Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (00:01)
Good afternoon, it's Andrew Sleigh from Sprott Money and I'm here with Kai Hoffmann today. It's a bit of a switch-up. I was interviewed by him on his channel at SOAR Financially on podcast and YouTube. We had a great time and wanted to come back and have Kai over here so we can have a chat on this side of the pond. So Kai, thank you very much for coming back to join me and have a great conversation again, like we had before.
Welcome to Sprott Money.
Kai Hoffmann (00:33)
Andrew, really appreciate the invitation. It was a great chat last time. A lot has happened though since we spoke, and that was only about, what is it, two, three weeks ago, maybe four at best. Time's moving fast. Lots to catch up on, of course.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (00:41)
Yeah. One thing I want to cover off—last time we spoke, there were a lot of questions to me and I wanted to hear, since you're in Germany, a little bit about what's going on in Europe and discuss that a bit. Then we'll see where our discussion goes from there. So in Germany itself, and maybe expand to other nations around your area.
Kai Hoffmann (01:06)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. It's a bit of a sensitive topic being here in Germany, right? Politics are never easy. Germany has a big, big challenge ahead of itself. We're in the middle of, I don't know, I wouldn't even call it a turnaround, but reinventing ourselves maybe right now. We've always been the beneficiary of cheap gas, cheap defense, and now that is changing. We have to spend more money on defense. Our gas is not cheap anymore. Our energy bills have exploded due to some policy mistakes, of course.
Shutting off our nuclear reactors is, in my opinion, a big no-no. Now we're struggling. The economy is struggling. We see it—Volkswagen and many others have to close down their factories, have to let people go. Unemployment is ticking higher. It's not fairly high yet. It's 6.3% or so in Germany, which is still above normal. It's definitely not full employment right now. And we've been in recession in Germany for almost three years. GDP growth is non-existent. It's pretty much flat at zero. Politicians are struggling to reinvent the wheel here, really coming up with creative solutions. The ones that are being presented are being ignored, like just turning on the nuclear reactors and providing us with cheap energy. It's just being ignored. People are telling us that the nukes are already being dismantled. We can't restart them, which is a bunch of hogwash in my opinion. And that's what we're struggling with.
Now we loosened the debt brake, which has been—I wouldn't say holding us back, but it definitely didn't allow us to spend much. So we're actually financially in a decent position compared to other nations around the globe. France, Italy, the US, all about 120% debt to GDP, roughly. Germany's at 63%. So we're at almost half. We do have some spending room here. I'm still trying to figure out if it's the right way to do it. But if everybody around you is spending like drunken sailors, you got to do something to keep up and stay competitive.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (04:51) I saw a report somewhere in the last few months that Volkswagen was talking about retooling and building military equipment since they were thinking about shutting down auto manufacturing. So I'm assuming that's somewhere in the works as well, that that may occur.
And that's not a good sign either.
Kai Hoffmann (05:12) I believe Rheinmetall might be taking over one of the factories. I think that's one of the headlines I've read as well here, Andrew. So you might be right there.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (05:20) And then of course, what happened a week, week and a half ago, we have the Spain scenario that I've been sort of catching some reports on, because of the green energy scenario that the tension that was put on the electrical grid and that it kind of snapped and it was milliseconds away from blacking out all of Europe or something along that magnitude.
As it was, it was five countries that went down in power. Then the week after that, they're talking about, well, if you had a digital CBDC, it would have worked even when the power was out, which is, they float this stuff out at the best of times. Anyway, what have you heard, if anything different than that, for Spain, Portugal, France, other areas that were out of power? Any comments on that stuff?
Kai Hoffmann (06:19) Yeah, I like the idea of renewable energies. Don't get me wrong. It sounds like I'm always very negative on them, but they do serve a purpose. We do want a greener world. We want a cleaner world. So I think that's a given. Spain, of course, has a lot of sun. A lot of solar energy is being produced there. And of course, the grid just could not take it. There's no storage capacity for solar energy. There was just, as you said, too much tension on the grid. It spiraled out of control. Portugal, France, Spain saw blackouts.
Interestingly enough, Iberdrola, the Spanish power company, was using that opportunity to bring back the conversation of shutting down one of the last nuclear reactors in Spain because they were saying, we need some baseload here. Nuclear can provide that. It's an interesting discussion. I think the pendulum towards regenerative energy and alternative energy has swung a little too far without installing the infrastructure necessary behind it. We have the same problems in Germany. We have some great ideas, but we don't have the infrastructure to support it.
Wind power from the North Sea needs to be shipped down to the South in Bavaria. And we're not allowing the power grid to be built out, the power transmission lines to be built out, because NIMBYism is very strong in Germany. So that's not happening. So I think that's something we can learn from that. It's too bad that our politicians shut the door yet again, even after the election and the election promises that have been made on nuclear energy in Germany. And that's very, very frustrating to see because it's keeping us back. We need cheap energy. We've had a lot of heavy industry, especially in the western part of Germany that's just not competitive anymore, that's shutting down. And it's very sad to see that die.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (07:56) So the reason I go through some of this, and some viewers might be asking, you know, why are we talking about all this stuff that's happening in Europe? It's because this all has an impact on the financial system and our economies. And so I wanted to get a feel for what was happening over there because Europe's got some real, massive challenges going on. And if you start destroying the energy grid or it can't handle the direction that our political leaders are taking them in various countries, and you start having this cascade effect and power outages and whatever, you just can't have industry running properly. And if costs go through the roof, then you've got all kinds of more complications. Manufacturing goes somewhere else where there is cheap energy. So it's shutting down the economy in that way that these people are doing. And this is why I wanted to talk about it a little bit—was just to explain to viewers that this green energy scenario that is being pushed by the globalist agenda has a severe cost attached to it, and that is destruction of jobs, manufacturing, and grids will go down. And they want to push to all this electrical power, like battery-operated cars, trucks, buses, whatever you want to say.
And there's no money being spent to increase the capacity of the grids anywhere that I've seen. And that's by design because they're going to have this scenario play out and then realize, sorry, the plan for battery cars didn't work out because there's not enough grid. And so now we're going to switch to 15-minute cities or some other plan like that. This is just for viewers to be aware that this is being done in Canada, where they want to push electrical and nobody's buying that stuff anymore. It's failing on the vine. But there's no money being put into any infrastructure for power that I'm aware of, that can serve the capacity requirements of battery-operated everything. And that's going to be a catastrophe for the economy as they shut diesel and gas-powered engines down. I think Carney in Canada wants to ban gas-powered cars by 2030.
Kai Hoffmann (10:32) Yeah, good luck with that. The EU is walking back their stance right now. I can't remember if it was 2030 or 2035. It was a ridiculous target in my opinion, because it doesn't make any sense. It's not achievable in that regard. Even if you come from the mining side, we don't have the resources to do it. And as you said, we don't even have the infrastructure. Yes, the goals are interesting, but they're not achievable at this point. Germany is investing with the lifting of the debt brake.
What are the future EU?
We need to spend a lot of money on infrastructure. We haven't spent enough at all. Our train system is failing. It's getting worse by the day. Delays, disruptions, cancellations because the system cannot keep up. It's the best example of a failing system. We're 80 years post-World War II. A lot of money was spent post-World War II to bring back the economy, bring back infrastructure. And that needs to be reinvested yet again. It's just natural to reinvest that money and to...
I hope that money is being spent wisely, not spent on some ideals that are not really helpful. Of course, a lot of money will be wasted as always, but we need to reinvest. And I'm glad that we lifted that debt brake. I think it'll be great for Germany's economy. Yes, there will be some pain. There will be some travel disruptions and many other things. A lot of bridges need to be renewed across certain autobahns and places like that and highways. But we will need to do that investment just for the future, just to even remain competitive. Like we barely are. But if we want to keep up, we need to do that.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (12:27) Yeah, absolutely. We have the same problems going on in Canada and the US. The infrastructure that they built from the value of the dollar 60, 70, 80 years ago, you could do a lot more with dollars than you can today. So we're trying to renew, trying to replace a dam or a bridge today that might've cost a few million dollars 50, 60 years ago—now it's hundreds of millions of dollars. And even in my own company with Sprott Money, almost every day when people are traveling into the office, I see a message on our signal on their phone that the train's delayed, train is broken, train is this, train is that. It's all been very apparent this year. Since the beginning of this year, like the last four months, it's like almost every day there's a problem with the trains in Toronto, bringing somebody in from wherever. And I'm like, this wasn't happening for the first few years I was here at this company. It was a blue moon when something like that happened. And now it's multiple times a week, it seems. So it's interesting that you talked about the trains just having problems all the time. This critical infrastructure stuff that's not been renewed and replaced and whatnot is all coming to a head. And that's going to be very interesting to see where all that goes because it's going to be difficult if the infrastructure can't transport people to go to work in any kind of reliable way. What does that mean?
Kai Hoffmann (14:09) Yeah, just imagine the economic damage of missing a meeting. It's tough to put a value on that, but there's a lot of economic damage being done by a train being delayed. Like, I take the S-Bahn in, which is like a local regional train, and I've missed meetings before because the train didn't have enough personnel, or there was something wrong with a track, things like that. And that's a lot of damage as well. It's not just the cost of repairing or laying down a new set of tracks here. It's also the economic damage and missed opportunities in that regard—having to reschedule those meetings. Maybe it was an opportunity that wouldn't come back any other way. So that's the real damage here, and that's what we're suffering from right now.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (14:47) So anything else going on in Europe that comes to mind? It's a pretty broad general question, but I only get to hear a few things. I depend on a few people like yourself and a few other podcasters that are in Europe to sort of get a little bit of boots-on-the-ground stuff. But is there anything else that comes to mind that's going on that our listeners might be keen to know what's happening across the pond?
Kai Hoffmann (15:18) Yeah, shocking development is that we're geopolitically irrelevant right now. Europe is. Every individual country and combined as well. You might have seen the photo of Friedrich Merz, Macron, Keir Starmer—there was a fourth one, I forgot who it was—and Trump was on the phone, apparently. They're sitting around the telephone talking with President Trump, potentially discussing the Ukraine crisis and how to handle it. Oh, Zelensky was at the table as well, but there was a fifth one, sorry. My point is, though, apparently there's talks happening tomorrow as we record this on Wednesday. Talks happening in Turkey on Thursday. Trump might even be attending, but Europe does not play a role in this. The EU is always used sort of as a threat against Russia, meaning the Ukraine will join the EU, NATO will probably be present, but the EU itself doesn't play a role in any of the negotiations. That's very worrisome. We're being ignored in pretty much everything. Tariffs are being slapped on our European products. Besides the UK, nobody's really struck a deal yet. We'll have to figure out what that actually means, what the long-term ramifications are. But personally, I'm a bit miffed that we don't play a role geopolitically. We haven't invested—from a German perspective—our army, our Bundeswehr, is not relevant right now. I remember a case where we were shipping missiles to Ukraine and they couldn't use them because the boxes were moldy. That's sort of the state of Germany and the German Bundeswehr. So I do applaud that we're investing a lot of money there because we can't rely—I'm being very pragmatic—we can't rely on the US or anybody else to cover and pay for our defense.
Yes, after World War II, Germany wasn't allowed to have an army and to rearm. Things happened, but it's 2025. We're 80 years later, two, three generations later. Things have changed. Hopefully we don't repeat the mistakes of our forefathers here. But it's time, and it's kind of ironic that the world wants Germany to rearm. Germany, rearm. That's something you wouldn't have heard 80 years ago, for example. So I kind of laugh when I hear about that.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (17:31) Yeah, that's right.
Kai Hoffmann (17:35) But it's true. I'm painting a very negative picture here, but I'm very unhappy with how we're being presented abroad. We're just being ignored. We're irrelevant. I would say we're almost being laughed at. The only thing that makes the news these days are stabbings. So we have our inner political issues. Immigration, of course, is a big worry for us internally. We don't know how to handle it. The new government is showing a bit more of an aggressive stance, but we have yet to see whether they deliver on it.
Borders are being patrolled again, that's a good sign. Asylum seekers are being turned away—rightly or wrongly, that's a different humanitarian question, not part of this discussion here. But that's what we're seeing right now. I want Germany to be relevant again. We were a superpower not too long ago.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (18:24) So if you said that the European Union is irrelevant, is it NATO that's controlling and calling the shots? Or is it just a couple of countries that are doing this?
Kai Hoffmann (18:36) Well, if it's NATO, it's the US, right? That's calling the shots. Yes, we have, I think, Margrethe right now, he's Dutch, he's the president of NATO or whatever his title is. He's a warmonger. A couple of weeks or a few months ago, he said, well, prepare for war in three years. Why? Why would we prepare for war? There's no reason to do that. I'm 99% certain that Russia has no intention of attacking a NATO member.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (18:57) Cool. Yeah.
Kai Hoffmann (19:04) That would be absolutely suicidal in my opinion, and it does not make any sense. Like any good crime detective novel, you always have to ask about motivation. And if you don't have a motive—besides, of course, madness, there's always that—I can't look into Putin's brain and figure out if there's a synapse not connected properly. That I can't control. But from a rational point of view, there's zero motive. So the warmongering going on here—hospitals training for war, having emergency drills, the government, the local state government is running around asking, okay, who was a reservist back in the day? We need to create lists of people who used to be in the reserves. Why are we doing this? A, we should have probably always done this, done these drills, but now the media is regurgitating it and there's a lot of fear being created, which is absolutely unnecessary.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (20:00) Yeah.
Kai Hoffmann (20:01) That's something that has me worried. I'm not sure what the end goal is, to be quite honest, and what our motivation is to be so fear-mongering. If it's really just to open our wallet and be able to spend on defense, I don't think that fear-mongering was necessary—just show my moldy box of ammunition.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (20:18) Well, that comes into one of the reasons I ask that. All wars are bankers' wars, and conflict is used as a cover-up for financial collapses. So you have conflict—like I've certainly seen Macron and Keir Starmer being prominent with trying to be mobilized in Europe, saying we need to go to Ukraine and all that stuff. And it's like, why? Just as you said, Russia is not going to invade the rest of Europe. They’ve been invaded 18 times. They haven’t invaded Europe 18 times.
Kai Hoffmann (20:42) Keir Starmer.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (21:10) I see that as just leading up to printing more money and a cover for the debt system collapse down the road. I wanted to ask this because this is kind of like the cherry on top with regards to all these other questions. Actually, I have one more and then I have the cherry on top. Recently, Spain had the Spanish Finance Ministry announce that if you want to take out more than 3,000 euros out of a Spanish bank, you have to get written permission 24 hours in advance. Otherwise, you risk a fine. I can't remember what that level was, but if you want to take a larger amount—either 50,000 or 100,000 euros—if you don't give 72 hours’ notice to the Spanish Finance Ministry, you have to face a 150,000 euro fine.
To me, I'm like, okay, well, there's the writing. There's some more writing on the wall because as soon as you have to ask the government for what you deposited at a bank, it's no longer yours. That's just proof positive right there. Any thoughts on that? Have you heard rumors of any of that anywhere else in Europe?
Kai Hoffmann (22:27) I've heard the same thing, but I wasn't sure if it was about taking money out or whether the bank just has to report that to the ministry. That's the one thing. It is worrisome. Cash is king. Capital controls are scary, quite honestly. But then again, in October, we'll be seeing the digital euro. And I'm still trying to figure out how they're trying to implement that. So it's all leading that way.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (22:47) Yeah, that's right.
Kai Hoffmann (22:51) During COVID—and we can jump to that's a whole different rabbit hole—we can jump down to what COVID was used for. But we've all been conditioned to use digital money anyway, meaning our credit cards, my watch. You could tap your watch and pay for a coffee. The last time I've used money, it was actually today. I was confused. I was at a parking garage and the machine didn't take any credit cards. But fortunately, I had cash on me. So we're being trained and conditioned not to use cash.
That is what's happening. Same in Germany. Really strict rules of taking money out of the banks that have to be reported. I think you cannot buy more gold for more than 2,000 euros these days as well. So you got to buy in small increments. Various amounts of capital control being implemented all with one goal—digital euro and control of what you're doing with your money.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (23:43) I want to drill into that, what you just said, because I remember when that occurred maybe two years ago, perhaps, or three years ago—I can't remember now—but that capital control in Germany meant you were no longer allowed to buy more than X amount of gold. Just expand on that a little bit, exactly the ruling.
Kai Hoffmann (24:04) That's a good question. I'm not an expert on the bullion purchases here, Andrew, so I'd have to probably get back to you on that topic. But there are limitations on physical. Also, there's been tax increases on buying bullion in Germany as well. Like silver, for example, used to be—I hope I get my numbers right here—7% VAT tax. Now it's 19%. So it has been adjusted. Gold was always 19%. That's our standard VAT rate here in Germany.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (24:27) Value added tax.
Kai Hoffmann (24:32) I think that's really what they're trying to do—they're trying to get people away from buying bullion. Because all of a sudden, you have a 19% premium on the spot price. What's the point? You're only buying if you're really, really trying to protect yourself from something. It's not an investment in the sense of a trade.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (24:37) Yeah. Yeah, from my recollection, I didn't think there were any limits before, and then they limited it to all of a sudden 10 grand. Sorry, two grand was the cash limit that you could buy with for gold or silver with cash. And it's like, OK, try and get out of the system in a hurry and you're in deep trouble if you try—if you got a lot of money to move.
I was just curious for an update on what's happened since that. So the cherry on the top for me was what you had hinted at a minute ago, the announcement by Christine Lagarde for moving the European Union deadline to October for a CBDC. I've said, that's now to me the writing on the wall. There's a QR code on a smartphone, and there's no longer a euro. The euro will be gone. And if that's correct so far, then to me, they have to extinguish the euro system prior to launching the QR code, because that's when you go from one financial system to another. You have to destroy one to get the public to take the other.
And that's just the MO of history. So I've been predicting that if that's the case and let's say October 1 is the deadline, that means one to three months prior to that, they have to extinguish—the banks will go down and do bail-ins and the financial system will go down. Everything’s going to be pulled down and your euros that people have in savings in any description will be taken in one way or another and be impoverished. And then they bring out the euro with universal basic income and all that.
My conclusion to that was, OK, if that's going to happen in Europe, then they have to do that everywhere else. Because if that happens in Europe, then the banking system here in Canada is going down and the US is going down. Like, it'll be all hell and chaos. And so they have to do it all at the same time if this is the plan. So July to September, I think we're going to see somewhere in there some spectacular things occur and then lined up for October. So poke holes in that, whatever you can, Kai.
Kai Hoffmann (27:31) No, it's an interesting thesis and I think it will play out that way, but the question is timing. I don't think it'll happen this summer personally from what I've read, and I'm by far no expert on digital currencies here in Europe. I know it's happening in October, but when I looked at it, it looked to me like more of a PayPal kind of system for now that is being sort of run at the same time. People are starting to get used to it, but I think you're right. At some point, we will have to see a massive shock to the monetary system.
The restructuring of NATO and the last word hasn't been spoken there yet either. I think we're still in that phase. Gut feel—really more gut feel—it feels like it's two, three years out, three years probably, before we can see some results in that regard. And we have three years now to get used to the digital euro and things like that. We haven't heard much from the US government in terms of the Fed coin being pushed through. But then again, in Asia, the digital currency just has recently been connected to the Asian banking system. Andy Schectman I've had on the channel the other day, who's a real expert on that, really opened my eyes to that discussion and to that topic, so I'll have to do a lot more deep research when it comes to that. But they connected a digital renminbi to other Asian states and their payment systems, which is really, really important. So we're already seeing a couple of digital currencies being implemented. So far, there's silence on the US side in that regard.
I think even Trump said at one point there’s not going to be a CBDC. I'm not sure if he's going to be walking that back. I haven't heard anything lately. I have to admit I haven't looked into it either. But if he would have said something, I think it would have been picked up by media I'm following here.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (29:36) I think on that one, what they're doing is they know that that word is unpopular. So they're doing a bait and switch and they're calling it a stablecoin and it'll just be run by JP Morgan, aka the Fed. But they're going to go down that road. The US has been ready to go to a CBDC for three years and then they halted their progress because somewhere else wasn't ready. They want to do this all at the same time. It's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out. But I think the next couple of months are going to be very telling. Carney, who is now our Prime Minister—which, remember, I think we talked about this in our show that I said, I can't imagine he's not going to win because he was sent to Canada in a very timely manner and they didn't send him here to lose—it unfortunately came out to be true.
He's now talking about—he just redid his cabinet shuffle and all that—and many of the minions under the Trudeau government are all still in the same spots or shuffled around to new positions. And he's talked about, he's going to govern with—what's the word he used? Urgency or something along that line. You know, there's things that need to be done, he's going to do things quickly. And I don't think that's going to be voting well for us. So we're going to see what happens in the next couple of months. Turning the mic over to you for a moment—fire a few at me for a change. I've been hammering away at you here so far. So throw something my way.
Kai Hoffmann (31:24) Yeah, what do you make of the trip of President Trump to the Middle East right now? What's the goal here? He's obviously trying to drum up some business for the US, but do you want to interpret more into that whole trip?
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (31:38) I haven't seen anything on that yet myself personally. I just know that he made a trip to Saudi Arabia and there's been a couple of people who have done some analysis and reports on it. I haven't had a chance to listen to anything yet. So I really draw a blank on that one at the moment. If he's going there—I mean, the petrodollar is dead. So I don't know. From that regard, what's going to happen? Is it going to be something about gold? I don't know. That's what they've hinted about. So let's save that one for next time we chat, because I don't know much about it right now.
Kai Hoffmann (32:18) No, no, but you just mentioned gold and I think before we hit the record button, Andrew, we discussed it feels fairly calm in the markets right now. First 100 days, a lot of shock and awe. Right now we're in the deal-making phase. But the market seems quite content that there seems to be more certainty now. The S&P erased all the losses for the year. Nvidia is actually green for the year now. Gold is now trending down. Admittedly, there was a lot of hype around gold the last few months.
How do you see gold moving forward in regard to maybe other riskier asset classes like the S&P 500 or even Bitcoin?
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (32:56) Well, on the gold side, I think that's just a natural pullback during this calm period. And it's just a good accumulation phase. Then there’ll be another run because the short to mid and the mid to long-term trend is we’re going to have an awful lot of money printing going on. And that has nowhere to go for gold but up. That’s your bellwether indicator.
From a protection standpoint, you hold assets in gold and silver and you will protect your purchasing power of your wealth. I heard somebody say the other day that precious metals bull markets do their best to shake off the weak hands along the way. I've heard those kinds of terms before in stock terms, but that one hit home a little bit—that you have these pullbacks that frustrate stackers for precious metals and they should be rejoicing that this is part of the process of going higher.
I always buy the dip. If I have spare cash, anytime there's a dip, I buy. I tell clients, don't get frustrated by this. When the powers that be are forcing metal down, they're going long and short. They're shorting it down to go long on the physical. So you need to play their game. Don't worry about the short-term aspects of "gosh, I want it to hit the moon now." Don’t worry about it. Play their game and you'll eventually win because they're not playing to lose. Accumulate every time there's a downtime, just buy and keep your head in that mental space. You'll rejoice every time there’s a slapdown.
I started buying silver Maple coins when they were $18 each Canadian and now they’re $52. And a month or two ago I was like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t want to spend $50 for a coin.” I was used to buying them cheaper, and now it’s $52. So every time there's a pullback a couple of bucks, I’d be thankful if I could pay 40-something again. But that’s not going to happen, I don’t think.
So anyway, that’s the mindset to have. It can be frustrating, but you just buy dips, keep dry powder, and keep buying along the way. Know that you'll have your wealth under your control—whatever you choose to put into metals—and you'll be thankful you did long-term. It’s been an awesome performing asset over the last 100 years, particularly at the end of currency cycles. That’s when it’s been most powerful for people to have. And that’s what we’re going to experience, unfortunately. All these currencies are going to have major problems.
And you mentioned your debt for Germany and ours in Canada. Just the federal debt was 130% of GDP, but our total debt of the country is 408% of GDP.
Kai Hoffmann (36:19) Yeah, I know the US is much higher as well than the quoted 123% or whatever it is. Comparing apples and oranges a little bit. I was trying to paint a picture, of course. But it is scary, isn’t it?
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (36:26) Yeah. So you guys have—and of course Russia doesn’t have any debt, or used to not have any debt. I’m not sure where it is now with the conflict for two or three years now with Ukraine. I don’t know where they are, but before all that nonsense happened, Russia had no debt in that country. They got rid of it all. So, spectacular position for the citizens of that country to not have the enslavement of debt over their heads. Anyway, it’s going to be something else.
Anything else for me before we wind down?
Kai Hoffmann (37:05) No, I think that's pretty much it, you know? Use the... what do you call it? The calm-ity? What's the word when it's calm? Like...
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (37:13) Yeah, the eye of the storm, the calm before the storm.
Kai Hoffmann (37:16) Yeah, something like that. Use it, as you said. Be wise about it, because I think we all know where this is going. I think the water in the kettle is starting to boil. We'll hear the whistle very, very soon.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (37:20) Yeah, that's a good one too. Kai, before we let go, let our listeners know where they can find you because you do a podcast that's got lots of great interviews on it. And I want people to be able to find you and hopefully subscribe and follow you and support your work. So let our audience know.
Kai Hoffmann (37:52) Yeah, tremendously appreciate that, Andrew. Yeah, you can see it on my shirt—SOAR Financial is the name of the podcast over on YouTube. So please make sure to visit us. Go check it out. Leave a comment, leave a like, and if you like it, make sure to subscribe to the channel as well. We do a number of things at SOAR Financial in general. We host the Deutsche Goldmesse—you can see it behind me—it started happening this week, actually, in Frankfurt. We do two conferences a year. The next one is in November.
So make sure to check that out as well: germangoldshow.com—Deutsche Goldmesse. We do a lot of things. Recently launched an asset management firm as well called Kamavest—kamavest.com. Make sure to check that out. It’s a German-based asset management firm for German clients or European clients primarily, of course. Go check it out. Let us know if you have any questions. And of course, you can reach me through X. My DMs are open. Feel free to reach out at JR Mining Guy.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (38:46) I have one final question before I let you go, Kai. I just thought of it—how easy is it to purchase physical bullion in Germany? How easily accessible is it?
Kai Hoffmann (38:57) It is easy. There’s a shop just down the street here. You can go to Degussa and just buy gold. You can pre-order it if you want to. They’ll have it ready. Still very private. A lot of boxes. It’s like a proper bank. Or you can just store it with them as well. So it’s still fairly easy. Certain limitations we discussed, but it’s still easy to do.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (39:13) Yeah. Okay. So there’s no shortages of being able to get it—is most my primary...
Kai Hoffmann (39:17) Not that I’m aware of. Not in the quantities I buy, at least.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (39:20) Okay, good. Just the odd time I’ve had some people call from various countries in Europe like, “Hey, it’s hard to get it here,” or whatever. I can’t remember which countries.
Kai Hoffmann (39:30) Well, I wasn’t trying to buy seven figures worth of gold or so at one point, so that might be a little trickier.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (39:34) Right.
All right. Well, listen, Kai, thank you very much for coming back and coming to my side of the pond to do an interview here with Sprott Money. We could continue the conversation and truly appreciate the work that you're doing with SOAR Financially on YouTube and trying to educate and bring awareness to people. I hope that we have a discussion again in the near future. So thank you so much.
Kai Hoffmann (39:37) Thanks for having me, Andrew. Really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks.
Andrew Sleigh @ Sprott Money (39:59) Thank you very much.
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