250 Million Ounces Silver Shortage - Eric Sprott

Craig: Hello again from Sprott Money, sprottmoney.com. It is the end of the month of August. We're about ready to wrap up summer. U.S. getting ready for a three-day market holiday weekend. I can't believe that the year is two-thirds over, but it is. It is time for your regular monthly feature, the "Monthly Wrap Up." I'm your host, Craig Hemke, and joining us this month is our old friend, and the guy with the name on the company, Eric Sprott himself. Good to see you, my friend.

Eric: Hey, Craig. I'm so happy to be here, and good to see you looking well, too.

Craig: Oh, gosh. It's nice to see you, my friend. And, hey, I don't wanna mess this up because this is pretty important, so I'm actually gonna put on my glasses. I always remind people when this stuff gets started, this, you know, it doesn't just appear for free. This is brought to you by Sprott Money and sprottmoney.com. So you wanna thank them for all that they do in making this stuff possible. Here's the thing you can do, though. They're giving away silver. Eric, did you authorize this?

Eric: They don't ask me things like that. They just do it.

Craig: They just do it? Okay. Well...

Eric: My silver, after all.

Craig: Well, that's true. Well, Sprott Money has new, they're called Eternal Sun Rounds. They're really cool. And they wanna give some away. So, here's what you do. You gotta go to Instagram. If you're on social media, go to Instagram, follow Sprott Money. I mean, that takes a whopping total of five seconds. You like the post that says "We're giving away some of these Eternal Sun Rounds," and then you tag a friend in the comment section. So, there's three steps. Follow on Instagram, like the post, and tag a friend. If you do that, you will be included in the drawing, give away some of these free rounds. How can you beat that? So, anyway, there are gonna be five winners, so you got a real shot at getting some free silver. And again, always great to check Sprott Money. They've got some great 1-ounce and 5-ounce, 10-ounce bars from First Majestic. They will ship them to you free and with insurance if you buy more than 500 bucks. sprottmoney.com, or 888-861-0775.

Okay, Eric. Where do we start? The last time we spoke was back, I think it was the end of April. And, you know, gold had, and silver too, had rallied to begin the year, even though the dollar was going up and rates had been going up, rate cut expectations were coming down. Now we've just finally begun to break out to new all-time highs in gold. Eric, what I don't understand is the frustration I'm feeling. And I know many other investors feel this. I mean, gold's at all-time highs. It's like this weird dichotomy in my head. Do you have any thoughts? What's the, do you feel this way too?

Eric: Well, it's funny. As I mentioned, I was gonna talk about frustration, because when I think back to my gold career, which probably starts in the year 2000, when I first started buying gold and silver, and the stocks. And I've had some wonderful wins. And I'll speak to one in particular because we would have talked about it many, many, many times. Was Kirkland Lake Gold. And I thought back to myself, okay, 25 years of good times. Why do I always feel so damn frustrated all the time, including today, when it's hitting an all-time high, okay?

Craig: Right, right.

Eric: And I put it down to, you have this foresight of what should happen, but it happens glacially. And it ultimately gets there. You know, gold did go through $2000. It went through $2500. Silver broke $30. Hasn't gone to $50 yet, but hopefully it will. But it's the frustration that you think all these things should have happened, but it's glacial. And it takes a long time for the world to catch up with those of us who believe this for a long time.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: And I do think about Kirkland Lake, that, you know, I could have seen, you know, probably seven years before it hit its high, exactly what they would earn seven years out, because you have this ore body, it's gonna get developed, you know what they're gonna produce, you know what they should make, because you have a price assumption. And it took a long, long time for people to go there. And in fact, I would even say this about the people who really didn't go there. I mean, I was the chairman at Kirkland Lake. I saw what employees purchased the shares. I think there was two employees purchased the shares, even though I might have been on your program and recommended it every damn week. You know? So, it's, there's a certain level of frustration there. And I'm gonna talk more to that when I talk about a couple of stocks later on. But I think that's something that we all have to go through, because we see the problems. You know, as you and I spoke before this session started, I mean, the problems that we all see, manifested every day. And who's dealing with it? I could go to the budget deficit. I could go to the positions of the various people running for government, and saying, "Well, we're gonna tax unrealized capital gains," and, oh, my goodness, the sense of frustration you have that can't people see through the lunacy of that type of situation? Are we gonna control prices? It's never happened in the history of mankind that anyone control them, unless you're in a slavery situation. So, all of these things are always frustrating.

And even when I talk about the prices of the metals, and perhaps today is not the day that, I wouldn't say I'm frustrated on gold, because it is hitting a new high, okay. Maybe I'll be frustrated if, when I finish the day off, and I find out that the gold stocks were up, like, 0.1 of 1%, you know. It's just, okay, how come there's no follow-through here, when there should be? We will just see what happens when we get there. But I would say the most, for example, today, for me, the thing that I find frustrating the most, on a macro picture, is the lack of performance of silver. And you know that there's already this physical shortage every year. What last year was 250 million ounces, in a billion-ounce market. And no, in fact, the mining market's about 800 million. The billion is some recycling going on in there, okay? So, to have a 20% shortage, and somehow not manifest itself in the real world, is really quite shocking.

And then, as you, even if you took ourselves back a couple of months, and looked at where photovoltaics were gonna go, you think, "Oh, my God. Now it could be 300 or 400 million shortage this year. Or the imports that India has, the imports that China have. Like, oh, my God. How can this thing stay here? And then, more recently, of course, we have this Samsung announcement that they have this solid state battery, that features silver, that consumes 20 ounces of silver for every car that's produced. And, course, it could take a car 50% longer, and the recharging time is, like, nine minutes. I mean, it probably takes five minutes to put gas in your car.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: You know? Like, what's nine minutes if you can get 900 kilometers or 600 miles? So, I think that's, it's a tremendous development, and it's gonna affect more than cars, obviously. Anything that needs any electricity whatsoever, they will use that battery if it's as good as what they say it is. And it looks like they've produced them already. They've shipped them off to some of the car companies to experiment with. And the logic of it seems really obvious. And where... Oh, and by the way, the estimates are that they'd need 500 million ounces a year. We mine 800. Where are we gonna get another 500 from? We're already 200 short now.

Craig: Right.

Eric: Like, it just... Like, oh, man. Trying to fit something through this little keyhole is ridiculous. You'd think it would go up. Now, having said all of that, and now, of course, let's get back on the frustration level. So, you got, sit there and watch the silver trade on the COMEX.

Craig: Right.

Eric: And you realize, these banks are short 500 million ounces of silver. Five hundred million.

Craig: Right.

Eric: Which I don't think they can possibly buy back, because somebody's gotta sell it to them. And we already don't have enough sellers. So how the hell are they gonna buy it back? They're not gonna buy it back. So, fine. They just gotta play this game of the wash, rinse, repeat, and knock the price down, and then they gotta let it go back up again. All the while, even in this decline in silver from $32.50 to $26.50, they hardly covered any shorts. I was shocked.

Craig: Right. Right.

Eric: Then, what'd you do this for? Well, now, I know what they do it for. They do it to get off their call options, and, both in stocks and in the SLV and things like that. They always, of course, have the price where max pain, i.e. most of your customers lose the money, that's where we gotta get the price to, right? And, so, that's still operative, but I can guarantee you, they're not getting off the shorts, okay? And I don't think they'll ever get off the shorts. Which is worrisome. Because someday, they may just shut the sucker down, right?

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: And, you know, what they did on nickel. They just cancel a bunch of trades. Oh, well, the silver was never there anyway, so we're gonna move on here, okay?

Craig: Right. When I think...

Eric: We'll let Kamala solve it.

Craig: And you touched on it. I think it's probably silver that's a reflection that is most driving the frustration, because even if you just go back to May, gold's at all time-high. Silver's not even back to where it was in May.

Eric: No. No [crosstalk 00:09:56]

Craig: Do you think, Eric, is it a... I mean, obviously, the commercial shorts, I've been talking a lot about how, you know, copper's kind of in the middle, you know? And gold's up, but copper's down 20%, so silver's down 10%.

Eric: Yeah.

Craig: You know, what's it gonna take to get silver to kind of be its own thing, you know, to get investors more into the sector, to drive the price higher?

Eric: Well, I think there's money coming back into the ETFs, [inaudible 00:10:24] okay?

Craig: Okay.

Eric: And I honestly think the banks were using the ETFs to solve some of their delivery problems.

Craig: Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Eric: Buy the shares and redeem them.

Craig: Yes.

Eric: And get the physical silver, which let them cover off some of their obligations.

Craig: Yep.

Eric: I think that game might be ending because I think the money's starting to... People realize that the precious metals are in a bull market. I think they do. And even if the people don't, luckily, the computers do. AI does. You know, you don't need people to understand it. You just need to have the people told that it's working. Buy a computer. What should I have bought in the last six...? Well, you should have bought gold stocks, or gold, or silver. Where have you been, you idiot? Come on. Every day. The thing goes up almost every day. Where, you know, get on the game. And of course, there have been lots of great work done on how undervalued the gold and silver shares are, particularly the gold shares, because the price is $2500 here.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: I mean, to think, you know, that we might have imagined the price is $1500, and I get an extra thousand dollars. I mean, everybody's profits have got to have tripled. Tripled.

Craig: Right.

Eric: Well, I think we're 37% off the low. Like, come on.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: Like, there's, like, there's gotta be all sorts of room. And I will talk about that with one of the stocks I wanna feature today, and what the price going to $2500 does to people. In fact, I'll even point this out. Like, one of the things I look forward to now, when someone says they have an ore body on care and maintenance, I think, "Ooh, baby. You [inaudible 00:12:07] got something on care and maintenance, do you? You have to just flick a switch?"

Craig: Yeah. Right.

Eric: Because you're probably gonna do it at $2500 dollar gold. Because when that decision was made, it was probably $1500 gold, but it's up a thousand bucks. It's gotta be profitable, you'd think. So, I think there's lots of opportunities out there for producers. There will be for explorers. There will be for developers. And I will talk to some of those specifically later on.

Craig: Well, let's address opportunity, because, again, you and I have been talking about this for decades. But with that kind of frustration, you know, that the price, obviously, should be higher than it is, particularly in silver, and the mining shares having not really reflected that yet because there's, this whole sector's so overlooked. I mean, that, you can't help but look at that as a sizable opportunity to get involved, even if you've never been in the sector before.

Eric: Yeah. Yeah. Right. I wanna, I'm gonna lay out a couple of those opportunities, things that I think about today that I think are just screaming at me, man, this could go up so much. And when I'm looking at an opportunity, I'm looking at something that goes up hundreds of percents.

Craig: Right.

Eric: I'm not looking for 100%. I'm looking for 500%, 1000%. And I'm gonna try to give some examples of that. And, to me, the most stunning one is this Freegold Ventures, where their last 43-101, they said they had 20 million ounces of gold, up in Alaska, 5 miles from Fort Knox, which Kinross operates, that has a mill there. You can drive to the property. I drove there three weeks ago. Like, it's so perfectly placed, it's ridiculous. Okay, you got a workforce, and it's near Fairbanks. You couldn't ask for a better situation, okay? And they're drilling, and they've announced some of their drilling results this year. And one of the individual [inaudible 00:14:01] groups that follows this stock does what's called napkin math on what he thinks they now have, okay. His number was, now that he thinks there are 25 million ounces, okay? And they got lots of holes to release yet. And it's my feeling that they could very easily get to 30 million ounces by the end of this year. Okay. Now, what's the stock trade for? It trades for under $300 million USD, the whole company. Under $300 million. So, you have to pay all of $10 an ounce. For silver, for gold, in the ground. Ten. It trades at $2500. And I saw an article recently where some guy was arguing that, you know, if you can buy gold in the ground for 200 bucks, you're stealing it. Because it should be way more than that. You know? Like, if this guy can produce for $1500, and trades at $2500, he's gonna make a thousand bucks an ounce. Wouldn't you pay more than 10 bucks to make a thousand? Like, a lot more?

Anyway. So, it's my view that, you know, could this go to $100 an ounce? Yeah. A layup. That's a thousand percent higher from here. A thousand percent. And maybe go to 2000%. And maybe the price of gold goes to $3000, or $3500, and it goes up even more. And this stock used to, I think the high on it... Oh, my God. I think actually looked at it. It might have been, like, $15 or $16, like, 20 years ago or something. And [crosstalk 00:15:38] I can see... Yeah. I can see how it could get there. I mean, just pure math, in my mind. And it's high enough quality or grade to be very open-pittable. And they keep finding higher-grade ore. Okay. So, that's my story on Freegold Ventures and gold in the ground, okay? And I'm sure there's lots of other ones. I could probably mention Tudor, and Teuton, and Chesapeake. Discovery, I know you wanted me to talk about Discovery Silver, and I will. Discovery Silver, with their, whatever, 180 million ounces or 500 million ounces. I forget what it is now. But unfortunately it's in Mexico. And, you know, with this talk about not allowing open pit mines again, then, of course, the stock's just cratered. But the fact is that you could probably buy those ounces, an ounce of silver, for maybe 50 cents, and the silver is trading at 30 bucks on its way to 50. So, you know. Now, we do have to solve the problem in Mexico of no open pit mining, and that hasn't been officially adjudicated yet, but there's rumblings of that. But if they come to their senses and decide that they will allow it... And of course, even when you allow open pit mining, the rules that the companies have to abide by are your rules. You're the one, you're the government, are making the rules as to what you have to do to make this safe. So, surely, the government can find a way to make it safe. I mean, having been involved with many companies, I mean, the restrictions and the things you gotta do to make sure that bad things don't happen... And unfortunately, sometimes bad things do happen, as we saw with Victoria Gold here, where the leach pad fell. It's just devastating what happened there. But it's like all industries. Things can happen to you, right? You know?

Craig: [crosstalk 00:17:31] remind me of, like, Cobre Panama, down in Panama.

Eric: Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: There's a bunch of buffoons running the government [crosstalk 00:17:38] shut the thing down.

Eric: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know.

Craig: And you're like, well, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Eric: Yeah.

Craig: I mean, so, we can't rule... You know, you never know how these buffoonish politicians are gonna act.

Eric: More reasons for frustration.

Craig: Right. Well, all right. So, just to kind of shift back to opportunity, you know, you see this, I see this. I mean, and probably everybody listening to us sees this. You've been in enough, though, cycles, you know, of growth into value, you know, and all the other things that the very large investors take into consideration when they're gonna move some money around. What is it gonna take, at this point, to get... I mean, at the end of the day, we're talking about more buyers than sellers in our sector. I mean, I thought maybe that deal between Gold Fields and Osisko [crosstalk 00:18:25]

Eric: Osisko. Yeah.

Craig: ...that that might get things going, just because it was all cash. It wasn't, like, a share swap deal, so it's just cash. And you made basically 50% overnight. So I thought, well, maybe that'll get some people, you know, picking around, but, in your experience, what is the driving factor in that shift, and to get people desirous of actually putting some money in the sector?

Eric: Well, I think it is very important. And I use it, for example, when I'm talking about Freegold, because Gold Fields paid $400 an ounce for the gold in the ground. Four hundred. Not ten. Four hundred.

Craig: Ay, caramba.

Eric: [inaudible 00:19:05] Well, why would you stop at $100, Eric, when some guy just paid $400, and the price of gold might keep going, in fact, is hitting a record as we're talking about it right now.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Eric: You know, that sort of thing, right?

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: We still have all that upside in front of us. We still have all the world chaos in front of us, right, that would suggest you should be in gold. So, and I think that kind of transaction has helped a lot here. Like, I see stocks moving now, okay?

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: And Freegold's gone from, like, 40 cents to, like, 79 today. But it's still $10 an ounce, okay.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: [inaudible 00:19:38] obviously was $5 an ounce three or four months ago. But I wanna talk about [inaudible 00:19:43] I can talk about Jaguar Mining. It's gone from a buck sixty to hit a high of $5. It's at $4.50 today. This is all in the last six months or so, a lot of it in the last three months. And what is going on there? So, they announce that they have a high-grade discovery, in an existing mine, where the grade is almost twice as much as the existing grade that they're mining. Okay. Well, guys, look, instead of mining that, let's mine this over here, okay? We'll get twice as much gold for the same cost. Right? Just go mine over there. Don't mine here. Right beside it, go mine over there. When you take that ton of ore out, you'll get twice as much gold, which means the extra gold is free. It reminds me a little bit of [inaudible 00:20:28] when the grade goes up. And the increasing grade is all profit. Right?

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: You get the same, same guys working there all the time, right? Just, "Oh, this stuff's better than that stuff. Well, let's do this stuff." And I get the feeling that [inaudible 00:20:44] sorry, Jaguar, who today produces around 70-odd thousand ounces annually, can buy '26, and some people might think '26 is a long way off, but I don't think it's that far, quite frankly. I think they could easily double that, easily produce 140,000 ounces, okay? And just imagine that they're making a thousand dollars an ounce, 140 million USD. It's almost 200 million CAD. The market cap today is about 400 million CAD. So, it's trading at two times pre-tax earnings, right? So, you know, could it go to 10 times pre-tax earnings? Yeah, it could. Sure. Well, there's a five-bagger. It's already up two bags. So, that's five from here. Two times five, that would have been a ten-bagger from where I first got it. Ten.

Craig: Right.

Eric: That's what we're looking for. Ten-baggers. And, what if the price of gold goes higher? Ooh, whoa.

Craig: Right. Right. So is it...

Eric: And the odds are it should. It just...new, record high ground as we speak.

Craig: Is it a value versus growth thing? I mean, is it, these stocks perceived as value, and you want, everybody just wants growth, and Nvidia and...?

Eric: Let me put it as a... There's no perception. No one's looking.

Craig: Yeah, that's true. You gotta [crosstalk 00:21:59]

Eric: Nobody... Are you kidding me? Nobody's looking. I know that.

Craig: Good point.

Eric: You know? Nobody looks at the press releases. Nobody looks at the corporate presentation. Nobody adds things together. Nobody has any, "Oh, well, hold it now. If those guys bring this up, that could produce an extra 30,000 ounces for free. Oh, that's 75 million bucks USD. Free. Wooh. Yeah. That was...

Craig: So, how do we get them to look? [crosstalk 00:22:23]

Eric: That's when the market cap was about a, 75 million USD is about 100 million CAD. That's when...and you could have done that calculation when the market cap was about 110 million CAD.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: So, you'd have to just dig in a little, and keep your ears open to things. And at that company, Jaguar, they have mines on care and maintenance. Which, maybe, somebody will flick the switch.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: And [crosstalk 00:22:50] And they got mills in care and maintenance. Imagine having a mill, the mine, the permits. Everything's right there. Some guy has to say, "Ah, let's go." Boom, shakalaka. You know, get you some, another 20,000, 30,000 ounces. At incredible costs. Okay. So, I've talked about Jaguar, and I talked about Jaguar because it's a producer. And there's probably lots of other producers that have not yet reacted properly.

Craig: Right.

Eric: [crosstalk 00:23:17] the fact that they produce this much gold, and the price is this. Start believing it. Because it's probably going higher. Like, it's easy to say it should be at $2500, where it is. And, because I think that... For example, I [inaudible 00:23:31] I was gonna talk about Michael Oliver, who you've interviewed many times.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: And I love his work, okay. And Michael's, doesn't mess around here. He's a big, big picture guy.

Craig: Yep.

Eric: And he's sitting there thinking, you know, gold, when it rallies, goes up by 800% from the bottom to the top. Did it in 2000 to 2011. Did it in '11 to 2016. Then it bottomed in 2016, at $1050, and if it goes up 8 times, we'd be at $8,000. It's easy to imagine, okay? Eight times. Just like it did before. And the stocks all went up 1400% from 2000 to 2011. Fourteen hundred. Not the stock market. Gold stocks. That's what your opportunity is here, so... He has...and he, of course, has huge targets on silver, in the hundreds of dollars. So, I'm a great...you know, it's all, to me, it's all right there for silver. I mean, how in the hell are we gonna get through this thing without having some kind of massive short squeeze? I have no idea. But it's coming. But [inaudible 00:24:41] and of course, it's gonna be the source of frustration for me every day for a while. [inaudible 00:24:46] We have everything in place here. Okay, giddy up. Go. Anyway.

Craig: What, in terms of the macro, and price, it is remarkable that gold has moved up so much, while, you know, in that first six months of the year, rates were going higher, and the dollar was going higher, and rate cut expectations were getting trimmed. And now it's moving higher again that we're starting to talk about rate cuts.

Eric: Yeah.

Craig: Are you optimistic, you know, for strong prices into year end?

Eric: Well, of course, the dollar has been weak. And the dollar has been weak because I think the world realizes we have a debt problem in the United States, and a spending problem in the United States. We don't even recognize, you know, $200 trillion of unrecognized liabilities, Social Security and Medicare. Like, come on.

Craig: It's inconvenient.

Eric: Like, I've always said, ever since 2000, [inaudible 00:25:35] in my mind, the U.S. was broke. Has been broke. Because of all these unfunded obligations, and no one ever talks about... No one ever deals with it.

Craig: Right.

Eric: Well, someday you're gonna deal with it, right. And there are gonna be some big surprise to a lot of people who maybe won't get their Social Security, or they won't get the health care they're looking for. I mean, we do have a problem in the health care business where, you know, a lot of people, they have an emergency, go to the hospital, and the hospital knows they can't pay the bill, right?

Craig: Right.

Eric: Not what they wanna charge them per day.

Craig: Right.

Eric: And of course, they gotta charge them that per day, because the doctor says, "I need my pound of flesh." The pharmacy says, "I need my pound of flesh." The guy supplying everything to the hospital, he needs his pound of flesh. The hospital tries to get a pound of flesh, but they have a tough time collecting...

Craig: That's a lot of flesh.

Eric: ...from the guy in the flesh.

Craig: That's a lot of flesh.

Eric: Anyway. It's a problem. I, lookit, I read about hospitals closing in the U.S. all the time now. Little local clinics, because they just can't deal with it.

Craig: Yeah, they can't make the math work.

Eric: No. No.

Craig: It leaves... Again, it's this untenable fiscal situation, that would seem to be, again, only getting worse, regardless of who gets... I always like this time of the year, Eric, where all the politicians talk about, "Oh, yes, we're gonna balance the budget." You know, "We're gonna..."

Eric: Oh, yeah.

Craig: Come on, now. There would be a total collapse if they tried to balance... Or what do you think of this idea of a unrealized capital gains tax? I betcha love that one.

Eric: Oh, no. That's a beauty. Yeah, yeah. That's a beauty. By the way, one of the other frustrating things is, you know, we are conspiracy theorists, you and I, right?

Craig: Yeah. Oh, yeah. We certainly are.

Eric: And had we said that in one of the public media things a year ago, we would have been thrown off media, just by saying it. Okay.

Craig: Right. Right.

Eric: And the funny part about the conspiracies is all of them have proven to be true.

Craig: How about that.

Eric: You know? And I start with the vaccines, hydroxychloroquine, Russiagate. Oh. How about Zuckerberg sending a letter to Rep. Jordan, saying, yes, we were pressured by the White House [crosstalk 00:27:47] to not allow these things. And, yeah. Like, all these things we believe. When we have, of the media, all the media has exactly the same spin on everything. Exactly. There's no room for thinking here, right? These are the words that we're using.

Craig: Right.

Eric: So, and all of those conspiracy things have proven to be true.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Eric: And it's frustrating as hell. And I guess one of them that hasn't... Well, it has proven to be true. I think I saw Goldman Sachs just pay a fine for manipulating, I think it was palladium. Now, you and I wouldn't have known about it, but that was announced two days ago...

Craig: I didn't even see that.

Eric: ...that they paid a fine for...it was a small fine.

Craig: Sure.

Eric: It was probably, like, $30 million to $50 million or something.

Craig: Yeah. What'd they make? Five hundred million?

Eric: Exactly. Yeah. Or, how much did the clients not make that they should have made? That's the bigger issue, right? How much are those silver owners being denied what they should have made by having their eyes and ears wide open?

Craig: Right. Or, Eric, how about this one? How about how they overstate the jobs numbers every month?

Eric: Oh, God.

Craig: Only to revise them lower. I've yet to see our gains get revised back higher, that they took away from us in the metals when they get crushed on the jobs day.

Eric: Right. Right. Yeah. [crosstalk 00:29:02] jobs day.

Craig: Eric, [inaudible 00:29:02] and I got a couple other things I wanna ask you about, but it leads me, when, you know, we talk about how crazy the politicians are, and how desperate they are, did you... [inaudible 00:29:14] comes up on my site every once in a while. Are you worried about, should things ever get fun? Not maybe so much confiscation, but, like, really, like, significant taxes, like windfall profits tax on any equity that you sell that's in the mining sectors. Do you worry about things like that?

Eric: Well, you have to worry about it. The world's not fair, as we well know. We see that almost every day that we wake up. And of course, the governments run the show. They're the bigger part of the population. They're almost a bigger part of the vote now.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: You know, the people who work for the government, or supply to the government.

Craig: Right.

Eric: So, anything can happen here. I think what you have to imagine is, like, for example, me. Okay. I just have some, some gold and silver out of the system. Some out of the system. You can't get it all out, because you're in the system. But that's one of the reasons that I think gold and silver is so valuable now. You can take them out of the... You don't have to own the crap currency, okay, that goes down, and it is really worthless, quite frankly. You can own gold and silver. Gold, a record high. Funny thing. Goes up 8% a year, almost without fail. On average. Eight percent. Hey, I'll take it.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: And it's steady, and you can get it out of the system. And of course, you and I probably did speak about the book "The Great Awakening," that tells you that all your assets in the bank are not yours.

Craig: Yeah, they're not yours. Yeah.

Eric: You think you have security. You don't.

Craig: Right.

Eric: So, you've gotta have it out of the banking system if you really wanna contemplate the worst.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: And you do have to give some possible credence to that, right? You know that.... Lookit, look at some of the suggestions we're witnessing from Kamala Harris. I mean, my God. Where is this coming from?

Craig: Yeah. And I, you know [crosstalk 00:31:19]

Eric: Anything can happen.

Craig: I always try to remind people, too, you'll see this coming. You know, it's not like the '30s, where they just rode into town and put a, you know, tacked something up on a board that said you gotta turn in your silver and your gold, or your, turn in your gold. You'll see it coming. If they start talking about this stuff, you'll have time before it's enacted to, you know, try to make a plan.

Eric: Don't know if you'll have much time. I really don't know. I mean, they know they probably gotta do it quickly if they're gonna do it, right. Catch everyone off guard.

Craig: Yeah, I guess that's true.

Eric: "Nobody gets to trade gold and silver anymore as of now."

Craig: Right.

Eric: Look at look at Nixon, when they went off the gold standard with... Out of the frickin' blue.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: Boom. We're not converting dollars into gold anymore. Boom. Take that one.

Craig: To that end, let me add, another thing I wanted to ask you about is this idea of a gold-backed, or asset-backed competition for the dollar. Lot of people are focusing on this BRICS meeting that's coming up in October.

Eric: Yes.

Craig: How likely is that? I mean, it's just something we've been talking about for years, you know, and you talk about baby steps toward this. Do you think that's even eventuality?

Eric: I don't know if it will get embodied quickly. There's no doubt that the sentiment for it is all there, right. And those countries that are involved, I mean, they're the ones that are doing all the buying of gold and silver. India, China, the Asian countries. Whether or not they officially back the currency, the fact is, I think most of them made the decision, we don't like the dollar...

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: ...which is the reserve currency, and we're gonna put our money into gold.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: And all the free democracies don't do it. But everybody else does do it, whether you're in Turkey or Venezuela or, you know, some weird country that... Poland is the big buyer of gold these days.

Craig: Yep.

Eric: So. Yeah, I know the trend is well in place. I don't know when they might spring it on us, but entirely possible. I mean, we're not, we're gonna have a debt crisis. We can't pay this debt back. And God forbid that interest rates back up for some strange reason.

Craig: Yeah. Well, and I saw that headline out of Poland, that, I think they're currently at 14% of their foreign currency reserves are in gold...

Eric: Yeah. Right.

Craig: ...and they wanna take it to 20%, and just imagine if that's kind of an unspoken plan by all those central banks. Eric, I...

Eric: Yeah. Canada's a little behind. It was zero [crosstalk 00:33:45]

Craig: Yeah, they got a little catching up to do. And Eric, one other thing I wanted to ask you about, and we'll see if there's anything else on your mind, is Newfoundland.

Eric: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:33:57] yeah.

Craig: You know, as a province, it's just, you know, this seems like this untapped resource. But even with gold charging higher, you know, some of the stocks, they just keep [vocalization 00:34:06]

Eric: It's been frustrating. That's one of the tremendous frustrations, okay? And I've thought that they've got the goods, but the market doesn't believe it. There are some elements of lack of continuity, because it's over wide stretches. They did drill deep, and encountered gold and the formation they expected to find down there, but they didn't find quite the grades and widths that we would then know. So, for example, had they come up with, you know, 20 meters of 50 grams instead of... I think the best hole was 10 meters of 15 grams. It was a good hole. Let's not kid ourselves. That's half-ounce.

Craig: Yeah, yeah.

Eric: But it wasn't as spectacular as some of the other holes that they'd get up higher in those same zones. So, they still have to put it together here. But, I mean, it could be just a layup. If these guys hit the zone down below, the same as it is above. And by the way, the stuff that's above always comes from below.

Craig: Yeah. Makes sense. I saw something fly over your shoulder. What was that?

Eric: You see a jet? There's a jet over there.

Craig: Yeah, yeah.

Eric: Here comes another one.

Craig: Here comes another one.

Eric: We have a jet show.

Craig: God knows what's going on. I know. I saw that, too. I went, what, was that, like, a big bug flying by?

Eric: The Russians are coming.

Craig: See? Everybody should know, we don't edit this stuff. We're just rolling. It's just two old... Eric and I always joke about that we are the two old guys in the gallery of "The Muppets." So, here we are, the two old guys. We are easily distracted. I...

Eric: Very easily.

Craig: Very easily.

Eric: Now, what were we talking about?

Craig: So, Newfoundland. Is there, is it uneconomical at this price? Is it...?

Eric: No, no.

Craig: Is it not...?

Eric: No, it's terribly economic. And everything's right there, right? I mean, it's, you can go to the Tim Horton's, get a coffee, and go to the line site. That's how close it is, okay?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, you would think.

Eric: They're not in the middle of nowhere, you gotta helicopter in or something. So, I think it will be developed. There will be significant production there. I think there's a lot of nonbelievers. There's short sellers to deal with.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: You know. I'm gonna try to... I've actually hired someone to analyze the trading in New Found Gold, from a short perspective. Tell me who's doing what, so that I can try to figure out what the hell to do about it, okay?

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: So...

Craig: What did... Do they...do you plan on kind of just holding where you are? Are you looking to...?

Eric: Yes.

Craig: Yeah, so [crosstalk 00:36:35]

Eric: Well, I'm a long-term holder in most things, you know.

Craig: Yeah, me too.

Eric: Sometimes... Well, that's another sense of frustration, right, that, just nobody else goes there.

Craig: Right.

Eric: You have to have other people go there, right? It can't be one guy liking it and nobody playing around. And I think that if these ETFs start going up, the GDX, the SILJ, SIL, and the money starts coming in, and I think I've seen it coming in, because it takes no money to move some of these stocks now. Right?

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: Some guy comes in with a bid for something? Whoa. That ever change the dynamic quickly.

Craig: Yeah. But...

Eric: And that's happening.

Craig: Well, what else is on your mind, my friend? Before we wrap up, as you're looking out from your...

Eric: You don't wanna know what else is going on in my mind.

Craig: [crosstalk 00:37:19] What other conspiracy...

Eric: You've had enough already, okay?

Craig: What other conspiracy theory's gonna be proven true before we speak again?

Eric: Well, one of them is, I've seen some articles that our science on cancer have been wrong for 70 years.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Eric: Totally wrong for 70 years. And we have to totally rework the whole thing, and they... You would know, and I would know, that, I mean, the success rate against cancer is such a joke.

Craig: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:37:50]

Eric: You know? But all the money that we spend on it?

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: You know, the average guy gets cancer that lasts maybe 1.2 months longer than they used to...

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: ...20 years ago.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: After spending all of that. So, anyway. That's something that I'm thinking about. And there's a guy named Ed Dowd, who's on X. He's a very good spokesperson both about the vaccines and things like that, the incidence of cancer and how the rates of cancer deaths and incidences have gone higher. So, that's something else that kind of captivates me. And that'll go in the conspiracy bin, by the way.

Craig: Just give it a few months. It won't be any longer.

Eric: Oh, and it's like Robert Kennedy. Oh, I love Robert Kennedy Jr., okay. I mean, I just... His attitude towards pharmaceuticals is just get rid of them.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: Just get rid of them.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: They only make money, but they don't cure anything.

Craig: Right. Right.

Eric: But anyway.

Craig: Well, all right. Hopefully, we'll speak again. Maybe we do, like, a year-end wrap up, you know, around the holiday season. [crosstalk 00:39:01]

Eric: It's coming our way.

Craig: Let's just do this. Let me hit you with a couple of quickies, and we'll see how we do. And we'll review this the next time. Who do you think wins the U.S. election?

Eric: Well, who the winner is, or who wins it?

Craig: Well, who's gonna be installed as the next president? How's that?

Eric: Well, I think Trump will win it, but the winner could be Kamala.

Craig: Yeah. Who's gonna be the president-elect? Let's put it that way. By the next time we speak, who are they gonna be claiming winning? Your guess is good as mine.

Eric: Oh, by the way, I heard, and I can't confirm this, but apparently there's been some op ed pieces in "The New York Times" that are not kind to Kamala. And there was something on CNN that wasn't kind to Kamala. And somebody was suggesting, okay, maybe they got the knives out already.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Eric: I don't know. I'm not sure.

Craig: I...makes you wonder... Well, Trump would be good for ratings and be good for newspaper sales, so maybe they have an ulterior motive.

Eric: Well, I like the fact that he might use Robert Kennedy, okay?

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: Imagine if he was in charge of the CIA.

Craig: Oh, my God. In that... I read that.

Eric: Or, how about the Department of Health?

Craig: I... Yeah. The CIA'd be particularly fun. You would... Oh, my gosh.

Eric: Oh, my God.

Craig: All right. Where, what... How about a year-end price of gold? You got any ideas?

Eric: Well, I'm hoping it could get to $3000 by year end, and I hope that silver even has a good shot at $50 by year end. And I'm saying that really in response to what Michael Oliver, who I think has been very, very, very good on these prices, okay. And he's suggesting they're at a time where they should accelerate fast here now.

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: You can see people, I can see people coming in. They're gonna come in. And you see the fight going on every day in the COMEX. You just see it. When, you know, the price always goes down fast, but never goes up fast.

Craig: Amazing how that works.

Eric: Yeah. Why is that?

Craig: Stairs up...

Eric: Why are the legs down so fast?

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: And who's selling it? Well, we know who's selling it, for God's sake. The guy who's trying to protect his short position.

Craig: Right.

Eric: Someday, they'll get blown out. Hopefully soon.

Craig: How about this one? A lot of folks are worried about stock market sell-off or crash this fall.

Eric: Yeah, I would be worried about that too.

Craig: I got the S&P about 5600 right now. Where is it gonna be by the end of the year?

Eric: Well, you know, I've never been much of a believer in the stock market, because I think the U.S. is broke. And if we had to face the problems realistically, the last thing we'd be thinking about is stocks. [inaudible 00:41:31] Anyway.

Craig: Five thousand?

Eric: That's why I'm in gold and silver, right?

Craig: Right.

Eric: Oh, it could easily be less than that. I mean, we already saw it fall 10% in about a week once, right? Not that long ago...

Craig: Yeah.

Eric: ...I would remind you. So, we're in a bubble. We're in a bubble. One of my favorite reads every week is the Credit Bubble Bulletin by Doug Noland. And, you know, I mean, we, lookit, we had, and the same thing [inaudible 00:41:58] Michael [inaudible 00:41:58] We had zero interest rates for almost a decade. Are you kidding me? Like, what kind of a policy was that?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Eric: Makes, causes all this malinvestment, right?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And all these banks...

Eric: And the leverage.

Craig: ...and even the [crosstalk 00:42:14] balance sheet, that are under water.

Eric: Deliveries, derivatives. Oh, my God.

Craig: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eric: Don't ask me to make sense of it.

Craig: Well, I have one more.

Eric: Yeah.

Craig: Ask you one more, because... And I'll review this when we talk in December, because you'll be tired of them for now, for a while at that point. But as we sit here at the end of August, what's your favorite Christmas carol?

Eric: I don't know. I don't [crosstalk 00:42:35] Christmas.

Craig: Come on.

Eric: "Silent night."

Craig: "Silent night." Okay. Because, by the time we speak again in December, I'm gonna say, "Is 'Silent Night...'" and you're like, "Oh, God. I've heard that song so many times over the last few weeks, I can't take it anymore."

Eric: Yeah, right. You're right. I will.

Craig: Well, my friend, thank you so much for your time. It's always so valuable to hear from you. And I just, I hope that you're able to maintain your sanity and your frustration level in the months ahead. It's only gonna get more crazy, it seems.

Eric: Yeah. It's getting a little easier with the prices reacting the way they are, so that's not too bad.

Craig: Well, that's true. That's true. And again, for all this stuff we've discussed, you know, we sit here and talk about, you know, confiscation, and all these things that people worry about. And you mentioned holding some of your metal.

Eric: Yeah.

Craig: Whether it's offshore, or out of your house, or something like that.

Eric: Yeah.

Craig: Everybody should make sure they always keep in mind Sprott Money for this kind of thing. They will store it for you. Right?

Eric: Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: You guys store it, very safe, secure locations, audited, all that jazz.

Eric: Mm-hmm.

Craig: So, it's not just buying metal. They'll store it for you too. Again, visit at their social media on Instagram, get signed up for the giveaway. But hey, look, if anything, you've probably been watching this on YouTube or some other platform. Give them a like, and maybe a subscribe. That may seem like a very small thing to do, but it really does help. Those algos that we all hold in such low regard, they read those kind of things. So, again, just be sure to thank Sprott Money for putting this content out.

Eric, my old friend, it's almost football season. That should have been another question. What will the record of the Buffalo Bills be by the next time we speak?

Eric: That's a very good question. They haven't done well in the preseason. I think they scored one touchdown.

Craig: Oh, God. You need to have a private meeting with Josh Allen, see if you can get him to be a spokesman for gold and silver. Well, anyway, we'll see how that goes as well. I look forward to speaking to you again in a few months.

Eric: Okay, Craig. All the best. Thank you.

Craig: And from all of us at Sprott Money, sprottmoney.com, thanks for watching. Soon, it's gonna be September. We'll have a full month of information coming at you then, so be sure to keep an eye on this channel. Have a great holiday weekend, and we'll see you again next month.