Permanent Inflation Is Here and the $50 Price Floor for Silver | Mark Skousen

Gold has shown sustained strength, trading between $4,700 and $4,800 an ounce. While the metal is off its record highs, it has seen a significant recovery as investors seek a foothold in a volatile macro environment. Silver remains a standout performer, holding a 100% gain over the last year despite its recent consolidation near $75. In this Kitco News interview, Dr. Mark Skousen breaks down why he believes we have entered a permanent new price regime where silver is headed to $100 and will never trade below $50 again.

We also dive into the breaking news regarding the Strait of Hormuz. Reports indicate Iran is effectively running a "tollbooth" through the strategic artery, with vessels allegedly paying in Yuan or cryptocurrencies for escorted passage. As a supply-side economist, Skousen explains why this shift away from the U.S. dollar signals the gradual end of the Petrodollar era.Plus, we discuss Skousen’s massive exclusive on the SpaceX confidential IPO filing. With a valuation target of $1.75 trillion, this listing could make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire and serve as the ultimate validation of the "Roaring 20s" productivity thesis.

Recorded April 1 2026

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Key Topics and Timestamps:
0:00 Gold Strength and the High-Stakes Diplomatic Gamble 
1:11 The SpaceX IPO Scoop: A $1.75 Trillion Filing 
3:00 The Roaring 20s: Why Elon Musk is the Center of Technology 
5:50 Permanent Inflation: Why Real Deflation No Longer Exists 
8:15 Silver Price Floor: Why it Won’t Go Below $50 
12:30 The Broken Scoreboard: Why GDP Hides the Real Economy 
14:40 The Hormuz Tollbooth: Paying in Yuan and Crypto 
17:50 Warren Buffett on the 2% Inflation Trap 
21:00 The End of the Gold Standard and Permanent Inflation 
27:30 Bitcoin vs. Gold: The Role of Private Money
31:00 Adam Smith and the System of Natural Liberty 
35:30 Benjamin Franklin’s Maxim for Today’s Investors 
39:45 Final Indicator: What to Watch for in the Next Quarter

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The videos are not intended to provide trading advice, and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. Kitco News, its anchors, producers, and reporters are not responsible in any way for the performance or actions of any sponsor, advertiser or affiliate of Kitco News. In no event will Kitco and its employees be held liable for any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the use of the content in this video.

Disclaimer:  
The videos are not intended to provide trading advice, and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. Kitco News, its anchors, producers, and reporters are not responsible in any way for the performance or actions of any sponsor, advertiser or affiliate of Kitco News. In no event will Kitco and its employees be held liable for any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the use of the content in this video.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In Focus with Jeremy Saffron is brought to you by Swan, the real Bitcoin company.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome back. I'm Jeremy Saffron. Gold is showing sustained strength here on the Kit Code charts, trading between $4,700 and $4,800 an ounce. And while we're off the record highs, the medal has seen a significant recovery as investors seek a foothold in this volatile macro. Silver, meanwhile, look at that consolidating near $75. But remember that it's still a hundred percent gain over the last year. Now we're also navigating a high-stakes diplomatic gamble. President Trump has issued an ultimatum. Now Tehran has fired back, calling the demands, quote, absurd, and Bloomberg is now reporting that Iran is effectively running a toll booth through the Strait of Hormuz, with some vessels allegedly paying in yuan or crypto for escorted passage through the artery that carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil. Our guest today is making headlines for a bit of a different reason, but he does have an opinion on all of that as well. He was well ahead of the news that just broke today that SpaceX has filed confidentially for a $1.75 trillion IPO, a move that would dwarf the record debut of Saudi Aramco. Joining us now is Dr. Mark Scousen. He's a presidential fellow at Chapman University and the macroeconomic strategist at the Oxford Club. Great to have you back, Mark. Thanks for coming on Kitco News.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Yeah, my pleasure. Lots happening in the markets these days. And uh I'm excited that uh finally this uh Elon Musk has uh confidentially filed uh with the SEC to go public. This is going to be the largest IPO in history of 1.5 to $1.7 trillion. We'll make him the first trillionaire, the world's first trillionaire. So uh pretty impressive. And I've met Elon Musk and confronted him on issues regarding his um incredible run. I actually quoted Seneca one time, there's no great genius without a touch of madness. And he responded, I like the madness part.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Well, I mean, you know, you've also been uh we'll start here before going over to metals, because it's a huge story today. I mean, especially in this market that's been a bit volatile. The SP coming back slightly today on this news of some de-escalation, but uh, let's talk about this big call. You were well ahead of the news in your new newsletter, the Scousen report, that SpaceX has filed confidentially for that IPO. The valuation, as you mentioned, puts that company at about 1.75 trillion. Uh first, congratulations on the call. I mean, I know you got a lot more subscribers because of it, but also, I mean, what does a listing of this magnitude tell you about the state of the capital markets and the appetite for growth in a high interest rate environment?

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Well, Jeremy, I think we're uh we're in a golden age of technology, uh kind of uh a roaring 20s all over again that happened 100 years ago and it's happening again. And uh Elon Musk is right in the middle of it. And so to be a part of him, I mean, he's made me a millionaire myself with my position in the Tesla stock. And the focus right now is on SpaceX. But look at everything that Elon Musk is doing. For example, uh Starlink, which is his uh communication satellite system, and he's put up 10,000 satellites around the globe so that uh up to a billion people now are going to use uh Starlight Mobile for their cell phone connections and so forth. Uh I mean SpaceX has gone from uh this year is supposed to earn uh eight billion dollars on sixteen billion dollars in revenue. That's a 50% profit margin. This is a company that has grown faster than any other company in history. It's gone from zero to $10 billion in three years. I mean, uh uh uh Tesla took five years to get to $10 billion, Amazon took uh took even uh even longer. So uh this is really a remarkable uh series of events with the satellite uh program that's developing, and also his Terrafab is creating a new AEI uh uh AI chip uh to re to uh fund his self-driving cars and uh robots. Uh there's so many things going on inside this guy's head, it truly is remarkable, and uh you know why not uh you can link in with that by investing in Tesla and SpaceX and so forth. It's really quite a remarkable event. And and you have so many uh commodities and various companies that are linked to the success of this technology. Uh it's it's something that I've really jumped on in my Skousen report and why I have so many new subscribers. Because I think it's a very exciting, uh uh kind of incredible uh event that's being that's unfolding and before our very eyes.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yeah, yeah. Well said. And I mean, you know, the the filing also includes Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, XAI. I mean, you just described it there yourself. This decade is kind of the roaring 20s, driven by what you know you call advanced intelligence. Is the SpaceX IPO kind of the the ultimate validation of that productivity thesis that we're going to talk about? Or is the $75 billion capital raise simply a sign of you know some extreme liquidity in the market?

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Yeah, there's there's always this issue of uh uh technology stocks getting ahead of itself just like in the uh 2000s uh or the late 90s when the uh the uh dot-com boom turned into a bust that lasted a good three years. But the technology is real. Uh the markets do get ahead of themselves, they they do get frothy. Uh so I'm hoping there will be a fallout. Well, there has been to some extent a fallout in the last uh year or in the last few months due to this war. The technology stocks have come down to a reasonable level, more reasonable or less unreasonable level, if you will. So I I'm still very bullish. I think these are opportunities to buy. I expect the SpaceX to go to premium uh, but uh probably get too high too fast and pull back, and uh that might be another opportunity to load up.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yeah. I mean, you know, SpaceX is kind of becoming the market's flagship productive asset here. I mean, I guess that would also strengthen the case for metals, for energy and industrial supply chains tied to that build-out, too.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Certainly, the data centers are linked to energy, and I've been recommending a number of energy companies, enterprise products partners, uh the Williams Company, which uh is a natural gas pipeline company that linked directly to the to the financing of data centers, providing energy to the data centers. Uh, this is all uh very positive uh news and one that I think uh will continue to be uh a big success. Minerals, I mean, let's face it, uh gold, silver, copper, uh these are all uh useful industrial commodities. They're not just monetary metals, although they are that as well. Uh so uh I think we've seen the bottom of both gold and silver moving up. You've got to remember one thing that's really important. This is the overwhelming issue as the macro strategist for the Oxford Club. I make this point over and over again. We've been in an era of permanent inflation. There's no real deflation, even in commodities. Everything is moving to higher levels, increasing demand. Uh supplies are uh restricted in many ways. I mean, are we really finding more copper mines, silver mines, gold mines? No, I mean there's a secular decline there, and we've had to go to alternative energy like nuclear power. I'm very bullish on the uranium stocks. Uh they're all in a super bull market and they see these opportunities when the prices come back down as buying opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

You know, we can transition over to the metals, too. I mean, you're watching it here. I mean, if if this is a permanent inflation regime across commodities, not just a temporary war shock. I mean, which markets do you kind of think are are underpriced here? I mean, today, I mean, we're seeing gold climb back up to almost $4,800. Silver, still a standout performer. The last year, even with its recent, you know, consolidation, it's near 75. I mean, how do you read this current cycle after we had that correction?

SPEAKER_03 8:43

So I think it's uh I have a kind of a bittersweet attitude regarding silver because I was always one to give out the uh the silver uh uh silver dollars to uh people who did a good turn to my students, uh Chapman University. I give a silver dollar on the date that they took my class as a memo something to remember my class. Uh and uh gee, it at one point they were $100 for a coin. I mean, that's crazy. So I did think silver and gold, especially silver, went up too far too fast. But it's it's linked to this industrial use more than a monetary metal. I mean, to some extent, yes, it's uh an inflation hedge, but it's been doing better than inflation hedge because silver is no longer used just in photography, but in the AI chips and uh other technologies. Uh and so I really think that there is a major bull market going on there. What is least undervalued? Well, maybe the copper stocks. It seems like copper has a real uh potential there because it's it's used in so many uh issues. So um I and uranium has not reached its previous high of $120 a pound. Yeah, uh, I think it's around $85 a pound. So there's more room to grow with the uranium stocks as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

You know, you you kind of brought it up there. I mean, you suggested the easy money in metals may have already been kind of behind us. I mean, you know, let's stay on silver for a second. Given that it's still holding 100% gain over the last year, do you believe that we have now entered kind of a permanent new price regime, or or is there a risk of a deeper pullback still on the table here?

SPEAKER_03 10:35

Boy, I was around in the 1980 when uh it reached $50 an ounce uh due to the uh squeeze the silver squeeze, uh the short squeeze that uh the uh the Hunt brothers engaged in. Uh I even met Bunker Hunt, and he actually one once said to me, You I should have followed your advice because I said get out of gold and silver in 1980 and get into stocks and bonds because Reagan, Reaganomics was about to kick in. And so that was my very first prediction as a macro strategist, and it turned out to be a good one, although nobody believed me at the time. So then uh silver went to $50 an ounce again in 2011, uh, and then it pulled back and went back down to a reasonable level to 20 bucks an ounce. And now my prediction is that it's back over $50, headed to $100 again. It's never going to go back under $50 because of all the inflation that we've seen in the past. Plus, you have to add in silver's use in industrial production with the data centers, with self-driving cars, with alternative energy. All of that is very positive for silver. And remember, there aren't very many silver mines. Uh, it's a byproduct and uh of gold and other mining companies and and miners are still having a hard time finding uh these metals. So the the supply limitations on top of the increasing demand, the increasing inflation all lead to higher gold and silver prices. And uh I have a bittersweet attitude because uh I mean, how do you give somebody a silver dollar now when it's uh worth a hundred bucks? You you it's worth a franklin, right? That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Different regime, different regime. And you know, Mark, I mean, you you brought up copper there, uh talking about maybe it being the best value. Doesn't that also kind of mean your thesis depends on on growth holding up? If the economy rules over harder than expected, copper always gets hit much faster than gold. Or are we past that point of return here where history changes and doesn't repeat based on you know this whole supply and demand imbalance?

SPEAKER_03 12:50

Well, the longer this war continues, the more we are headed toward a recession. Uh right now, GDP is basically driven by consumer spending only. The B2B spending that comes out of my gross output statistic has been lackluster. Stagflation is the best way to describe it. The only thing that's pushing uh stock prices higher is this new technology, which is increasing productivity. But the economy itself is struggling. Uh, war is not a boom to the economy, uh, unlike what is taught by the Keynesian economists. Uh it is uh it is a laggard, it is uh it increases our costs. We'll probably see that with the March CPI coming out that'll be, I think, substantially higher. Even commodity, the commodity index is substantially higher already. So uh that's a precursor to higher inflation, uh kind of a stagnating economy that we're facing uh right now. So uh uh this this is why copper prices or copper stocks uh fell uh in anticipation of a possible recession. But I think it's short term. I think we'll see a recovery once we uh resolve this war issue, and I'm hoping we will resolve it as President Trump is promising over the next couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Now, I want to talk to you a little bit uh about the GDP because you have some interesting takes on it. But before we do that, I mean we just got these reports of a uh what they're being called a toll booth in this trade of Hormuz, and it's quite stunning. I mean, ships reportedly paying in yuan or stable coins just to move oil. As a supply-side economist, I mean, what does it say about the state of the US dollar when a critical global choke point begins operating in alternative currencies and crypto?

SPEAKER_03 14:41

Yeah, I think this is a really uh great phenomenon because I have uh my critics uh uh of uh uh Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies saying uh, you know, this is uh this is all uh bubble and it's gonna go to zero and so forth. No, there are legitimate uses uh for the cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin and so forth, and uh I think it's uh uh playing a role to uh uh private money that is uh uh people are looking for an alternative to the dollar. Uh the dollar is reducing and losing its uh world currency status very gradually. Uh China, uh other countries are central banks are buying gold more than they ever have before. And the stable currencies uh are very legitimate, they're very real, and they're very large. I mean, teller tether is uh the largest of the uh of the stable coins, and they even have a tether gold, and they bought more gold than a lot of central banks have in the last year. So there are there's definitely an interest in looking at alternatives to the dollar, and uh, you know how long is this gonna last with uh the Persian Gulf? Uh I think uh I am very hopeful at least that uh that the Islamic uh uh extremists uh that are running Iran, uh they're on their last legs. Uh they'll probably hopefully be displaced with regime change. You know, I just I just finished a study uh reading a book about the last 50 years of the history of Iran, and they're just full of regime change. The last one was 1979, regime change when the Shah was overthrown. So this is not something new in assassinations and and uh the the uh the uh crimes and stuff that are committed. The the uh um you know it's it's really uh a sad commentary. After reading it, you say, thank goodness I live in the United States and not in Iran. 80% of the American people, um 80% of the Iranian people uh have a positive view of America. It's just their leaders that have this death of America mentality.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah, yeah. But you know, I mean, if if 20% of the world's energy is now kind of subject to a war tax paid in Yuan, or does that kind of solidify your thesis that we haven't, or I guess we have entered an era of that permanent structural inflation that the Fed simply cannot control with interest rates alone?

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Yeah, and and to think that uh I mean, talk about creating an artificial inflation. The Austrian School of Economics taught us all that there's no free lunch when it comes to money. And when you impose when you drop interest rates to zero, which we did, we had ZERP the zero interest rate policy for 10 years, it created uh all kinds of bubbles uh that that created a boom bust cycle. It's it's not something that uh I I would support.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Mark, let's play that clip for you from Warren Buffett. He's long been skeptical of gold, but on inflation, he is making a point that overlaps with your own thesis. Once policymakers kind of normalize inflation, savers are forced to run harder just to stand still. Uh let's take a look.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

I wish they had a zero inflation target. But I mean, once you start saying you're gonna tolerate 2%, that compounds pretty dramatically over time. And you're you're saying to people that you're getting less than two percent on your money, you're going backwards. And actually, if you pay tax, you may pay tax on the two percent. You know, I mean I don't like I don't like uh that particular goal.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

But it's good to see him at least making a couple of uh interviews still. But but Buffett's obviously arguing that once you tolerate that 2% target, you're telling the public that if they earn less than that on their money, they're going backwards. I mean, is this era of permanent inflation? Are hard assets like gold and silver the only way for the average saver to stay ahead of that trap?

SPEAKER_03 18:58

Well, I'm glad you played that clip with uh Warren Buffett, who, by the way, I've met before and we spent some time together. He's not particularly a gold bug. He he's a big believer in investing in successful businesses, uh not gold. Uh his father was a gold bug and a silver uh aficionado, but uh but not a son. But Warren Buffett is absolutely right about the uh 2% inflation target. Even Paul Volcker himself thought it was a ridiculous rule that Ben Bernanke created when he was Fed chairman. And it basically says we're entering an era of permanent inflation. And not only that, but the Fed has actually been cutting rates even though they didn't achieve their 2% inflation target. Inflation was still 3%, and that's with the consumer price index as a defective measure of the cost of living anyway. It's certainly higher than 3%. I tell all investors you need to make 10%, you need to earn 10% a year just to keep up with the higher cost of living in this country. And that includes taxes that Warren Buffett mentioned. So it's it's a it's uh very unfortunate that the Fed has a has caved in because one of their goals is price stability. But how is 2% inflation price stability? That's crazy. So uh you're not and and the other factor that you need to take into account is remember that there's a strong correlation between inflation as a measure by the consumer price index or the cost of living index and the interest rates. And you can't have higher inflation and expect to cut interest rates. That is a recipe for disaster.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah, yeah. It's funny. I was gonna ask you that because I mean, you know, that that 0% target to maintain any purchasing power. Is a 0% target even a mathematical possibility anymore, or has that debt load made that a historical relic, you know?

SPEAKER_03 20:59

Well, I actually uh have a chart that uh uh Reinhold and Rogar from Harvard, the two economists that came up with this chart, sharing the permanent inflation hypothesis since World War II. Prior to World War II, inflation was caused by wars, and then after the war was over, inflation came back down to zero. But after World War II, we've had permanent inflation. Why? Well, I give a list of five or six reasons, and look at all of these reasons. One is never-ending wars, which is inflationary. Uh another one is the creation of the Fed, which is the end engine of inflation, because they're with the 2% policy. Uh you have uh going off the gold standard, which destroyed or minimized the discipline that's necessary to control inflation. You have Keynesian economics, which allows you to run deficits indefinitely. And last but not least, you have the Brenton Woods Agreement in 1944, which made the dollar a fiat currency. The world's currency. And of course, it was backed by gold at the time, but you could print as many dollars as you wanted. And for a while that worked, but eventually we had to go off the gold standard because we printed up so much dollars. So I asked my students which one of these five or six reasons for the permanent inflation policy, which one is the biggest problem? And uh they all say all of the above, but actually Reinhard and Rogar said it was going off the gold standard. That's where we really lost the discipline. And of course, we're we're off the gold standard. Fortunately, we still print gold and silver. We meant gold and silver coins, and I'm recommending that people buy those, or you buy the ETFs, uh, that you can put them in your IRA as a uh as an inflation cur uh hedge and against a hedge against geopolitical instability.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah. Uh let's talk about a little bit about that broken scorecard. I mean, you've argued for years that gross output, not just GDP, gives a better read on the economy. And I mean, for our viewers, GDP only looks at the final sale, but your metrics capture the business-to-business spending in the entire supply chain. I mean, when the mainstream headlines today, and I mean I've been reading them, they're focused on that 0.6% rise in retail sales. What is the production side of the economy telling you that the standard scoreboard is kind of missing here?

SPEAKER_03 23:24

Yeah, exactly. I've been arguing for some time, and actually the federal government has restored my faith in the federal government, the BEA, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, that puts out the GDP statistics, added my top line in national income accounting called gross output, which measures spending at all stages of production. So GDP, as you point out, is this final output only. And so it's it uh overplays the role of consumer that that consumption is the biggest sector of the economy. And it's not production, business spending is actually twice as big as the consumer spender. So do not look at consumer spending, do not look at retail sales. That's not the key indicator. The key indicator is the supply chain, and it's business is business spending. And my gross output statistic does measure that. It comes out every quarter, just like GDP. The only problem is it comes out two months later. But the evidence is overwhelming that this is a consumer spending-only stimulative economy, uh, and it's largely due to all of the free money that was given out by the Biden administration after the pandemic. So that's allowed consumer spending to continue to grow very rapidly. But business spending has been struggling as they deal with the supply chain issues. The pandemic uh kind of shut down the supply chain, uh, and it would take a long time to get back. This war is creating a lot of supply problems, supply chain problems. Plus, Trump made the fundamental error of becoming a protectionist and imposing these huge tariffs. Uh, the the trade war that he's created has not helped business spending as well. Plus, AI has created uh the slowest uh job creation process uh in in the last 10 years. I mean, I feel bad for my students who are seniors looking for a job. Uh nobody wants to quit their job, and and there are very few job openings right now due to the technology, the AI, and the trade war, which has created incredible uncertainty. So, uh, what's really driving this economy is the uh AI and the technology that Elon Musk and others are developing. It's very exciting. Uh hopefully it will continue and uh it will uh uh cover a multitude of sins as uh as the uh Christian uh doctrine is. Charity covers a multitude of sins. In this case, it's technology.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yeah, yeah. And you know, uh, I mean, to your point there, President Trump is pushing for rate cuts even as this 15% tariff remains in the system, and energy supply risks are clearly unresolved. I mean, markets have taken rate cuts almost off the table this year. Is it even realistic for the Federal Reserve to cut rates in this backdrop, especially with gold showing so much sustained strength?

SPEAKER_03 26:27

No, I'm glad to see JPEO push push against this uh this idea, and he's actually uh warned investors, and this is one reason the stock market uh dropped for uh for quite some time, uh, because uh uh higher interest rates uh uh are now a possibility, and certainly cutting interest rates are off the table because inflation is going to be worse. And this will come out on April twilight. We'll get the uh the March uh CPI figure, and I suspect it's gonna be elevated. And how can you cut interest rates when inflation's going up? That just doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

You know, uh we're gonna talk about a little bit about Bitcoin for our audience, uh, some of them rolling their eyes, as you can imagine, on the gold bug side. But I mean, you've talked about uh adding bit blockchain exposure at least through specific proxies like that block ETF. I mean, we saw Bitcoin jump 5% on Trump's ceasefire comments earlier today. For our traditional Kitko audience, I mean, why add a volatile asset tied to crypto when gold is already proving its its kind of worth as a monetary hedge?

SPEAKER_03 27:35

Well, you have to go or wherever the trend is, and I think it's pretty clear that uh Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have bottomed and are starting to move higher. They do provide a uh currency alternative, they do provide an ability to transfer funds privately. Uh and uh and it will increase in its uh use if the governments finally get their act together and make it legal tender so that every time you use gold or sil or use the bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies, it doesn't become a taxable event. But there are elements of where uh these uh uh alternatives, um digital alternatives are very real. The other thing is the blockchain technology, let's not ignore the technology of the uh uh the balance sheet that you can create with digital uh currencies and uh where you can list on um on the on the blockchain uh financial transactions, at some point there's going to be a breakthrough where it's going to be used in all of our stock transactions or real estate transactions. Perhaps we'll get rid of uh uh the title insurance, which uh is kind of a waste of money in so many ways. Uh if we can develop a foolproof way to uh record all of these financial transactions and do it very quickly. There's a lot to be said for that blockchain technology, and that's why I've been recommending BLOK as an alternative because that's companies that deal in the blockchain technology, not just cryptocurrencies.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Yeah, I I mean you've also been highlighting um strategic industrial, you know, uh uh and hard asset names, including defense-linked themes, it appears. I mean, does that does that mean that the current portfolio is less about holding bullion and more about owning the businesses tied to infrastructure, rearmament, uh, other hard asset demand?

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Yeah, so I've been recommending uh in the case of uh the cryptocurrency space, I've been recommending BLOK because uh it's it's doubled the return compared to Bitcoin actually went down last year, but uh BLOK actually went up about 30%. So you're getting some leverage with actual companies that are involved in these transactions and this technology. So I like that a lot. And also defense spending, war spending, if you will, is uh definitely uh the never-ending war part of inflation. Uh Trump has said he's going to increase the uh defense war budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. I don't know how quickly, but it sounds like you're he's running out of ammunition and uh explosives and uh and rockets and so forth. He's got to replenish all those. And the new technology with uh the drones and so forth. I mean, this is offering tremendous opportunity uh in uh in defense uh technology stocks. So I recommend the uh the Global X uh Defense Technology Fund, uh SHLD, I think is the symbol. Uh it's been down a little bit, but now is making a recovery with the rest of the market. I think this is another good way to uh to play this market and and make sure you make 10% a year just to keep up with inflation.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Yeah.

unknown 30:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Hey uh Mark, let me take that from modern monetary system back to the older framework because I mean you keep coming back to it underneath crypto gold stable coins. Your bigger point is really about trust exchange and obviously the structure of the markets, and that brings us to Adam Smith. I mean, you've been talking a lot about the fact that we're in the 250th anniversary year of the wealth of nations. You recently noted that the market order still functions through voluntary exchange. Uh we're getting different reports, but I mean, can that natural order still function when the US is considering a withdrawal from NATO and you know, using policy as kind of a weapon here?

SPEAKER_03 31:39

Well, in Adam Smith's time, it was all called political economy, not just economics. And that's definitely we're moving back in that direction of uh everything is political, uh, even the economics. Uh and I do think that uh the economic freedom index that the Fraser Institute has, based in Vancouver, by the way, uh, is worth looking at because uh it's basically a way of quantifying, of measuring the Adam Smith model, uh, what he called the system of natural liberty. And it involves uh uh the size of government, taxation, free trade, uh business development, and the rule of law, your your rule of law that is extremely important to have a stable uh political system uh to to be able to develop and and uh and have a higher standard of living. And there's no the evidence is overwhelming. The Adam Smith model works. The more freedom, more economic freedom a country has, the higher your standard of living. The evidence is overwhelming in that respect. So the Adam Smith model works, and that means that we need to lower uh tariffs and uh non-tariff uh regulations, which are a serious problem. We need to lower taxes. Um Adam Smith uh his model is still uh very relevant, uh, but we are losing the battle. The World Economic Freedom Index has been in decline since uh 9-11, since the terrorist attacks, the financial crisis of 2008, the pandemic of 2020. I mean, you've had a series of these uh uh interferences with the market system and the supply chain and so forth, and it has kept us from uh from growing as fast as we could. We're still growing, but at a slower rate, and it's largely because the economic freedom index is uh is in gradual decline. Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

I hope it hopefully it will turn around soon. You know, in the world that we're in now, we've been talking about it. I mean, with national security, supply chain, strategic industries all politicized. Is is a is a return to the cleaner free market model still realistic, or is that more of an ideal than a live policy path?

SPEAKER_03 34:03

Well, actually, uh the uh Fraser Institute has a chart showing that countries with the uh more economic freedom actually have better environmental conditions, lower uh uh pollution problems, and uh cleaner water. Uh there's a lot of evidence that uh these countries can afford the costs of uh uh of reducing pollution and so forth. They do come at a cost, uh the catalytic converters and the controls that you have on industry and coal and that sort of thing. Uh it's only countries, uh it's the third world countries that are polluting on a massive scale, and it's the advanced uh economies in the United States, in Europe, North America, and so forth that have have lower uh um environmental concerns and and even uh dealing with uh climate change and that sort of uh thing. So I'm all I I think that uh we need more of Adam Smith, not less.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, we could bring in Benjamin. You brought up Benjamin uh for basically a silver coin. Uh you've spent much of your career studying Benjamin Franklin and his various roles in building the early American economy. Uh, what is one Franklin maxim that applies to an investor watching silver consolidate while gold keeps climbing today?

SPEAKER_03 35:27

Well, uh nothing but money is sweeter than honey. So that's the that's one of his lines. But um uh he also emphasized a penny saved is a penny earned. We need to be saving, not going heavily into debt. In fact, he went through Benjamin Franklin. I've written a book, by the way, called The Greatest American, and it's about Benjamin Franklin as the world's most versatile genius. Uh so uh your listeners can get copies of uh The Greatest American. I would highly recommend it because it's 80 chapters on how to apply Franklin to today's hot issues. It's not really a biography, it's more on how to as a book that can help you better. And he went through two world wars, the French and Indian War, the American Revolution. He went through a depression, he went through runaway inflation, not worth a continental, he went through a banking crisis in 1772, and through all of that, he survived and prospered. Why? Because during the good times, which is very important, during the good times, he retained earnings. Companies in the good times need to retain earnings. Individuals who are have their high income level, that's when they need to be saving and not increasing their spending. And uh Franklin was very good at that. So when he lost his 1,800 pounds a year service as a colonial agent, he was able to survive because he had multiple sources of income and bank accounts and rental properties and gold and silver and all of these kinds of things. And he ended up being one of the 100 wealthiest people in America. There's a book called The Wealthiest 100. He's also one of the greatest scientists of all time and uh greatest uh diplomats. Uh donald Donald Trump could learn a lot from uh uh from uh from Benjamin Franklin. I have quite a bit on those kinds of issues. So um uh a good quote uh for domestic policy: a virtuous and industrious people may be cheaply governed. Cheap government is what the goal should be of a virtuous and industrious people. But if we're corrupt, we're gonna have a very high cost of uh uh of uh living. Uh the other quote is for foreign policy. What should be the best foreign policy? He said the system of America is commerce with all and war with none. We seem to be violating both of those right now.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

I guess we could leave it there. Uh yeah, Mark, as we as we close, uh I'll look on the contrarian side too. I mean, what is the one indicator investors should watch for over the next quarter that separates a kind of a temporary relief rally from the start of something more serious here?

SPEAKER_03 38:08

Well, I like Jeremy Siegel's books, Stocks for the Long Run. He demonstrates very clearly that the U.S. uh stock market has outperformed all other markets because we invite entrepreneurs to come to this country. Look at what the five biggest um uh companies are in the world in terms of market capitalization. Well, there's Amazon and Google and uh uh and uh Tesla, not Tesla, but uh um I'm trying to think of all of the different companies that uh that uh that I've listed, Amazon, for example, um Google and so forth. These companies, Nvidia, they're all run based in the United States. A lot of them use foreigners, uh, Elon Musk from uh South Africa and so forth. And uh as long we've closed the border to illegals, but we've got to keep the border open to uh foreigners and entrepreneurs and the best and the brightest who have always come to America to uh achieve their American dream, and we need to make sure that that that is still open, and I'm not sure we're doing a very good job of that.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

All right. That's a strong place to leave it. Dr. Mark Scousen, author of Making Modern Economics, and the editor of the Scousen Report again at the Oxford Club. Uh great newsletter, great scoops you got going on. It feels like you're having a bit of fun. We should also mention Freedom Fest. We're not there this year, but I'd like to be there next year.

SPEAKER_03 39:45

Yeah, Freedomfest.com is our annual conference of the best and the brightest from all over the world, and it's a renaissance gathering, and several thousand people will be in Vegas July 8th to 11th, our 250th anniversary of our nation's founding. So it's really going to be fun. And we have an investment, three-day investment conference there as well. So I hope to see people there. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Thanks, Mark. Appreciate your time. Appreciate it. Thanks so much. All right, thank you. All right, always great to hear from Mark. And a big thank you to our sponsor, Swan Bitcoin, your partner for generational wealth. You can learn more at Swan.com slash KitCo. Now, for our viewers, we want to know are you staying with silver here? Are you shifting towards gold? Is it Bitcoin? Maybe the strategic names Mark is watching. Let us know in the comments below. We do read them. And make sure you subscribe right here to Kitco News for more market coverage and all of that and the forces driving this next cycle. I'm Jervey Safford. Stay ahead.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

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