'It's a PSYOP' – Bankers' Last Ditch SILVER Smash Won't Hold: Mario Innecco
Summary
Silver Market: Guest argues the dramatic silver selloff is a paper-driven anomaly on COMEX/OTC, not reflective of physical markets.
Market Structure: Claims bullion banks flooded paper shorts and CME failed to trigger circuit breakers, highlighting systemic favoritism toward large financial institutions.
Physical vs. Paper: Notes heavy delivery demand on COMEX, shrinking registered inventories, and a persistent China premium for silver, reinforcing tightness in physical supply.
Gold vs. Silver: While gold also corrected, the guest expects silver to outperform on the rebound despite ongoing central bank support for gold.
Macro Risks: Rising debt, geopolitical instability, and declining trust in institutions raise odds of hyperinflation and currency debasement.
Policy Capture: Critiques influence of major banks and exchanges (e.g., JPMorgan, CME, BlackRock) and regulatory inconsistencies, viewing them as risks to fair price discovery.
Investor Stance: Advocates holding/adding physical gold and silver as sound money and a hedge, with U.S. rare minerals initiatives seen as supportive tailwinds.
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where we break down commodities markets, sound money principles and geopolitics all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is February 2nd, 2026 and I'm thrilled to be joined by Mario Inko, a veteran of the industry who worked for major financial institutions in London for over 20 years and is currently the host of the Manco 64 YouTube channel. Mario believes the recent dramatic correction in the silver price is a temporary anomaly driven by the ComX itself along with the parasitic banker class determined to scare the public away from sound money. Ultimately, Mario thinks reality will prevail over fiat illusions and he sees the potential for global hyperinflation as the political elites lose their grasp on power and public confidence is shattered. All of this and so much more ahead in my conversation with Mario and Ekko. Mario and Ekko, great to have you back on Commodity Culture once again. Now, the first question of course is about the silver market. I'd love for you to speculate with us for us in terms of the drop in silver on the last trading day of last week crashing around 25% in a single day. So far today, we've seen a further drop. We were down 11 12%. I think now we're down around 8%. Um, what on earth is going on with silver at the moment? >> Well, not much really. Uh, at least not my silver coin. It's still a silver dollar. I I think it's just a lot of shenanigans in the comx uh and over-the-counter uh foreign exchange market based in New York and London. And that's what it's about. And uh on Friday, yes, silver came off uh like early in the day London time down to like uh 95 I think and then it re rebounded a little bit and uh and then after uh the physical market in London kind of uh uh closed uh a after like 3:30 uh p.m. London or 10 10:30 a.m. New York time. uh the bullion banks, you know, and whoever uh came in and uh flooded the market with paper shorts and that took the market down to like 73 from like uh almost 100 in a matter of uh minutes or and it's crazy and uh it scares people off and I think of course silver had rallied strongly from like uh the end of December till uh Thursday it made a high at 121. We were down in the low70s uh at the end of last year. So yeah, it needed a correction, but I think it was used by by the usual suspects to accentuate it even more to try to uh scare off scare off the people that are going on to ComX and buying like um contracts for example January contracts which was in the front month they bought almost 10 thou well they bought 10,000 they took almost 10,000 contracts of delivery which is 50 million ounces which is unheard of for a January contract. And I see that in February, they're already uh doing the same. They've already uh asked for over 2,000 um uh contracts in delivery the first two days of February. And um what the bullion banks, I think, are trying to do is um discourage these people by yeah creating an artificial price. uh so that they'll stop trying to clear out the comx of its registered silver inventory and the LBMA for that matter as well. A and uh we've noticed as well uh Jesse that the silver price in China is still the pre the premium's still there. I think it's still trading around 100 now. It has come off of course but uh big discrepancy. So I I think that's what's going on. Um unfortunately it's going to uh discourage a lot of people to get involved and maybe even the people who got in um late uh who thought it was a good thing to do. Even people who are just buying physical uh they're getting out. I think a lot of people are concerned that this is like 1980 and 2011 and silver is going to drop and we're never going to see it go back up again. I I I'm holding uh holding to my gun my guns and uh I believe we're going a lot higher because the fundamentals haven't changed. Uh if anything, things are getting worse uh geopolitically, economically, uh socially. I mean, there's so much mess going on, not just uh in the US, but also in Canada, in the UK, the whole of the West is like seems to be crumbling apart. And uh yeah, I don't trust uh the people in charge uh the politicians nor the bankers because the bankers seem to be in charge. Uh Jesse, I saw a story in the FT uh that u one of the uh guys in the uh that list I don't like to to to use the name of the list, but everyone knows the list I'm talking about that's just come out. Well, there there was a a minister in the UK. Uh he became u ambassador to the US last year. He's had to resign. He resigned months ago from that because he was in that list. And uh back in 2009, he was giving information to JP Morgan uh about UK policy before anyone knew about it. So yeah, the bankers and the politicians are in bed together and I don't trust them. So, I'm holding on to my gold and silver. Uh probably hopefully try to get some more if anything. So, that's how I see this um these last couple of days. And uh I've said to uh viewers in the past of my channel that you need to uh be even keel, have an even keel. You know, when gold and silver are going up like they have, keep cool. Uh don't get too cocky. And then the same thing now just um yeah just um it's a SCOP really. They they don't want the general public to um be financially independent and um and and they do that. They don't care. And also they're trying to cover them you know their financial situation because uh they have huge uh huge short positions in in paper and if anything this is probably exacerbated it and uh I don't think the big uh institutional even central bank uh buyers are going to stop. They don't care about a little correction in silver. They're going to come back and uh try to get more physical. I I saw that President uh Trump just announced a 12 billion dollar u fund to secure uh rare minerals. I I mean so yeah, silver's part of that and uh so I think it's uh yeah the wrong time to get out. >> Very great summary. We are going to get into the list a little bit later because I think everything is connected here when it comes to the monetary system and these people who are in charge pulling the levers of power. But I I want to get back to last week Friday because from what I understand and David Jensen wrote about this recently circuit breakers should have kicked in at the CME Comx when silver dropped so dramatically in such a short amount of time. I want to read a quote from David Substack. He said what the CME Comx calls dynamic circuit breakers automatically kick in when the price of silver drops or rises by 10% on a rolling 1 hour basis. We can see that from 12:30 to 1:30 Eastern time PM the price of silver both cash spot and futures ranged between $91 and $75 representing an 18% range. And yet the CME Comx automatic circuit breakers were not activated nor announced by the CME. So if what David alleges here is true, this could indicate that the exchange is heavily complicit in this sort of price suppression. Is that how you see things? >> Yeah, I mean they've been doing it for decades. They they did the same u with the Hunt brothers. U they always favor the the big banks and the big dealers. And um do you remember I think it was Boxing Day which is December 26. Uh I think silver uh was up like 10 cents more than 10% and they came out and they closed the market for for like six hours. It wasn't even a circuit breaker and they used this excuse of uh this uh data center that there was a glitch or something. Uh but uh yeah, Friday nothing right um was down more than 10%. I I I saw a headline today uh on X that u uh one of the Chinese markets, I don't know if it was the Shanghai gold or futures exchange, they used the circuit breakers today to to to halt because silver went down quite a bit. So, they're doing their job. But, uh yeah, they they will do uh whatever it takes uh to help uh the bankers because the bankers really are in charge. uh if you I mean the uh COMX CME uh it's now a public company. It used to be owned by the by the yeah the the people who traded in the exchange. You could be a you could be a partner. You could have gone and and bought you know a seat on the COMX but now it's owned all by the big financial institutions like Black Rockck and others. I haven't looked exactly, but uh they're gonna favor um yeah, they're gonna favor these people. And if they're in trouble, uh they're going to Yeah, they're going to play dirty. Uh they they played dirty back in 2021 uh on the in the first silver squeeze movement. I mean, the head of the CFTC even said, "Oh, we had to tamp down uh the the price of silver." I mean for the regulator to say that uh so yeah no uh David Jensen is right um and uh I think even today they they didn't use it. I mean we were down quite a bit earlier and I didn't see the market stopping. Maybe it did. But um yeah, they'll uh I I think Jesse, what this shows is that they're really desperate and uh but I don't think it's going to work because we're not in 1980 anymore. We're in 2026 and there's a lot more interest in silver and a lot more exchanges where people could move to to buy real physical silver and gold. uh Comx and LBMA if they keep keep up with their shenanigans uh they'll be history. >> The sponsor of today's episode is Arc Silver Gold Osmium. Owner Ian Everard is praised even by his competitors as one of the most honest and level-headed bullion dealers in the United States. They have some great prices. You can see some of them displayed right now on screen. Take advantage of these specials today by reaching out to Ian at 3072649441 or by email at Ianarchsgo.com. Make sure to tell them of course that Commodity Culture sent you. And now back to the interview. Very well said. And I do want to go back to your comment about this isn't 1980 anymore because, you know, it does bring to mind the the recent price action, the hockey stick parabolic rise, the dramatic fall on the other side. I'm sure many are thinking the same thing that I am, that it kind of looks similar to 1980 in 2011. Um, if we look back though and adjust the 1980 high to today's prices, we have not yet retraced that level, which is a little over $200, I believe. What What are your thoughts there? Because obviously the the narrative out there and all of the evidence you've you've presented and people like David Jensen when it comes to the comx and the price suppression is very real, but the even if it is real, sometimes the narrative doesn't get reflected in the price of an asset. So, what wh why do you think that this time we're going to be able to to recover as opposed to staying flat for decades as happened after the 1980 high? >> Yeah. Well, um a lot of people show the long-term charts or they don't even show charts. They just say, "Oh, in 1980 it reached that high in 2011 and then it dropped." But if you look at a really long-term chart of gold for example from 1970 till now and logarithmic because a lot of times they they show these uh like a normal charts which don't uh don't reflect the price on a percentage basis and they look really steep. They look like a a massive bubble. Uh but uh I mean the the chart of gold uh monthly going back to 1970. Yes, it it's taking it's taken off since the beginning of uh well actually 2024. Uh and yeah, it's really taken off in 2025 and six. But uh if you look at what it did in the 70s, we're not even like u we haven't even matched what uh the price did in the 70s. uh and uh I don't uh discount the uh fact that we need uh corrections. I even said uh uh about a month or 6 weeks ago when gold was like taking off when it broke 43 4,400 and it was trading around 48 that I I thought we could go uh pretty much non-stop to around 5354 and that we could see a correction and I guess we did but I I think uh yeah the the bankers they used it as an excuse to uh smack it even more. Uh but uh yeah, the the reason I I think it's going to be different this time is that the fundamentals are still there. The debt is still there. Um the uh leverage in the U financial system is still there. Um geopolitically uh we just saw China announced this weekend Xinping that they really want to push their currency as the major reserve currency. So that's a challenge to the dollar. uh we're seeing even allies of the United States not very happy with uh their the treatment that President Trump is uh like uh serving them, right? And uh they don't want to be also as dependent on the dollar. So yeah, and I don't really see any way out. Uh people are talking about Wars. I don't know if you want to go into him now that he's going to be like Paul Vulker and I think that's complete uh baloney to be honest because Paul Vulker uh he uh yeah he let rates go to 20% I think the discount rate and at the time though the debt to GDP was 35%. And you had a double really bad recession in 1980 and then another one in 81. it was like a double dip and Jimmy Carter lost the election in 1980 because of that. So if um Wars is going to be tough and uh wind down the balance sheet uh and uh I've heard people say that oh he's going to help uh Main Street, not Wall Street. But uh I don't see how he can do both. Uh I mean there is one thing that he could do to help Main Street uh and that would only be like a a sugar rush, temporary sugar rush and that would be to revalue the statutory price of uh gold uh like from 4222 to around where we're now. And I've calculated that the Treasury we get a $1.2 trillion windfall. uh they could use that to buy back uh some of the six uh I think 4 trillion four odd 4 trillion or so that the Fed owns of treasuries. They could do that and then send some some of it as well. Send a check to the people at the bottom who are suffering and then they might re you know do well in November this year the election. But uh yeah, if you look at what he said, he thinks rates should be down to around two or three or 4%, two or three. So he he sees room for rate cuts. So uh I'm not sure how he wants to uh do quantitative tightening. I I mean that's the opposite of loosening policy. So I think uh people use that as well or maybe the algorithms saw well war is going to be chairman but why why would Trump bring in someone that's really hawkish if he was having such a an ugly battle with uh J Pal for like over a year. um you know they opened a criminal investigation uh you know into him. Why do you really think he's going to pick someone uh Trump is going to pick uh someone that's going to be like even worse than POW? Because PA has been cutting rates. So yeah, that's that's why I think uh things are not uh like 1980 and 2011. Uh, that's the way I see it. I could be wrong, but uh, you know, I'm putting I'm keeping my uh, money where my mouth is, like my my medals. I uh, the last place I want to put too much money in, uh, or fiat currency in is with the banks. >> Yeah, and that's a great point about Wars. Why would he be, you know, hawkish when Trump has been going after Powell to the point of criminally investigating him? Now, I have zero sympathy for Jay Powell. He's an evil person, guys. All these people are evil, and they're out to enrich themselves in their inner circles and consolidate their own power at the expense of the citizens. None of these people have anybody's best interest at heart. So, people need to wake up to that fact first and foremost. But what do you make of this criminal investigation into Jay Powell? He he believes it's politically motivated hit job based on the fact that he's not lowering interest rates in the face of President Trump's demands. Now, some people will point out this isn't the first time that the Fed chair and and a sitting US president have been in conflict um and have been asked to to lower rates, but what what do you make of that? >> Yeah, I think now that is not as important anymore because he's picked his new candidate and uh I'm not sure how Yeah. what's going to come out of that. Um yeah, unless pal were to like raise rates in the next meeting, I think he'll be okay and he just retire from the Fed and probably get a job at Black Rockck or some Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about gold specifically for a moment here because also falling quite hard uh but only 9% as opposed to silver's massive drop. Currently on the day, we're down around 4.5%. So we're at around $4,600 an ounce. Um, so if we compare gold's drop to that of silver, do you think gold could perhaps recover faster given central bank buying and all the other tailwinds around gold kind of being reintroduced to the monetary system? Not obviously as a goldback currency or anything, but we're just seeing its importance in terms of central bank buying Basil 3 and all of the government debt and deficits. Gold ro gold's role as money seems to be shining more than ever. Do you think that will help it more than silver when it comes to recovering from this correction? >> Actually, I don't I think silver silver is really on a it's a different kind of energy now. silver after we broke 50 and uh so I think uh when silver recovers uh it's going to really motor ahead. Not that gold won't either, but I think uh yeah, when things pick up again, silver will do even better. So yeah. >> Well, let's talk about the list because it seems like everybody in Washington is implicated here. We are at a point where it's looking more and more like a huge portion of the political and corporate elite in the US and perhaps around the world are all child abusing monsters and the literal personification of evil which explains a lot about the monetary system that we live under and just the way everything is set up. Do you expect anyone to be held accountable here? And the reason I'm asking you about this specifically cuz I saw you tweeting about it recently, so I really wanted to get your take. Will they just keep sweeping it under the rug? Or will they, as the damning evidence keeps mounting, who's prosecuting anybody because everybody seems to be complicit and and have leverage over everybody else due to all these horrible things everybody did. Do you think they're just going to let the files come out and say, you know what, either you all start a revolution or nothing's going to happen here? >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it would be uh nice to see uh like some very uh like influential and wealthy people that are on that list. Uh and if they're tried and found guilty that they would be uh put in jail or even worse, I mean in the US you have capital punishment. We don't here in the UK. Uh but uh and that's what Thomas Massie who who's been instrumental in getting that list out uh that's what he said. Uh when we see like a a billionaire friend of Trump or whoever uh in an orange suit doing a perp walk, then we know that justice is being done. But u um they they could also find some kind of massive crisis, create a massive crisis that overwhelms uh all the all the talk about this list and uh who who's on it. Uh that people will forget about it because there will be some kind of existential crisis that they'll come up with. you know, a little bit like uh on 911, the day before 911, and I didn't even know it at the time. It was only years later that I learned that Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, made a speech and he said the Pentagon couldn't account for $2.3 trillion. And that was in 2001. And uh the next day a plane hit the Pentagon exactly where the accounting uh department was. Uh and uh no one talked about that missing 2.3 trillion uh until years later when it was too late. So that what I'm trying to say here, yeah, beware of some kind of u major false flag event to Yeah. to and if they don't, there could be, you know, like you said, maybe justice will be done. Maybe we need some kind of Nuremberg style trial for all these people. But uh I'm not holding my breath. It it seems like um in other countries, even in France, they they do arrest politicians, but in the US and the UK, that never seems to happen. They always seem to be above the law. And um I think that's what you know people are getting tired of that or not even tired but they it's really bad for the whole uh system for society for the economy because if if people don't trust the people in charge uh things get really messy and uh that's another reason why I think it's good to have gold and silver because gold and silver are incorruptible and they're neutral. They're, you know, they're not dependent on these people's uh promises or anything like that. So, yeah, this uh list is quite amazing. You know, I'm not surprised because I've heard, you know, and from what I've read from history that uh one way to keep u the public divided is to uh have this political theater. And usually the people in charge who are supposedly in charge in politics are basically uh puppets of the the the powers behind the scene and they usually uh they usually recruit people that they can control and people who are blackmailable are usually a lot easier to control. So I'm not surprised this is all coming out though. you know, it's uh I I'm just uh surprised it has come out actually and it took uh Thomas Massie to do it because uh Trump wasn't interested anymore and like uh people were saying, "Oh, this file this Epstein uh client list doesn't exist. It's uh it's not real." But it is. >> Yeah. And speaking of people being held to account, you're absolutely right there. In the US, the UK, Canada especially as well, uh politicians are not held to account for crimes. Justin Trudeau was it was finally decided by the Court of Appeals in Canada that he illegally evoked the Emergencies Act to crush a peaceful protest and he's sailing around on a yacht with Katy Perry going to Davos. In South Korea, their former president for one day declared martial law. Nobody was hurt. Nothing bad happened as a result in terms of people being injured or anything like that. He's being thrown in jail for 5 years in South Korea for that one day of declaring martial law unlawfully. And in Canada, they do this. And I mean, it's it's it's completely beyond the pale at this point. in China which is supposed to be a horrible communist country uh they really punish like uh anyone involved in corruption or you know and they punish it you know it's the ultimate punishment they give them in China for corruption and all that I'm not saying China's perfect but uh uh unfortunately there's no one to guard the guards in in the US or in the west uh yeah there's no rule of law for the the people at the top and um yeah that that's a dangerous uh cocktail I would say uh but it the symptom uh the symptom is uh normal for times of uh you know the monetary and uh financial times that we live in and by that I mean you know the insurmountable amount of debt the money printing uh political ical uh and geopolitical chaos. And that's why I still think we're going to get um hyperinflation eventually. People are going to lose uh faith and confidence in in these people. Uh so I'm not sure what difference Kevin Morris is going to make. Even he was supposedly I'm not sure. I haven't looked, but I I've heard that he's on that list, too. >> Yeah. And I I want to jump to a thought that just came to my mind, which is The Great Taking, David Rogers Web. This is a very fascinating book. I believe it came out one or two years ago. I I don't remember exactly. I know we've had discussions about it. Um maybe on this show or on the VR media channel as well. Now this is basically a legal framework that has been established worldwide by the elite, the bankers, the people pulling the levers of power behind them, the elite families of this world to basically seize all securities uh potentially. And there's a legal framework through which to do it because when you buy a stock in a company, you don't actually have direct ownership of that stock anymore. It used to work that way, but now there's different intermediaries and you just have a claim on ownership. um kind of like when you deposit your money in the bank and there's potentially a mechanism according to web that will allow those assets to be seized. Could that potentially be their escape hatch or what if if this list really turns into something where we start to see so many people implicated and it looks like justice could be served or there will be repercussions that they could perhaps use that nuclear option to seize all of the securities. What What are your thoughts there? Well, I I guess the u the uh outcome of this uh list if things get really um tumultuous and people revolt and the system implodes, people lose complete face, the markets would collapse. I'm not even sure if the great taking would work in that case. Uh but uh yeah, the great taking is more for a deflationary, you know, collapse, a run-of-the-mill deflationary collapse, not a not a Mad Max societal breakdown because of uh you know, people actually realizing cuz a lot of us like you and me know about this, but uh I would say 99% of the people, maybe a little less, have no clue. uh they they think that our leaders and um yeah and the bankers they you know they they're looking after their interests which is funny isn't it? So yeah I'm not even sure that the the great taking would work in such a you know if it gets really bad it might not work. U so even having uh paper certificates for stocks might not work. uh gold and silver will work, but you're going to have to work hard to keep a hold of it because if there's no law and order, if there is chaos everywhere, you know, if it's like the wild west, uh yeah, that that's the uh that's the danger. Well, walk us through the hyperinflation scenario that you were laying out before because I believe we're reaching a critical moment in global history right now. We're seeing conflicts around the world mounting, this government corruption being thrown in the face of citizens, the push for censorship, destruction of free speech, manipulated markets, the broken fiat currency system, and of course the list. Basically, satanic people doing horrible things. Um, the only solution I see is the complete destruction of the current political and monetary system. Whether that's forced through a revolution or happens through a collapse as people lose complete confidence in both the currency and the parasites, the political class behind the issuance of that currency. So that makes sense that that would then lead to a hyperinflationary scenario. I guess the question is what will that look like? boots on the ground and is is the real solution here for those who could potentially see this coming stack gold and silver perhaps store food and water as well in case there's shortages of those as well. Um what what are your thoughts on that? >> Yeah, I mean it would be the French Revolution to the power of 10 I guess. Yeah, it would be really chaotic I would say. And uh I guess there will be some places in the world that might be slightly better like but they will be uh inaccessible for for most people. Only the the very wealthy that think ahead don't wait until it happens. But yeah, it's going to be yeah I I just hope it doesn't happen that some you know there is some justice done and people uh are uh yeah are not uh un so unhappy with their leaders that the you know the whole system breaks down but you know the hyperinflation I I think it's a it's a it's the best thing that could happen because if you destroy the currency these people uh they don't have access to to to the financial uh power that fiat currency gives them. You know, I would would say that prior to 1971, I'm not saying uh the elites were perfect, but I I don't think there was as much corruption and nefarious activity as there has been. uh because uh under uh sound money system it's uh uh politicians have to think twice before they spend uh public funds willy-nilly, you know, and uh so yeah, I think it would be a good good thing. It would probably uh help stop a lot of the corruption and all the wrongdoing that is is going on still now, I would say. Yeah, there would just be a period of pain in between that transition as as we switch to a new system and a a lot of people will get hurt there, which is why I think obviously gold and silver having sound money outside of counterparty risk in that event is so important. Uh Mario, tell us about the Monco 64 YouTube channel and anywhere else people can follow you online. >> Yeah, I I mean uh I'm the home of alternative economics and contrarian views. I I try to uh look at things uh yeah on a contr contr with a contrarian tilt. Uh I'm a proponent of um the Austrian school of economics like sound money, small government, free markets. Um yeah, and sound money of course means no fiat currency. Uh yeah, I've been posting content since late 2015. Yeah. and uh literally every day. Um so yeah, there's plenty of stuff there and uh I'm on uh Twitter or X as well, man. >> Great. I'll put links to the Manco 64 YouTube channel as well as your X account in the description below. Thank you once again, Mario. It's been a blast. Thanks for coming on. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you for joining us today. Our sponsor Arc Silver Gold OBM has some great prices on silver bullion products. You can see them on screen right now. These are subject to change. And while supplies last, reach out to owner Ian Everard today at 307264-9441 or by email at ianarchsggo.com and make sure to tell him that commodity culture sent you. And pick up your stack silver, not fiat t-shirt. Now is a better time than ever to reiterate your belief in sound money and do it with style. Use the link in the description below and I'll see you guys in the next episode. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up tod date with the latest episodes.
'It's a PSYOP' – Bankers' Last Ditch SILVER Smash Won't Hold: Mario Innecco
Summary
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where we break down commodities markets, sound money principles and geopolitics all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is February 2nd, 2026 and I'm thrilled to be joined by Mario Inko, a veteran of the industry who worked for major financial institutions in London for over 20 years and is currently the host of the Manco 64 YouTube channel. Mario believes the recent dramatic correction in the silver price is a temporary anomaly driven by the ComX itself along with the parasitic banker class determined to scare the public away from sound money. Ultimately, Mario thinks reality will prevail over fiat illusions and he sees the potential for global hyperinflation as the political elites lose their grasp on power and public confidence is shattered. All of this and so much more ahead in my conversation with Mario and Ekko. Mario and Ekko, great to have you back on Commodity Culture once again. Now, the first question of course is about the silver market. I'd love for you to speculate with us for us in terms of the drop in silver on the last trading day of last week crashing around 25% in a single day. So far today, we've seen a further drop. We were down 11 12%. I think now we're down around 8%. Um, what on earth is going on with silver at the moment? >> Well, not much really. Uh, at least not my silver coin. It's still a silver dollar. I I think it's just a lot of shenanigans in the comx uh and over-the-counter uh foreign exchange market based in New York and London. And that's what it's about. And uh on Friday, yes, silver came off uh like early in the day London time down to like uh 95 I think and then it re rebounded a little bit and uh and then after uh the physical market in London kind of uh uh closed uh a after like 3:30 uh p.m. London or 10 10:30 a.m. New York time. uh the bullion banks, you know, and whoever uh came in and uh flooded the market with paper shorts and that took the market down to like 73 from like uh almost 100 in a matter of uh minutes or and it's crazy and uh it scares people off and I think of course silver had rallied strongly from like uh the end of December till uh Thursday it made a high at 121. We were down in the low70s uh at the end of last year. So yeah, it needed a correction, but I think it was used by by the usual suspects to accentuate it even more to try to uh scare off scare off the people that are going on to ComX and buying like um contracts for example January contracts which was in the front month they bought almost 10 thou well they bought 10,000 they took almost 10,000 contracts of delivery which is 50 million ounces which is unheard of for a January contract. And I see that in February, they're already uh doing the same. They've already uh asked for over 2,000 um uh contracts in delivery the first two days of February. And um what the bullion banks, I think, are trying to do is um discourage these people by yeah creating an artificial price. uh so that they'll stop trying to clear out the comx of its registered silver inventory and the LBMA for that matter as well. A and uh we've noticed as well uh Jesse that the silver price in China is still the pre the premium's still there. I think it's still trading around 100 now. It has come off of course but uh big discrepancy. So I I think that's what's going on. Um unfortunately it's going to uh discourage a lot of people to get involved and maybe even the people who got in um late uh who thought it was a good thing to do. Even people who are just buying physical uh they're getting out. I think a lot of people are concerned that this is like 1980 and 2011 and silver is going to drop and we're never going to see it go back up again. I I I'm holding uh holding to my gun my guns and uh I believe we're going a lot higher because the fundamentals haven't changed. Uh if anything, things are getting worse uh geopolitically, economically, uh socially. I mean, there's so much mess going on, not just uh in the US, but also in Canada, in the UK, the whole of the West is like seems to be crumbling apart. And uh yeah, I don't trust uh the people in charge uh the politicians nor the bankers because the bankers seem to be in charge. Uh Jesse, I saw a story in the FT uh that u one of the uh guys in the uh that list I don't like to to to use the name of the list, but everyone knows the list I'm talking about that's just come out. Well, there there was a a minister in the UK. Uh he became u ambassador to the US last year. He's had to resign. He resigned months ago from that because he was in that list. And uh back in 2009, he was giving information to JP Morgan uh about UK policy before anyone knew about it. So yeah, the bankers and the politicians are in bed together and I don't trust them. So, I'm holding on to my gold and silver. Uh probably hopefully try to get some more if anything. So, that's how I see this um these last couple of days. And uh I've said to uh viewers in the past of my channel that you need to uh be even keel, have an even keel. You know, when gold and silver are going up like they have, keep cool. Uh don't get too cocky. And then the same thing now just um yeah just um it's a SCOP really. They they don't want the general public to um be financially independent and um and and they do that. They don't care. And also they're trying to cover them you know their financial situation because uh they have huge uh huge short positions in in paper and if anything this is probably exacerbated it and uh I don't think the big uh institutional even central bank uh buyers are going to stop. They don't care about a little correction in silver. They're going to come back and uh try to get more physical. I I saw that President uh Trump just announced a 12 billion dollar u fund to secure uh rare minerals. I I mean so yeah, silver's part of that and uh so I think it's uh yeah the wrong time to get out. >> Very great summary. We are going to get into the list a little bit later because I think everything is connected here when it comes to the monetary system and these people who are in charge pulling the levers of power. But I I want to get back to last week Friday because from what I understand and David Jensen wrote about this recently circuit breakers should have kicked in at the CME Comx when silver dropped so dramatically in such a short amount of time. I want to read a quote from David Substack. He said what the CME Comx calls dynamic circuit breakers automatically kick in when the price of silver drops or rises by 10% on a rolling 1 hour basis. We can see that from 12:30 to 1:30 Eastern time PM the price of silver both cash spot and futures ranged between $91 and $75 representing an 18% range. And yet the CME Comx automatic circuit breakers were not activated nor announced by the CME. So if what David alleges here is true, this could indicate that the exchange is heavily complicit in this sort of price suppression. Is that how you see things? >> Yeah, I mean they've been doing it for decades. They they did the same u with the Hunt brothers. U they always favor the the big banks and the big dealers. And um do you remember I think it was Boxing Day which is December 26. Uh I think silver uh was up like 10 cents more than 10% and they came out and they closed the market for for like six hours. It wasn't even a circuit breaker and they used this excuse of uh this uh data center that there was a glitch or something. Uh but uh yeah, Friday nothing right um was down more than 10%. I I I saw a headline today uh on X that u uh one of the Chinese markets, I don't know if it was the Shanghai gold or futures exchange, they used the circuit breakers today to to to halt because silver went down quite a bit. So, they're doing their job. But, uh yeah, they they will do uh whatever it takes uh to help uh the bankers because the bankers really are in charge. uh if you I mean the uh COMX CME uh it's now a public company. It used to be owned by the by the yeah the the people who traded in the exchange. You could be a you could be a partner. You could have gone and and bought you know a seat on the COMX but now it's owned all by the big financial institutions like Black Rockck and others. I haven't looked exactly, but uh they're gonna favor um yeah, they're gonna favor these people. And if they're in trouble, uh they're going to Yeah, they're going to play dirty. Uh they they played dirty back in 2021 uh on the in the first silver squeeze movement. I mean, the head of the CFTC even said, "Oh, we had to tamp down uh the the price of silver." I mean for the regulator to say that uh so yeah no uh David Jensen is right um and uh I think even today they they didn't use it. I mean we were down quite a bit earlier and I didn't see the market stopping. Maybe it did. But um yeah, they'll uh I I think Jesse, what this shows is that they're really desperate and uh but I don't think it's going to work because we're not in 1980 anymore. We're in 2026 and there's a lot more interest in silver and a lot more exchanges where people could move to to buy real physical silver and gold. uh Comx and LBMA if they keep keep up with their shenanigans uh they'll be history. >> The sponsor of today's episode is Arc Silver Gold Osmium. Owner Ian Everard is praised even by his competitors as one of the most honest and level-headed bullion dealers in the United States. They have some great prices. You can see some of them displayed right now on screen. Take advantage of these specials today by reaching out to Ian at 3072649441 or by email at Ianarchsgo.com. Make sure to tell them of course that Commodity Culture sent you. And now back to the interview. Very well said. And I do want to go back to your comment about this isn't 1980 anymore because, you know, it does bring to mind the the recent price action, the hockey stick parabolic rise, the dramatic fall on the other side. I'm sure many are thinking the same thing that I am, that it kind of looks similar to 1980 in 2011. Um, if we look back though and adjust the 1980 high to today's prices, we have not yet retraced that level, which is a little over $200, I believe. What What are your thoughts there? Because obviously the the narrative out there and all of the evidence you've you've presented and people like David Jensen when it comes to the comx and the price suppression is very real, but the even if it is real, sometimes the narrative doesn't get reflected in the price of an asset. So, what wh why do you think that this time we're going to be able to to recover as opposed to staying flat for decades as happened after the 1980 high? >> Yeah. Well, um a lot of people show the long-term charts or they don't even show charts. They just say, "Oh, in 1980 it reached that high in 2011 and then it dropped." But if you look at a really long-term chart of gold for example from 1970 till now and logarithmic because a lot of times they they show these uh like a normal charts which don't uh don't reflect the price on a percentage basis and they look really steep. They look like a a massive bubble. Uh but uh I mean the the chart of gold uh monthly going back to 1970. Yes, it it's taking it's taken off since the beginning of uh well actually 2024. Uh and yeah, it's really taken off in 2025 and six. But uh if you look at what it did in the 70s, we're not even like u we haven't even matched what uh the price did in the 70s. uh and uh I don't uh discount the uh fact that we need uh corrections. I even said uh uh about a month or 6 weeks ago when gold was like taking off when it broke 43 4,400 and it was trading around 48 that I I thought we could go uh pretty much non-stop to around 5354 and that we could see a correction and I guess we did but I I think uh yeah the the bankers they used it as an excuse to uh smack it even more. Uh but uh yeah, the the reason I I think it's going to be different this time is that the fundamentals are still there. The debt is still there. Um the uh leverage in the U financial system is still there. Um geopolitically uh we just saw China announced this weekend Xinping that they really want to push their currency as the major reserve currency. So that's a challenge to the dollar. uh we're seeing even allies of the United States not very happy with uh their the treatment that President Trump is uh like uh serving them, right? And uh they don't want to be also as dependent on the dollar. So yeah, and I don't really see any way out. Uh people are talking about Wars. I don't know if you want to go into him now that he's going to be like Paul Vulker and I think that's complete uh baloney to be honest because Paul Vulker uh he uh yeah he let rates go to 20% I think the discount rate and at the time though the debt to GDP was 35%. And you had a double really bad recession in 1980 and then another one in 81. it was like a double dip and Jimmy Carter lost the election in 1980 because of that. So if um Wars is going to be tough and uh wind down the balance sheet uh and uh I've heard people say that oh he's going to help uh Main Street, not Wall Street. But uh I don't see how he can do both. Uh I mean there is one thing that he could do to help Main Street uh and that would only be like a a sugar rush, temporary sugar rush and that would be to revalue the statutory price of uh gold uh like from 4222 to around where we're now. And I've calculated that the Treasury we get a $1.2 trillion windfall. uh they could use that to buy back uh some of the six uh I think 4 trillion four odd 4 trillion or so that the Fed owns of treasuries. They could do that and then send some some of it as well. Send a check to the people at the bottom who are suffering and then they might re you know do well in November this year the election. But uh yeah, if you look at what he said, he thinks rates should be down to around two or three or 4%, two or three. So he he sees room for rate cuts. So uh I'm not sure how he wants to uh do quantitative tightening. I I mean that's the opposite of loosening policy. So I think uh people use that as well or maybe the algorithms saw well war is going to be chairman but why why would Trump bring in someone that's really hawkish if he was having such a an ugly battle with uh J Pal for like over a year. um you know they opened a criminal investigation uh you know into him. Why do you really think he's going to pick someone uh Trump is going to pick uh someone that's going to be like even worse than POW? Because PA has been cutting rates. So yeah, that's that's why I think uh things are not uh like 1980 and 2011. Uh, that's the way I see it. I could be wrong, but uh, you know, I'm putting I'm keeping my uh, money where my mouth is, like my my medals. I uh, the last place I want to put too much money in, uh, or fiat currency in is with the banks. >> Yeah, and that's a great point about Wars. Why would he be, you know, hawkish when Trump has been going after Powell to the point of criminally investigating him? Now, I have zero sympathy for Jay Powell. He's an evil person, guys. All these people are evil, and they're out to enrich themselves in their inner circles and consolidate their own power at the expense of the citizens. None of these people have anybody's best interest at heart. So, people need to wake up to that fact first and foremost. But what do you make of this criminal investigation into Jay Powell? He he believes it's politically motivated hit job based on the fact that he's not lowering interest rates in the face of President Trump's demands. Now, some people will point out this isn't the first time that the Fed chair and and a sitting US president have been in conflict um and have been asked to to lower rates, but what what do you make of that? >> Yeah, I think now that is not as important anymore because he's picked his new candidate and uh I'm not sure how Yeah. what's going to come out of that. Um yeah, unless pal were to like raise rates in the next meeting, I think he'll be okay and he just retire from the Fed and probably get a job at Black Rockck or some Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about gold specifically for a moment here because also falling quite hard uh but only 9% as opposed to silver's massive drop. Currently on the day, we're down around 4.5%. So we're at around $4,600 an ounce. Um, so if we compare gold's drop to that of silver, do you think gold could perhaps recover faster given central bank buying and all the other tailwinds around gold kind of being reintroduced to the monetary system? Not obviously as a goldback currency or anything, but we're just seeing its importance in terms of central bank buying Basil 3 and all of the government debt and deficits. Gold ro gold's role as money seems to be shining more than ever. Do you think that will help it more than silver when it comes to recovering from this correction? >> Actually, I don't I think silver silver is really on a it's a different kind of energy now. silver after we broke 50 and uh so I think uh when silver recovers uh it's going to really motor ahead. Not that gold won't either, but I think uh yeah, when things pick up again, silver will do even better. So yeah. >> Well, let's talk about the list because it seems like everybody in Washington is implicated here. We are at a point where it's looking more and more like a huge portion of the political and corporate elite in the US and perhaps around the world are all child abusing monsters and the literal personification of evil which explains a lot about the monetary system that we live under and just the way everything is set up. Do you expect anyone to be held accountable here? And the reason I'm asking you about this specifically cuz I saw you tweeting about it recently, so I really wanted to get your take. Will they just keep sweeping it under the rug? Or will they, as the damning evidence keeps mounting, who's prosecuting anybody because everybody seems to be complicit and and have leverage over everybody else due to all these horrible things everybody did. Do you think they're just going to let the files come out and say, you know what, either you all start a revolution or nothing's going to happen here? >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it would be uh nice to see uh like some very uh like influential and wealthy people that are on that list. Uh and if they're tried and found guilty that they would be uh put in jail or even worse, I mean in the US you have capital punishment. We don't here in the UK. Uh but uh and that's what Thomas Massie who who's been instrumental in getting that list out uh that's what he said. Uh when we see like a a billionaire friend of Trump or whoever uh in an orange suit doing a perp walk, then we know that justice is being done. But u um they they could also find some kind of massive crisis, create a massive crisis that overwhelms uh all the all the talk about this list and uh who who's on it. Uh that people will forget about it because there will be some kind of existential crisis that they'll come up with. you know, a little bit like uh on 911, the day before 911, and I didn't even know it at the time. It was only years later that I learned that Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, made a speech and he said the Pentagon couldn't account for $2.3 trillion. And that was in 2001. And uh the next day a plane hit the Pentagon exactly where the accounting uh department was. Uh and uh no one talked about that missing 2.3 trillion uh until years later when it was too late. So that what I'm trying to say here, yeah, beware of some kind of u major false flag event to Yeah. to and if they don't, there could be, you know, like you said, maybe justice will be done. Maybe we need some kind of Nuremberg style trial for all these people. But uh I'm not holding my breath. It it seems like um in other countries, even in France, they they do arrest politicians, but in the US and the UK, that never seems to happen. They always seem to be above the law. And um I think that's what you know people are getting tired of that or not even tired but they it's really bad for the whole uh system for society for the economy because if if people don't trust the people in charge uh things get really messy and uh that's another reason why I think it's good to have gold and silver because gold and silver are incorruptible and they're neutral. They're, you know, they're not dependent on these people's uh promises or anything like that. So, yeah, this uh list is quite amazing. You know, I'm not surprised because I've heard, you know, and from what I've read from history that uh one way to keep u the public divided is to uh have this political theater. And usually the people in charge who are supposedly in charge in politics are basically uh puppets of the the the powers behind the scene and they usually uh they usually recruit people that they can control and people who are blackmailable are usually a lot easier to control. So I'm not surprised this is all coming out though. you know, it's uh I I'm just uh surprised it has come out actually and it took uh Thomas Massie to do it because uh Trump wasn't interested anymore and like uh people were saying, "Oh, this file this Epstein uh client list doesn't exist. It's uh it's not real." But it is. >> Yeah. And speaking of people being held to account, you're absolutely right there. In the US, the UK, Canada especially as well, uh politicians are not held to account for crimes. Justin Trudeau was it was finally decided by the Court of Appeals in Canada that he illegally evoked the Emergencies Act to crush a peaceful protest and he's sailing around on a yacht with Katy Perry going to Davos. In South Korea, their former president for one day declared martial law. Nobody was hurt. Nothing bad happened as a result in terms of people being injured or anything like that. He's being thrown in jail for 5 years in South Korea for that one day of declaring martial law unlawfully. And in Canada, they do this. And I mean, it's it's it's completely beyond the pale at this point. in China which is supposed to be a horrible communist country uh they really punish like uh anyone involved in corruption or you know and they punish it you know it's the ultimate punishment they give them in China for corruption and all that I'm not saying China's perfect but uh uh unfortunately there's no one to guard the guards in in the US or in the west uh yeah there's no rule of law for the the people at the top and um yeah that that's a dangerous uh cocktail I would say uh but it the symptom uh the symptom is uh normal for times of uh you know the monetary and uh financial times that we live in and by that I mean you know the insurmountable amount of debt the money printing uh political ical uh and geopolitical chaos. And that's why I still think we're going to get um hyperinflation eventually. People are going to lose uh faith and confidence in in these people. Uh so I'm not sure what difference Kevin Morris is going to make. Even he was supposedly I'm not sure. I haven't looked, but I I've heard that he's on that list, too. >> Yeah. And I I want to jump to a thought that just came to my mind, which is The Great Taking, David Rogers Web. This is a very fascinating book. I believe it came out one or two years ago. I I don't remember exactly. I know we've had discussions about it. Um maybe on this show or on the VR media channel as well. Now this is basically a legal framework that has been established worldwide by the elite, the bankers, the people pulling the levers of power behind them, the elite families of this world to basically seize all securities uh potentially. And there's a legal framework through which to do it because when you buy a stock in a company, you don't actually have direct ownership of that stock anymore. It used to work that way, but now there's different intermediaries and you just have a claim on ownership. um kind of like when you deposit your money in the bank and there's potentially a mechanism according to web that will allow those assets to be seized. Could that potentially be their escape hatch or what if if this list really turns into something where we start to see so many people implicated and it looks like justice could be served or there will be repercussions that they could perhaps use that nuclear option to seize all of the securities. What What are your thoughts there? Well, I I guess the u the uh outcome of this uh list if things get really um tumultuous and people revolt and the system implodes, people lose complete face, the markets would collapse. I'm not even sure if the great taking would work in that case. Uh but uh yeah, the great taking is more for a deflationary, you know, collapse, a run-of-the-mill deflationary collapse, not a not a Mad Max societal breakdown because of uh you know, people actually realizing cuz a lot of us like you and me know about this, but uh I would say 99% of the people, maybe a little less, have no clue. uh they they think that our leaders and um yeah and the bankers they you know they they're looking after their interests which is funny isn't it? So yeah I'm not even sure that the the great taking would work in such a you know if it gets really bad it might not work. U so even having uh paper certificates for stocks might not work. uh gold and silver will work, but you're going to have to work hard to keep a hold of it because if there's no law and order, if there is chaos everywhere, you know, if it's like the wild west, uh yeah, that that's the uh that's the danger. Well, walk us through the hyperinflation scenario that you were laying out before because I believe we're reaching a critical moment in global history right now. We're seeing conflicts around the world mounting, this government corruption being thrown in the face of citizens, the push for censorship, destruction of free speech, manipulated markets, the broken fiat currency system, and of course the list. Basically, satanic people doing horrible things. Um, the only solution I see is the complete destruction of the current political and monetary system. Whether that's forced through a revolution or happens through a collapse as people lose complete confidence in both the currency and the parasites, the political class behind the issuance of that currency. So that makes sense that that would then lead to a hyperinflationary scenario. I guess the question is what will that look like? boots on the ground and is is the real solution here for those who could potentially see this coming stack gold and silver perhaps store food and water as well in case there's shortages of those as well. Um what what are your thoughts on that? >> Yeah, I mean it would be the French Revolution to the power of 10 I guess. Yeah, it would be really chaotic I would say. And uh I guess there will be some places in the world that might be slightly better like but they will be uh inaccessible for for most people. Only the the very wealthy that think ahead don't wait until it happens. But yeah, it's going to be yeah I I just hope it doesn't happen that some you know there is some justice done and people uh are uh yeah are not uh un so unhappy with their leaders that the you know the whole system breaks down but you know the hyperinflation I I think it's a it's a it's the best thing that could happen because if you destroy the currency these people uh they don't have access to to to the financial uh power that fiat currency gives them. You know, I would would say that prior to 1971, I'm not saying uh the elites were perfect, but I I don't think there was as much corruption and nefarious activity as there has been. uh because uh under uh sound money system it's uh uh politicians have to think twice before they spend uh public funds willy-nilly, you know, and uh so yeah, I think it would be a good good thing. It would probably uh help stop a lot of the corruption and all the wrongdoing that is is going on still now, I would say. Yeah, there would just be a period of pain in between that transition as as we switch to a new system and a a lot of people will get hurt there, which is why I think obviously gold and silver having sound money outside of counterparty risk in that event is so important. Uh Mario, tell us about the Monco 64 YouTube channel and anywhere else people can follow you online. >> Yeah, I I mean uh I'm the home of alternative economics and contrarian views. I I try to uh look at things uh yeah on a contr contr with a contrarian tilt. Uh I'm a proponent of um the Austrian school of economics like sound money, small government, free markets. Um yeah, and sound money of course means no fiat currency. Uh yeah, I've been posting content since late 2015. Yeah. and uh literally every day. Um so yeah, there's plenty of stuff there and uh I'm on uh Twitter or X as well, man. >> Great. I'll put links to the Manco 64 YouTube channel as well as your X account in the description below. Thank you once again, Mario. It's been a blast. Thanks for coming on. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you for joining us today. Our sponsor Arc Silver Gold OBM has some great prices on silver bullion products. You can see them on screen right now. These are subject to change. And while supplies last, reach out to owner Ian Everard today at 307264-9441 or by email at ianarchsggo.com and make sure to tell him that commodity culture sent you. And pick up your stack silver, not fiat t-shirt. Now is a better time than ever to reiterate your belief in sound money and do it with style. Use the link in the description below and I'll see you guys in the next episode. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up tod date with the latest episodes.