficit especially in copper. >> Yeah. >> And you're behind the eightball. >> What are you going to do? You you got to move quickly and you got to do things that were might have been considered unconventional a few years ago. Sure. But they're desperate. They need to secure those mineral supply and start to figure out the processing and refining which is the part that China really controls because it's not just you know you can go find all the rare earths you need but if you don't have the processing which China controls most of it >> it's useless to you >> well if you were an investor how would you feel about that do you do do you like that >> well I looking at it from just a dispassionate point of view if I believe that all these things that I just said and Freeland said are True. I want to own a copper mine. >> Sure. >> I want to own a cobalt mine. Okay. >> Nickel, you know, you you need to own everything that's used in either uh clean energy transition, batteries, etc. Defense, you know, >> and by the way, the government is not just doing this with mining companies. They're taking they want to take stakes in Nvidia, right? They want revenue share. >> Yeah. >> Intel as well. They want to stake in Intel. >> Yeah. I can only address the uh the minerals part of it. Um but I understand why they would do it. You know, it's it's not the capitalist system as America's known all these years, but you know, desperate times require desperate measures. >> Let's let's let's end on your outlook for the future. I've been told by some economists, this is a theory that there's going to be a vi bifurcation of the world. There's going to be a decoupling between the west and the east, and there's going to be two trading blocks. the east bricks and then NATO in the west. How do you do business in that environment if it were true? >> Well, it is true. It's happening. >> Sure, >> it's happening. Now, the question is which way the global south goes in terms of and I think from their perspective, they would like to have relationships with both the west and and the bricks. So, it's really what you're thinking, what you're talking about is the US and Europe versus China, India and Russia and Brazil, you know, in terms of who's pushing for a change. But how do you do business in it? Well, I don't know. It's day by day. I mean, I don't know how the US is going to react if things really go sideways. And there is a real run on the US dollar. Um, they've already made threats, you know, about anybody that undermines America's interest with respect to the dollar, it's going to get tariffed 100%. Trump made that threat a few months ago. um you don't know how you know as I said yesterday in in a talk I said it is my opinion that the US dollar reserve status is as important as its military in terms of its national security and my fear is that if they lose the former they're going to resort to the latter to get their way. >> Yeah. >> And you know what it's been done in the past and the only thing that really scares me is war. You know we can get through difficult economic times. It's happened before, but the world is on such shaky ground right now, especially with this China US rivalry, and then you got the Middle East, you got Russia with Europe. It's on fragile ground at the moment. And I and you know, if if if things really start to fall apart, you know, it could be an excuse for war. Always has been in the past. History has history has taught us actually that uh whenever there's not one superpower but a you know one not one hedgeman >> any one rising >> yes there's going to be a rising conflict and especially when there's multiple competing superpowers that's when conflict arise >> yeah and that's scary in today's world that's really scary >> yeah and then that's that's where gold comes in >> that's where gold comes in but you listen gold's not going to save you in a world war okay you know if it gets that bad You could have gold, you might as well have cans of tuna and, you know, guns and, you know, whatever else you need. I mean, we hope it doesn't get there. >> Has anyone tried to final question, has anyone tried to convince it to mine Bitcoin? >> Yeah, lots of people. >> Yeah. And what did you say? >> No. >> Have you Are you changing your mind now? It's at 100,000. >> No. Cuz I don't It's to me it's not This is the the part that I always get the people misunderstand what I'm saying. Okay. You want to buy Bitcoin because you think it's going higher and it has performed really well, >> right? >> Go for it. But don't tell me that Bitcoin is gold cuz it doesn't behave like gold. >> Sure. >> And I don't care what Michael Sailor can come up with every reason under the sun why gold is going to zero. And I think some of the stuff that he says would make Jordan Belelfford blush. Okay? And I mean he and and a lot of the Bitcoin maxis have these outrageous ideas about where Bitcoin is going. I've never said that I had anything against Bitcoin. I just don't believe it's gold. It's not the same. And why is every central bank in the world and every big sovereign player buying gold in instead of Bitcoin, you know, and I you know, and I'm not saying that Bitcoin is going to go away, but don't tell me it's gold. It's something. But every time they come up with a a reason, a utility to it, and it doesn't work. The last one was, oh, you know, the US is going to create a Bitcoin reserve. BS. I called BS on that right away. It wasn't feasible. It wasn't, it wasn't logical. Now they're playing this corporate treasury game, which is run its course now, and all these stocks are collapsing now below their net asset value of what they bought the Bitcoin for. So, that game is over. And at some point that those bit that Bitcoin that was purchased is going to unwind. I suspect that Bitcoin is going to have a correction to now get rid of all of that that was bought on speculation that it was going higher because of the corporate treasury strategy that that Michael Sailor started. Um so now he's got to come up with a new thing. I don't know what that's going to be. It's not a currency. It's not useful as a currency, which was the original plan. >> Yeah. Um, and it's it may, you know, he's touting a store of value that remains to be tested in a crisis. Okay? Cuz you can only test store value, true store value when you have a crisis. So, Bitcoin has not had that yet. Like a real crisis when people panic and they want to sell everything. >> Yeah. >> Let's see what happens to Bitcoin then versus gold. And you know, I may be wrong and they may may both go up or they may both go down, but my guess is that gold will go up after a crisis more so than Bitcoin. >> Let's just take the micro strategy business model would apply it to gold. Would that work? Issuing debt to acquire gold. In theory, your company would trade higher than the gold nav in your balance sheet. >> Why isn't it being done? >> It would lots of people are in the in the It's in the works. Oh, >> okay. >> It's in the works. Lots of people are doing it. >> What's next for uh the Fury Group? What's next for you? >> We are so busy right now. We have um we've I think we have about 10 companies under our stable in various parts of the world doing different things. We're getting a lot obviously because of our the reputation, our brand, the fact that we're able to raise money when other people can't. Um we're seeing a lot of deal flow like a lot. And the trick now and especi now especially with the the gold place price ramping up. Now the trick is to choose the good ones, the good opportunities. We know how to assemble management teams. We know how to raise capital. We know how to market stories. Uh we know the M&A game. Um so we're busy. We're extremely busy. And um and I suspect that we're in the beginnings of a bull market in gold and silver that's going to last a number of years. Okay. until we get a reset. And I have no idea exactly what that reset will look like, but I guarantee you gold will have a role. >> Yeah. And where do you see you fit into that role in the next 5 years? >> I'm just going to keep doing what I love, creating mining companies, you know, creating uh creating wealth um and running my foundations. I have four different foundations doing different things around the world. >> That's the biggest part of my life. And so I need to make money to do those things, >> right? >> So I like making money in the in the mining business and then giving it away. >> Yeah. You're big on philanthropy. So we appreciate that. I want to ask you one final question before we go. In theory, what would make you sell your gold? What would have to happen in the world such that you would think, okay, it's time to rotate? I think every every bull market since 1971, there's been three, okay? 71 to 80, 2001 to 2011 and the one that started when gold broke 1900 just recently. Every gold market has a parabolic move at the end. 1971 Yes. >> to in 1980 it shot from 500 to 850 like overnight. >> Yeah. In 2011, it shot from,00 to,900 practically overnight. It was just a straight line up. When you see that happen, >> take some profits. >> All right. >> Thank you very much, Frank. I really appreciate your time. >> We appreciate you. >> Thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe, follow Frank down in the links below.