Why The Gold Selloff Is A Pause Not The Peak | Lawrence Lepard

Legendary precious metals investor Lawrence Lepard says this gold selloff is a pause, not the peak. With gold off its highs and the mainstream calling the run finished, he explains why he is still buying and why he believes the real move is still ahead. Is the gold bull market over, or is this the dip before the next leg higher?

Gold ran to a record 5,589 dollars and silver cleared 121 dollars before both pulled back hard, and this week new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered a hawkish hold that surprised the market. Larry Lepard, founder of Equity Management Associates and author of The Big Print, sits down with Kitco News anchor Jeremy Szafron to explain why the correction does not worry him, why he believes the real move is still ahead, and what the average saver should actually do right now.

Jeremy and Larry get into the debt doom loop and the 1.3 trillion dollars a year the US now spends just on interest, the 9 trillion in debt that has to be refinanced, why Lepard expects yield curve control and the big print, the strong dollar and positive real rates working against gold today, silver's run to 121 and the supply deficit underneath it, why he sees the best value in the silver miners, the honest case for and against bitcoin as digital gold, and his view that there is a better world on the other side of this through a return to sound money.

Recorded June 18 2026

Follow Jeremy Szafron on X: @JeremySzafron (https://x.com/JeremySzafron) 
Follow Kitco News on X: @KitcoNewsNOW (https://x.com/KitcoNewsNOW)
Follow Lawrence Lepard on X: @LawrenceLepard (https://x.com/LawrenceLepard)

CHAPTERS
00:00 Gold's Record Run And The Selloff
01:00 Why Lepard Is Not Worried About The Correction
04:00 The Debt Doom Loop And 1.3 Trillion In Interest
08:00 Kevin Warsh And The Hawkish Fed Surprise
10:00 The Big Print And Why Yield Curve Control Is Coming
12:00 I Blew The Call: Lepard On Getting The Fed Wrong
15:00 The Strong Dollar And Real Rates Problem For Gold
18:00 Why A Rate Cut Could Come Before The Midterms
21:00 Gold And Silver Are Still Early In This Bull Market
22:00 Silver's Run To 121 And The Supply Deficit
25:00 Why Silver Miners Are The Real Opportunity
36:00 The Bitcoin Question: Digital Gold Or Hype
44:00 What The Average Saver Should Do Right Now
48:00 The Hope Note: A Return To Sound Money
52:00 Final Thoughts And Greenspan's Lesson

#gold #silver #LawrenceLepard
__________________________________________________________________

Like, share, and subscribe to Kitco News—and turn on alerts to stay current with expert interviews, market insights, and breaking news coverage. 

FOLLOW US:  
X: https://x.com/kitconewsnow  
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kitconews  
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KitcoNews  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kitconews

Listen to the PODCAST on
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1My4WgtF0ZhUnxkxDLoJof
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kitco-news/id1842889233
🎧 All podcast episodes available here → https://kitconews.buzzsprout.com

Visit: https://Kitco.com/ for live gold, silver, and crypto prices, the latest mining news, and macroeconomic insights.  

Live gold price and chart: https://www.kitco.com/charts/gold
Live silver price and chart: https://www.kitco.com/charts/silver
Live crypto market data: https://www.kitco.com/price/crypto

Learn more about Kitco News: https://www.kitco.com/news/about/ 

For more information on advertising, sponsorship and marketing promotions – please visit our online media kit at: https://www.kitco.com/advertising  

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.

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_03 0:00

Gold's run has been won for the history books a little over a year ago. Gold was around $3,000 an ounce, and it went on a to set a record of $5,589 this past January. Silver did not just clear $100, it ran up to $121. Now both fell hard, and as we speak, gold is back near $4,200, down almost 25% from that high. Silver has given back nearly half of its run. And today, while the stock market is making new highs, gold is selling off again. Now, the easy version of the story is that the blow-off top came and went and the market has moved on. But my guess says that's exactly backwards. He was early, he was public, and he was forceful on this move right here on this show, back when gold was barely $3,000. And he says a sell-off is not the end of the story, it is the part, the easy story leaves out. Because when the oldest money on earth moves like this, that is not a trade, it's a warning.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

KitCo News in Focus with Jeremy Saffron.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

All right, joining me now, one of the investors who was early public, forceful on the gold move, Larry Lapart, founder of Equity Management Associates, author of The Big Print, of course. Larry, welcome back to KitCo News. The last time you were here and sat in this chair, gold was barely $3,000, and here we are.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Here we are. Yeah, last year was a good year, and uh, you know, we we we have an embarrassment of riches. It worked out so well that now we've gotten used to that. We want it to repeat, and we so we find ourselves uh, you know, in a little bit of a drawdown from the peak, and uh it's easy to get a little bit discouraged, and people are thinking, well, this should immediately be going to new higher highs. Of course, those of us, I mean, I've been in this trade for since 08. So um those that have been in the trade for a long time know that it it ebbs and it flows, but uh clearly we're going higher, and the only issue is when. And I I think the when is this year. Um maybe in the you know, now it's beginning to look more like it's a third quarter thing, but we'll see. Uh I I thought I I thought that uh we might get some help yesterday, but we didn't. So uh this is with uh our new Fed chairman.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

We do have to talk about Walsh a little bit. Uh before I do that, stick on gold a minute. I mean, last time you sat with us, like I said, it was around $3,000. You said it was front-running, that monetary collapse, and then you know, it went straight up $5,600 and you know, that new record, then it corrected. Uh help our audience kind of make sense of that just a little bit, because was that run the start of that mania that you kind of warned about the last time you were here, that healthy correction in a bigger bull market, or is it something that actually worries you?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

No, it doesn't, it the run doesn't worry me at all, and the correction doesn't worry me at all. I mean, it it worries me in the sense that I think I do think we're in a sovereign debt crisis. I think that um that's obvious, and that's I think why gold took off, because you know, the when one of the things that really ignited gold last year was when Doge failed. You know, they they came in with the Department of Government Efficiency, they said they're gonna cut everything back, and then you know, after a couple of months, Elon threw his arms up there and said, we can't do this, and that was that. And so the whole notion that they were gonna balance the budget kind of went out the window. And so when that occurred, I think everybody kind of said, Oh my goodness, we're gonna continue running these big deficits forever. And of course, everyone knows that the way they are able to afford the deficits is they monetize them through the bond market, which leads to money printing, which leads to debasement, which is the thesis behind gold. So that's why gold did so well last year. And uh, you know, like all markets, they swing between extremes, and so it got a little bit ahead of itself, and so did silver. And so now we've corrected back. But I I actually think it's it's interesting because it it represents an opportunity. I I had friends who, you know, when gold was at 5,000 plus and silver was 100 plus, and she said I buy some gold or buy some silver, and I was like, well, be careful, it's run hard fast. Um, you know, but but I I said to them, you know, you haven't missed the long-term story, and there'll come a buying opportunity. Of course, now they're probably not so excited about it because it's not as it's not as sexy right now. But yeah, you know, if you miss the first run, this isn't a bad, in my opinion, this isn't a bad time to be getting in. You know, buying in in the low fours or buying silver in the 60s or 70s, um, you know, that's that's a that's a decent buy because I think we've got another upland coming. You know, the fundamentals haven't changed. Uh the debasement is still kind of baked in the cake.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Yeah. So if I mean if you're right, and this is kind of a pause, not a peak, then the only question that matters is is, you know, uh the next one. Where does it go from here? I mean, last year you kind of laid out what you called that debt doom loop, and we've heard it, right? I mean, the government's borrowing more just to cover the interest and what what it already owns. I mean, a year later, interest expenses alone is running over a trillion dollars, and Wall Street is essentially, you know, there's a lot of debt. There's a wall of debt basically that still has to be refinanced. I mean, so is that engine just running faster now? Are we getting close to that moment that you've warned about where the Fed has to step back in as the buyer of the last resort, cap yields, and what does that do to gold?

SPEAKER_00 4:56

I think I think we are getting closer to that moment, and of course, nobody knows exactly when this is gonna happen, and we all make our best guesses, and that's really all they are is guesses because there's so many moving parts and there's you know, and the and their politics involved too. Um but you know, the the the the next up move is coming because the fundamentals haven't changed. The you know, the the deficits have not been reduced. In fact, if anything, they're gonna grow larger this year. Um starting a war didn't help because it's expensive. Um hopefully the war is over now. I pray that it is, but all the same, we spent a lot of money on it. And um yeah, so the you know, the next leg's coming is I guess all I can say. I mean, how far it goes, it's it's unclear. I mean, we're still we you know, if if you look at kind of the sentiment metrics, we're not in the mania phase at all. I mean, it's still you know, like less than five percent of investors own have any allocation to gold, and those that do, it's a pretty small allocation. So, you know, I remember the 70s and and you know how how popular gold was and how everybody chased it, you know, from 35 to 800. And um, you know, at the end, everybody and their brother was talking about gold, and and we're not in that condition today. We're you know, yes, there are some of us who were in it, and we're happy that we were in it last year, and it's worked pretty well, and it's now on people's radar screens, but you know, the consensus that I see from a lot of people is well, yeah, that's great, you had your moment, but it's over now, and you know, we'll we'll trend back down to 3,000 and silver will come back to 50, and or I mean, yeah, to 50 or slightly below, and that'll be that. And my view is no, uh, these prices indicated to you that the debasement thesis is correct, and all we're really doing is correcting, you know, kind of an excessive move. I mean, there aren't many years. If you look historically, I think gold was up 60 some odd percent last year. There aren't many years in history when gold's done that. Yeah, I mean, that's so that that tells you that something was going on, it was something different. And silver, I mean, silver had never exceeded $50, you know, over the past hundred years. It only briefly touched it with the Hunt Brothers in 80 and again in 2011. So um, for silver to break through 50 and squirt to 120, that was that was really significant.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

You know, it's uh it's funny you mentioned it kind of got a little bit crazy there for a moment. We all know when you even the mainstream was talking about gold, it was on every front page. I mean, people that watched this show were stopping me in airports, which has never happened to me, Larry. It makes me uncomfortable. But I I gotta, I mean, taxi drivers were talking about it for God's sakes. But I gotta ask you, I mean, what would you need to kind of see to know that the bull is back on? And on the flip side, what's that one thing that would genuinely worry you about gold from here?

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Yeah, well, I I think let me take the second question first. What would really worry me about gold from here is if the government got very responsible. I mean, if if they actually truly did start to reform entitlements and cut expenses and behave in a fashion where they weren't gonna continue to expand the debt, um, that would be detrimental to our thesis. I mean, our thesis rests upon government irresponsibility. I tell investors in my fund that, and they all kind of laugh and say, well, we're not worried about that. The government's gonna be irresponsible. And they're right, but you know, hey, it could change. Um what was the first part of the first part of the question is when will we know it's back on? Well, I think the obvious time we'll know it's back on is when a policy change shows that they can never really stop printing. And, you know, they've got this. I mean, it might be a good time to pivot into the discussion of Kevin Warsh as the new Fed head. I mean, he's basically said he thinks that he can shrink the balance sheet, the balance sheet's too big. Um, but he's also said he thinks lower interest rates might make sense because we have a uh an AI productivity boom going on, similar to what Greenspan talked about. And we also, he's, I think, making the argument, or has has in the past made the argument that inflation is overstated, which I kind of think is ridiculous, but but you know, is uh lying with statistics is not that hard, right? And there's a something called the Dallas-trimmed PCI, which is now about 100 basis points or 1% lower than the real CPI. And um, my guess is that these um these task forces that he's created, uh, one of the jobs of the task force is gonna be to figure out a way to cook those numbers so that he can justify cutting rates. Yeah, with respect to shrinking the balance sheet, uh I think that's just either either he doesn't really understand how this whole thing works, or that's he's gaslighting us because you know Ben Bernanke said he was going to shrink the balance sheet when it was 1.3 trillion way back in the day, and uh he told Ron Paul that, and uh, you know, we all know that that didn't happen. And that you can't shrink the balance sheet because if you do, the debt, the debt collapses, or the entire structure collapses. So my sense is that you know, you ask what will really drive the next leg. I mean, I it's what I talked about in my book, what you know, I call the big print. I mean, I think at some point the bond market will revolt, will realize that they have a policy of inflation, continued inflation. They won't want to hold those bonds, they'll sell them, interest rates will go higher. That'll force the Fed into buying those bonds, which is really called yield curve control, which also expands their balance sheet and prints money. And, you know, the world will wake up from this. We can we've got this monetary system under control, and we'll come to the conclusion that no, we really don't have it under control. And, you know, the the the COVID example of inflation, you know, woke everybody up to inflation, but then Powell tightened and they brought it down headline from th nine to three. You know, now we're kind of you know creeping higher than three because I think we live in an inflationary world. And um, you know, they've they've got a they've got a fundamental problem. They the only way to service this debt load is to grow our way out of it. And you can grow, there's no question, they're gonna grow the economy. Look at all the AI spend that's taking place, but it's very hard to have growth that's not inflationary.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

You brought up Doge, too, and I I mean, you know, kind of failing to cut spending also proves how politically hard this is. I mean, if if Washington can't cut, I mean, well, why shouldn't investors expect higher taxes, some financial repression, and maybe a stronger Fed before they get the big print?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Well, I think that's right. I mean, look, if it they they could they could do all of that. I mean, it's possible that their intention is to um to really try and slow the economy down, but I don't think so. I mean, you know, the stock market has kind of become the economy in a large in a large measure. And if if you know, if if they were to the the wealth effect, I mean, Alan Greenspan started this you know 25 years ago, but the wealth effect's an important factor in consumer uh confidence and consumer spending. And so, you know, if the stock market really hit takes a tumble, um, you know, that's gonna lead to all markets taking a tumble, in my opinion, including the bond market. One of the interesting patterns that's happened more recently is that you know the stock market falls don't leave used to in the past they used to lead to you know a bid in bonds, right? Because they were safer, and uh and that hasn't happened recently. We've seen that pattern kind of reverse itself. And so my sense is what's gonna happen here is that at some point you know the bond market's gonna revolt and the Fed's gonna have to pivot again, and they're gonna have to either cut rates sharply or print money.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Did did it surprise you yesterday?

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah, it did. I totally blew the call. I thought he was at least gonna give us a little bit of a dovish hint. Um, you know, I he gave us some dovish hints before he became Fed chairman, you know, the the trim PCI comment, the AI productivity comment. Um, and you know, he got the job with Trump by, I'm sure, talking a little bit about the possibility for trimming rates if we had good growth. I mean, I'm sure that that was part of the conversation. And then he got you know, he he got the bond guys on side by saying we should shrink the balance sheet, which you know they would all be in favor of would be you know, sounder currency and bonds would hold their value. But um my sense is that um that he still believes those things, but he also in his first meeting couldn't come in and immediately start arguing for lower rates or even hinting at lower rates because it would blow his credibility and everyone would think, well, this is just Trump's guy cutting rates because Trump was pushing so hard to cut rates. I think one of the more interesting things that happened yesterday was Trump's reaction to this whole thing. I mean, you know, um, so he he bait and well, a couple interesting things happen. One, he basically said nothing. I mean, the entire press conference was nothing. He said, I'm not telling you what we're doing, and I'm not really commenting on anything, and we've got a bunch of task force that are gonna address all these open issues. So, and and this is interesting because what he can do is he can kick the can to the task force. Hey, I didn't do it, the task force told me to do it, right? Um, but also, you know, he he said, we don't know what the future is going to be, but we you know, we're gonna sort it out. And they asked Trump yesterday over in France how he felt about that, and he was like, you know, I trust Kevin's plan, which to me tells me that the plan is for Kevin, you know, his the first meeting here he wanted to establish that he's an inflation fighter and he's not gonna be irresponsible. And now he's gonna get his task force to show why productivity is better, and hopefully with the war being over, inflation will cool, and they'll be, you know, he'll be in a position where either at the next meeting or the one after that he can cut rates, and and that'll allow you know the banks to lend more and money supply to grow. And you know, I I my sense is that the the Trump administration and really, you know, what they all want to do is they want to run it hot. They they want the market to go up, the economy to go up. Um, they want to try and tame inflation, but that's kind of their third goal. And I think the way they're gonna deal with inflation is they're gonna claim it's you know they're gonna lie, they're gonna say we've got it under control when in reality they don't. But but please believe us, bond market, we've got it under control. So we'll see. I mean, and and then the question will become does the bond market believe it? But I I think you know, the the longer we go here, I mean, I've often said that, you know, COVID changed the rules of the game. I mean, every investor in this world for the last 40 years has lived in a deflationary environment from 1980 to 2020. And from 2020 to 2026, now we are in an inflationary environment, and I haven't seen anything that changes that. So I think I think we've got inflation baked into the next five years at least, maybe longer. And and and the implications of that, as all your listeners know, is you want to own things they can't print and inflate, and silver and gold are at the top of the list, and Bitcoin's in there too.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

So yeah, I wonder, you know, this next few months, it's gonna be interesting just hearing about it. I mean, how does a kind of tougher, higher for longer Fed change the path for gold? I mean, after Walsh spoke, the the short end sold off on rate hike bets, but the 30-year actually kind of rallied a little bit. It's down to a two-month low near 4.9%. I think the bond market's betting Warsh gets inflation under control all of a sudden over this long haul. I mean, the dollar is screaming it, the index is back near its mark peach, traders are pricing in a hike as soon as September, and real rates are positive again. That combination, I mean, strong dollar, positive real rates, it's historically brutal for gold. How long do you think this will last?

SPEAKER_00 15:52

It's a great question. Um, we'll see. I mean, we'll see what happens with the bond market. And it's interesting. I mean, you say it's it's brutal for gold, and yet, you know, gold has kind of hung in there reasonably well.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

It's true. Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

You know, it's it's sure it's down, but it's not, you know, um if if if they were truly go, I think the market can see through this. If they truly were gonna be as hawkish as as you know you're alluding to, I think gold would have sold gold and silver would have sold off much harder. I mean, basically the conference yesterday, we got enough, we got a big zero. He didn't give us an answer one way or another. And in some senses, you know, that that you can read that any way you want, but you know, the the market was betting that there are gonna be rate increases. Um, you know, my sense is I didn't get any of that from him. I I think the odds of increases are quite low. I also thought it was very interesting that he refrained from giving a dot plot. You know, um he didn't even want to talk talk about one. And so it's interesting. I mean, I gotta give these guys credit. You know, whenever you figure out what you think you've kind of got the game figured out, they changed the rules of the game. And and so the rules change here was they decided, okay, we've been giving all this guidance. Let's just let's just stop giving guidance and let it leave everybody in the dark, you know, and that'll confuse them, you know. That's a good point. That's kind of what they've done. They've left us all in the dark. And uh and we'll see. I mean, I what will be interesting to me to watch is how do the markets behave. I mean, not just one day out, but you know, a couple of weeks out. I mean, does the stock market hold together? Does the bond market hold together? Um, you know, it it it if they hold together, then maybe they can run this plan for a good bit longer. My sense though is that you know, we've got a midterm election coming up, and you know, there are two more meetings before that, but one is pretty close to it, so it doesn't really wouldn't have that much of an impact. The next meeting, the next Fed meeting is six weeks. My sense is that he's gonna have his his task force um, you know, working day and night to figure out a way to justify a lower inflation number. He's gonna get a little bit of relief out of the Middle East with you know oil prices we all know have just dropped substantially. And you know, that's gonna be that combination is gonna allow him to ease at the next meeting. And um, and and that that'll be catnip for our stuff because what then everyone will say is, well, you know, maybe inflation is not solved, but they're declaring it solved, and and my sense is the bond market will not like that at all. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

So I mean you're you're you're kind of saying that that task force gives them the political and kind of the statistical cover to say, hey, inflation's improving, then E's at the next meeting. I mean, what what number are they most likely to lean on in this?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

I don't know. I mean, the I think the Dallas trend PCI is 2.3. I think there's something called trueflation, which is printing even below two. I don't know if that's a a real accurate measure. I mean, you know, it's I mean, look, Jeremy, as as we all know, I mean, with statistics, I mean, you can, you know, lying with statistics is not that hard. It kind of depends what you look at, what you include, what you exclude, et cetera. So um, you know, my sense is that, you know, I I think, you know, first of all, I think that most people would agree that the inflation we're actually experiencing is higher than what's reported. I mean, I know my in my life, I don't feel like I'm living in a 3% inflationary world. I feel like most of the things I'm buying are increasing at a rate faster than that. But, you know, I I think if you define it in the right way, sure, you can find some things that are you know deflationary and or less inflationary, and therefore you say, all right, we're we're in a one or two percent world. Let's, you know, let's go, let's run it hot, let's drop rates, let's get the housing market going again, let's let everybody refinance, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And so, you know, my sense is that's that's what they want to do. And you know, it it's coming, but I have to, I I totally blew the call. I thought I didn't think they had as much time as they have, but I thought they'd have to do something in this meeting. It was somewhat you know um indicated a tip towards uh an easing, and and he really didn't. He held his cards up pretty well. Um, you know, the other thing that they've got going on that's kind of behind the scenes is we know that the Fed and the Treasury are very much you know joined at the hip and that you know that Warsh is talking to Bissent, and so they've kind of got a grand plan for how they're gonna get the banks to buy the bonds and how they'll probably change the SLR supplementary leverage ratios for the banks. And and you know, they he did talk about how you know the reserve management program, you know, if necessary, they could ramp that up. And so so I think they're all feeling quite smug, like they've got it all under control. And the way I look at it is that the math is running against them. And you know, just like the math was running against you know that them in 2008, and you know, the by math I mean what's going on is the debt is increasing faster than the underlying earnings to service the debt. And ultimately that means you've got to create more underlying earnings through an inflationary mechanism or the debt is gonna default and collapse, like what happened in 2008, which led to the you know what I call the first big print. Uh the second big print was COVID, slightly different, you know, not driven as much by debt, more by just the shutdown of the economy. But I I think that mathematically they're gonna hit a wall here. Now, you know, I I feel like it's gonna happen this year, but I've been wrong a lot, and and typically sometimes these things can take longer than you think to unfold. But I I know which side of this I want to be on. I mean, I do not, in my opinion, we are in a bull market for silver and gold, and we are in the third inning, you know, not the ninth inning. So, um, because this inflation issue has really not been resolved. You know, now as I said earlier, I mean if the government gets responsible, well then all bets are off. But but I'm you know, we don't I don't see any of that. I mean, I don't see any talk of raising taxes, I don't see any talk of cutting entitlements, I don't see any talk of cutting spending. I mean, Trump just asked for a $1.5 trillion defense budget. You alluded to interest expense, running over a trillion. They're actually the latest 12 months U.S. government interest expense is $1.3 trillion. That's a huge number. And they've got to roll over like $9 trillion worth of debt every, you know, in the next 12 months, maybe more. I saw an estimate about nine, and they've got it all at the short end. And if you think about it, Too. Since it's all at the short end, if they could cut those short rates, that would reduce their interest expense. Now, it would be inflationary for sure because it would lead to more lending and money supply growth. But hey, that's down the road. We can deal with that later. Let's win these elections, right? So I I you know I can't.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

That stabilization, you know, that kind of I guess it just delays the crisis in that cap.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

That's right. So I I kind of, if I had to guess, I kind of, and I would, you know, my last guess was wrong. So don't trust me, just make your own estimations. But if I had to guess, I think they'll probably, you know, cut at the next meeting before, you know, the uh the midterms, and uh and that will lead to the next strong leg up in our stuff.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

We'd followed the bond market after that. Uh okay, you mentioned you know the dollar, the real rates. There's that one metal that is even more sensitive to all this than gold. Uh it's had even a wilder year. Let's talk silver here for a second. I mean, you know, it ran clean plastic $100 this year, all the way to 121 a level. People were waiting nearly 40 years for, and then it gave a lot back. It's trading near 66 today down again. Walk us through what kind of actually drove that. I mean, the monetary bid or that industrial kind of supply deficit story, and is silver still the high octane way to play this trade?

SPEAKER_00 23:14

It really is, in my opinion. And I think you've you've identified the two different drivers. It is a monetary metal, but it's also an industrial metal. And you know, the China solar build-out consumed an enormous amount of silver. I mean, that you gotta go look at the amount that I mean, the amount of solar capacity that China added, and you know, Chat GPT, you'll see in the last five years, it's just stunning. And it just became a big, big demand source for silver. And if it continues, I mean, there are projections that you know they could absorb you know 50 or 60 percent of world silver supply. On top of that, we've been running deficits, and so people have been melting down their T-sets, and and you know, we've been reclaiming old old silver, and we're we're burning through a lot of that. And so there's actually just an industrial demand piece, but but there's also the monetary demand, and the average person can't afford an ounce of gold, but they can buy an ounce of silver. And so, you know, when it when the when the market gets more broadly interested in sound money through the metals, the silver has a lot more potential buyers just because people don't always have the money to buy gold. And so the combination of those two um you know make it kind of the wild, the wild-eyed stepchild of the metals, and and you know, when it runs, it runs hard. The other thing is that you know it it was really severely depressed below $50. And you know, the miners really weren't getting paid to mine it. I mean, the the cost of mining it was averaging in the 20s um and then add in capital and everything else. I mean, when you were getting paid forty, thirty, forty dollars for silver, you know, the mining, silver mining was a shitty business. Um with it at $66, it's a lot better business. At $100, $150, it's an insanely good business. And so that's why the miners are, in my opinion, the real sweet spot right now, silver miners. I've got a portfolio full of them. Um and I'm not alone in this view. I mean, Rick Rule believes in it, Tavi Costa, a lot of us. We all see it. And the the you know, yes, they've gone up, and yes, we all had a good year last year, but again, you know, we we came from deeply undervalued to what I would now call you know medium to mildly undervalued. I mean, a lot of my companies are still trading at four times cash flow, and you know, I mean, the the big sexy companies with you know with moats around them, like you know, Google and all those guys, they're all trading at 25 times cash flow or 30 times cash flow. So I'm not suggesting a mining business should trade at that multiple. It shouldn't. It's a tougher business, a depleting resource, you know, more capex, etc. But four is really cheap.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I mean, you know, you you you're you obviously you you run the fund focused on precious metals, but I I gotta kind of talk about those emerging names, right? I mean, after a run like this, have the have the miners actually caught up to the kind of metal, or are they still lagging? I mean, was the easy money made? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

They're still lagging, Jeremy. They really are. I mean, like I say, they all moved, but you know, it the the other thing to keep in mind on the silver areas, it's just there's so much operating leverage. I mean, you know, when when let's say you're I mean, now probably the average cost of mine has gone into high 20s, let's call it even 30. Well, at a $40 silver price, you're making $10 an ounce. That's not much. But at $60, you're making $30 an ounce. So your profit just went up $3x. At $100, you know, you're making $70. Your profit just went up $7x from you know from your base profit. And, you know, I can assure you, although I've had some silver stocks that have gone up a lot, you know, there are most of them have not gone up 7x. And so I think what the stocks are reflecting is a belief that we're gonna come back down into a $50 regime. And you know, if at that level the multiples look reasonable, but my view is we're actually gonna go in the other direction, that we're gonna go to $100, $120, $150. And I mean, I you know, I I dream and hope that that one of the best technical analysts out there, who I'm sure you're familiar with, I'm sure you've had him on your show, Michael Oliver's correct. You know, and we go to $300 to $500 silver. I mean, that's the dream. I mean, I that could happen, and I I I understand the logic behind it. Um, I think it's gonna it might take a few years to get there. But but honestly, I I don't think I think you know, probably here in the 60s, we're you know, typically when something breaks out from a 40-year high, it squirts through it, goes higher, maybe it corrects back to 50 just super briefly. I I can't see that, but maybe it does. Yeah. But you know, I don't think we're ever going below 50 again.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

There's volatility too. I mean, you know, a lot of mining investors they just get so frustrated, right? Because I mean it it really has lagged the metal this entire run. But I mean, with costs where they are, margins are exploding for a lot of these. So, what actually kind of closes that gap? I mean, it feels like management is smarter this time. There are less business class, less champagne. So is it you know, a wave of MA? And where in the food chain are you kind of putting capitalism major?

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Yeah, MA will help, inclus inclusion in the in the indices will help. I mean, a little bit of one of the things that would help would be just a little bit of a uh a cooling of the shiny of the shiny object that's represented by uh by AI and the Mag 7. I mean, if you you know, you you still we're still kind of investing over here in what I would call kind of a dark corner of the market, you know, where those crazy sound money, you know, precious metals bugs. And and so most most investors dismiss us and just say, well, we don't need any of that stuff, even though they should be paying attention because we live in an inflationary world. And you know, at the margin, you know, the money is chasing SpaceX or you know, Anthropic when it comes public, or you know, uh Marvell or or or um Nvidia or one of the other chip companies. I mean, all the chip companies have just recently gone on a run. So I think part of the story that that's gonna make our stuff really start to work is maybe a little bit of a stumble over on that side. I mean, and and that side, it's interesting because I was an investor in the um in the dot-com bubble back in uh back in 2000, and and uh you know, I remember very clearly the same kind of thing took place. And as we all know, the internet did change the world. It was an enormously important development. Um, but you know, it it took forever to play out, and and in 2000, stocks were very dot-com stocks were very overvalued, and they went down, you know, peaked to trough 80%. And I kind of I don't know that the exact same thing will happen with AI, but but I do feel like the AI stocks are extremely overheated right now, and you know, they're gonna have a hard time living up to the immediate expectations that they're gonna generate enormous cash flow. Uh will they change the world? Sure. Will they generate cash flow? Absolutely. Will there be big winners? Sure. But we're we're very early days and it's very hard to pick those. And so I think as as we start to pick through what's good and bad, and some of this overpriced stuff comes down, you know, people will start to realize that maybe that's not as good an area as they thought, and that you know, investing in just sound pick and shovel businesses like the miners, which generate recurrable recurring cash flows in an environment where the inflation is kind of baked in, um, I think that that will really take us all home. I mean, you know, we're still in that stage, Jeremy, where I just don't think, even though everyone feels the inflation in their personal life, investors really aren't behaving like they're investing for inflation. It's weird. I mean, people are still investing like we, you know, they invested between 80 and 2020. You know, let's just buy tech.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

Easy, easy money.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

It's easy.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

We'll throw it here. I mean, SpaceX, I'm looking now, about 7% down on the day, taking a bit of a beating, but the SP still kind of up. I mean, in that food chain, where are you putting capital? Is it the majors, the mid-tiers, developers? Is there any faves you can kind of talk about right now?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Well, sure, yeah, I'd be happy to name some names. I mean, some of the majors are on sale. I mean, we just bought some Agneco. I mean, it's one of the best companies in the world, and it's a 40% discount from its recent high. I was just, I did the multiple, I looked at the math, I did the multiples. I was like, good God, you never you rarely get a company a chance to buy such a good company so cheap. So, you know, we just bought some. But um, you know, we we tend to, I I've said in the past, I think the easiest sweet spot is what I call the emerging producers. Um, you know, and so you know, three ways you make money in these stocks, you know, the metal prices go up, obviously, duh. Um, they grow their production, that's what I call emerging, um, or you know, the multiple expands. And the emerging producers are the companies that don't have multi-billion dollar. I mean, so so you look at the big ones, you know, you look at uh AgNico and you look at um you know New Mont and Berwick and so forth, and you know, these are majors, and and the the their production that they some of them don't even have production growth. I mean, you know, um AgNico does, but the others are struggling just to maintain their production level. So, you know, and their multiples are pretty full, so you're you're you know, you get some multiple expansion, but not a ton. So they're going to be driven really by higher metal prices. When you get these medium-sized stocks, you know, that aren't multi-billion dollar market caps, they're more like in the hundreds of millions of area, um, you know, you find companies that are actually growing their production every year, year on year. I mean, one recently that I really like a lot, own a lot of, and and we we wrote it from a dollar to twelve dollars and lightened up last, you know, on the run last time, but it but it's come back down substantially as a Vino. I mean, this is a silver producer, and and uh, you know, they've got positive cash flow, no debt. Um, and you know, it hit a peak of 12 on the on the big run. And it more recently, I think it traded as low into the fives. We were buying some more. We just bought some recently at six. I'm not sure where it is right now. I can look at 650 right now. But you know, the point is that I mean, and and this is a company whose production will go up for the next three or four years. I mean, they just brought on a new mine, they've got plans to grow the production in existing mine and the new mine, and so on and so forth. So to me, that's and and the multiple there is not crazy. So that to me, that's the sweet spot. They're gonna grow the production, and and as they get picked up and more people understand it. I mean, what's the market cap on Aveno right now? I'll just tell you that here. Uh Aveno. Well, it's gotten up there. It's a billion-dollar market cap now. But but in the context of, you know, I mean, you know, Agneco being hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap. I mean, this is a small company by by comparison. And so there's plenty of room for this to become a $2 billion, $4 billion market cap company, whereas it's a lot harder to take AgNico and double or triple its size. So, and that's what I think is gonna happen in Aveno. I think their production's gonna go up by two or three X in the next six years.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

So I wonder if those majors are gonna come sniffing around, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Yeah, and that's right. That's right. I mean, there are gonna be buyouts and takeouts, but I mean, I got a portfolio full of these, and some of them are developers, they don't have I mean, Aveno, the the the safest way to do this is to find companies that have positive cash flow because then they don't need to raise more money, right? Um we got a bunch of those. But then the the second, you know, slightly riskier way, but potentially with more upside, is to find the ones that have a known deposit and they're in the process of building a mine, um, that, you know, and they generally sell at a great discount to what they would be worth once the mine is built. And we got a bunch of those too. I mean, I've I'm on the board of one called Cabral, it's a great company. You know, we're involved in a couple of them out in Nevada. One is called Getchel that we love, another one is called Lahantan that we love. I mean, these stocks, as they build their mines, should be five or ten baggers, but you know, there's still risk involved in getting the mine built for sure. Um, but you know, and there are many others. I mean, there's a drill story we're involved in in Africa called Zodiac that we love. Um we think there's an enormous deposit there, and the market doesn't see it yet. So, you know, that there there are you know, there's a drill story in Brazil that I'm on the board of called Lavras that I love. Uh same story. Uh market doesn't see it yet. It's a big deposit, but it's not understood. So, you know, there's just, I mean, you can almost throw a dart, but as as you know, there are some companies that are very poorly managed. So I wouldn't recommend I wouldn't recommend throwing darts, but I'm saying, you know, they're there uh the ones I've listed are not the only undervalued ones. What I would suggest people do is just go and look at the company. Are they growing their production? Do they have a plan to grow their production? And then are they generating cash and how much are you paying? What multiple are you paying for the today's cash flow? And um, I think you know, some people, I think if you do that work, you know, you'd be kind of stunned at the values that you find because they're they're laying all over the place.

SPEAKER_03 35:17

Yeah, cash flow is certainly nice. It seems like less dilution at these metal prices, which is also nice. Hey, Larry, I gotta ask you. I mean, we're coming up on 36 minutes, so I I gotta you you're one of the very few people who holds both the oldest money on earth and kind of the newest as people call it. I mean, I want to go there. And I'm gonna be straight with you. A lot of our audience owns gold precisely because they're skeptical of the other thing, as you know. So let's have that conversation kind of honestly. I mean, start with the skeptic, because that is who's kind of watching. I mean, Bitcoin just had the worst tweaks. Oh, I totally Yeah, I mean, let's talk about this whole thing. I mean, the the the treasury craze, right? I mean, it's coming apart. Um our viewers own gold to avoid exactly that kind of chaos. So just kind of we don't have to say make the case for a gold person to even look at Bitcoin, but what are your thoughts about this haircut?

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Yeah, so well, the Bitcoin pullback, I mean we talk about that in a minute, but let me just say, I mean, I I get it, and um, you know, so everyone who's into gold is generally there because they believe in sound money and they know that fiat is fatally flawed, and that's why I was there and have been there since 08. Um, actually before that, but my my firm really went hardcore dedicated to it in 08. Um, so that you know, this is this is the original form of sound money, and it's a bearer instrument, it can't be screwed with. Um you know what what people um I think who a lot of people who don't like Bitcoin haven't necessarily done the work to understand fully what it is, and or they have some misconceptions about what it is, and I get that entirely because um there have been a lot of bad actors in the space. I mean a ton. And as a result of that, it's very easy to think, okay, this is all bullshit, um, and um, you know, FTX, etc. Um, I what I would encourage them to do or to ask the question is to consider whether they could be wrong, is um, you know, do they believe or are they are they aware of the fact that what Bitcoin really did, the the algorithm that is Bitcoin that's that's universally run around the world, um what they really did was um the the people who put it together, and I believe I know who the two or three are that did it, is they created digital scarcity. And so let's just think about that for a minute. You know, anything digital in the past, a file of any kind, you know, voice, um paper, or whatever, you can make a thousand copies of it. Nothing was digital by definition could be scarce. It just the two didn't go, two things didn't go together. But what happened is over the course of about 30 years, a combination of cryptographers and computer scientists and game theory people and others, they they figured out how to put together a system where they actually created legitimate, you know, um immutable digital scarcity, so provable that that nobody could mess with. And you know, when I first got involved, my great thought was, well, I've seen there were five or six attempts before Bitcoin to do it, and they all failed because nobody had all the pieces in place. Nobody could put them all together. And when Bitcoin got invented, somebody actually put all the pieces together such that there are now there's now a system with 21 million coin units, all of which are controlled by, you know, shown on a public address that anyone can see and controlled by the private keys to that address. And that system, in and of itself, um, allows um you know people to buy and trade these digital addresses. There will never be any more of them. And it's worked flawlessly for 16 years and hasn't been hacked, hasn't failed, hasn't had any kind of code problem or other other issue. Now, you know, that doesn't mean somebody can't steal your keys and steal your coins. I mean there, but nobody's ever confiscated Bitcoin from somebody who's had it properly secured, i.e., if you don't let your keys out, you can't have it taken away from you. So so you know what I'm describing now is a form uh a system that provides for digital scarcity. And digital scarcity would imply that you're what you what you've actually owned when you own a piece of a Bitcoin network is something that approximates digital gold, because like gold, and in fact, you know, it's more it's sounder than gold now because we're we're making less Bitcoin per year than we are gold. We we grow gold at about 1.7% a year. Bitcoin is now growing at eight-tenths of a percent a year, and that's going to decrease every four years. Um, you know, that there's there's a system whereby you know people can't get a hold of Bitcoin unless they pay for it. And uh as a result, you know, it it's it's a it's a form of money, it's emerging slowly, very slowly, as a form of money that others um, you know, that people are accepting. And so and it has some advantages versus gold. I mean, you don't pay to store it, uh, you can move it instantly, which is uh it's good and bad, I mean you can and you can lose it instantly too. Um but you know, and and it's being adopted at a wider and wider level by corporations and sovereigns, etc. So, you know, and it's still it's still an ant compared to the size of the gold market. It's still you know $1.4 trillion market today when you know gold is 30, 30 trillion. So, you know, one would and and younger people seem to prefer it versus gold. So, and and we are moving to a digital world. So if this is a legitimate system of digital scarcity that's not going to fail, and you know, there's always that risk, but 16 years of flawless operation have gotten me convinced that the odds of it failing are low, well then it might actually become a form of digital sound money. And so if that's the case, you know, there will be people who will say, gee, instead of buying you know gold, maybe I'll buy some Bitcoin. Um, and you know, on the on the adopt, the and it's got two things going for it. So both both Bitcoin and gold are going to go up in price as monetary in dollar terms as the as the money gets printed. We know that, okay. Um but but Bitcoin's got an advantage vis-a-vis gold, and that is gold's widely adopted. It's been around 8,000 years. There's nobody who doesn't know what it is. And so, and yet Bitcoin is kind of like the iPhone. In the early days, you know, only a few people had them. Now everyone has one. And so, you know, we're on this adoption curve where over time more and more people are coming to see the utility of this thing. It's getting used in more and more applications, it's being stored by more and more sovereign wealth people, it's being put on balance sheets of corporations. There are even treasury companies out there doing it, and that's a whole different topic. But but the point is it's becoming an alternative to gold in the sound money camp. Now, you know, there are people in our industry who would say it's all bullshit, and we all know who who I'm talking about, but I actually think they're wrong. And and it's actually it's in on a price performance-wise, measured against the in dollar terms, it's actually vastly outperformed gold since inception. Um, not so much recently, because gold just had a nice little run here, and Bitcoin's in a major correction. You know, it hit a high of 126 and it's down to in a low 60s right now. So uh, but I'll but I'll make an interesting point. Um, every other prior Bitcoin correction was 70% or more in the earlier days, and this one's only been 50%. And what that tells me is that again, it's it's being there are buyers in the 60s, it's being more widely adopted. And so um, you know, I actually think it's a pretty interesting time uh to get in here. And in fact, when gold went on its run and silver went on its run last year, and I had nice, very nice gains in my fund, and personally, you know, I swapped some of my gold and silver out and I used it to buy some Bitcoin. Now, there will probably come a time in the future when Bitcoin will go on a big run and it'll get overvalued against the models that I use to value it, and I'll sell some Bitcoin and I'll go back and buy some gold and silver. And so in fact, you can chart the two against one another. You can see there's a nice channel going up and to the right in Bitcoin's favor, but they you know, sometimes gold leads, sometimes Bitcoin leads. I mean, you know, in it's interesting in in 2020, when the GFC or when uh COVID hit, gold took off like and and uh Paul responded, you know, like Mario Draghi, we're gonna do whatever it takes. Uh gold took off like a rocket, right? I mean, it went from a thousand to fourteen hundred, and the gold stocks went up a hundred percent quickly. Bitcoin just sat there, everyone's kind of like, huh? And then, you know, October of 2020, Bitcoin woke up and it went from 10,000 to 60,000 in six months. And so um, you know, and then it and then it corrected back down by the way to 15. I mean, one of the hardest things about it for people that that aren't familiar with it to understand is just how really we are and how and how volatile it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:43

Those drawdowns can be hard for people to do that. I mean, you know, whether whether it is kind of a the analog or version of the or digital one, I mean, you would say it's still the same enemy, right? The printing press. So let's kind of bring it home for the person who just wants to protect what the hell they have. I mean, big picture, kind of put it together for us. We got gold, silver, the Fed. Debt. I mean, where are we in the story? Where are we kind of going? You answered it a little bit, but but Larry, for for the average person watching, not a hedge fund, not a trader, just someone who's trying to protect their savings. I mean, what do they actually do right now?

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Well, I I think I think you can, I mean, first of all, uh on all of these things, you need to take a multi-year perspective. I mean, yeah, because you know, trading these trading these commodities and trading a sovereign debt crisis and trading a monetary transition is not easy. There's a great chart that's all over Twitter by Dan Oliver Murmican that shows how volatile you know the the the Deutschmark was in gold terms in the 1920, you know, hyperinflation. And so so volatility is par for the course, and that makes this whole thing hard. So you know, just accept that. Um, the second thing is recognize that you know you're if you're playing for a five or a 10-year time frame, which is what I'm doing, um, you know, dollar cost averaging makes a ton of sense. And and so you know, just decide how much you want to have allocated, divide that um how much cash you have out, you know, allocate it over a period of time. You'll keep buying when it's cheaper, you'll buy it when it's expensive. I think for most people, you know, if they can't handle the volatility of Bitcoin, they should start with gold. Um, I think you know, then if you want to add more volatility, you can add silver. Then if you want to add still even more volatility, you add Bitcoin. I think that having zero Bitcoin is is a poor investment choice because I think that the asymmetry in Bitcoin is so big, you know, that that um you know it it it the notion, I mean, whatever you put into Bitcoin, let's assume you can lose it all. I mean you can do that at any investment. Um but the models that I look at suggest that you know it's gone, it's done a 10x about seven times, and it's just gonna keep going. It's gonna go, you know, it went from 10,000 to 100, you know, now it's back at 66. It's gonna go from 100 to a million, then it's gonna go from a million to 10 million. And, you know, I mean, these are over the next 15 years. This isn't tomorrow. Um, but the point I'm trying to make is that you know, if you put if if you can afford to put $10,000 in there or $1,000, whatever the number is, you know, I mean, if it if you can afford to put 1% of your net worth in there and it does a 10 bagger, that adds 10% to your overall return. If it does a hundred bagger, you know, that that adds uh you've doubled your your net worth. And if it does a thousand bagger, which I think it will in your in your kids' lifetime, you know, it's had a meaningful impact. So, you know, there's there's to me, there's just a very obvious reason reason to own it, which is the upside asymmetry, you know, versus the downside that it fails. And you know, it's interesting. I mean, if if you read my book, I I made a lot of cases in there about it and showed that one of the great investment mistakes I made in the last 15 years was not really understanding the value of networking businesses and how much they could increase in value. I mean, before this, all businesses tended to be, with the exception of a few, tended to be kind of straight-line product businesses. And so if you own Johnson ⁇ Johnson or Ford Motor or some of the great U.S. corporations from the early days, you made a lot of money if you held them for 100 years or 50 years. But if you own Google or Apple or you know, eBay or some of the some of the true network businesses that got created, you know, with the internet, I mean, you didn't just make a little money, you made like 20,000 times your money. And that's because of the law that says a network grows at the square of its underlying number of users. This is why Amazon became so valuable. And you know, I mean it, and it's it's been a I mean, I look at Bitcoin and I think, gosh, the the ride with Amazon was very similar. There are all kinds of 50 to 70 percent drawdowns in Amazon. And yet look at what it's done. Do you know what I mean? And so so if this does become a very important monetary network, and I think it already has, but if it continues to become an important monetary network, I mean I I think it you know it goes up 10x, 100x, 1,000 X, you know, over the next 20, 30 years. And so, you know, if you you just with something that that kind of asymmetry, you don't want to own zero of it. Now, admittedly, you know, nobody should put all their money in Bitcoin. Of course, yeah, yeah. Good divide. Yeah, but but to oin but to own some of it is not is not you know is not irrational, in my view.

SPEAKER_03 48:02

Yeah, have a little bit of a slice of the pie. Uh okay, well, Lizzie, I I gotta wrap up on this interesting Fed week. But before I let you go, I mean, you've always said that there's a better world on the other side of this. Leave us with that. I mean, if we get through the hard part, what does the other side look like?

SPEAKER_00 48:16

I really do believe that. I mean, I look at the world pre, you know, going off the gold standard, and I think a lot of the K-shaped economy and the unfairness and the political dysfunction that we've had is a function of the broken money that we've got. And, you know, I I mean, some accuse me of being a doomer. I'm not a doomer, I'm a realist and an analyst of what's likely to happen. And I think that to go through the transition of the broken monetary system that we've now got to get to a sound money system on the other side is not going to be easy or fun. They're going to be winners or losers. However, I do think that's going to happen in a time window, probably that's the next five years, ten years at the longest. And that as that happens, we will people, inflation will, in my view, inflation will become so bad that people will absolutely demand that we go back to sound money. And there really are only a couple of choices. And so, you know, when when that when that when this happens, what I think we're going to see is, you know, politicians with a sound money view, I mean, guys like Thomas Massey or Warren Davidson or Cynthia Loomis or whatever are going to step in and say, you know, the problem is the money is broken. We need to close the Federal Reserve down. We need to just make money, you know, this thing that can't be printed, and then let the cards fall where they may, and there'll be interest rates and all of that, but it'll all be based on an underlying sound basis. And when that happens, it's going to be amazing how much better things are going to get, because that's what we had, you know, in for really the first part of this country, and to, you know, for the first hundred plus years of this country, where we had enormous prosperity increases, enormous growth, you know, and and a lot of very healthy things going on, despite the Keynesians saying, well, occasionally there was a panic or whatever, and therefore we need a Federal Reserve. That's bullshit. We don't need a Federal Reserve. The book, I would, you know, I would, if people don't understand this, I would really highly encourage them to buy the book and my book and read it, just because that was the purpose of the book, was to try and lay out how and why we've gone astray. And the reason we've gone astray is because the politicians have lied to us. The politicians, the financiers, you know, the big government, big corporations have figured out a way to rig the system in their favor and make the rest of us pay for it in terms of inflation. I mean, that's i I can't I can't say it any more simply than that. And so the way and the and the only anecdote to that is to return to sound money. And um, I'm an optimist. I believe we will return to sound money. I believe it'll be glorious for my kids on the other side of this, and I I pray that it's not going to take more than 10 years. I don't think it will, because I think we're headed towards the wall with all this debt. But I could be wrong. I mean, it could take longer than I think. I I do think that human beings then do tend to trend toward, you know, making things better. I mean, it's you know, the the long arc of of society is up and to the right in terms of improved living standards and and behavior, but you know, not to say that there aren't some real bumps along the way. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Yeah, well said. Yeah, no, interesting time, Larry. I mean, you know, it's definitely not a salad may and go away kind of event. Uh always a great conversation. Uh, I want to thank you for your honesty, clarity, my friend. Appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

Oh, thank you. I enjoyed it very much, and I'm happy to be with you whenever you'd like to talk.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

Yeah, look forward to it. Uh, we'll continue to monitor. I mean, and never a dull moment, but we got those uh those couple of Fed meetings, as you mentioned, coming up, and we'll we'll see what happens with those, but maybe less. We're gonna be here a little less, Haley.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah, I think so. I mean, he's he he's um yeah, he he he it's it's so funny. Yesterday reminded me of Greenspan. I mean, Greenspan had a great quote. I remember once back in the day. He said something alongside, if you understood what I said, then clearly I didn't do a good job of saying what I wanted to say. In other words, you know, he was just intentionally confusing so that everyone could take away from it whatever they wanted and hopefully go forward and be happy.

SPEAKER_03 52:13

Yeah, message for the market. You're not front running that. All right, Larry, appreciate your time. Thanks for this.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

Oh, thank you. Nice to see you, Chairman.

SPEAKER_03 52:20

All right, that was Lawrence Lapard, or Larry Lapard, as I called him, author of the big print. And here's what I'm kind of taking away. The record run was not the real story, and neither is the sell-up. The story is what both are telling us about money itself. And if you want that story, the real one, not the mainstream spin, do me a favor, hit subscribe. Tell me in the comments, are you buying this pullback or waiting it out? I'm Jeremy Saffron for all of us here at Kitco News. Thanks for watching.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

Kitco News in Focus with Jeremy Saffron.

SPEAKER_01 52:49

KitCo's new and improved award-winning gold life gives you access to the latest market price quotes, charts, precious metals news, and expert opinions on familiar but improved and exciting user experience. All the news and information you love in a better, faster, and more intuitive package of our existing app, used by millions of users with an average user rating of 4.5 stars, for customizable widgets and market alert features. Download the official Gold Live app and get all the latest updates so you're always on top of the latest precious metals, finance, stocks, and mining news. Download now on the App Store or get it on Google Play.