SILVER To New Highs 'In 2026' as 'Highway to Hyperinflation' Dead Ahead: Mark Thornton
Summary
Precious Metals Bull Case: The guest argues gold and silver remain the key lifelines amid monetary debasement and fiscal strain, calling for new all-time highs and triple-digit silver in 2026.
Macro Drivers: War-driven supply shocks in the Middle East lift oil and gas, spike CPI, and reduce odds of Fed rate cuts, creating short-term headwinds but reinforcing long-term metals upside.
De-dollarization: BRICS-linked trade and non-dollar commodity settlements are expanding, undermining the USD’s reserve status and supporting allocation to hard assets.
Petrodollar Decline: Increasing oil transactions in rubles and yuan accelerate the erosion of the petrodollar, weakening dollar demand and strengthening the case for gold and silver.
Policy Response Risk: The Fed may lean on QE and yield-curve tools rather than rate cuts as malinvestments and liquidity strains raise the risk of a stock market crisis.
Energy Volatility: Oil price swings from Persian Gulf conflict transmit directly into CPI/PPI and metals volatility, with silver remaining more reactive than gold.
Buying Approach: Corrections in gold and especially silver are framed as opportunities once war risks abate, with a preference for holding physical metal and diversified storage.
Fiscal Backdrop: Unsustainable U.S. deficits and rising war expenditures deepen long-run monetary risks, bolstering the strategic case for precious metals.
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 April 6, 2026 and I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Mark Thornon to the program. An Austrian economist, senior fellow at the Mises Institute, author and the host of the minor issues podcast. Dr. Thornton sees the tailwinds driving both gold and silver as completely intact. And he is calling for new all-time highs for silver this year, driven by monetary debasement and the looming threat of hyperinflation for the US dollar. A factor he thinks could come into play faster than many realize. Mark unpacks his thoughts on government corruption, economic decay, and the death of free markets to make a case why gold and silver are the only lifeline in a world gone mad. All of this and so much more ahead in my conversation with Dr. Mark Thornton. Dr. Mark Thornton, it is great to have you back on Commodity Culture. Now, war is raging in the Middle East and both gold and silver have largely been selling off. It seems like whenever the president tweets about potential peace, the metals rise and when it looks like we're in for a longer conflict, they drop again. This is contrary to what a lot of people expected. Why do you think the medals have responded the way they have so far? And how do you expect them to react should this war continue to drag on? >> Jesse, it's great to be here in 2026. We've got two main big things going on. One is the business cycle and the other is the war. And the war is a supply shock. Okay? You're taking people out of the labor force. You're taking materials. You're shutting down transportation. You're doing all sorts of negative things, particularly to oil, which is a master ingredient in production. And so when you do that, at a point in time, that supply shock is going to show up in the consumer price index because of oil prices, natural gas, fertilizer, and so forth. And it's going to spike CPI. So it's not monetary inflation, it's just the statistical price inflation that jumps. But that's the statistic that the Federal Reserve uses to gauge or to justify really its monetary policy and in particular rate cuts. So it makes kind of sense that, you know, higher oil prices because of the war and because of the danger and because of the supply shock is going to feed into higher PPI and CPI statistics and make it more difficult for the Fed to justify rate cuts. And so we've seen, you know, the expectations this year where the Fed was going to cut rates two or three or more times and now there's fewer expectations for cuts. And that's true around the world. And of course, gold and silver are global markets. And so that's why you know we think of war as dangerous and I want gold but the people who are really moving outside of the spa um speculators and the traders and the hedge funds who took profits and moved into oil before the war um you know because of the war we see Persian Gulf countries I'm sure there's a lot of people there who are selling their gold and trying to get out uh trying to leave. I mean, people are trying to leave that area. They're trying to continue to finance their businesses without any revenues. And so, in that small corner of the market, people are selling. And so, there are, you know, you can't think of your own view of gold and silver u all the time. It's not going to hold true because other people are in other circumstances. And there's a lot of people that have wanted to get out uh in February uh because of you know various expectations liquidity and uh now the war uh and uh the expectations of fewer rate cuts which are good for gold and silver prices. Well, I want to touch on both silver and gold specifically now. And starting with silver because it's been on a roller coaster over the past several months as it surged close to $120 earlier in the year. It has fallen now to around $73 at this point in time. What do you make of this wild price action? Do you think we ultimately get back to new all-time highs maybe even this year? >> Well, of course, silver is more volatile than gold. And once, you know, gold and silver went up, especially silver, went up to new all-time highs, and once it got over $100, I began to expect a big correction in the market, you know, maybe as much as 40%. Uh, and it's gone even lower than that starting from 121. But, you know, 20% for gold, 40% for silver, those are just average uh correction markers based on historical averages. If you go back, I mean, they're never exactly 20% or exactly 40% or 10%. Uh it's always, you know, just a uh around that general area. And so this has been a big correction and a lot of that has to do with some of those basic factors that I talked about speculators, traders, hedge funds and so forth along with um you know the concerns about the business cycle uh the finance industry, banks, private credit, uh private equity, you know all of those people looking for liquidity and safety. uh by selling assets and going into the US dollar. But then of course there's the war on top of that. And so we've had a double whammy and uh things going in the opposite direction depending upon the news, depending upon what President Trump says. And if it's um you know, if it's sort of a proar day where everything is going to be blown up, uh then you get one strong reaction. And if it's peace around around the corner, the straits are going to be opened. Uh then you get the completely opposite reaction. And so we've not only had a big correction in percentage terms, but we've had a lot of volatility. Um you know, in the meantime, >> and I got to put you on the spot, tripledigit silver in 2026, or do you think we're going to have to wait longer than that? >> Yes. Uh I would say tripledigit silver in 2026. I would say new all-time high uh in 2026. You know, obviously that's a guesstimate, but you know, if we um if we clear up this situation in the Persian Gulf and we reset ourselves on long-term trends where the precious metals ship is being driven primarily uh its engine or its sales are driven primarily uh from monetary expansion and dollar uh degrading than I expect. Yeah. Much higher uh prices, you know, uh when we talk about tailwinds in precious metals, we look at things like the value of the dollar. We look at interest rates. Um, we look at oil prices and uh higher interest rates, higher dollar and higher oil, which is what we've gotten, are tailwinds working against the precious metals. And of course, over the long haul, those things, you know, you can have rising precious metals in a rising interest rate environment, you know, over the trend. You can have uh gold prices going up and the value of the dollar being stable, not going down. You know, the tailwinds or the headwinds are like minor steering currents, but all three of those have been working against the precious metals markets over the last month or two. >> Gold also selling off as we've touched on, although it's been far less volatile than silver considering the price inflation we could see as a result of this war. Now, I don't know if you technically want to call that inflation per se, but nonetheless, rising prices due to, of course, the increased price of the main input, which is energy, oil, um, as well as natural gas. The Fed is holding rates steady as we discuss potentially raising them up ahead. I'd love to hear your thoughts on if you think that's in the cards. Are these all headwinds for gold in addition to what you've discussed so far? And would you look at any corrections in the gold market as a potential buying opportunity at this point? Well, I think that you know the expectations of Fed cuts this year have been greatly diminished and I think uh rate cuts in other central banks around the world have been greatly diminished and we've even heard increasing talk about increases in those government rates. And so that is a a headwind and those headwinds do matter in the short term less so in the long term. and you know and so that's definitely working against it. Higher oil prices are definitely working against it. This war has been a very been very disruptive um to the market process that was going on where uh you know we were seeing higher uh precious metal prices. We were already seeing higher commodity prices uh before the start of the war. oil prices were already working themselves up. And so if and I pray that the the situation in the Persian Gulf is resolved while we're speaking here today. I mean I hope it goes away immediately, the quicker the better, the sooner the better uh for everybody in the world economy. Um and but once that happens then we get reset um back onto the problem of the uh the structure of the US economy. Uh when and when looked at in terms of the Austrian business cycle theory, we see a lot of male investments. We see a lot of overextension of credit in uh technology and artificial um uh intelligence, data centers, private equity, private credit, just a whole bunch of places um where there's are there is imbalances where investments have been made and they're not really paying off. And that signals that later in the year we're going to have a, you know, a stock market uh crisis. And you know, the Fed already started a semi secret uh quantitative easing program back in December, $40 billion a month. I expect that to be expanded, you know, because they're not going to want to lower the interest rate. But quantitative easing, yield curve controls and things like that are um other ways in which they can uh increase the money supply, increase credit liquidity um without actually uh you know targeting that uh policy rate. And uh once we get back to that normal track then I expect you know the the uh metal prices to firm and head higher um you know along those uh long run policy trends of of course it's starting with government spending the national debt the um interest payments as part of the budget um and then all of the money that the Fed has to create to make sure that that goes smoother. And you know, and so even with the war out of the way, we still have this humongous problem, uh, this financial problem, this fiscal problem with our government at its heart. 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 ianarchsg.com. Make sure to tell them, of course, that Commodity Culture sent you. And now back to the interview. And of course, the war is adding fuel to that fire with estimates of around $900 million per day that this war is costing. the US, the administration recently requesting 1.5 trillion for the military in a Congress budget request. I mean, we're at the level of debt now where it's a trillion here, a trillion there. Who really cares? But at what point does this become unsustainable in your view? >> It's already been unsustainable. I mean, I don't see any realistic possibility that, you know, the American government is going to get its fiscal situation in any kind of balance or, you know, what what's what's really needed is massive spending cuts. Um, you know, elimination of programs. um it would really require a very concerted effort just to try to get a hold of this beast. And under those, you know, conditions, it's hard to, you know, politicians, that's all they want to do, especially when it's a fiat monetary system and they don't have to increase taxes in order to increase spending. All they want to do is spend, spend, spend. And you know, they're getting their money uh and their votes through spe special interest groups. They're not really paying attention to the average American. And and so, you know, it's not surprising that, you know, President Trump uh he he there's no nothing to play with out there and you need a justification like going to war and preventing nuclear bombs and you know invading various countries. And so he's taking this tact of emergency military money and you know reestablishing colonies in Venezuela and South America, Cuba, Greenland, you know, etc. uh even though you know we know for a thousand years of experience or more that colonies are just a bad economic deal and they drag down the home country. I mean, Adam Smith, one of his main points in the Wealth of Nations, which is now 250 years old, uh, one of his main points is that colonies were a bad economic deal and that the Dutch, uh, who were much smarter, uh, knew that all along and they had a very limited, uh, colonial system, uh, and yet they became much wealthier than the English. uh and they had a very stable government and they weren't involved in as many wars and they lost fewer people uh to military death. Uh and so and they weren't involved in all sorts of you know uh uprisings and revolutions and nearly as much as the as the British. Um, so you know, we've always known that colonial empires are a bad economic deal for the homeland, but President Trump doesn't have anything any other way to go except making up some ad hoc emergency uh in some faraway country and as well as, you know, Cuba and Venezuela and Greenland, things like that. Yeah, I'm wondering your thoughts as to whether this is kind of the US trying to hold hold on to its hegemony because obviously there's so many theories floating around out there in terms of why this conflict is occurring from you know Brian Beeric who who gives an interesting point of view that it's actually the US is the one controlling Israel not the other way around and in fact it's a it's propaganda the the spreading of the information that Israel is controlling the US and there's some policy papers going back to the early 2000s that discuss how they're going to use Israel as a scapegoat in an eventual attack on Iran. Um and then of course you have those of the mind that well Israel is calling the shots. Um those talking about this is a religious war. It's a holy war. Um and and then of course the concept of of the US kind of cutting China off of cheap energy which they were paying for in Yuan and continue to do so in Yuan from Iran, a threat to the petro dollar system which perhaps the US sees as existential. what why do you think this conflict is happening and and how do you see it playing out? I know you said you you hope that it stops as we're speaking here today. Um I personally don't see that happening. I see no other end to this than perhaps one that is potentially catastrophic, but a lot of questions there. I know I'm throwing at you, but would just love your overall thoughts on the situation. >> Well, it's hard to figure. It's hard to believe that Netanyahu is controlled by anybody. But, you know, if I was cynical um about President Trump, who seems to have semidictial powers right now, you know, I would look at his friends and his enemies and you know, he's against the bricks and uh China and um India and uh South Africa and other countries, you know, they need oil and natural gas and they are going to be greatly hurt as a result of this uh because they're the main importers of Persian Gulf oil and natural gas, liqufied natural gas and so forth. Um so he's getting, you know, from the cynical point of view, he's getting at his enemies. And of course, you know, against being the cynical take on this, you could say, well, President Trump has all these friends and contributors in the oil and natural gas industry in the United States who are going to benefit. Uh, President Trump has a lot of supporters and voters in the farming community who have very low prices and tons of inventory of grain products sitting around not being sold. uh and they will benefit uh from this war uh and our fertilizer producers of course in in the US and Canada and um you know so you could take this cynical point of view and uh and and of course also you know President Trump has a lot of supporters in real estate and banking and uh you know convention cities like Las Vegas and New New York City and um you know the Persian Gulf States, the United Arab Emirates and Dubai have become a new competitor for corporate headquarters, business development, uh travel uh through on the airlines, uh leisure and tourism and so on and so forth. they become a new uh competitor for the same industries in the United States would just happen to support President Trump and donate a lot of money to his campaigns. So, you know, if you look at his friends and enemies, he could be just, you know, getting at his enemies and uh paying off his friends. If you want to take a totally cynical non-analytic uh view of you know what person controls what other person then the cynical view or the skeptic view um of politics and and President Trump's actions makes perfect sense. >> Yeah, I think that's a great analysis. Now, we we've been speaking a lot on this show and I spoke about it with you last time you were on as well about the fiat currency system and the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. You know, when it comes to this topic, there's those who believe we're nearing the end the endgame of this Ponzi scheme uh experiment that's been happening since, you know, at least 1971. Uh and then there are those who say you know what this can can get kicked down the road for much longer than people realize. They point to the Euro dollar you know the fact that there's so many US dollars out there that are being transacted uh between different countries a lot of foreign countries that even denote their debt their bonds and US dollar currency and that that whole Euro dollar market isn't really taken into account to consider just how strong the US dollar is internationally. I wonder what your thoughts are on the status of the US dollar as the reserve currency and and if it were to go away, what would that world look like in terms of the reserve currency? Would we be looking at a perhaps counterveailing brick system? Would we be looking at the yuan? How how do you see all that potentially playing out? >> Well, I see the US dollar is in a lot of trouble. And I've been writing about or speaking about hyperinflation for some time now because you know you can see it forming um and then all of a sudden it's here and it's upon us and nobody knows where it came from and everybody's totally surprised by it. But you know if you go back a few years the dollar is almost as good as gold. We're the world reserve currency of all central banks dominating uh and we're the dominant current currency in all international trade and uh countries from around the world in Europe in South America and other places are in effect using the US dollar as their currency or they have a Euro dollar system. They're investing tons of money in the United States and so they have dollar denominated assets. In 2011, uh, Professor Iiken Green wrote a book about, uh, the dollar and its status, and he said, "Well, it's going to last forever because there's no alternative." And I said, you know, BS. Um, you know, there will be alternatives. And of course since that time uh we've had Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. We've had the brick system which everybody poo pooed as being impossible or illogical. But look at it's starting. It's it's working. They're um adding a gold component uh gold exchange component uh for trading gold um for ex trading gold uh trading commodities and trading goods uh overseas. They're making people are making um international trades between two currencies without using the dollar. And now uh in the Persian Gulf, I mean it's it's obvious to me that the petro dollar thing is flying out the window pretty quickly. I mean the petro dollar meant that all uh oil and natural gas was being traded between all countries in terms of US dollars and that absorbed a lot of uh dollars in in terms of being used and exchanged uh elevating the value of the US dollar. And now of course uh people are buying um uh oil in with Russian rubles and Chinese Juan and you know in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Um and and so you know this this event is adding significantly to the demise of the petro dollar. And so, you know, I've a long time ago I spoke about, you know, we're heading down uh and the the lane that merges onto the highway to hyperinflation is dead ahead. And then more recently, I said we're merging onto the um on-ramp um to the highway to hyperinflation. I think right now uh literally in the last few days, you know, with this uh where the uh trade in oil uh in the in the Persian Gulf has been upended uh tells me that we're on that ramp firmly and we're accelerating and we're getting ready to go onto uh the highway to hyperinflation. So, it's a long deliberate process. Uh and people think that it depends solely on the supply of dollars, but it depends on the demand for dollars as much or more. Are people willing to hold US dollars? Are people wanting to use US dollars in exchange? And I have a feeling that the loss of the petro dollar, the rise of the bricks, um, you know, and a whole host of other things, uh, including the potential dumping of assets, uh, dollar denominated assets from Europe and elsewhere, uh, the repatriation of US dollar cash, uh, from the third world and from, um, black market participants, drug dealers, and so forth. who no longer want to hold dollars. They want to hold gold and and Bitcoin and things like that. Um that this money is going to these dollars are going to flow and it's going to cause price inflation and everybody is going to want to hold fewer dollars. Their demand for dollars is going to decline and with it the value of the dollar. So Misesus laid this all out based on the Weimar hyperinflation where you know people might absorb more and more supplies of of a money and then when they realize the price is going up they're less likely to hold as many currency units and eventually once they learn the lesson they want to dump those currency units as quickly as possible. And it's that demand, that change in the demand for money that really fires up the hyperinflation. >> Well, how can those listening protect themselves from this scenario you just laid out there? Is it really about having physical gold and silver in your possession first and foremost? Do you have concerns that if we do enter an era of hyperinflation for the dollar that we could see mass civil unrest, potential violence and crime breaking out more than it already is? Should people be looking at, you know, potentially another jurisdiction to get a residence permit in? Um potentially stocking up on food and clean water and making sure they have their own electricity supply. Do you think things will get that dire? How how do you how do you yourself um consider that scenario when it comes to preparing for it? >> I would say yes, yes, yes, and yes. Um uh but it's hard to put a timeline on that. But if we continue down this road of, you know, socialism in government, uh runaway socialist policies, uh you see disrespect and a downgrading respect for property rights and for the taxpayer and for businesses. Um all of that, you know, is ultimately going to uh pan out. And of course, Americans are completely divided politically, left and right. And uh and you know, and we've seen uh violence and and uh you know, people uh rising up against the government and some of that's a good thing obviously. I mean, we do need to be uh demonstrating in favor of these things um you know, of property rights and free markets. uh but that's not really uh happening very much. So yes, I mean precious metals I certainly wouldn't hold it all you know personally I would diversify the locations of where my precious metals were. Um and you know um and private security is an issue. Um and uh of course you know you should always have a backup in terms of food and water. And in in a hyperinflation or just a high rate of inflation uh it's a good idea. I mean, if you buy, say, canned goods and paper goods and you stack them and then you use them uh and you're rotating through all of those things, it means that the canned goods and paper goods that you're using today, you bought at a much lower price in the past and you've b you've protected yourself against inflation the same way you intend when you pro buy precious metals. So, yes, I mean, stacking all of that stuff is, you know, as long as you're using it and becoming familiar with it, um, you know, then that's that's a great way of preparing and getting mentally prepared. I mean, you don't want to go into any crisis, whether it's a, you know, whether it's a hyperinflation or a hurricane or tornado or whatever it is. You don't want to have to, you know, start by, you know, trying to create some strange food product that you've never had before or, you know, set up some water system at the last minute. I mean, you want to you want to be familiarized with this because I based on my reading, not my experience, but you know, any kind of emergency, uh, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and so forth, mentally very disturbing. So the more you can prepare um and actually do it um then mentally you'll be much less anxious and better prepared to deal with these things. Uh and you should be prepared to deal with emergencies even in a totally free market, you know, great economy that you know if everything's great, you should still have a little boy scout in you and be prepared. And a lot of that is, you know, uh having access to things and and being familiar with them, using them and so forth. So, yeah, I would be uh looking to uh have some knowledge and have some access to alternative systems for all of the necessities of life. >> Yeah, some great words of wisdom there. Do you think that those pulling the levers of power ultimately are aware that this system is in a very precarious place? uh because we're obviously seeing quite an increase in many countries so-called you know former legacy brand western nations like the UK, Germany, France, Canada, America etc. We're seeing somewhat of a crackdown on free speech, a crackdown on personal freedoms. Um you know in Germany now if you're a military age male you have to supposedly get permission from the government to leave abroad longer than 3 months in case they need you for the military. I want to read something. I hate to quote the BBC, but but I'm about to. So, here we go. German males aged between 17 and 45 may need to seek approval for lengthy stays abroad under changes introduced as part of a new law which introduced voluntary military service. While the plan is for voluntary service, if the security situation worsens or if too few volunteers came forward, a form of compulsory military service could be considered. Now, interestingly, what is not making any headlines in the West, but I'm aware of because I'm right beside this country, is Croatia actually recently introduced compulsory military service in January of this year. Once again, now for now, you're also allowed to opt for office work or picking up garbage on the street, essentially free labor for the government, but that that could very easily turn into a full-on military situation where you just must report to the military. Um, Poland's talked about doing this. I mean, it it seems to be kind of a dangerous trend, but just this overall restriction of freedoms, this overall government overreach that seems to be on the rise. Um, is this related to the fact that these politicians know that the system is kind of on its last legs, so to speak, and they're trying to clamp down as much as they can on the citizenry before it happens. Well, I think the political elites um know that, you know, the system is cracking. It's breaking. You know, the big bankers and the finance seers, the big industrialists, the war industry people, the leaders of the political parties, uh they all know what's going on this. So, you know, this is basically the Epstein class, which is global and makes up people from all of those subgroups. And, uh, now they're they're stooges in in, you know, that are at the actual politicians running things. Uh, frankly, they don't seem to know what's going on at all. um you know the people in charge of places like Germany and the UK and Canada and you know I don't know they they they really don't seem to know what's going on um uh some of them and so you know I would be you know I would be very suspicious um as I am of all politicians um but yeah I mean all these countries countries are socialist. Um they're progressive, democratic, socialist, fascist. Um and uh they don't have any respect for human rights uh or human beings in many cases. Uh they don't care about your rights or your life or you know your property. Um and and you know so when politicians uh exhibit those traits um you know and and they they don't do anything to stop the the breakdown of the fabric of society. They allow criminals and welfare bums to run riot all over the place. You know, you got to think about jumping ship and trying to find um an alternative country, but there's not many that I can even think of. I mean, I'm not leaving. Uh I'm committed for to stay in this fight, but um and I can't really think of too many places that um are too much better because socialism really uh you know people think of you know the world economy is free market and liberal and capitalist and all that but it's that's not it at all. I mean we have a socialist system that's become much more socialist and you can see that in trade especially you know if you don't have a gold standard uh you have protectionism and you have trading blocks and you have you know more and more nonsense over time and ultimately it does lead to war and I think we are you know in um you know kind of in a festering world war right Now um with you know many countries involved and uh many countries um you know uh in in participation in some way I mean China, Russia, the United States, Europe and so forth. It's a it's largely economic and and um diplomatic at this point uh trade uh barriers and so forth. But, you know, that's always uh a prelude to war is these um you know, where you're trying to beggar thy neighbor with inflation and you're trying to disadvantage them with protectionism and you're cutting off people's access uh to your raw materials or your strategic goods and that's what we've been doing. So I'm very very concerned up and down the scale and I don't see it uh many countries or many political systems which rank very high uh or superior to a lot of these countries. >> Yeah, some great points. What ultimately is the solution to all of this from a governmental standpoint in your opinion? Because I had Michael Oliver on the show recently. He wrote a book called The New Libertarianism, anarcho capitalism. It was based on a thesis he wrote for his masters in the 1970s. He got some input from Murray Rothbard um in writing that book as well. And his concept is that government itself needs to go away just no government whatsoever. Everything being a free market system including security, the police force, the judicial system, etc. Um do you think that's a potential solution at some point? It feels like we're so far away from anything like that ever happening. Are you more of the mind of Anne Rand who believed in a small government? Uh what's the ultimate solution to get because it seems like the corruption is just so brazen and in your face now that this system cannot stand the way that it currently is. >> No, it can't stand forever. It's it's head heading down a a path of self-destruction. I think Michael is 100% correct. Um I back up that uh his his thesis uh in that book you know completely and uh you know we don't need government for anything. Um I myself can live basically you know 99% of my life without any uh government interaction whatsoever. I mean my insurance companies are much more important to protecting me uh than the government itself. The government is just extracting money and resources from me on a regular basis and they're preventing me from, you know, increasing my wealth or increasing employment or whatever I want to do. They're just putting roadblocks in the way to economic progress for me and everybody else really. Uh now of course um how do you get from a runaway fascist economic government uh writ large in the United States and elsewhere around the world back to even a small limited government. You know, if if we got back to a small limited government like under the Articles of Confederation after we beat we pulverized the uh United King, Great Britain, uh threw them off of the continent if we had government that size. Well, I wouldn't even be doing this job and you probably wouldn't even have this podcast. And uh so I'm not sure if we'll ever get back to no government. Uh, and there's lots of ways that we can reduce the government. We could, you know, if you put me in charge of the budget, I could bring the budget under control. Um, stabilizing uh the the welfare programs and uh and you know, and bringing restoring a gold standard uh commodity money system. You have to start with a commodity money system and then deal with all of the problems as they come about based on real money. Uh if you don't if you if you don't start there, then you're just patching one thing with the other and you never get anywhere. Kind of like Doge. Um you know, it never seemed to get anywhere and it didn't. Uh so you have to start with hard money. So you have to make the hard choices after that. And um everybody who works for the government, everybody who's getting a check for the government and everybody who's getting, you know, special favors and protectionism from the government, they're going to have to lose in the short run. But ultimately that there's an enormous payoff um in in a free market society with a free market system. And um you know the the glory of our current um standard of living is testament to that that the US rose from a you know a a natural resource wasteland basically with you know no economic development whatsoever. We we defeated the world's uh economic military and economic superpower and then we became uh the greatest nation on earth with almost no government between uh 1776 and uh say the SpanishAmerican war. We had almost no government whatsoever and yet we became uh the world's economic superpower. >> Well, Dr. Dr. Thornton, this has been a fantastic conversation. Could you tell people about the work you do at the Misesus Institute, where people can go to to learn more about it, uh your podcast there, and and anywhere else you'd like to direct people online? >> Yeah, we're a nonprofit educational institution. Uh we promote the uh economic writings of Ludwig van Mises, the Austrian school of economics uh to students and graduate students, professors and the general public. Uh we have one of the world's largest economic web pages in the world and it's free to everybody with no registration. We have many daily articles coming out on topical uh things of interest. Uh we have newsletters, we publish books, we have events uh both here in Auburn, Alabama and around the country and even a few around the world. Um and uh we have several different podcasts including my own minor issues podcast which is an 8 to 10 minute economic analysis once a week but we have several uh podcast and we have just an an a huge library of audio and video uh lectures and events that can be downloaded. Um, and usually there are no ads or registration or anything like that and you can really look up any topic that you're interested in and we'll have something to say about that. We we're here to teach people how markets work. Why do markets work and why does government always fail and why and how governments always fail? Why do the worst get to the top in the political system? So, we teach the mechanics of all that, not just, oh, I'm for the free market, or oh, I'm against the government. We're here to teach people how these things work and you know to to create uh to build citizens who have that intellectual capacity uh to defend free markets and the free society and to stand up against this immense tide of socialist thinking. you know, where all the textbooks and all of the teachers in our public and private schools, um, and all of the universities come from a socialist mindset. Um, and even in the, you know, homeschooling, we find textbooks and and teachers who really don't understand, uh, the the free market, uh, private property nature of the American success story. Um, and so we've got a lot of material and it's all for free and I encourage everybody to come and get a piece of it. And um, and also uh, right now we have a free book giveaway. Uh, it's a small book of FA Hayek's greatest hits articles. He was a Nobel Prize winner in economics. He was Mises's uh, most important one of his most important graduate students. and uh this is his greatest hits article. So you can use the link and uh get a free copy sent out to you or many copies if you want. >> Great. Well, I'll put that link in the description below as well as the link to the general Mises website and your podcast so people can check all of that out. Uh Dr. Thornon, thank you so much once again. It's been a great conversation. >> Thank you Jesse. Enjoyed it. >> Thank you for joining us today. Our sponsor Arc Silver Goldium has some great specials on precious metals bullion products. You can see them on your screen right now. These are subject to change and while supplies last. So, make sure to reach out to owner Ian Everard today at 307264-9441 or by email at ianarchgo.com and make sure to tell him that Commodity Culture sent you. And of course, pick up your Stacks, not fiat t-shirt in the Commodity Culture Shop, backed by a 100% quality guarantee. Use the link in the description below and I'll see you guys in the next episode. 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SILVER To New Highs 'In 2026' as 'Highway to Hyperinflation' Dead Ahead: Mark Thornton
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 April 6, 2026 and I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Mark Thornon to the program. An Austrian economist, senior fellow at the Mises Institute, author and the host of the minor issues podcast. Dr. Thornton sees the tailwinds driving both gold and silver as completely intact. And he is calling for new all-time highs for silver this year, driven by monetary debasement and the looming threat of hyperinflation for the US dollar. A factor he thinks could come into play faster than many realize. Mark unpacks his thoughts on government corruption, economic decay, and the death of free markets to make a case why gold and silver are the only lifeline in a world gone mad. All of this and so much more ahead in my conversation with Dr. Mark Thornton. Dr. Mark Thornton, it is great to have you back on Commodity Culture. Now, war is raging in the Middle East and both gold and silver have largely been selling off. It seems like whenever the president tweets about potential peace, the metals rise and when it looks like we're in for a longer conflict, they drop again. This is contrary to what a lot of people expected. Why do you think the medals have responded the way they have so far? And how do you expect them to react should this war continue to drag on? >> Jesse, it's great to be here in 2026. We've got two main big things going on. One is the business cycle and the other is the war. And the war is a supply shock. Okay? You're taking people out of the labor force. You're taking materials. You're shutting down transportation. You're doing all sorts of negative things, particularly to oil, which is a master ingredient in production. And so when you do that, at a point in time, that supply shock is going to show up in the consumer price index because of oil prices, natural gas, fertilizer, and so forth. And it's going to spike CPI. So it's not monetary inflation, it's just the statistical price inflation that jumps. But that's the statistic that the Federal Reserve uses to gauge or to justify really its monetary policy and in particular rate cuts. So it makes kind of sense that, you know, higher oil prices because of the war and because of the danger and because of the supply shock is going to feed into higher PPI and CPI statistics and make it more difficult for the Fed to justify rate cuts. And so we've seen, you know, the expectations this year where the Fed was going to cut rates two or three or more times and now there's fewer expectations for cuts. And that's true around the world. And of course, gold and silver are global markets. And so that's why you know we think of war as dangerous and I want gold but the people who are really moving outside of the spa um speculators and the traders and the hedge funds who took profits and moved into oil before the war um you know because of the war we see Persian Gulf countries I'm sure there's a lot of people there who are selling their gold and trying to get out uh trying to leave. I mean, people are trying to leave that area. They're trying to continue to finance their businesses without any revenues. And so, in that small corner of the market, people are selling. And so, there are, you know, you can't think of your own view of gold and silver u all the time. It's not going to hold true because other people are in other circumstances. And there's a lot of people that have wanted to get out uh in February uh because of you know various expectations liquidity and uh now the war uh and uh the expectations of fewer rate cuts which are good for gold and silver prices. Well, I want to touch on both silver and gold specifically now. And starting with silver because it's been on a roller coaster over the past several months as it surged close to $120 earlier in the year. It has fallen now to around $73 at this point in time. What do you make of this wild price action? Do you think we ultimately get back to new all-time highs maybe even this year? >> Well, of course, silver is more volatile than gold. And once, you know, gold and silver went up, especially silver, went up to new all-time highs, and once it got over $100, I began to expect a big correction in the market, you know, maybe as much as 40%. Uh, and it's gone even lower than that starting from 121. But, you know, 20% for gold, 40% for silver, those are just average uh correction markers based on historical averages. If you go back, I mean, they're never exactly 20% or exactly 40% or 10%. Uh it's always, you know, just a uh around that general area. And so this has been a big correction and a lot of that has to do with some of those basic factors that I talked about speculators, traders, hedge funds and so forth along with um you know the concerns about the business cycle uh the finance industry, banks, private credit, uh private equity, you know all of those people looking for liquidity and safety. uh by selling assets and going into the US dollar. But then of course there's the war on top of that. And so we've had a double whammy and uh things going in the opposite direction depending upon the news, depending upon what President Trump says. And if it's um you know, if it's sort of a proar day where everything is going to be blown up, uh then you get one strong reaction. And if it's peace around around the corner, the straits are going to be opened. Uh then you get the completely opposite reaction. And so we've not only had a big correction in percentage terms, but we've had a lot of volatility. Um you know, in the meantime, >> and I got to put you on the spot, tripledigit silver in 2026, or do you think we're going to have to wait longer than that? >> Yes. Uh I would say tripledigit silver in 2026. I would say new all-time high uh in 2026. You know, obviously that's a guesstimate, but you know, if we um if we clear up this situation in the Persian Gulf and we reset ourselves on long-term trends where the precious metals ship is being driven primarily uh its engine or its sales are driven primarily uh from monetary expansion and dollar uh degrading than I expect. Yeah. Much higher uh prices, you know, uh when we talk about tailwinds in precious metals, we look at things like the value of the dollar. We look at interest rates. Um, we look at oil prices and uh higher interest rates, higher dollar and higher oil, which is what we've gotten, are tailwinds working against the precious metals. And of course, over the long haul, those things, you know, you can have rising precious metals in a rising interest rate environment, you know, over the trend. You can have uh gold prices going up and the value of the dollar being stable, not going down. You know, the tailwinds or the headwinds are like minor steering currents, but all three of those have been working against the precious metals markets over the last month or two. >> Gold also selling off as we've touched on, although it's been far less volatile than silver considering the price inflation we could see as a result of this war. Now, I don't know if you technically want to call that inflation per se, but nonetheless, rising prices due to, of course, the increased price of the main input, which is energy, oil, um, as well as natural gas. The Fed is holding rates steady as we discuss potentially raising them up ahead. I'd love to hear your thoughts on if you think that's in the cards. Are these all headwinds for gold in addition to what you've discussed so far? And would you look at any corrections in the gold market as a potential buying opportunity at this point? Well, I think that you know the expectations of Fed cuts this year have been greatly diminished and I think uh rate cuts in other central banks around the world have been greatly diminished and we've even heard increasing talk about increases in those government rates. And so that is a a headwind and those headwinds do matter in the short term less so in the long term. and you know and so that's definitely working against it. Higher oil prices are definitely working against it. This war has been a very been very disruptive um to the market process that was going on where uh you know we were seeing higher uh precious metal prices. We were already seeing higher commodity prices uh before the start of the war. oil prices were already working themselves up. And so if and I pray that the the situation in the Persian Gulf is resolved while we're speaking here today. I mean I hope it goes away immediately, the quicker the better, the sooner the better uh for everybody in the world economy. Um and but once that happens then we get reset um back onto the problem of the uh the structure of the US economy. Uh when and when looked at in terms of the Austrian business cycle theory, we see a lot of male investments. We see a lot of overextension of credit in uh technology and artificial um uh intelligence, data centers, private equity, private credit, just a whole bunch of places um where there's are there is imbalances where investments have been made and they're not really paying off. And that signals that later in the year we're going to have a, you know, a stock market uh crisis. And you know, the Fed already started a semi secret uh quantitative easing program back in December, $40 billion a month. I expect that to be expanded, you know, because they're not going to want to lower the interest rate. But quantitative easing, yield curve controls and things like that are um other ways in which they can uh increase the money supply, increase credit liquidity um without actually uh you know targeting that uh policy rate. And uh once we get back to that normal track then I expect you know the the uh metal prices to firm and head higher um you know along those uh long run policy trends of of course it's starting with government spending the national debt the um interest payments as part of the budget um and then all of the money that the Fed has to create to make sure that that goes smoother. And you know, and so even with the war out of the way, we still have this humongous problem, uh, this financial problem, this fiscal problem with our government at its heart. 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 ianarchsg.com. Make sure to tell them, of course, that Commodity Culture sent you. And now back to the interview. And of course, the war is adding fuel to that fire with estimates of around $900 million per day that this war is costing. the US, the administration recently requesting 1.5 trillion for the military in a Congress budget request. I mean, we're at the level of debt now where it's a trillion here, a trillion there. Who really cares? But at what point does this become unsustainable in your view? >> It's already been unsustainable. I mean, I don't see any realistic possibility that, you know, the American government is going to get its fiscal situation in any kind of balance or, you know, what what's what's really needed is massive spending cuts. Um, you know, elimination of programs. um it would really require a very concerted effort just to try to get a hold of this beast. And under those, you know, conditions, it's hard to, you know, politicians, that's all they want to do, especially when it's a fiat monetary system and they don't have to increase taxes in order to increase spending. All they want to do is spend, spend, spend. And you know, they're getting their money uh and their votes through spe special interest groups. They're not really paying attention to the average American. And and so, you know, it's not surprising that, you know, President Trump uh he he there's no nothing to play with out there and you need a justification like going to war and preventing nuclear bombs and you know invading various countries. And so he's taking this tact of emergency military money and you know reestablishing colonies in Venezuela and South America, Cuba, Greenland, you know, etc. uh even though you know we know for a thousand years of experience or more that colonies are just a bad economic deal and they drag down the home country. I mean, Adam Smith, one of his main points in the Wealth of Nations, which is now 250 years old, uh, one of his main points is that colonies were a bad economic deal and that the Dutch, uh, who were much smarter, uh, knew that all along and they had a very limited, uh, colonial system, uh, and yet they became much wealthier than the English. uh and they had a very stable government and they weren't involved in as many wars and they lost fewer people uh to military death. Uh and so and they weren't involved in all sorts of you know uh uprisings and revolutions and nearly as much as the as the British. Um, so you know, we've always known that colonial empires are a bad economic deal for the homeland, but President Trump doesn't have anything any other way to go except making up some ad hoc emergency uh in some faraway country and as well as, you know, Cuba and Venezuela and Greenland, things like that. Yeah, I'm wondering your thoughts as to whether this is kind of the US trying to hold hold on to its hegemony because obviously there's so many theories floating around out there in terms of why this conflict is occurring from you know Brian Beeric who who gives an interesting point of view that it's actually the US is the one controlling Israel not the other way around and in fact it's a it's propaganda the the spreading of the information that Israel is controlling the US and there's some policy papers going back to the early 2000s that discuss how they're going to use Israel as a scapegoat in an eventual attack on Iran. Um and then of course you have those of the mind that well Israel is calling the shots. Um those talking about this is a religious war. It's a holy war. Um and and then of course the concept of of the US kind of cutting China off of cheap energy which they were paying for in Yuan and continue to do so in Yuan from Iran, a threat to the petro dollar system which perhaps the US sees as existential. what why do you think this conflict is happening and and how do you see it playing out? I know you said you you hope that it stops as we're speaking here today. Um I personally don't see that happening. I see no other end to this than perhaps one that is potentially catastrophic, but a lot of questions there. I know I'm throwing at you, but would just love your overall thoughts on the situation. >> Well, it's hard to figure. It's hard to believe that Netanyahu is controlled by anybody. But, you know, if I was cynical um about President Trump, who seems to have semidictial powers right now, you know, I would look at his friends and his enemies and you know, he's against the bricks and uh China and um India and uh South Africa and other countries, you know, they need oil and natural gas and they are going to be greatly hurt as a result of this uh because they're the main importers of Persian Gulf oil and natural gas, liqufied natural gas and so forth. Um so he's getting, you know, from the cynical point of view, he's getting at his enemies. And of course, you know, against being the cynical take on this, you could say, well, President Trump has all these friends and contributors in the oil and natural gas industry in the United States who are going to benefit. Uh, President Trump has a lot of supporters and voters in the farming community who have very low prices and tons of inventory of grain products sitting around not being sold. uh and they will benefit uh from this war uh and our fertilizer producers of course in in the US and Canada and um you know so you could take this cynical point of view and uh and and of course also you know President Trump has a lot of supporters in real estate and banking and uh you know convention cities like Las Vegas and New New York City and um you know the Persian Gulf States, the United Arab Emirates and Dubai have become a new competitor for corporate headquarters, business development, uh travel uh through on the airlines, uh leisure and tourism and so on and so forth. they become a new uh competitor for the same industries in the United States would just happen to support President Trump and donate a lot of money to his campaigns. So, you know, if you look at his friends and enemies, he could be just, you know, getting at his enemies and uh paying off his friends. If you want to take a totally cynical non-analytic uh view of you know what person controls what other person then the cynical view or the skeptic view um of politics and and President Trump's actions makes perfect sense. >> Yeah, I think that's a great analysis. Now, we we've been speaking a lot on this show and I spoke about it with you last time you were on as well about the fiat currency system and the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. You know, when it comes to this topic, there's those who believe we're nearing the end the endgame of this Ponzi scheme uh experiment that's been happening since, you know, at least 1971. Uh and then there are those who say you know what this can can get kicked down the road for much longer than people realize. They point to the Euro dollar you know the fact that there's so many US dollars out there that are being transacted uh between different countries a lot of foreign countries that even denote their debt their bonds and US dollar currency and that that whole Euro dollar market isn't really taken into account to consider just how strong the US dollar is internationally. I wonder what your thoughts are on the status of the US dollar as the reserve currency and and if it were to go away, what would that world look like in terms of the reserve currency? Would we be looking at a perhaps counterveailing brick system? Would we be looking at the yuan? How how do you see all that potentially playing out? >> Well, I see the US dollar is in a lot of trouble. And I've been writing about or speaking about hyperinflation for some time now because you know you can see it forming um and then all of a sudden it's here and it's upon us and nobody knows where it came from and everybody's totally surprised by it. But you know if you go back a few years the dollar is almost as good as gold. We're the world reserve currency of all central banks dominating uh and we're the dominant current currency in all international trade and uh countries from around the world in Europe in South America and other places are in effect using the US dollar as their currency or they have a Euro dollar system. They're investing tons of money in the United States and so they have dollar denominated assets. In 2011, uh, Professor Iiken Green wrote a book about, uh, the dollar and its status, and he said, "Well, it's going to last forever because there's no alternative." And I said, you know, BS. Um, you know, there will be alternatives. And of course since that time uh we've had Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. We've had the brick system which everybody poo pooed as being impossible or illogical. But look at it's starting. It's it's working. They're um adding a gold component uh gold exchange component uh for trading gold um for ex trading gold uh trading commodities and trading goods uh overseas. They're making people are making um international trades between two currencies without using the dollar. And now uh in the Persian Gulf, I mean it's it's obvious to me that the petro dollar thing is flying out the window pretty quickly. I mean the petro dollar meant that all uh oil and natural gas was being traded between all countries in terms of US dollars and that absorbed a lot of uh dollars in in terms of being used and exchanged uh elevating the value of the US dollar. And now of course uh people are buying um uh oil in with Russian rubles and Chinese Juan and you know in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Um and and so you know this this event is adding significantly to the demise of the petro dollar. And so, you know, I've a long time ago I spoke about, you know, we're heading down uh and the the lane that merges onto the highway to hyperinflation is dead ahead. And then more recently, I said we're merging onto the um on-ramp um to the highway to hyperinflation. I think right now uh literally in the last few days, you know, with this uh where the uh trade in oil uh in the in the Persian Gulf has been upended uh tells me that we're on that ramp firmly and we're accelerating and we're getting ready to go onto uh the highway to hyperinflation. So, it's a long deliberate process. Uh and people think that it depends solely on the supply of dollars, but it depends on the demand for dollars as much or more. Are people willing to hold US dollars? Are people wanting to use US dollars in exchange? And I have a feeling that the loss of the petro dollar, the rise of the bricks, um, you know, and a whole host of other things, uh, including the potential dumping of assets, uh, dollar denominated assets from Europe and elsewhere, uh, the repatriation of US dollar cash, uh, from the third world and from, um, black market participants, drug dealers, and so forth. who no longer want to hold dollars. They want to hold gold and and Bitcoin and things like that. Um that this money is going to these dollars are going to flow and it's going to cause price inflation and everybody is going to want to hold fewer dollars. Their demand for dollars is going to decline and with it the value of the dollar. So Misesus laid this all out based on the Weimar hyperinflation where you know people might absorb more and more supplies of of a money and then when they realize the price is going up they're less likely to hold as many currency units and eventually once they learn the lesson they want to dump those currency units as quickly as possible. And it's that demand, that change in the demand for money that really fires up the hyperinflation. >> Well, how can those listening protect themselves from this scenario you just laid out there? Is it really about having physical gold and silver in your possession first and foremost? Do you have concerns that if we do enter an era of hyperinflation for the dollar that we could see mass civil unrest, potential violence and crime breaking out more than it already is? Should people be looking at, you know, potentially another jurisdiction to get a residence permit in? Um potentially stocking up on food and clean water and making sure they have their own electricity supply. Do you think things will get that dire? How how do you how do you yourself um consider that scenario when it comes to preparing for it? >> I would say yes, yes, yes, and yes. Um uh but it's hard to put a timeline on that. But if we continue down this road of, you know, socialism in government, uh runaway socialist policies, uh you see disrespect and a downgrading respect for property rights and for the taxpayer and for businesses. Um all of that, you know, is ultimately going to uh pan out. And of course, Americans are completely divided politically, left and right. And uh and you know, and we've seen uh violence and and uh you know, people uh rising up against the government and some of that's a good thing obviously. I mean, we do need to be uh demonstrating in favor of these things um you know, of property rights and free markets. uh but that's not really uh happening very much. So yes, I mean precious metals I certainly wouldn't hold it all you know personally I would diversify the locations of where my precious metals were. Um and you know um and private security is an issue. Um and uh of course you know you should always have a backup in terms of food and water. And in in a hyperinflation or just a high rate of inflation uh it's a good idea. I mean, if you buy, say, canned goods and paper goods and you stack them and then you use them uh and you're rotating through all of those things, it means that the canned goods and paper goods that you're using today, you bought at a much lower price in the past and you've b you've protected yourself against inflation the same way you intend when you pro buy precious metals. So, yes, I mean, stacking all of that stuff is, you know, as long as you're using it and becoming familiar with it, um, you know, then that's that's a great way of preparing and getting mentally prepared. I mean, you don't want to go into any crisis, whether it's a, you know, whether it's a hyperinflation or a hurricane or tornado or whatever it is. You don't want to have to, you know, start by, you know, trying to create some strange food product that you've never had before or, you know, set up some water system at the last minute. I mean, you want to you want to be familiarized with this because I based on my reading, not my experience, but you know, any kind of emergency, uh, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and so forth, mentally very disturbing. So the more you can prepare um and actually do it um then mentally you'll be much less anxious and better prepared to deal with these things. Uh and you should be prepared to deal with emergencies even in a totally free market, you know, great economy that you know if everything's great, you should still have a little boy scout in you and be prepared. And a lot of that is, you know, uh having access to things and and being familiar with them, using them and so forth. So, yeah, I would be uh looking to uh have some knowledge and have some access to alternative systems for all of the necessities of life. >> Yeah, some great words of wisdom there. Do you think that those pulling the levers of power ultimately are aware that this system is in a very precarious place? uh because we're obviously seeing quite an increase in many countries so-called you know former legacy brand western nations like the UK, Germany, France, Canada, America etc. We're seeing somewhat of a crackdown on free speech, a crackdown on personal freedoms. Um you know in Germany now if you're a military age male you have to supposedly get permission from the government to leave abroad longer than 3 months in case they need you for the military. I want to read something. I hate to quote the BBC, but but I'm about to. So, here we go. German males aged between 17 and 45 may need to seek approval for lengthy stays abroad under changes introduced as part of a new law which introduced voluntary military service. While the plan is for voluntary service, if the security situation worsens or if too few volunteers came forward, a form of compulsory military service could be considered. Now, interestingly, what is not making any headlines in the West, but I'm aware of because I'm right beside this country, is Croatia actually recently introduced compulsory military service in January of this year. Once again, now for now, you're also allowed to opt for office work or picking up garbage on the street, essentially free labor for the government, but that that could very easily turn into a full-on military situation where you just must report to the military. Um, Poland's talked about doing this. I mean, it it seems to be kind of a dangerous trend, but just this overall restriction of freedoms, this overall government overreach that seems to be on the rise. Um, is this related to the fact that these politicians know that the system is kind of on its last legs, so to speak, and they're trying to clamp down as much as they can on the citizenry before it happens. Well, I think the political elites um know that, you know, the system is cracking. It's breaking. You know, the big bankers and the finance seers, the big industrialists, the war industry people, the leaders of the political parties, uh they all know what's going on this. So, you know, this is basically the Epstein class, which is global and makes up people from all of those subgroups. And, uh, now they're they're stooges in in, you know, that are at the actual politicians running things. Uh, frankly, they don't seem to know what's going on at all. um you know the people in charge of places like Germany and the UK and Canada and you know I don't know they they they really don't seem to know what's going on um uh some of them and so you know I would be you know I would be very suspicious um as I am of all politicians um but yeah I mean all these countries countries are socialist. Um they're progressive, democratic, socialist, fascist. Um and uh they don't have any respect for human rights uh or human beings in many cases. Uh they don't care about your rights or your life or you know your property. Um and and you know so when politicians uh exhibit those traits um you know and and they they don't do anything to stop the the breakdown of the fabric of society. They allow criminals and welfare bums to run riot all over the place. You know, you got to think about jumping ship and trying to find um an alternative country, but there's not many that I can even think of. I mean, I'm not leaving. Uh I'm committed for to stay in this fight, but um and I can't really think of too many places that um are too much better because socialism really uh you know people think of you know the world economy is free market and liberal and capitalist and all that but it's that's not it at all. I mean we have a socialist system that's become much more socialist and you can see that in trade especially you know if you don't have a gold standard uh you have protectionism and you have trading blocks and you have you know more and more nonsense over time and ultimately it does lead to war and I think we are you know in um you know kind of in a festering world war right Now um with you know many countries involved and uh many countries um you know uh in in participation in some way I mean China, Russia, the United States, Europe and so forth. It's a it's largely economic and and um diplomatic at this point uh trade uh barriers and so forth. But, you know, that's always uh a prelude to war is these um you know, where you're trying to beggar thy neighbor with inflation and you're trying to disadvantage them with protectionism and you're cutting off people's access uh to your raw materials or your strategic goods and that's what we've been doing. So I'm very very concerned up and down the scale and I don't see it uh many countries or many political systems which rank very high uh or superior to a lot of these countries. >> Yeah, some great points. What ultimately is the solution to all of this from a governmental standpoint in your opinion? Because I had Michael Oliver on the show recently. He wrote a book called The New Libertarianism, anarcho capitalism. It was based on a thesis he wrote for his masters in the 1970s. He got some input from Murray Rothbard um in writing that book as well. And his concept is that government itself needs to go away just no government whatsoever. Everything being a free market system including security, the police force, the judicial system, etc. Um do you think that's a potential solution at some point? It feels like we're so far away from anything like that ever happening. Are you more of the mind of Anne Rand who believed in a small government? Uh what's the ultimate solution to get because it seems like the corruption is just so brazen and in your face now that this system cannot stand the way that it currently is. >> No, it can't stand forever. It's it's head heading down a a path of self-destruction. I think Michael is 100% correct. Um I back up that uh his his thesis uh in that book you know completely and uh you know we don't need government for anything. Um I myself can live basically you know 99% of my life without any uh government interaction whatsoever. I mean my insurance companies are much more important to protecting me uh than the government itself. The government is just extracting money and resources from me on a regular basis and they're preventing me from, you know, increasing my wealth or increasing employment or whatever I want to do. They're just putting roadblocks in the way to economic progress for me and everybody else really. Uh now of course um how do you get from a runaway fascist economic government uh writ large in the United States and elsewhere around the world back to even a small limited government. You know, if if we got back to a small limited government like under the Articles of Confederation after we beat we pulverized the uh United King, Great Britain, uh threw them off of the continent if we had government that size. Well, I wouldn't even be doing this job and you probably wouldn't even have this podcast. And uh so I'm not sure if we'll ever get back to no government. Uh, and there's lots of ways that we can reduce the government. We could, you know, if you put me in charge of the budget, I could bring the budget under control. Um, stabilizing uh the the welfare programs and uh and you know, and bringing restoring a gold standard uh commodity money system. You have to start with a commodity money system and then deal with all of the problems as they come about based on real money. Uh if you don't if you if you don't start there, then you're just patching one thing with the other and you never get anywhere. Kind of like Doge. Um you know, it never seemed to get anywhere and it didn't. Uh so you have to start with hard money. So you have to make the hard choices after that. And um everybody who works for the government, everybody who's getting a check for the government and everybody who's getting, you know, special favors and protectionism from the government, they're going to have to lose in the short run. But ultimately that there's an enormous payoff um in in a free market society with a free market system. And um you know the the glory of our current um standard of living is testament to that that the US rose from a you know a a natural resource wasteland basically with you know no economic development whatsoever. We we defeated the world's uh economic military and economic superpower and then we became uh the greatest nation on earth with almost no government between uh 1776 and uh say the SpanishAmerican war. We had almost no government whatsoever and yet we became uh the world's economic superpower. >> Well, Dr. Dr. Thornton, this has been a fantastic conversation. Could you tell people about the work you do at the Misesus Institute, where people can go to to learn more about it, uh your podcast there, and and anywhere else you'd like to direct people online? >> Yeah, we're a nonprofit educational institution. Uh we promote the uh economic writings of Ludwig van Mises, the Austrian school of economics uh to students and graduate students, professors and the general public. Uh we have one of the world's largest economic web pages in the world and it's free to everybody with no registration. We have many daily articles coming out on topical uh things of interest. Uh we have newsletters, we publish books, we have events uh both here in Auburn, Alabama and around the country and even a few around the world. Um and uh we have several different podcasts including my own minor issues podcast which is an 8 to 10 minute economic analysis once a week but we have several uh podcast and we have just an an a huge library of audio and video uh lectures and events that can be downloaded. Um, and usually there are no ads or registration or anything like that and you can really look up any topic that you're interested in and we'll have something to say about that. We we're here to teach people how markets work. Why do markets work and why does government always fail and why and how governments always fail? Why do the worst get to the top in the political system? So, we teach the mechanics of all that, not just, oh, I'm for the free market, or oh, I'm against the government. We're here to teach people how these things work and you know to to create uh to build citizens who have that intellectual capacity uh to defend free markets and the free society and to stand up against this immense tide of socialist thinking. you know, where all the textbooks and all of the teachers in our public and private schools, um, and all of the universities come from a socialist mindset. Um, and even in the, you know, homeschooling, we find textbooks and and teachers who really don't understand, uh, the the free market, uh, private property nature of the American success story. Um, and so we've got a lot of material and it's all for free and I encourage everybody to come and get a piece of it. And um, and also uh, right now we have a free book giveaway. Uh, it's a small book of FA Hayek's greatest hits articles. He was a Nobel Prize winner in economics. He was Mises's uh, most important one of his most important graduate students. and uh this is his greatest hits article. So you can use the link and uh get a free copy sent out to you or many copies if you want. >> Great. Well, I'll put that link in the description below as well as the link to the general Mises website and your podcast so people can check all of that out. Uh Dr. Thornon, thank you so much once again. It's been a great conversation. >> Thank you Jesse. Enjoyed it. >> Thank you for joining us today. Our sponsor Arc Silver Goldium has some great specials on precious metals bullion products. You can see them on your screen right now. These are subject to change and while supplies last. So, make sure to reach out to owner Ian Everard today at 307264-9441 or by email at ianarchgo.com and make sure to tell him that Commodity Culture sent you. And of course, pick up your Stacks, not fiat t-shirt in the Commodity Culture Shop, backed by a 100% quality guarantee. Use the link in the description below and I'll see you guys in the next episode. 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