Gold & Silver Markets are Being Manipulated?

Kellen Ainey (00:01) Hi everyone and welcome back to the Ask Andrew podcast. Once again, I'm joined by Andrew Slay, who's here to answer all of your gold and silver questions. Welcome back, Andrew.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (00:11) Great, Kellen, thank you very much for having me back. It's good to be back.

Kellen Ainey (00:15) So why don't we dive right in here with the first question. So gold hit 3,500 USD then dipped. Do you think we're seeing any level of market manipulation or do you feel like that's more so the market correcting itself?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (00:30) Well, that's a pretty good question. I think any dips are going to be manipulation. They're trying like heck to keep gold suppressed as long as possible, even though there's worldwide demand that's off the chart. Nothing goes straight up without natural corrections, but they are trying to suppress gold and silver anytime they can. It gets a little bit out of hand or it's among their, let's say their agenda of when they're ready to buy some more physical, they'll try and suppress it, would be my guess. So, and silver, to summarize, won't go straight up. Nothing does without natural horizontal moves and pullbacks. And that some of it could be natural, but my guess is that there's more manipulation in there to try and buy physical when the pullbacks are engineered. And that's when you play their game. When there is a pullback, you buy because that's what they're doing. You know, that's what the bullion banks are doing is they're shorting on paper contracts and then they're buying long physical to get it cheaper. So that's what we do. You just buy it on the dips.

Kellen Ainey (01:48) So do you feel like there is any more style of manipulation towards gold or silver? Or do you feel like it's kind of the same across the board for precious metals?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (01:58) I think there's more effort on silver for manipulation. It certainly is cheaper to do it for silver. Gold is very expensive to try and move a price up or down. Silver is a lot easier to do that with. And I believe it was Ed Steer who's been following the charts on this stuff and he had presented graphs that showed since 1971 to current time that the number one manipulated metal since that time, without exception, has been silver and then it's gold and then platinum and platinum and all the way to the other metals. Silver has been by far the most manipulated and pressured for the last 50 odd years.

Kellen Ainey (02:42) And do you think there's been any kind of big events that have caused this? Do you find that they manipulate it a little bit more in certain times when it's doing very well?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (02:55) I would say the manipulation occurs more often during the good times when the metals are trying to surface and rise. When they beat it down back in 2011, they hammered it from 50 odd dollars US spot down to, from memory, around 11 dollars US spot. And it stayed there for almost like it seems like seven or six years, I can't remember, I haven't seen the chart for a little while, but it stayed there as a flat line for quite a few years with a variance of like a quarter in value, like 25 cents up or down or whatever. And they did that, whatever money they put in to suppress it, and it stayed and collapsed that market and it stayed there for quite a while. And now it's been rising. So, for example, when we had that hammering down of gold and silver a month ago, when gold went down 300 bucks and silver, which was around 3%, silver went down nine. The reports I saw were that the bullion banks went all in to manipulate the silver and the gold down. And all they achieved was 3% on gold. And then within five days, it hit an all-time new high. And with silver, it went down 9% and pulled back about three. We're probably now a couple of dollars below the recent highs. And that's the best that they were able to do going all in. So what I'm trying to say there is that the level of manipulation that's going into it is having less and less effect and far less duration and time of effect. So if they put a couple of billion dollars on the short contracts, it used to hammer it down and it would stay there for a year in silver. And now it happens, it's a day or two or a week or something along that line.

Kellen Ainey (04:55) Do you think that has, and this is kind of not so much a precious metal question, do you think that has something to do with how easy it is to get information on everything now? Whereas before you would have to go and read these reports, you would have to go out and find this, whereas everything's up to the tip of your fingers now, you can look everything up on your phone.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (05:14) Well, the spread of information is literally like the speed of light now compared to what it used to be. And I'm sure that's having an impact on all of that, where people are instantly aware of things and they're instantly buying dips as opposed to the market. Like, obviously the traders who are on the floor see dips right away, but the average person, you and I, often in our houses somewhere, we're not necessarily seeing the news or the dips for maybe days by the time we actually get around to seeing it. So we missed those buys, but now everything is so instant that that's probably having a good impact on how little time that these pushdowns have an effect for because all of a sudden China pours in and buys a whole pile of silver and overnight it regains all of its compression from the day before, you know?

Kellen Ainey (06:13) Yeah, and we can directly see that impact as we wake up and check our phones in the morning.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (06:18) Yeah. And then of course it's like, great, silver's down. And then you're doing your trades, buying whatever. And so I'm sure that has an impact on it. I never actually really thought of it in that way before, but that was a good question.

Kellen Ainey (06:33)
So, sticking with silver here, what economic event slash catastrophe could do you think could be a leading factor in silver to break its all-time high? And do you think that's what time frame would you even give that if you don't mind giving that?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (06:49)
Yeah, it's a really tough one because every time one thing I've found out over the years with the markets is that anytime anyone makes a prediction, the market always proves them wrong. It doesn't matter who it is. I you can be the best analyst in the world and anytime you get it right, it's pure luck. know, look at Michael Burry in the 19, 2008 when he went all in for short. And that's the first call he got right and it made him famous.

He hasn't gotten a call right since. ⁓ So, ⁓ but not to skirt it, I don't mind trying to ⁓ answer it, but like we're gonna, we're right now seeing a lot more ⁓ world events occur just in the last couple of days where there's all kinds of rhetoric. So for the listeners, as the talk of expansion of conflict keeps on rising.

That's the cover for the financial system going down. And so that's a really good sort of warning as to, well, you know, it's getting closer all the time. But I would be really surprised if we make it to the end of the year before we don't have a major item break and a conflict erupt. And then we have, of course, the European Central Bank announcing the digital currency, which is, you ⁓

That's a whole other topic if it comes up in this, I'll jump into it. ⁓ so with those things happening, the remainder of this year, it would not surprise me what happens to silver and gold by the end of the year. Like you just pick a number. So ⁓ I was saying early in the year that I expected gold to go to five grand Canadian by the summer.

Kellen Ainey (08:36)
you

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (08:44)
And man, we were only 200 bucks shy of that at the end of April. So, so that was pretty close. And then of course, it pulled back. You know, and so now that did a pullback, but we still have, you know, whatever, a couple of months. Summer to me is like, you know, July or August. so, um, and it's, it's definitely well within the realm of possibility of

Kellen Ainey (08:52)
Yeah, no, you were definitely within the ballpark, that's for sure.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (09:14)
gold making it there. Now, if gold gets to that number, what does that mean for silver? Well, ⁓ as more more hardship occurs and people, you know, as you've seen, you know, there's been a few more people calling the office, you know, recently in the last number of weeks that have been kind of like buyers out of thin air almost. And that's I think that's been spurred on mostly by the Japan bond market failing last year last week.

that all of sudden there's been some bigger orders than normal from some people that we may not have heard from for a while. ⁓ so more and more things are breaking every week and more and more people are starting to get nervous on this, which is forcing people to make decisions and move into the market. So the long story of all this is that this is all inch by inch of momentum and pressure building

going into these metals that will have ⁓ upward pressure to move them up while the Boeing banks try and keep it down. And then as soon as we have some kind of major world event occur, then it's, know, all bets are off. Silver could be hundreds of dollars by the end of the year and more. And that wouldn't surprise me at all. ⁓ and gold could go to whatever number if we have a

you major financial collapse, which is brewing in Japan. that's the thing I should, you know, people should be watching what happens in Japan. That's I believe is the canary in the coal mine because they're having a bond, a 30 year bond failure right now. And if, if Japan ⁓ collapses with their bond market, that's going to trigger a worldwide event. So everyone should be watching Japan right now is my guess.

Kellen Ainey (11:09)
And do you think the key factors would be that could well potentially break Japan's bond market?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (11:18)
Well, it's all debt. Like, it's all based on the debt. all... Every problem in every country with their bond market is all debt. There's way too much. Japanese government has been buying the bond market. nobody's been... I saw the stat the other day. It's like... Oh, quote me. It's like 69 % of all the Japanese government bonds issued are bought.

the government of Japan.

Kellen Ainey (11:49)
Can you say that one more time,

Andrew? think the connection just dropped there. Could you say that percentile one more time?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (11:54)
Sure. So I saw a chart the other day. I believe it was 69 percent. Don't quote me, but it's close. So 69 percent of all of the Japanese government bonds that are being issued are being bought back by the government of Japan, which is kind of like a snake feeding on its own tail.

Kellen Ainey (12:14)
Yeah, literally. OK, so that would make sense as to where you would. Yeah, I can see why you would point that out as an example for the rest of the world to be watching and waiting.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (12:25)
Like that's, we're going to have a major catastrophe over there and, you know, they're a large economy. have a lot of US debt, $1 trillion in US treasuries they hold. And all of a sudden, if they have to start liquidating that, I mean, this could be ⁓ massive problems. So people just need to pay attention to that.

Kellen Ainey (12:47)
Well yeah,

from my understanding, they're one of the top five biggest economies in the world. So if we're seeing that type of, well, that level of failure in Japan's economy, it really does go to show that a country like Canada is completely not off the table.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (13:02)
yeah, we're there too. We're in the same problem. Nobody acknowledges it, that's all. ⁓

Kellen Ainey (13:09)
Well,

I think we're just not looked at the same way as Japan, right? They kind of have international eyes on them where we kind of get, we're just a subsidiary of the states in some people's eyes.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (13:12)
No, that's right.

Yeah, no, we could fall apart and go down and I'm not even sure if it would register on the world scale financially, you know, other than like, oh my gosh, look what happened to Canada. But from an internal point of view from Canada, like we're in debt beyond our eyeballs, we're in debt to bankruptcy. And so that is in our own way, internally the same problem that has, you know, Japan in a conundrum. sooner or later, nobody's going to want our debt.

either. And ⁓ when that happens, we're in the same debt spiral loop they keep referring to around the various podcasters and analysts are talking about this debt spiral loop where nobody wants the debt. now that interest rates go up, so the countries have to pay more to issue treasuries or bonds. then so now it's kind of like this spiral that goes faster and faster and gets bigger, meaning like the bill that the US just

issued like 3.8 trillion dollars. I mean, that's madness. You know, like the last one was 1.2. Why is it 3.8 now? Well, it's 3.8 because the 1.2, if they did something the same, wouldn't have any effect. That's a sign of currencies really starting to fail and they have to pump the debt instrument like the dollars, the cash of any currency is nothing more than an instrument of debt. And

This system to stay in functioning, some kind of functioning form, has to have an ever expanding level of debt. So $1.2 trillion bill one year makes things work for six months or whatever it is, but now they need 3.8 trillion. And the next time there's a bill that's introduced, it's going to be five or six trillion. And it'll keep going. So.

Kellen Ainey (15:14)
And yeah,

it's just going to keep ballooning and ballooning. So you made a comment about Europe moving towards more so a CBDC. And I wanted to dive more so into that because we did have a ⁓ viewer reach out and ask a question regarding that. So Europe looks to be a leader in transitioning from the Euro to a central bank digital currency or CBDC.

which should be potentially adopted around the world, what do you think may happen leading up to European Central Bank's decision in October and what are the implications to the USD in gold?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (16:03)
⁓ I'll bite off the USD in a moment. So central bank digital currency, ⁓ everything that I've been able to ascertain about that so far, it's going to be a QR code on a phone, smartphone. So ⁓ that means no more euro, which means they have to collapse the euro and destroy that system, which means the banks go down in Europe.

the financial institutions go down in Europe and everyone loses their deposits and their investments. And then when everyone's lost all their money, they'll issue this QR code and have some kind of universal basic income. And if you peel back the pages a few, that's hidden behind the curtain somewhere in the European Union, that they want to institute this total control digital programmable currency and issue

you know, this universal basic income for everybody because everyone just lost all their money. And also because, you know, AI is going to displace two and a half billion jobs over the years. so they have to come up with some kind of social safety net for all this nonsense. But anyway, when this occurs in Europe, in my opinion, by default, ⁓ you're going to see the same thing occur everywhere else in the West. I'm not going to get into Asia because I'm

I'm not entirely sure what will happen there because everyone's busy banking gold like crazy to go on to a gold standard. And I'm not sure what's going to happen there yet. It's a wait and see with BRICS. But on the West, it's very clear cut. We have nothing but debt and they're working towards complete collapse of the system. And if you have Europe banking system go down and everyone's losing their financials, and even if they weren't planning on bringing that down in

Canada, US or anywhere else, by default that news would get out. So if you're seeing the banks all close and stories of people losing their, there are thousands or millions or whatever, what are you going to do in Canada? Probably go take your money out of the account.

because you don't know if you're next. by default, there will be a bank run in Canada and US anyway. So. ⁓

Again, my opinion will be that if this is going to be on time for October and then obviously you have to backtrack so many months to implement all these ⁓ takedowns of the financial institutions, that you will have a planned demolition of the entire financial system of the West all at the same time. Otherwise, it's going to happen on its own anyway. So there, if you're trying to run and manage this show, you're likely going to do all of it at the same time.

and dream up whatever story you want to say, like international hackers and all that. They'll make up something so that the banks aren't blamed and the government's not blamed. now, so that happens. and silver are going to react. know, everyone just lost everything. And when that dust settles, people are going to realize their position in a very short period of time.

And the purchasing power of gold and silver will go through the roof. When everyone's broke and you have silver and gold, you can buy their assets for next to nothing because they're trying to raise some money to feed themselves. And if nobody has any money, what does your car sell for? What does the house sell for? You know, or a sailing boat or whatever. And that is very little because nobody has any money other than those that are holding on metal.

cash will be operating for in any country for like a month, maybe two. But then as soon as the CBDC is instituted, they will give that a very short leash and then they will make it no longer legal tender. So for example, if this all comes to fruition as what's planned in the European Union and Christine Lagarde has been reported that she has gone to every country in Europe and stated to their central banks in each country.

be ready for October. So that's pretty strong language that they're going to make this happen. So ⁓ when that occurs over there and whatever time here, ⁓ they'll have, let's say a week after this stuff occurs, that they'll give you a trade in for your paper currency, those that might have some, of something like a

maybe a one to five or one to 10 trade in or something like that to lure people in. they'll tell people you have one week at that ratio, then week number two, it'll be one to a hundred or 500, week three, one to a thousand, week four, no longer legal tender, no trade in. Something along that line. And that will be, that's used that way in history to force people to move into the next system. And then the door shuts behind you and you can't go back out because it's no longer legal tender.

And so if you hoard a lot of cash after the first month when CBDCs are introduced, won't have ⁓ the cash will be paper. Burned.

Kellen Ainey (21:34)
Yeah, basically

the cash won't be it won't be worth the paper. It's printed on

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (21:38)
That's it. And proof right there, what we've been saying to how many clients for years and years, there's no intrinsic value to the dollar, no matter what country you're in, because it only has value as the government says it has value, and it's accepted. As soon as the government says no longer legal tender, it instantly reverts to its true value of zero, which proves the point in itself.

Kellen Ainey (21:55)
Exactly.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (22:06)
So it's madness, but now to the US and gold. ⁓ This, my opinion, I think the US will transition to this at the same time. ⁓ I don't believe they're not going to do that. It's possible they may try and just do it themselves and ignore it. But everything that's being done in the States right now is being done to collapse the dollar. And, you know, they've talked about the crypto

cryptocurrency capital of the world, stable coins, no matter what they want to call it, it is programmable currency that they're working the public towards. So I don't see it being anything different. I think what we see is theater, is all distraction and theater. no, the states aren't going to do a CBDC. No, they're going to do a stable coin, but it's exactly the same thing. So

Kellen Ainey (22:53)
Okay.

Yeah,

they'll make it unique to the United States just to from what I assume keep their trade power. But with that being said, it's still going to function pretty much exactly as these as the Europeans will set it up. Am I correct in breaking down your assumption on that?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (23:13)
It's just an adjective.

Yeah, yeah, it's just going to be a different adjective, but it's exactly the same thing. And so that's just to appease the people. know CBC is not a popular word in the States. So, and it's not popular in Europe at all, but they're going to force people into it. So we're going to see that happen. And ⁓ now when all that starts to occur, gold.

Eventually gold's gonna have to go up from that. It could have a smile a small pullback because all of a sudden everyone's broke So I don't like everyone's broke. They don't have any money to buy gold So there could be a correction but the underlying issue with gold and silver is that it reflects the demise of the currency So as the currency loses value gold goes up and silver goes up in that exchange so

with all these spending bills that are going on. Like for example, let's not worry about a CBDC in Europe. Let's worry about the $3.8 trillion package that the administration just put out. That alone is gonna force coal up, like a lot more.

Kellen Ainey (24:21)
Exactly. yeah,

gold's been doing pretty well these last, I'd say, two days from when we're recording.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (24:28)
So, know, ⁓ that's everything they spend money on is pushing gold and silver up. So it's kind of a I hope that's a close enough answer. I don't know what's going to happen short term when this whole catastrophe happens. Gold and silver does whatever it does. But once the dust settles, it'll be tremendous purchasing power because everyone's broke.

Kellen Ainey (24:50)
Well,

it's funny. You actually almost answered my next question, where it's hypothetically what role would gold play in the quote unquote new world, where every country now has a central bank digital currency. But I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there. If you want to expand on that a little bit more, feel free to.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (25:09)
⁓ Well, every country having a central bank digital currency is not positive. Like that's something that every citizen should be pushing back against because that's an enslavement system that they're trying to bring in. And, you know, if we want complete anonymity, all we have to do is go back to a sound money principle, go back and back the currency with gold and have cash and inflation goes away. Amazing.

Miraculous. So why don't they do that? Well, because they want to collapse the currency, steal everyone's wealth, and then issue a programmable currency to have total control, the governments and the banking system. That's their ultimate on all this. So the role that gold will play is going to be the free economy outside of that system. People will want to transact.

and ⁓ exchange things of value so that like I want to buy your car or I want to buy your cottage or whatever. And we work out a deal that I'm going to buy with, you know, maybe a little bit of gold and some silver or whatever combo. And we do that exchange between the two of us and it's outside the system entirely. And so the free market will continue to operate with gold and silver outside of the CBDCs. That's how I see it. And that's how I

That's how I'm positioning myself is that ⁓ I want to have the least amount possible to do with that kind of system. And it may be very hard to stay ⁓ out of it entirely. Maybe I have to accept it so I can pay my property tax or something. But outside of that, they're not going to be backing these crypto currencies, not crypto, the CBCs with gold the first time around.

I don't see that happening at all because nobody's, Canada can't do it. US question mark. ⁓ Many of the European countries don't have enough gold. know, meanwhile, the BRICS nations have been buying gold hand over fist for years. So that's not a good sign for us either. So ⁓ as a citizen of any country, you can't help what your government's doing, but you can help what you do.

Kellen Ainey (27:23)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (27:38)
And that

is you treat yourself as your own central bank, you accumulate your metals, you have some cash on hand and you stay out of the banking system as much as possible to ⁓ hedge against that risk.

Kellen Ainey (27:54)
Well, and as we've said time and time again on this podcast, it's also the value that gold has internationally, right? So it's not backed by, ⁓ like, whereas even specifically speaking to the USD, the value that the USD has is the fact that it's backed by the US economy, right? Whereas gold is viewed internationally as value.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (28:19)
Yeah, no question about the gold statement on the US dollar. What gives the US dollar its strength was that it was the reserve currency of the world and was in demand by every country to use as the settlement for all trade. And so when you have demand of dollars, you know, no matter where you are in the world, like what country you're in and you're buying something from somewhere else, you have to exchange your local currency for USD.

Kellen Ainey (28:36)
Exactly.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (28:48)
pay the other country. you know, and then of course, you know, Kissinger did the, petrodollar deal back in 73 or four, whatever it was. And, you know, Saudi Arabia and many other Arab countries had to be paid for oil sales to no matter where it was going in the world in USD. And so when you have a demand for USD or any currency that pumps the value of it up.

Kellen Ainey (29:17)
And do you think the petrodollar deal falling through was the biggest impact on USD we've seen thus far? Or do think that it's just kind of one of the many factors that's been drawing the world economy away from the USD?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (29:35)
⁓ It's a really good question. think if I was, you know, I'm not, you know, any kind of economist, but in my interpretation for what I've witnessed, I'd say that and everything else we've been witnessing the last, you know, few years have been all massive spikes in the coffin of the USD. So, you know, when the, when the petrodollar deal was signed, ⁓

Against the US dollar so they're gonna do everything else and other currencies that was certainly at the time a massive spike in the coffin and But we've had so much more stuff happening since then it's like that spike doesn't look so big anymore like it's just another huge spike every like every month there's another big spike and

Kellen Ainey (30:22)
So

it's pretty much the first thing that set it off and then we've been seeing just consistent, I don't want to call them catastrophes, but consistent events that ⁓ almost match that level of damage to the USD.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (30:36)
Yeah, like again, not being an economist and having the ⁓ qualifications to really give a good measure, but in my humble opinion, ⁓ like the $3.8 trillion bill that they just introduced is to me like nearly as bad as the petrodollar being thrown away. Because I mean, you're talking about inflation galore that's going to punish the US dollar and the US citizens. And the world is looking at this

Unrelented spending of the U S and so that encourages all these countries to continue walking away from the USD. So these huge spending bills are in another way, just as damaging in my opinion, because the countries are going, you know what? These guys are all going to go down. They can't spend money like this. They're no longer. They just lost all their AAA ratings. ⁓ bad news.

Kellen Ainey (31:34)
Well, speaking of debt levels, that's actually kind of dipping into one of our next questions here. With the national debt levels as they are right now, do central banks have any other option other than giving another ⁓ round of money printing? What are your interest rate expectations this year, given central banks need to cut to stimulate the economy versus fight inflation?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (32:02)
Well, ⁓ the central banks don't have any other tools other than printing money now. So that's going to be, in fact, I've heard, you know, seen a couple of discussions in the last few weeks that ⁓ quietly QE, quantitative easing, is already underway in the States and in Canada. And it's already, you know, injecting currency into the system to keep it lubed up so that the credit system doesn't lock up.

So they're already doing damage control in an unofficial capacity. ⁓

The history dictates that they'll sacrifice the dollar every single time, no matter what country you're in that's in this situation. So ⁓ they won't go up with interest rates because ⁓ that will basically collapse everything immediately. So they'll sacrifice the dollar because politically there's no will to do the right thing. And so they'll go to zero. I don't think that's going to last very long.

In fact, ⁓ there was a new slip maybe a week ago that the Swiss banks are now talking about going to zero or negative one. Okay. So I don't know where they are. Well, Europe had negative interest rates for almost 10 years after the 08 crisis.

Kellen Ainey (33:23)
I how would negative one work?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (33:34)
That's it.

Kellen Ainey (33:34)
How do you think that

would impact the, well, not only Switzerland's economy, but the Europe's economy as a whole?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (33:42)
Well, they're all going to go that way and that's just going to obliterate whatever value the dollars have, whatever country you're in. And that's just the historical event that happens every single time. Like what we've talked about for eons and when I found all this out nine and half years ago, and that's how long I've been talking about this stuff, it's all starting to come to fruition now where

where the dollars are all losing any value and it's going to accelerate and sooner or later we're going to hit that hockey stick curve. And then all of a sudden it's going to be abundantly clear within days we're in serious trouble. You know, and right now it's just inch by inch, but now all of a sudden, you know, we wake up tomorrow or next month or whatever it is. And then all of a sudden your, your food or whatever is now up 30, 40%. And then a week later it's up another 30, 40 % and it gets to be

⁓ very serious in a very short period of time. And that's how it always happens in history. ⁓ yeah, negative interest rates ⁓ destroyed the pension plans in Europe. So this is going back a little ways ⁓ before you were in the business, Kellan. ⁓

Basically in Europe, it was mandated that if you were handling a pension plan, you had to be 70 % invested in government issued bonds. Okay. You had no choice. So if you were, if you were managing a large pension fund, you know, whatever, like that's called a billion dollars and you have X amount of staff or employees of the company and you're trying to grow the fund to be self-sustaining and you have to have 700 million of the billion.

Kellen Ainey (35:25)
there.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (35:28)
invested in whatever bond of whatever country in Europe that's given you negative interest rates. That means

Kellen Ainey (35:37)
I-I-I

am struggling even wrapping my head around this to be quite frank with you.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (35:40)
That means that you're 700,

yeah, that means 700 million today and you put that in because you have no choice. I'm just going to do rough math, but let's say a year later, you now have 650 million.

Okay, let's say 1 % would be 70 million. Is that the right math? Anyway, whatever, 7 million less. So whatever the math is, ⁓ you have less than you started with a year later. And so what's been going on in Europe is that the 30 % that was left, these pension fund managers were going out on the risk scale, trying to earn more money in equities than they would normally have to. And so these losses are piling up like crazy.

many of were just wanting to hold cash. They didn't want to hold anything else ⁓ because at least they didn't lose any money except for the purchasing power of the dollar. But ⁓ this destroyed the pension plans of Europe and they were predicting that ⁓ I'm going back a few years but I believe at that time it was the pension plans in Europe will collapse in 10 years. And that's coming up probably around 2030 which is an ironic date that keeps on

pop it up all the time.

Kellen Ainey (36:57)
Yeah, it seems like every Doomsday deadline, it's always around 20-30, I find.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (37:03)
Yeah. So, so we have, we'll have, sorry, just to wrap up, we'll have, you know, we'll have a 0 % interest rate that will arrive in Canada very soon, whenever. The, the, the bad part is that you'll, you're seeing long-term bonds, their rates are rising. Okay. So people are like, oh, good. Interest rates are going down. Well, that's daily. But the, but the, like the, if you look at the 10 year,

Kellen Ainey (37:05)
So, oh go ahead.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (37:31)
and 20 year and 30 year bond rates of any of the countries. Well, let's just say Canada, US and Japan. Those rates are going up and up and up. So if you're trying to get into a mortgage in the States and you don't want to have daily down there, they have 30 year mortgages. You're now at seven or 8 % when you used to be five or 6%. And all depends on the credit ratings and all that kind of stuff.

In Canada, we might get 0 % interest rates that might fuel variable rate mortgages, but our five-year or 10-year mortgage that you could get fixed could be going up and up because our 10-year rates are going up. And that's what determines mortgage rates in the industry is long-term bonds, not the daily interest rate.

Kellen Ainey (38:19)
So in a sense, they're almost just kind of hiding, they're kind of hiding the cost, you could say.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (38:28)
I'm not sure how to apply that, to be honest. ⁓

Kellen Ainey (38:33)
So what I mean by that is more so when as opposed to things getting cheaper with inflation being slashed, realistically the central banks are just moving the, or not the central banks, but the government as a whole is really moving the cost to purchase into a different transaction.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (38:49)
Okay, so

So if you're if you mean like they're disguising the fact that we'll go to 0 % interest rate So now your variable rate debt is easier to service. So we're giving you relief. Okay, that's all just Absolute. Yes, it's giving relief. There's no question about that because all of a sudden you're if you're more variable rate mortgage ⁓ you know is adjusted and your line of credit is adjusted and your ⁓

Kellen Ainey (38:58)
Exactly.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (39:17)
whatever else might be affected, drops, then you've got that temporary relief at the expense of the dollar being destroyed, which is not apparent at the same time. It just comes back to haunt us a little bit later. So you get instant relief on your debt today, but four or five or six months from now or next year, you suffer a 25 % increase in the cost of living, of food and whatever.

as a hypothetical scenario. So it's short-lived and it's just, you you can't have a strong economy in a strong ⁓ country with a weak currency. It's impossible. You actually have to have a strong currency, which means you have to have a strong interest rate, okay? And if you go to zero, you're really in... Nobody understands it this way, but in my interpretation, that means your currency is worth zero.

⁓ Because it will be.

Kellen Ainey (40:17)
And why do you feel that

way? So can you expand on that a little bit further for our viewers?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (40:21)
Sorry, just repeat the question and then I hear you.

Kellen Ainey (40:24)
So why do you feel that way that if an interest rate is zero that that also reflects that the currency's value is zero? Just expand on that a little bit further for our viewers.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (40:34)
So when you turn around and if I'm issuing debt, I'm a country and I'm issuing debt, which is in the form of a bond or a treasury bill, and I'm paying zero percent interest rates, are you going to buy the bond from me?

Kellen Ainey (40:57)
Probably not, no.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (40:58)
No,

not at all. Like you're gonna give me a hundred grand and take a bond that pays you nothing. Why would you give me a hundred grand? Okay.

Kellen Ainey (41:07)
So

when you break it down like that, that is a completely viable stance then.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (41:14)
So if I'm paying 0%, I've issued debt relief to my citizens temporarily, but nobody on the planet wants to buy the government issued debt because it pays nothing. So therefore that means there's not too much value to the dollar. And when they try and prop up, you know, I guess here's a way to explain it. guess people have often heard

that the government, let's say US, is trying to encourage people around the world to buy their debt. That phrase gets thrown out there here and there. So they increase interest rates to entice people to buy their debt, which props up their currency.

Kellen Ainey (42:00)
Okay.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (42:01)
All right. Now, if you go the reverse and you go to zero, that means it's destroying the value of the dollar. So that's just using their equation against them. and not to mention when they go to zero, that means that the government is also doing QE and pumping trillions of dollars into the system. And I don't understand exactly why. It's a little bit above my understanding, but this is just what they do. They go to 0 % and that's what they did from 08.

Oh wait, 2008, the great financial collapse. You know, they pumped trillions of dollars into the system to rehydrate all the debt bubbles from collapsing. And we're there now in spades. And now when this thing breaks, it doesn't matter what they pump in. I don't know if it's going to make any difference. You know, the bubble is so darn big that you pump hundreds of trillions of dollars in. Does that even matter now? I don't even know.

But it will matter to the dollar because you pump hundreds of trillions of dollars to try and reinflate these bubbles. The dollar will be obliterated and be like Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Argentina, all these countries. And as a result of these dollars collapsing, you want to hang on to your hat. What happens to gold and silver? It's going to be astronomical because the dollar is going to descend very, very quickly into like one trillionth of a penny.

If gold is 3300 US spot right now or whatever it is at ⁓ in the US dollars right now around two cents, give or take, and it goes to one trillionth of a penny from there, what does that mean? Gold is I don't even know.

Kellen Ainey (43:45)
Well, gold skyrocketing at that point, not because the

value of gold is raised, but more so the hedge against it just plummeted completely. So the US dollars that you're hedging against it aren't worth anything. Again, they're not worth the paper they're printed on.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (43:53)
The cash just, yeah.

Yep. I mean, how many nothings does it take to buy gold?

Like, you know, I'm sure in Venezuela they gave up on doing that long ago because it's you're talking like trillions of dollars. Well, like I showed before on a previous one, that hundred trillion dollar bill from Zimbabwe. OK, like that buys you one egg. Well, how many of those do you need to buy an ounce of ⁓

Kellen Ainey (44:18)
Yep.

Exactly.

You'd have to take a hundred trillion of the hundred trillion dollar bill, right? So...

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (44:28)
Yeah,

it just becomes absolutely nuts. Like it's it's crazy. So people won't even pay attention to the value in dollar terms at some point. All they're going to do is realize that, hey, I can go buy this property, this farm. can buy things with the gold. I can buy things with the silver. Silver being very important because you're going to be buying like food and negotiating smaller transactions. Gold will be only usable for big stuff.

So gold will go through the economy very slowly. Silver will go through day to day trading hand to hand. So I hope that answers the question. We went right off the page on that one, I think.

Kellen Ainey (45:10)
Yeah, no, we've had some very

good questions this podcast, so they're a little bit longer. We've only actually asked four, and that's all I have.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (45:17)
Wow, four questions.

Wow. Well, that was a long one. ⁓ But yeah, but very important, I think, because ⁓ as this unwinds, like keep your eyes on Japan. Right now, the best information we have is Europe switching to this CPDC. by default, this is going to, you know, my opinion, it's going to have to be unfolded everywhere else anyway.

⁓ And unless they change it and here's the thing to think about if they delay it in Europe let's say they go from October and wait till January and people prepare or improve their position or start improving their position right away and Let's say they get to the end of June and they've got you know, some of it down. Whatever it is It's delayed by a few months and goes to January how how worse off are they?

You know, like if you're early to the show, you didn't miss the show. You got the best seat in the house. You paid, you paid less for the silver. You paid less for gold. If this gets delayed by a few months. And so instead of being July, August, or September, we see all these, ⁓ financial calamities starting to happen. Maybe it gets pushed off till September, let's say October, November, December. And then January is the date where everything switches over. Well.

Kellen Ainey (46:22)
Exactly.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (46:44)
If you bought in metals to be in place before the end of June, you paid a less of an amount for them. And as we have things start to unfold over the next few months, what is the likelihood that gold and silver are going to go up? Just because of all these nasty things are happening. And so that likelihood is very strong upward. So the moral of story is you can pay less now

to get prepared or improve your position. Or you can pay later, pay more later when things do start to break and you'll get 30 or 40 % less for your same amount of money of your physical metal. So you're not gonna lose by being early. I've been nine years early, how's it hurt me?

Kellen Ainey (47:37)
Exactly. Now you're just prepared more than you would have been if you started today, right?

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (47:41)
That's it. Like today, if we, if we use that exact example, I started nine years ago, I started buying silver at $18 Canadian for maple. And now they're whatever, 52 bucks. So how has it hurt me to be nine years early? So that example.

Kellen Ainey (47:57)
Which, and yeah,

at the end of the day too, if you were actually looking at this as a regular investment, that's a great return. $18 to $48, right? So it definitely doesn't hurt you in any sense to be prepared to also just diversify your portfolio as a whole.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (48:15)
Yep, yeah, 100%. And so I'm waiting patiently for the show to start, but it's like, it's very nice not to have the exposure to the system. And I encourage people, it's a pretty good feeling to be in that seat. You know, it's gonna get ugly and when it does, if there's anything left that you haven't done, that's massive. Those will be very problematic to handle.

I also believe I saw a video of David Webb the other day and he was talking about Japan being the canary in the coal mine for maybe the great taking being triggered. So Japan goes down and if what he's predicting comes true, that means the great taking as described by him and others that have agreed with his work. Whenever that occurs, I I could pick a date on the calendar. You know, let's start a football pool in the in the office, right? Like

Like nobody knows the exact date, but boy, if you're early, you're good. If you're late or behind, the door's closed, the movie starts, you don't get in to see the show.

Kellen Ainey (49:22)
Yeah, at a certain point you do miss that cutoff point. kind of you miss What's it called? Yeah, the ship is sailed at that

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (49:29)
That's right. that's right. You know, the old saying goes in the industry, know, silver becomes un-atanium and then it becomes un-afortium.

And, you know, like we've seen that happen during the pandemic when there was no shipping going on. The street dealers didn't have any inventory for two months.

Kellen Ainey (49:51)
Well, and then the premiums at that point too. So it's not even the value of the metals that the client is paying into. It's due to the scarcity of the silver, the premiums just skyrocket. Now, with that being said, if they are looking to liquidate it, we're typically offering better prices ⁓ on a liquidation because we're also looking to get our hands on that silver too.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (50:11)
Yeah, like they were through the roof back in like three years ago, roughly, like premiums on Maples were $12 over spot. You know, Canadian, now they're six, give or take, right? And so like that just tells you the market's softer in Canada. So it's cheaper to buy here than other places in the world that might have higher demand. anyway, that's...

Kellen Ainey (50:23)
Exactly.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (50:39)
That's a wrap, think. don't think I can comment about that too many more times. ⁓ being early is better than being late, can tell you that. ⁓

Kellen Ainey (50:46)
Well, that's it.

Well, Andrew, thank you for your time today. As always, if you want to go ahead and let our viewers know how they can reach you directly, feel free to do so.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (50:56)
Yeah, thanks, Kellen. So ⁓ you can call the toll free number, which will be on our website, SprottMoney.com or .ca. It's 1-888-861-0775. My extension is 2-30. You can email me by deathofthedollar at SprottMoney.com. So that's deathofthedollar, SprottMoney.com. ⁓ I do get busy in spurts, so ⁓ do be patient. I will get back to you.

And thanks again, Kellen, for reading some great questions today. Those were good ones. I like those.

Kellen Ainey (51:29)
No worries,

I'm more than happy to do so. I look forward to our next podcast and you have yourself a good one now.

Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (51:36)
Yeah, thank you. Have a great day, everyone.

Kellen Ainey (51:39)
Cheers, bye bye now.