MarkZ Morning (Uncut) 02-19-2025

Coffee with MarkZ and Andy Schectman. 02/19/2025

Hello all. Hello Anushka. Happy birthday Booger.

Now Booger, I just want you to know, Google had threatened to have me take away your wrench for the day so that you would not be a mod just for the day so you could celebrate your birthday and have fun. But I was like, you know, he’s going to have even more fun if he gets to, you know, kick somebody out of Rumble for fun. Hello C. Mount Donato.

Hello Florida Gator. Hello Jotzalo. Hello Assaultchuck.

Dave Boyd, good to see you in the house. Jordan, going to hit you with some good news today. Some communication lines seem to be communicating again.

Hello Katja Oldstokes. Happy, wait, hump day. I put the wrong thumbnail up.

I’ll have to fix it for this evening. Hello Patriot Snow Wolf. Shawna Lynn Collette.

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Hello Bill and Linda. It is really Booger’s birthday guys. We vetted this one.

Well, I should say Kukla vetted this one. And for any of you available ladies, she’s even threatened to share personal details and pictures. Yep.

Okay, she really didn’t but I thought it was going to be fun to say that. Austin’s birthday. 27, two time cancer survivor.

Lost his left eye to disease. Praying for his continued remission as he kicks its butt. Happy birthday Austin.

Let’s see. Guardian Morgan tomorrow is going to be your 32nd anniversary. Yeah.

He’s going to remember this next week when the RV happens, probably Guardian. He’ll just be convinced that your anniversary moved. Oh man, I need a gold shirt.

The ex-wife is coming back to town. So I need an island or a spaceship or the rapture. Ben, we’ll take the RV.

We’ll find you a place down here. Time to run. You guys are funny.

Wait, Patriot Mama, today is my birthday. This is my fourth year. Patriot Mama, it’s good to have you.

In the house. Unfortunately, that’s true, RW. Most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.

Of course, some people have a tough time listening to what is said. Hello, June J Hart. I prefer the rapture.

I’m with you, Sharon. Give me the rapture. Keep the currency.

Ask me if I care. I’ll be hanging with Jesus. Just watching those.

Good morning. Happy birthday. We’re wishing you a happy birthday.

Does feel awfully close. Hello, MJ. Is everyone going to pile on Booger on Saturday and then make new handles? Ryan’s 37.

Happy birthday. Where are we? Oh, let’s see. Keeping track of the time.

We are supposed to have Andy. I’m going to try to whip through news so we are prepared. All right.

Work stuff. Sorry I wasn’t there too late today. A lot of work stuff happening today.

Good stuff. Positive. Just going to be a busy one.

Hectic but good day today. I’ll definitely have earned my whiskey and wisdom with you guys this evening. Now you’re getting the ads.

That means we’re going to be able to rip soon. Hello, TP. Florida Gator.

What do you know? Good. Bad Street. Let’s see.

I’d be okay if Trump announced public dividend due to RV gain. They really are, guys. I know it started as kind of a joke that Musk said we should get a dividend from what Doge is saving.

And you know it’s not a bad idea because it’s already allocated and budgeted for this year. His point being they’ve already identified about five grand per American in savings. Why not give it back to the American people since they’re really excited about Doge and more cost cutting.

Not necessarily a bad thing. Craig. All right, everybody.

Pay attention. This is damn important. The bond folks with money have been the facilitators, not the bond holders.

When the bond holders get their money, then hell yeah, throw a party. We are very, very close. There seems to be some confusion on that one.

That’s why I was very specific in saying the facilitators commission. But on the positive side of that, man, I’ve got my it is flat lit up. I can’t tell you the number of bond contacts that are telling me that they will have their part outside from facilitators.

I’m talking about the bond holders. I have so many of them that checked in. I’ve expected there’s going into late this week and early next week.

I’m talking about the bondholder bondholders, not facilitators, not the lawyers. I’m talking about the bondholders having money. And it has come from so many different sources on three different continents at this point that I feel like it is probably pretty safe that we’re going to see bondholders.

Not facilitators, not the attorneys, not the paymasters. I’m talking about the actual bondholders with some cash. So I’m very, very excited.

North Man, my assumption is, is because those fees were supposed to be paid out in fiat before the new system. They want to close it. They want to have spent that money if they weren’t certain it was going to finish.

I wouldn’t say another week. I don’t know for certain because those there’s could come after. Only truth.

They’re not allowed to double dip. That’s all I’m going to tell you on that front. They’re not allowed to double dip and they have to get theirs.

It’s all part of resetting the system. Mr. C has gone over this many times. I’ve gone over this many times.

You have to close out the old books so you can start the new books. Closing out the historic bonds is part of closing out the old books. But it is my understanding that the bonds themselves have to go out and asset back.

So to me, it makes perfect sense based on what a couple of different paymasters have told me. That they are paying the commissions out first. Then they pay the bonds and asset back.

And then you and I all go to the bank. Zmar, you’re getting it. Kathy, I very much think so.

It is my understanding it’s supposed to be a full payment on bond people on the actual bond holders. Well, y’all are coming at me fast. Oh, I’m not feeling like it.

If I didn’t know it. Wait, somebody said it feels like another carrot. If I didn’t know a couple of people at this point that had spendable money, that were having a really good time with it, then I would say, yeah, it feels like a carrot.

Reading a few of these, I know I need to get into it. Canuck, they’re going to be risking all their money if they do. They’re welcome to do it, though.

Absolutely knock themselves out. Just don’t whine when they don’t have any money. Hmm.

This is a fun. Christine, you must be coming in late. Just back it up and rewatch.

All right, folks, let’s dive into. Oh, this was a fun one for you guys. Well, I say it’s fun one for you guys.

Fun one for you XRP people. And I just thought I would add it. One of you all sent this one.

I probably received 10 or 12 with projections with Trump embracing crypto’s role in the economy, breaking the bank to the central banks. Well, XRP price hit 100 after US President Donald Trump’s endorsement. He’s like, yeah, it’s pretty good.

Buckle up, guys. I don’t think this is a little bit of a fluff piece. I don’t think it’s going to shoot to 100, but I definitely think it has it in its sights.

So we’re only at $2 and something now. And you have so many column crypto gurus calling for a massive increase in XRP over the coming couple of months. Just thought I would share that for you, folks, because I know you’ve been through a rough time.

It’s looking good for you. All right. The theme in Iraq, the most of the news today is the bond contacts checking in with the number of bond contacts to check in.

I rather suspect that the groups will start checking in at any moment. If the bond groups are getting that or the bond people are getting that much news suddenly, then I expect the group people will be on their heels any moment. And we’ll start getting a lot of news on that front, which will really help us narrow down timing, I hope.

Restoring confidence in Iraqi banks. Out-of-the-box solutions to save the economy. There’s some underlying themes.

And I’ve got a bunch more articles if you guys want them out of Iraq today. But the underlying theme is important. Restructuring banks.

The government’s plan to protect the financial sector. The conversations today have been how many people lost faith in the banks when they changed the exchange rate from $13 to $14.50. And now that it’s back to $13, they’re having a tough time getting… Actually, I think it was like $11.80 to $14.50. They’re having a tough time getting people to trust the banks. Because at the time, the banks want to let people withdraw their currency.

This is past administrations. We’re going back in time here. So there’s a little distrust.

And they’re talking about how they need to change values and increase participation in banking. The only way they’re going to be able to do that is with a new currency. And of course, they’re already making all their strides electronically.

But I thought it was key. Because one of the things they were discussing is that people lost faith when they devalued their currency. And that more people used the banking system when they increased the value.

And I thought that was really important. Because I saw that theme throughout a number of articles today coming out of Iraq. Prepping the people, guys.

Drip, drip, drip. Another one for you, Vietnam folks. Vietnam paves the way for Musk.

Starlink, seen as an olive branch, amid U.S. tariff threats. In other words, transactional. Vietnam says, you know, politics that are transactional makes sense.

We charge you a tariff, you charge us a tariff. We cut your taxes that you have to pay coming in or selling goods, you cut ours. They are coming to grips with it.

And, obviously, in an effort to woo the new administration, offering a deal to Starlink to offer Internet services in Vietnam, where they were previously banned, they are now allowed to, agreements are being signed, Starlink will be able to offer Internet service in Vietnam as well. A little give me to the Doge guy. You could call it kickbacks.

Although, guys, this was underway. Before Musk ever jumped on the Trump wagon for the 2024 elections, these deals were already on the table trying to be penned and worked out. Just wanted to point that out before some of the Trump-hating folks lost their minds.

Said, ha, ha, there’s my smoking gun. It’s actually kind of a smoking, like, rocket, and it takes satellites to space, and they need the Internet. Massive changes.

Vietnam opening up their Internet, free exchange of information, free speech, getting rid of corruption, cutting the size of their government by 20%. I mean, does it not scream? Does it not scream to Sarah? Or just Sarah, I guess, would be more accurate. Let’s turn that banner off so it doesn’t drive me nuts.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you notice Elon 2.0 on Hannity Interview was doing the alliance symbol? No. I have no idea.

Josh, are you guys talking about – and I want to make this simple. I don’t want to hear all the effing stupid, half-cocked, my God symbol people out there. Yes, they exist.

I don’t use them. You know how I feel about that. Coms are stupid.

But are you talking about a symbol similar to like this, where they hold their hands, and they make kind of an upside-down triangle with them? Because if it is, I think you guys are reading too much into that one. That is an Ayurvedic medicine, I believe it is called. I may screw that one up.

It is a way to connect and ground yourself, stay sharper. There are quite literally millennia of research where they use that and breathing techniques. You will find many of the most powerful people in the world that are in touch with their minds that use that.

A controversial one that does it are – oh, what is that? One of the Paul brothers uses it a lot. A number of influential people throughout history have used it as well. It’s a grounding technique to keep your mind focused.

That’s probably what you’re referring to. I’m not certain, but that’s what it is. If you just want to know the belief behind it and the science behind it, it’s a calming symbol that allows your brain to focus.

It’s not exactly completing the circuit. Let’s say if you’re Chinese, it would be connecting the yin and the yang, balancing the chakras, whatever you want to call it. Too many people – yeah, Andrew Tate.

That is who I was trying to think of, Banana. Thank you for that. It really is stunning how well it works.

Try it. You’re sitting there. You’re trying to think of something.

You’re trying to focus yourself. Try it. Sit there, and just like in your lap, you’re taking your hands like that.

I do think it’s called tip of the spear. I messed up when I touched the mic, guys. Sorry about that.

Let’s get back to it. I got to get ready for Andy. Certainly hope we’re going to have him.

He has been stupid busy lately. All right, guys. Trump terminates Biden-era U.S. attorneys and DOJ overhaul.

You guys announced that yesterday evening on the show. That is huge. What makes it huge isn’t that those attorneys are leaving.

This is a standard policy. The big difference, though, is normally they are asked for a resignation letter. Normally, the incoming administration says, we would like for you to tender your resignation.

They tender their resignation. They leave. This is a standard practice.

When another administration comes in, they get rid of the prosecuting attorneys, all the politicized attorneys from the previous administration and the DOJ. This is a normal thing. They count on it.

Then they go work in some other think tank or some other group for a while, and then they’re right back when the Democrats are in power. Wash, rinse, repeat, Republicans as well. The difference this time is Trump did not send them the resignation request letter.

He just said, you’re fired. He said, let’s save the step. Let’s stop with the niceties.

You guys weaponized the justice system. Just go away. Save me having to ask for your resignation.

Not going to do it. Just thought I would put that one in there. That was kind of an important thing to note because you’re going to see people melting down.

Oh, my God, he’s got to be guilty. He got rid of all those attorneys. Every administration in modern history has gotten rid of those.

They only differ in how they did it. Trump stepped a little out of historical precedence and fired them instead of asking for them to resign. The net effect is the exact same thing.

One, I guess, is just a little more, I don’t know, kind. Actually, I don’t think kind. I think passive aggressive is a better word.

Oh, this is just getting epic, guys. I got some good ones for you here this morning. Trump orders agencies to close details of wasteful spending, right? While talking to reporters, Trump cited other instances where the administration is described as wasteful spending.

Now, this gets great. He signed on February 18th a memorandum ordering agencies to publicize information about wasteful spending in a move described as enhancing government transparency. Plus, it restores faith in government.

Guys, people are going to start trusting government again. This is huge. The net effect for this nation is just enormous, and we’re seeing this around the world.

For too long, taxpayers have subsidized ideological projects overseas and domestic organizations engage in actions that undermine the national interest, states the memorandum. American people have seen their tax dollars used to fund the passion projects of unelected bureaucrats rather than to advance national interest. Guys, this is great.

Some of the things that they have pointed out, $55 billion in actual savings. They have a number of other savings that they have identified that will be reaped over time as they’re no longer spending. That does indeed rake up into the trillions.

Examples of spending the administration has canceled outside a $50 million grant to an environmental group that believes in climate justice travels through free Palestine. $1.5 million grant to advance diversity, equity, inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities. These are things we’ve been spending our money on.

After signing the order, Trump cited Social Security payments going to those too old to be alive. This included more than $3.4 million payments to people between the ages of 120 and 129. My daughter’s calling me, guys.

I’m going to hit the mute button. My daughter on a podcast. Is it something important? Oh, be very, very, very safe, and you shouldn’t be on the phone.

All right. Sorry about that. I’m back with you now, guys.

Lucy driving in some snow needed some dad input. All right, now we’re back. She takes precedence.

The kids take precedence, always will. All right, let’s get back to it. This included more than $3.4 million payments to people between the ages of 120 and 129.

$121,000 payments to those listed between 160 and 169 years old. $6,087 payments to those between 170 and 179. You can’t make this stuff up.

It keeps going. It’s canceled $881 million in department education contracts, such as one worth $4.6 million that went toward organizing Zoom and in-person conferences. I guess they needed a division to tell people how to use something they were already using.

Backseat cited a 2024 government accountability office report which states the U.S. government could lose between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud. Guys, that’s a lot of money. While talking to reporters, Trump cited other incidences of what his administration has deemed as wasteful spending, such as voluntary medical male circumcisions in Mozambique.

$10 million for circumcisions in another country, and the Prague Civil Society Center getting $32 million. All right, now this is getting fun. Why is this getting fun? Let’s bounce right over here.

Palantar, CEO, criticizes Democrats’ resistance to Doge. Yeah, we’re talking about a well-renowned Democrat. Says this is going to destroy those people talking about the people that are fighting Doge, and I couldn’t agree more.

You’re getting in the way of what all of the American people want and common sense wants, and you’re fighting because you’re being audited and the fraud’s being pointed out. It is not going well. Public opinion polls are screaming against the Democrats that are trying to get in Musk’s way right now.

I mean, like, wildly swinging. If the election were held today, it would probably be more like another 10 million votes for Donald Trump because of what Doge is doing. The numbers are stunning.

I can’t wait for you guys to start seeing some of the polls coming out on this front. So anyways, let’s get back to it, though. Planner Technology CEO Alex Karp aired his concerns with a party he often supports in an interview broadcast February 17th on CNBC’s Squawk Box program.

A co-founded software firm, Palantir Technologies, is a top defense contractor with Peter Thiel. Peter tends to be much more conservative. All right, here’s a quote from him.

I’ve been a Democrat most of my life, Karp said, before adding, I don’t like watching the Democrats just commit suicide. He took issue with progressive leftist general opposition to Doge, saying most Americans support its identification of fraud, waste, and abuse in federal spending. I just view this as yet another example of the progressive left boxing themselves in to a suicide dance, he continued, questioning whether this group was seeking to communicate with Musk in good faith.

Why is it that we do not know where every penny of our money goes? How do you explain that to people, he asked, adding that Doge’s use of artificial intelligence is a powerful means of bringing transparency to government spending. Feels like the people criticizing Elon don’t want it to happen, and this is going to destroy those people, Karp said. I love it.

He is pointing it out. Of course, they’re trying to claim it’s an oligarch tearing apart. All he’s doing is pointing out the waste.

He’s not tearing anything apart. If it falls under its own weight because of its corruption and ineptness, so be it. Just love some of these articles that have been out.

All right, now I’m going to be ready. Wait, is Grumpy having a birthday today, too? Grumpy, are you trying to hijack Booger’s birthday? Yeah, the Pope’s 250. All he’s got to do is look at Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer.

We know where all the people at 160 are that are collecting. They’re in Congress. Get rid of Congress and you get rid of almost every one of them, right? DinoFan, once again, I’m going to take my head and beat it against a brick wall because they were supposed to pay out fees in fiat.

How they designed the system, I didn’t design it, but it has been explained to me ad nauseum that that’s how they’re doing it. Perhaps think of it as paying the home inspector to inspect the home before the closing. Maybe that’s a better way of looking at it.

Because these are the due diligence people that put in a ton of work. Jeff, I have not heard that the rate was in the Gazette. Freedom for you.

I should probably go ahead and sing before Andy gets here just to be safe. All right, have we got a confirmation that it’s Grumpy’s birthday, too? Oh, it’s just Grumpy’s birthday. Oh, it’s birthday every week, too.

Okay, I’m undecided on the Grumpy one. Trad, that is what I have been told, that regular bondholders will get paid in asset-backed funds. John, the standard publication days are Wednesdays and Saturdays for the Gazette, as I understand it.

But we did have a printing, I believe it was on Monday. Nader talked about it, a number of people have talked about it. Marty, I think that is a much better, the home inspectors was a better analogy, because he had to make certain everything was in good shape before you could close.

I think that’s probably the best way to look at it. Yes, I have heard that HOCHA was considering removing Mayor Adams. I’m not certain she actually has the power, but they are desperately trying to get rid of him.

And the question is, is why? I know he stood up and said, hey, look, you know, take the Sanctuary City crap and stick it up your butt. Because right now, New York is drowning under the weight of this, the flood of illegal immigration, and they can’t afford it. He’s making grown-up decisions, not what people want to hear.

They don’t want to hear, hey, you know, all they want to do is go party. They don’t want to be told that, hey, we don’t have the money to go party. You better buy a six-pack and stay home this weekend.

They want to go to the club and buy a $500 bottle of Grey Goose and look at the girls dance, or the guys dance, or whatever they’re into, or who knows anymore. He’s hitting them with cold reality, and he’s a Democrat. And he’s hitting them with cold reality over immigration and that—over illegal immigration.

That’s a tough one for Democrats to handle. He stepped—he did not toe the Democrat line. You’re going to start seeing more and more Democrats doing just that.

It’s the only way they’re going to survive this, as politicians. You can’t get in the way of absolute overpowering, overwhelming common sense. The American people are too awake now.

Not woke, awake. Robo, yeah. Until you see him yourself, don’t buy the rumor.

Jack’s birthday. All right, let’s go ahead and sing happy birthday, just in case. We are supposed to have Andy, but he has not responded this morning.

Could be just me, but just in case, because this is about when he pops in. I want to go ahead and sing, and then we can just turn it into, I don’t know, we’ll work on something else. So they tell me it’s your birthday.

Well, happy birthday, darling. May you live, may you love. May all your dreams come true.

Happy birthday, happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. Happy extra special birthday to the bug.

Yeah, there are a lot of rumors that they have been cutting gold bars in their silver lead inside. There’s all kinds of rumors running, guys. Don’t bite on them yet.

Do not bite on them yet. Make certain we vet them five or six different times. Patricia, you know, it always is a possibility that I forgot to set the link.

I’ll look. Nope, I actually sent it. I’ll send them another text, too, just in case.

I love the number of people who have gotten used to me being a little overwhelmed. Did you send it? United States Postal Service now requiring UPS box owners to submit photo IDs with personal address. I have a box, but we disclosing my personal address for privacy.

Dime, nickel, they already know who you are. In other words, that information is not available to just anybody that is sending mail to that P.O. box. But I understand why they did it.

They were having a problem. I should probably just get to that one because I got friends in law enforcement. They were having a problem with small packages coming from China that had mixings that were being used.

And people would go anonymously sign up for a post office box. That’s it. I don’t know.

What are some of the stores that have it? Shipping stores, boxing stores, and they would sign up for a P.O. box. Instead of putting their personal address, they put a fake name. Then they would get precursor chemicals for making synthetic opiates and such.

So, yeah, I understand why they’re now required to keep an actual ID with it. The people sending it to you don’t know what it is. Law enforcement knows that if it’s some make-believe name and they’re sitting there with a 10-pound package of fentanyl, they know who to go see.

That’s why they’re doing it. If you’re using it for yourself and you’re not shipping something like that, do not worry. The general public can’t see it.

All right, we get to be excited. We do have Andy, so I didn’t even have to chase him. I think Jake took care of it.

H.L., does it matter on the circulated or uncirculated? Just think on that one, guys. We’re not like collecting and putting them like baseball cards on the wall. Think of it as like when you go to the grocery store and you take cash to buy your groceries.

I know it’s like 500 bucks now, but you get where I’m going. Does it matter if it’s a wrinkled 100 or a crisp $100 bill? It doesn’t matter. I’ve been told that over and over and over and over and over by all my banking contacts.

Another one of those to ad nauseum. Here we go. Mark.

I’m more on it today, Andy. I’ve already sung happy birthday. I’m ready to see you.

I mean, I’m watching the gold take off. I’m watching all of these. I’m just, oh my God, the articles this week with more money leaving the London exchange, going to Switzerland to be refined properly and then headed off to the States.

It’s some bigs going on. We talked about that last week, didn’t we? Yep. We touched on it, but we talked about it more at Whiskey and Wisdom than we did during the day because we were off a week last week or a day.

I’m trying to remember what was going on. Oh, so we really didn’t talk about it in this forum, did we? No, not really. We didn’t really get into it in this format during our daytime.

Yeah. What is going on, Mark, is it’s unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed in this industry, ever. I don’t know who Mike Armstrong is.

I mean, Martin Armstrong, I think is what he means. I’m almost positive he means Martin Armstrong. I’m having him on my show here in a few days.

Martin is a very smart man, and he does have a computer program that helps him with his predictions, and he’s been fairly prolific. So, yeah, I mean, what’s going on in the gold market, it’s as big of an anomaly as anything I’ve ever seen. Jake, I’ll get you that paperwork as soon as I’m off here.

Megan will send it to you, kind of moving a million things at once. But, I mean, we should talk about it. Because there are, the gold system is, it’s showing clear signs of great stress in terms of its demand for physical metal, and it’s outstripping the supply at the highest levels.

The contrarian indicator is that until the last 10 days, and I mean going back six months or longer, it’s been very, very slow on the retail side. Premiums are the lowest they’ve ever been, as the biggest money in the world is moving at a level, honest to God, I’ve never seen. So let’s just go through what I mean by that, because that’s kind of a big statement to make.

I get it. But let’s go through and talk about it. Now, the only thing that I’m going to do to set the stage is just one thing, two things.

One, the Bank of International Settlements, as I’ve talked about on your show maybe 500 times, says reclassified gold is the world’s only other tier one reserve asset like US Treasuries. This is the reason the central banks have been buying it at a level no one’s ever seen over the last four years. I’ve been saying this over and over and over and over again on your show.

I’ve got to shut that TV off. That’s probably distracting as shit. Sorry.

We couldn’t hear it, but it was distracting you. So anyways, they’ve been buying it and taking possession of it and using the suppression of the Western paper markets in order to subsidize their acquisition, their de-dollarization. And man, I can scream that forever and ever.

Some project, I am becoming a distributor for Goldbecks. So I have a, it’s done. I just have to get it rolling.

The next few days, we have a meeting with their operations to kind of train my staff. Anyways, so let’s talk about what’s happened since November. So gold is the only other tier one asset.

Central banks are buying it. Central banks are repatriating it. My entire career in the United States has always been a net exporter of gold.

Since November, since the election, since November, the United States has become a net importer of gold, which is very interesting. And we’ve imported about 13 million ounces of gold from all around the world. Mostly London, but also Asia.

And as you mentioned, Mark, the refineries in Switzerland. About 50 million ounces of silver as well. JP Morgan has already or is set to deliver for February contract $4 billion worth of gold to the COMEX.

This is one of the top two or three largest shipments ever in the history of the COMEX market. JP Morgan used to have a gal who ran their trading desk named Blythe Masters. And Blythe has said publicly that they don’t buy it for themselves.

They buy it for customers. They don’t have an account, house account per se, they claim. So what customer of theirs has $4 billion to buy and take delivery of gold? My guess, it’s the U.S. government or the Federal Reserve.

One or the other would be my guess. To give you an idea just how big it really is, for the February contract, a record 59,296 contracts stood for delivery so far on the February gold contract. That far surpasses the previous high of 47,132 in June of 2020 during the QE to infinity pandemic.

That’s 59,296 gold contracts at 100 ounces per contract. The previous all-time high delivery was 12,146 contracts less than what we just saw. This is no small coincidence.

You’re talking 5,929,600 ounces of gold stood for delivery in February. Who’s got that money? Multiply 5,929,600 times 2,900 and your calculator will say E. It won’t even go up that high. So this was someone who said, no, we’ll stand for delivery or some entities.

About 14 million ounces of silver have stood for delivery in February, which is very interesting. We also have what I find to be kind of interesting. We talked a lot about how J.P. Morgan paid a $920 million fine for manipulating the metals market two years ago.

They were still allowed to control SLV, the world’s largest silver trust. Well, over the last few months, they took over for GLD as well. So now BlackRock and J.P. Morgan are the custodians of the world’s largest silver trust and one of the largest gold trusts in the world.

In two vaults in London and in New York, the J.P. Morgan Owens, they hold more gold than the majority of the G20 countries as part of the ETF holdings. Now, people have always asked me, do you think they’ll confiscate gold again? And I always said, probably on your show too. No, I think if they needed to, they would take the ETFs held by the cartel banks, which give them the ability to take the metal without breaking any laws or infringing any civil liberties.

The prospectus doesn’t give us regular people the ability to take possession of the metal out of the trust. You can be paid back in cash. So they could be sitting on all this gold and silver and look the world in the face and say, we didn’t break laws.

We didn’t infringe civil liberties. We simply did what the prospectus allows us to do. Now, it’s interesting.

At the same time, we don’t know anything about that entity. I’m guessing it’s the U.S. government. No one’s got that kind of bread.

Just like that, since Trump came in, 393 metric tons have moved into the COMEX vaults in New York. 75% increase. And this is no coincidence.

This never happens. Never. And since we’re talking about JPMorgan and ETFs, the talking heads always misdirect us as it pertains to gold.

And so when we look at what’s happened as gold has gone much higher, we see large outflows out of GLD. Huge amounts. And this, if you watch Bloomberg News, which is pretty much woke mainstream, they’ll tell you that, well, these are conventional reasons, of course.

Like stronger dollar or rising interest rates or profit-taking. In my mind, what we see is a far deeper shift. You’re seeing big, big players, wealthy elites, central banks, sovereign wealth funds coming out of the ETF by what’s called share redemptions.

Now, I said we can’t take metal out. But if you are a commercial bank or a sovereign wealth fund with the ability to fund a basket or withdraw a basket, that’s massive. Many, many, many millions of dollars worth.

16 tons of gold have exited GLD as the prices shot up recently. That is not the public selling and profit-taking. That is the JPMorgans of the world.

The big, huge money that helps fund the baskets on the onset or has the ability to take them. They’re cashing what’s called share redemption. They’re cashing out 16 tons of gold quietly out the back door.

They can take those shares. They can redeem them and pull the metal out. And it looks like shares are being sold.

And it looks like the public is profit-taking its furthest thing from the truth. It is they’re pulling the metal out before the shit hits the fan. So, you put it all together just up to this point before I get to the two big points.

And that is we’re a net importer of the only tier one asset in the world other than U.S. Treasuries. We’re seeing the most extraordinarily large all-time record deliveries in the month of February. And the largest deposits into the exchange we have ever seen.

The ounces or the amount of gold increased since November is up 75%. This doesn’t happen. Now, much of the gold is coming from London in what’s called an exchange for physical.

The contracts are very fungible. I can take my contract in London or in New York, either one, and I can exchange it to the other system for gold. So, I’ll give them my contract.

They can cash settle with it. They’ll send me the gold. Great.

London is what’s called a T plus one settlement exchange where you’re making plans for how you need your gold. So, you make a trade on Monday because you need your gold by the end of the week. You make your trade on Monday.

That’s T plus one Tuesday. That’s settlement. Wednesday, you should have access to your gold.

Right now, they’re eight weeks back. Eight weeks. They’ll call it T plus eight weeks.

That’s a default in my mind. They can say whatever they want about they’re backed up or they have too many requests. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

This is the Bank of frickin’ England, right? There’s something deeper going on there. I’ve talked at length about the rehypothecation or about how they’re trading in gold two and a half times global annual mine supply every single day on a fraction of the metal standing behind it. In silver, they’re trading three and a half times annual global mine supply.

Ten times the float. They’re trading ten times more paper than they have silver behind it. Three billion ounces a day with only 300 million ounces behind it.

They’re getting caught with their pants down. Now, there are people who think that this is Trump trying to screw the Bank of England. Now, I can’t confirm that.

There are other reports that the Western banks are actually net long, not the banks in Europe who will be screwed by this. I can’t deny it. I can’t confirm it.

I’ve heard a lot of people say it. He’s trying to completely and totally expose the LBMA, blow up the price of gold, and we will be sitting on a restocked stockpile. I’ll leave that up to history to tell us if that’s what happens.

But I will tell you, there are two pieces to this puzzle that kind of somewhat make it easier to connect hypothetical dots. I can’t say this is what’s going to happen. But before I do that, I’ll say in all of my career, I’ve never seen anything remotely close to what’s happening right now, not even by a country mile.

And so, you know, Judy Shelton, as I’ve talked about, I always show her book. I interviewed Judy. She was Trump’s nominee for the Federal Reserve in 2016, was not confirmed.

She ended up being an advisor and said her and Trump talked about gold-backed treasuries all during his previous administration. Didn’t happen. But she told me she believes he will issue gold-backed treasuries, 50-year for sure, and maybe a shorter duration on July 4th, 2026, the 250th year anniversary of the country.

She believes that he will do that, that they’ve spoken about it. I am not convinced that Judy Shelton won’t be the head of the Federal Reserve when Powell’s tenure is gone. I think you’re right.

Yeah, I think she will be. So you have Judy Shelton saying we’re going to issue gold-backed treasuries. And again, you know, I said to her, Judy, this was about three months ago, Judy, maybe two months ago.

Why has Fort Knox not been audited? Well, she said it will be. It should have been. The excuse they give is lame, too expensive, too logistically challenged.

She got very aggravated by that and said that’s got to change. And I also said, do you know gold is held in an account called the Gold Revaluation Account on every central bank balance sheet, valued at $42.22 an ounce on the United States balance sheet? Why not mark it to market or make it go higher? In fact, the head of the Dutch National Bank and the head of the German Bundesbank, as I’ve said on your show before, have been screaming about revaluing gold. In Europe, it’s still valued at the Bretton Woods price of $35 an ounce.

So all of these balance sheets, which are indebted, have gold valued at a fraction of what it’s really worth, held in what’s called the Gold Revaluation Account, which is just too ironic to not mean something in my mind. So she says, not in so many words, high probability that gold gets revalued. So then you look at what Scott Besant just said, the head of the treasury.

His largest personal holding is gold. He admits that. He said the United States government will monetize the asset side of the balance sheet.

And if you look at the United States government balance sheet, there’s hardly anything to monetize. You have the largest asset of $1.4 trillion or thereabouts is student debt. 40 plus percent of the US government balance sheet is student debt.

It is a receivable. It is an asset. And they’re largest.

Second is military. Can’t monetize either of those two things. Military bases, guns, bullets.

Now, you could monetize the land, and you could also monetize the gold held in the Gold Revaluation Account. You have Cynthia Loomis, the senator from Wyoming, as I’ve mentioned, is asking to have gold revalued in order to fund with the proceeds, some of the proceeds, the Bitcoin strategic account. All I can tell you is this, Mark.

Something bigger than anything I’ve ever seen is happening. I don’t know what his plan is, but he is draining the LBMA to the point where they’re now eight weeks out on deliveries, which is almost a default in my mind. He’s put JP Morgan in charge of GLD, not just SLV.

So, you have the bank that’s most closely aligned to the federal government holding the largest silver trust and a massive gold trust. They, every single time, knock it off, holding more gold in their vaults than half the G20 countries. You have the record repatriations and deposits and deliveries.

Something’s going on, man. And then you have our own government advisors and treasury secretary talking about remonetizing, issuing treasuries backed by gold. So, however it plays out, we’ll find out.

But what I will tell you is that I have never been more convinced that gold will play some role in what comes next. And not only are the central banks around the globe buying it, doubling and tripling down, not buying Bitcoin, not buying NVIDIA, they’re buying gold. Let’s just call it what it is.

And now you’re starting to see, that was always all the other countries, and now you’re starting to see this be spoken of in the United States. Never in my career. So, all I’ll say is there is something big going on.

Biggest thing I’ve ever seen as it relates to gold, and it has nothing to do with the Trump tariffs. The Trump tariffs are what they use to fool everyone into allowing that gold to be exchanged for physical and restock our coffers. We’re not going to send that back out.

And I think he kind of hoodwinked the exchanges into thinking no big deal. It’s the tariffs. It’s the threat of the unbacked contracts they have in New York.

They want to get gold in case they get delivery requests. That’s the ruse. You put everything else together, it’s like, you know, it’s so far outside the realm of what is normal.

It’s, like I say, it’s four feet of snow in the backyard, my backyard here in Florida in July. It’s an anomaly. So, I guess we’ll see.

But I would say things are about to get very interesting for the precious metals market. Yes, Todd, it would. That’s what Trump wants.

He wants a weaker dollar. And it would greatly devalue the dollar and create inflation. But it would get us on the path to normalizing our balance sheet, to inspiring confidence to buy our treasuries.

Think of bitter medicine. What’s that? Yes. Think of bitter medicine.

Yes. Lee, there’ll be a time to turn your silver into gold, but not until the ratio between the two gets in line with historical norms. Like, you know, even if it were 40 to 1, you could do it.

And that would be a double from where it is now. Bear in mind, it’s coming out of the ground at a 7 to 1 ratio. Silver is depleting.

Silver is the most asymmetrical risk reward trade I’ve ever seen, which is the lowest outside, highest upside. So while in the end, I would argue gold is probably the place to be, this is silver to me is the trade of a generation. So not yet.

There will be a time, but not yet. You know, one other thing while we’re just chatting. Part of the reason that this is happening is that I think he realizes we’re screwed.

He being Trump and their administration. You know, they’re talking about trying to get a trillion dollars in savings out of Doge. And quite frankly, I hope all these sons of bitches go to jail.

I truly do. I hope they all go to jail. All of these politicians who are making $250,000 a year and come out multi, multi, multimillionaires.

You’re telling me Paul Pelosi will go down as the greatest investor on the planet. All of them, they all need to go to jail. Chelsea Clinton, supposedly $3 million of the $280 million that was supposed to go to the Clinton Foundation to go to Haiti, $3 million to her wedding and $10 million to her mansion.

Of course, it’s all denied. I hope they eviscerate these people, these thieving sons of bitches, every single one of them. I do.

But to give you an idea, even if he takes a trillion off of the debt or the deficit, they’re still screwed. We’re still screwed financially because that still leaves a trillion plus deficit. We’ve already spent $800 billion so far in debt this year.

It’s only February, for God’s sake. So you’re going to see another couple trillion. The math doesn’t work unless they cut at least $2 trillion a year now.

Yeah, well, it doesn’t. But even if it did, right? Get this. The United States has over $28 trillion in U.S. government bonds maturing by 2028.

That’s three years. The federal government in a big year would take in $4.5 trillion to $5 trillion. $5 trillion would be max.

I don’t even think we’ve taken $5 trillion ever. But let’s say $4 trillion to $5 trillion in tax revenue. So even give it $5 trillion, which it won’t because it’s going to cut taxes.

$5 trillion times three is $15 trillion. In three years, we’ll take $15 trillion in revenue, but we owe $28 trillion. Well, that doesn’t work.

And that doesn’t take into account the $1 trillion to $2 trillion that we’re adding to the budget deficit each year. So the indebtedness. I mean, how do you pay just the treasuries that we owe that amount to $28 trillion in three years? And I always like to throw it out for the one or two people who haven’t heard me say it 10 million times.

A trillion seconds ago was 31,688 years ago. We’re fucked. I’m sorry for swearing, but we’re screwed.

We are. And something has to happen. I know, Kukla, I owe you some money for the swearing.

I apologize. But sometimes you have to say it that way for it to really stick. The F word has more meanings than any word on the planet.

I use it as an exclamation point on occasion. You know what I’m saying? Think of it as another mechanism in the English language or any language to get a point across when it needs an emphasis that people just aren’t getting. But it does.

It really, truly does. This is why Marco Rubio just came out and said within five years, the U.S. won’t have the ability to impose global sanctions anymore because of the reduced dollar’s dominance. The reduction of the dollar’s dominance.

And why would anyone want to hold our treasuries when what is the only way out of that? It is inflation and a weaker dollar. So to that gentleman’s point, yes, if they did revalue gold much, much higher, it devalues the dollar. That’s what Roosevelt did over my shoulder where he confiscated gold.

Gold was $20 an ounce. He paid everyone $20.56. 56 cents was a lot of money back then. A dozen eggs was a nickel.

Everyone was psyched. Yeah, I got all this extra money. Then he devalued the dollar by 40 percent.

And gold went up by 40 percent. So that’s exactly what it is. It’s devalued the dollar.

We can have a little fun here if you want, Andy. Just go to the regular currency calculator. $1 of 1913 when the Federal Reserve took over our banking.

It now takes $31.88. And that’s with their highly skewed inflation numbers that they try to bury and sell us. So yeah, you think about that 56 cents. It was a lot of money.

Yeah, it was. But this has happened before. This is not without precedent to revalue gold.

And it’s ironic that every single balance sheet around the world is held in the revaluation account and still valued at the old Bretton Woods numbers. So marking it to market would add another $800 billion, which isn’t a lot of money anymore. But what if you marked it up to $12,000 is the number I keep hearing bantered around.

That would basically be 40 percent gold backing to the U.S. dollar based off of M1. You go to M2, it gets higher. That’s why you get some guys like James Rickards who says $24,000.

There are a lot of ways that you can do it, but it wouldn’t take much in the way of congressional approval. I mean, in essence, Trump would tell the Treasury Secretary to tell the head of the Federal Reserve to revalue gold. If they moved it to $24,000, that would give the Treasury general account $6 trillion free and clear.

Every $4,000 increase based upon the number of ounces we supposedly have will add $1 trillion free and clear to the TGA. And then there’s this thing called the Mar-a-Lago Accord. And the whole theory of what this Mar-a-Lago Accord is, is you revalue gold to normalize or at least to help shore up the balance sheet.

And then you go and tell all of these countries who we’ve been protecting throughout the oceans of the world, our U.S. Navy, or whether it be through Article 5 of NATO, that if they don’t take these zero coupon treasuries, then we will not be there when they need us. That we have been paying for this forever and it’s time for them to pay their own. So how do you work down the debt? You issue treasuries which bring income in and you pay down the debt.

And then if there’s an Article 5, the U.S. military will be there. If your cargo ship is being attacked in the Red Sea, the U.S. Navy will be there. If not, enjoy your day.

You’re on your own. That’s kind of the theory. I don’t know what his plan is, but I will tell you that it is so far removed from anything we’ve ever seen on this side of the table in terms of COMEX and LBMA and importing and deliveries.

It’s so unusual and it’s not ironic that it happened in November. He told his boys, this is what the plan, start putting it in action. I’ll see you in the office in three months.

So I don’t know, man. What’s the chance? I mean, we’ve seen just since November 393 metric tons of gold come to the New York vaults. What’s the chance Trump’s going to do it? Just like you pointed out repeatedly, just like anybody that pays any attention has pointed out, it’s untenable at this point.

Cut all the spending you want. It’s great for a future, but it doesn’t change the unrealized expenses, the Medicaid, Medicare, all the things that we have tied ourselves into. And I think we should pay.

Look at that. He’s got to do some kind of reset. There has to be a reset.

There’s got to be more. You were at 125% debt to GDP, Mark. There’s never been a country, to my knowledge, that’s crossed 130 and hasn’t ultimately ended up in either hyperinflation or outright default.

Richard, that’s an interesting statistics, brother, statistic. And I remember reading Richard Russell and the GI Bill when they came home from World War II, the life insurance policy was $10,000. And I say it all the time.

My dad graduated college in 1963. His first salary was $5,000, $5,300 or $5,500 a year. It’s like your mother and I could live comfortably on that.

They were married. And think about that. I mean, shit, how do you live on $5,000 a year? Well, in 1963, evidently you could.

This is what inflation is. It’s the frog in a pot of lukewarm water where the heat slowly turns up over all these years. And inflation is something that is insidious.

I asked Judy Shelton that question. I said, Judy, who in their right mind decided that the Federal Reserve should strive for 2% inflation target? And her answer to me was it was the husband of Janet Yellen, which I didn’t even know he was an economist. But, um, and the theory, and it was really gross.

And I said, well, that’s really icky. When she explained it to me, I said, well, Judy, wouldn’t it be better to strive for no inflation, stable prices? Isn’t that really what? And she’s like, absolutely. And I advocate for that.

She says, but the theory was that if you had at stable prices, then it would be difficult to give raises to your employees. But if we had a 2% inflation target and you could then give 1% raises, employees feel like they’re getting ahead, but they’re actually going backwards. I mean, she was just basically saying, yeah, we’re screwing people, but that’s okay.

It’s perception. Of course, we’re nowhere near that 2% and we’re much higher. I don’t think they even got to it ever, hardly over the last 20 years.

And in reality, if we use the real numbers, they’ve never gotten to it. But as inflation, I said, at 2% inflation, you’re off 20% in 10 years and you lose half of your purchasing power in 36 years. It’s cut in half.

And she’s like, you’re right. So when you look at the cost of things, what they used to be versus what they are now, it’s extraordinary. Just a reminder, they’re not worth more money.

Your dollar’s worth less money. Your $100,000 house that’s now $300,000 house isn’t more house. Yeah.

So the 69 Pontiac Catalina 4200, my dad says he bought a Corvette Stingray 1973 convertible and it was under 7,000 bucks. And now that car’s a hundred plus thousand if you try to go buy a new Corvette convertible. One of my 260Zs, Andy, still had the original sticker because it came with air installed.

It was $2,650 in 1974. Brand new. Brand new.

I didn’t even know they made a 260. I had a 280 when I was in high school. Yeah, they only made it one year.

Maybe that was a problem. They didn’t make it. They just screwed it up and you got it cheap because it was off by 20.

They made two different bodies in the same year in 74. It was, you know, the fuel lines and they added all kinds of EPA requirements and that kind of thing. The 280Z was a great car.

And then you got the Nissan 300. That was a cool car too. I’ve always loved cars, but the 280 was a great, great car back in the day.

And it was one of the first, you know, one of the first real sports cars I remember back in the day. I mean, I was born in 1970, so I don’t, my perspective is a little bit off, but I loved it for sure. I made a buck 35 at McDonald’s as a teen.

Yeah, I mean, I remember when the, it was, it was three. I thought it was, wasn’t it $3 and something was the minimum. I don’t remember $3 and 40 cents or something, but yeah, I mean, that’s the thing.

You could go on a date in high school and go to a movie with a girl with 20 bucks and no problem at all. In the early eighties, I did it, take the Z out, throw in gas. We could go to a movie and go get a pizza and I’d spend 20 to $24 depending on how much gas I needed.

But that was date night in like 1984. Right. And that’s, what’s crazy.

So, you know, you go to a nice restaurant nowadays, have, you know, one drink, you and your wife or something, one drink. And, uh, uh, you know, um, and dinner and it’s 250 bucks or whatever. It’s insanity.

A cheap fast food lunch announced 25 bucks for two people. Honey. You go down with a restaurant, it’s 50 bucks for lunch.

Last year, the year before I went to the McDonald’s here in Boca and I’m like, holy shit. I got a McChicken like that. McChicken value meal, you know, McChicken, small fries, small Coke.

And it was like $11. And I’m like, man, I’m like, I don’t ever remember it being this high. He’s like, you live in Boca.

I’m like, oh, great. Thanks. I mean, he actually said that to me at the drive through window.

I didn’t know that they had the ability to charge more in one city or one zip code than the other. But the point of it is, is that, yeah, I, my high school was across the street from the first McDonald’s in Minnesota. And we had an open campus.

Everyone would go there way back when. And, you know, 49, 39 cent hamburgers, 49 cent cheeseburgers. Everything has inflated and will continue to inflate.

And the policies that they are enacting will be very inflationary because there’s no way out of this debt spiral that we are in. There is no way out other than default or inflation or production. What’s that? Trump is the king of bankruptcy.

He uses as a business tool. Well, yeah, he’s the king of bankruptcy and of reorganization. So, you know, it’s this this to me is also an option.

I mean, some form of a reset under Trump would be logical. But anyways, these things are real. You know, I mean, how the hell do you come up with twenty eight trillion dollars in bonds that are just coming due in three years, not even taking into account the debt that you’re adding on to it? And this is why the Congressional Budget Office says that by twenty thirty one, every penny we take in in tax revenue, if there still is the IRS by then goes to pay interest on the debt and mandatory entitlement.

And last night I was watching his interview with Sean Hannity and he said, we will not touch Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Well, you know, you’re talking massive. That’s that’s the lion’s share of it all.

And if you don’t touch it and add the interest on the debt, you know, there’s a problem. How do you how do you how do you work that down? This is this is why, you know, the concept of a reset or gold revaluation or whatever it may be, I think, is all legitimate because it’s about mathematics right now. It’s just simply about math.

Very difficult to break out of this spiral that we’re in. Yeah, well, that’s right, James. We do.

But if you do it, it has to be done in a way whereby you still have the ability to come back from the dead. You know, you would have to. The only way you could do it, you’d have to give a real value to money.

Money would have to represent some solid or people aren’t going to have any faith. They’ll be like, oh, they’re just going to do the same thing. Ten years from now, they’ll spend what they want default and everybody be left holding the bag.

I mean, the only way they could do it is if they had a crap ton of gold. Yeah, well, that people certainly would be one of the ways to do it. And I do think that that they understand a new system will have to be tied to it somehow.

So, look, I mean, there’s no coincidence that that since 2017, the central banks have been buying so much gold, it’s ridiculous across the globe. So by revaluing gold, it benefits all the countries, all of them. And, you know, I don’t one of the interesting things that I don’t think enough people understand as well is that someone says I can’t even afford to cremate myself.

That’s I don’t know if that’s a joke or not. I don’t want to laugh. Take a journey with me.

I want to start a discount death company called Dead on a Dime. Discount funerals. I want to do.

I’m serious. The funeral industry is so ripe with crooks and markup. You know, you go buy a ten thousand dollar coffin.

It costs eleven, twelve hundred dollars to buy to manufacture it. And they sell it for the markup is obscene. And it’s kind of like, what are you going to do? Like, OK, what else are you going to do? You know, bury him in your in your garden, in your backyard, I guess.

So, you know, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the government military pensions are about one hundred seventy five trillion off balance sheet. That, you know, the debt number is a joke because they have all these off balance sheet things. But that’s all owed to the American public.

And of the thirty six trillion dollars in debt right now, only about seven to eight trillion is owed to the rest of the world. The rest is owed to the United States. The seven trillion plus in money markets, that’s all invested in treasuries.

The head of the pension funds, insurance companies, all invested in treasuries. All of us U.S. depositors who have chased yield, whether through money market or treasuries, were the ones who have bought the majority of the treasuries as the rest of the world is shedding theirs. So if you did reset, you did default, you did bring in a new system, you know, the art of the deal.

He would only have to appease about seven to eight trillion of the two hundred trillion to the rest of the world. We’re sorry. We’ll make it right.

But to us, it’s a lot easier to reset when it’s on your own populace under the pretense of patriotism and national duty. And we’re going to make this right. And it’s going to be better than ever.

And our kids will have a future and we’re going to onshore manufacturing and all this stuff. You have to go through that pain period. And so I, I don’t discount the concept.

In fact, I might be more convinced of a reset than ever, simply because of, of, of, you know, the optics of it, that it’s all owed to us that we reset. We come back stronger than ever on a system pegged to gold and distributed ledger technology. Veracity showing everything to the, you know, Elon saying, let’s put all the debt on the blockchain.

Well, fine, do it. Put voter registration on the blockchain. Put all the gold holding on the blockchain.

Put the treasury issuance on the blockchain. Get rid of the concept of rehypothecation. And you might actually be able to pull it off and have your kids grow up in a world of opportunity.

But and I actually am positive for that, but I always say it. I’ve been saying for the last few months over and over that this is the Andy Dufresne moment. We have to crawl through the tunnel of shit to get to the other end.

Sorry, Kukla, I owe you more money. You have to get to the other end. One of the greatest movies of all time.

It is. I love it. But it’s a good analogy for where we are.

Like, we’re in this debt prison, man. If you’re going to, you know, cut a hole through the wall. You’re going to have to crawl through the shit.

Sorry, Kukla, to get to the other end. And that’s kind of what better person could you have to oversee this than not only Trump and Doge and Elon, but a concerted effort leading up to it to get our culture back, to do things in a patriotic manner, to bring back meritocracy versus lifestyle preferences and all of these things that I think, look, I mean, it’ll go down to me as one of the greatest mysteries in the world, other than the fact that maybe they feel that the light is going to be shown upon them. That you have these moronic left idiots who are screaming that they’re trying to eradicate all of the malfeasance and fraud.

And screaming about, oh, lack of privacy. Really? That’s what it is? You’d rather our government lose three or four trillion dollars out of the Social Security because they can’t even find or to be paying people Social Security checks that are 180 years old, or giving money to a charity that ends up in Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. I mean, these things are just so awful.

And yet we still have this infighting between the two parties. But I think much of the country is sick of that crap. They admire what is being done.

And that’s the kind of thing that you would do before you reset it. Listen, we’ve tried hard. We went in.

We’ve rooted out all the fraud. We’re now accountable. And all of our spending will be on a blockchain.

But we’ve crossed that line, folks. And in order to give ourselves a world that our children will have opportunity in, this is what needs to be done. I could see that happening.

And he’s doing things in a very plotted manner. I guess I’ll just simply say that all of this stuff related to gold, however, has nothing to do with the tariffs. And I believe it’s much bigger than that.

But I guess only time will tell. Yeah, I don’t even know where to go. How much time do we have today, Andy, before you turn it over? Whatever you need, brother.

Whatever. I’ll take more questions. Yeah, we did.

We made a deal with the devil and they made a deal for us. And now that we’ve seen the fine print, we don’t want the deal. Yeah, well, that’s pretty much it.

But we need accountability. And I really do hope, truthfully, I do hope that these folks go to jail. I do.

And that would be justice. Because we’ve gone so far astray, it’s insane. And there has to be a resetting of government.

There has to be a resetting of the entire system that we’ve become, I think, the laughingstocks. And I admire Elon Musk for doing what he’s doing. It is a little weird, I will admit, to see him standing next to Trump in the Oval Office with his son on his head.

But whatever. He’s a brilliant guy and he’s doing this. I’m going to roll with it.

Because never would I have ever thought that we would ever get to a point of rooting out this corruption. And it has to be done. And so, God bless him.

So, yeah, it’s safe. It’s never as safe as holding it yourself. But being in the state of Texas with gold is one of the safer places.

Simply because they have embraced gold as a state. Excuse me. Made it legal tender.

And in a world of imperfect choices, that’s a decent one. Now, having it in an IRA environment, you do reserve the right to distribute it at any time. If you’re under 59.5, you’ll pay a penalty, but a 10% plus income tax.

But not a bad idea to start distributing it if you’re concerned. Why do I discourage GLD? Oh, boy. Well, read pages, I think it’s 6 through 12, titled Risk Factors.

Download the prospectus. Read it. You’ll sell it.

It’s one of the worst products I’ve ever seen. Things like, we’ll be in this prospectus. The custodian reserves the right to use subcustodians.

So JP Morgan can use a subcustodian. But JP Morgan does not reserve the right to audit the subcustodians. Or to visit the premises of where it’s stored.

If the subcustodians, the custodian is not responsible for the subcustodian’s errors and or omissions. If the bars held by the subcustodians do not meet London good delivery standards, in other words, 400 ounce good gold bar, then the custodian is not responsible. So it could be a lead bar painted gold and the custodian is not responsible.

It goes on and on and on. You’re paying a 28% collectible tax, not the regular capital gains tax. And what else was there? There was another one that was a biggie.

You can never take the metal out of it, as I was explaining. It’s a poor price representation and that’s it. So, yeah, I wouldn’t own it.

Not to mention a 40 basis point, I believe it’s 40 basis point annual management fee that you’re paying BlackRock and JP Morgan. So it just comes right off the top. So you’d be far better off owning physical metal in an IRA.

If this is in an IRA, your storage fee is less than the management fee. And if it’s not in an IRA, then you should definitely own the physical instead of GLD. Yeah, well, I mean, it’s true.

We have been paying into it our entire lives and it should come back to us. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the time many of us get to the Social Security age, they’ll say, well, if you have X amount of net worth or you’ve made X amount or whatever, you’ll be eligible for a greatly diminished amount of it. And I’ve talked to a family member of mine who’s pretty successful and he takes Social Security and he’s like, you know, I don’t need it, but damn it, I’ve paid, you can see how much you’ve paid into it.

It’s a lot and why not? Why not get it back if that’s what you’re doing and you’re doing it to… It’s your money. Yeah, well, but you’re doing it to support other workers too, you know, and so when it’s your turn, you should get it back. Thank you, Marvin.

You know, it was a lot better yesterday and I woke up this morning and it’s a little plugged again. I’ve traveled over 2 million miles on Delta and never had that happen to me, ever. And I landed a week ago Friday back from Aspen and I couldn’t hardly hear out of my left ear.

It’s getting better, but I mean, it’s enough to where I’m ready to stick a sewing needle in my ear. It’s that annoying, but it’s getting better. I appreciate you asking, brother.

What other questions we got? No, right now I’m having fun with all the car comments as much as I like cars. I like cars too. What’s your favorite car, Mark? I’m still my old Z cars.

I love split bumper, the early seventies Camaros. I desperately want to find a 78 Firebird formula. Preferably Burgundy on Burgundy.

My brother and I had one and I just want to do a tribute car at some point. So I’m always have my eye out for 78 Firebird formula. Just a motion, probably my favorite car, 72.

I like the early C3 vets convertible that had the split chrome bumpers. You don’t like any of the new ones, huh? Not really. I mean, they’re technologically fantastic.

They’re world-class performance. Their supercars are all that, but they don’t have that raw sexiness of like the C1s, the C2s, the C3s. The Austin Martin still has that sexy.

Jaguar still makes some just stunning, stunning cars. And the new vet, yeah, I mean, go buy a transformer. Yeah, the new vet, it looks too much like it’s trying to be a Ferrari.

I agree. I don’t know. I’ve always been a car guy and I usually go, it’s the only thing.

If you saw me outside of this and you saw me, I am very understated in the way I dress, in what I, you know, typically don’t wear hardly anything, in the way of anything that would lead you to believe that I had any modicum of success. In fact, you know, half in Minnesota, I was, you know, jeans and sweatshirts and Timberlands, you know. And here in Florida, I’m, you know, shorts, t-shirt and whatever.

It’s like, but cars are the one, my one weakness. And I’ve always kind of blown through cars and I do love them, but not a good habit. I’ll tell you that much.

No, not very affordable unless you do your own work. Someday, my first car was a 79 Dodge Colt with the window. Why they ever called that the Dodge Colt or they had their version of the Charger then with that same Lee Iacocca body style from Mitsubishi.

That was, oh man, that was just horrendous. Yes, I am wearing a Rolex. That’s, I don’t always wear it, but I am.

I’m going out after this. I have to go run an errand somewhere. Speaking of you and later, I’ll send you a link just in case you can make it for whiskey.

No, no pressure. I will try, please do. Oh man, some of these Chevelle convert.

I just love, we get into these car conversations a lot, Andy, because I’m a big car guy and it is so. Yeah, it’s fun. All right, 401ks, et cetera.

I’ve had a number of people in chat. I think I saw three or four wanting to know, saying, hey, it’s time for me to roll it over. How do they do that? Do they just info at milesfranklin.com and then say, hey, I’m interested in rolling over my 401k or my retirement? Yeah, the first step.

Yeah, that is a good way to do it. But really, man, I’m falling apart. The first step would be to go to New Direction website.

NDTCO is my favorite. We work with all of them, Equity and Entrust and American Church Trust. We work with all of them, but our gold star, they used to be American Church Trust.

But anyways, you roll over tax-free from your current custodian to one of these. I do like New Direction’s the best. And upon rolling that over, you call us and we get you your gold and silver.

It’s really that simple. And it’s a really great way to access the gold and silver market without having to write out a big check. You can use the funds in the IRA.

You can take physical possession of the metal through distribution. It is a taxable event. But I love it, especially if you’re anywhere near the distribution age.

I think it’s a great program. We will only recommend items to you that are very mainstream vanilla and liquid, like American Eagles or Canadian Maple Leafs. Nothing proof, nothing fancy schmancy.

Since I came on your show maybe six months ago and mentioned about companies that were harming people, the stories that I have received are extraordinary. They’re quite awful, quite shocking. It’s very important to me that we are very transparent with people about what we’re putting in the IRA.

And we would never recommend anything esoteric or telling you it’s going to give you this great profit potential. It’ll just be straightforward gold and silver bullion and bullion coins. And we’re pretty good at it.

So, yeah, New Direction Trust, reach out to us. And one of our brokers or myself will walk you through the entire process. Very straightforward, very transparent, very easy, very conservative.

Nothing fancy. We’d love to help your listeners. Mark, you know that.

And any way that we can, we will take special care of them. If they come from you, they have a special meaning to us. And we’re very grateful for the years of being able to work with you.

And I’ll make damn sure that that’s always the case. Yeah, make certain you say saw you on Mark Z or something along those lines. Yeah, info at milesfranklin.com, saw you on Mark Z. That’s super important.

Andy, you keep going. But I need to kick you out of here so you can run errands. Okay.

Actually, it’s because I had to get on to a work Zoom. No, Mark. I need a friend.

I know. I’m going to be here all afternoon and evening for you, though, Andy. I’m looking forward to whiskey later if you’re up for it.

Yeah, so I’ll come by again at the end like I did last time. Mark found a 78 Burgundy in Nashville. Yeah, I’m hoping Claire will send me an email with a link or something for it.

Not money I need to spend now, but if it’s reasonable, I might try to figure it out. Right on. Yeah, and aren’t you? Oh, we talked about that.

When are you coming down here again where we’re going to get together on that Sunday? March 8th and 9th. The question is, do we get together the evening of the 7th or do we get together on 9th? And I think because you have a golf tournament. I have my member guest golf tournament, and that’s my favorite tournament of the entire year.

It’s pure debauchery. I’m leaning towards Sunday afternoon or evening for dinner. The 9th, I can come down there and see you.

I’m trying to get it finalized today or tomorrow. So by the end of the week, I can say, hey, this is what it’s going to be, and this is going to be where. So I’ll reach out to you.

Let’s have a like. I mean, could you do like a cocktail meet and greet happy hour kind of thing on the 9th? Yeah, that’s what I’m looking for. The question is, do we do it in Cape Canaveral or we do it in Orlando? I don’t know which one’s going to be the easiest for everybody.

It’s equal for me. I’m flying in Orlando, driving to Cape Canaveral. Why would you drive into Orlando? And then I suppose that’s that is actually close.

I suppose I would do it wherever. I mean, Orlando’s further for me. But for you, Mark, a lot of people are going to be at the event in Cape Canaveral.

So it probably makes more sense to do it like immediately after the event somewhere, because I think they wrap up at like 330 or four that day. To me, it makes more sense to do something five, six o’clock in Cape Canaveral. I’d love it.

I’d be there. Hundred percent. Thousand percent.

I’ll be there. I can’t wait to see you and everyone else and have a couple of drinks. Beverages.

I’m looking forward to I’ll get your details this week. Don’t worry. And for the rest, I’ll see you this evening at seven for a brief news update and then whiskey and wisdom for a little relax.

Love you, brother. I’ll see you tonight. See you tonight.

Thanks, everybody else. Take care.