Repatriating and Monetising Gold (Uncut) 02-15-2025

Repatriating and Monetising Gold Before BRICS Is Key to Financial Survival and Dominance.

What I’m getting at is this. Is it possible, Mario, and I’ll ask you, is it possible that what we are seeing is actually a ruse? A ruse to where Trump is telling the world, yeah, we’re going to tariff gold and silver. He won’t tariff silver.

It’s in a deficit. It will kill our industry. And is he just saying we’re going to tariff gold? We’re going to do it? I haven’t done it yet, but we’re going to, as a ruse to bring all of the gold back under a different context instead of waking up the world to, yeah, we’re going to back our currency or our treasury market with gold.

We’re going to revalue it. We got to suck it all back first. So maybe we’re not going to make it so easy to send it back to you guys, the rest of the world would think.

But what if we say it’s a tariff thing and we got these unbacked naked shorts? What I’m getting at is this seems much bigger to me than Trump tariffs. Saturday, February 15, 2025, Monaco 64, Home of Alternative Economics and Contrarian Views. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with my friend from Miles Franklin, Andy Scheckman.

Andy, how are you? Mario, I miss you, brother. I miss you. It was wonderful to have you here at our house and to golf with you.

And you’re a good man. All the people I’ve met in 35 years in this industry, there are very few I would like to hang with and even fewer I’d invite into my home. You’re always welcome back here.

My friends loved you, and I miss my golfing buddies. So I’m doing well, brother. How about yourself? Yeah, I’m doing well as well.

The weather here isn’t as warm as in Florida, but I’m going to be playing on Sunday. And yeah, I really enjoyed the few days I spent with you there. It was great, man.

My dog misses you, too. You mentioned to me it’s about 40 degrees where you are. When I lived in Minnesota, I used to do that nonsense, too.

I used to have a golf cart enclosure made of canvas with zippers. It was a full enclosure. It would go all the way around, and it’d take 10 minutes to set it up.

And then we’d come in with a camping heater with propane, a little propane screw-in thing. And there goes the dog down there trying to mess with things. Stop it.

Anyways, she just moved the camera. Anyways, and we would heat that thing up and tie it with bungee cords to the cup holder inside the golf cart. And it’d be 80 degrees inside the cart.

Then you’d unzip the zipper, get out, freeze your ass off, hit your shot, get back in. And it was kind of fun. So although I don’t miss it, I’m happy with the 80-degree weather here in Florida.

I do hope you have a good golf round this weekend in the freezing cold. So for the viewers who don’t know, Andy is the president of Miles Franklin, a precious metals investment company or precious metals dealer. And Andy has a really busy schedule.

And I saw that when I was there with him. He does loads of interviews on social media. And I’ve scoured the social media to see what he’s been talking about.

And one of the topics that I thought was really interesting that we can start with, Andy, is central bank gold buying in Basel III, especially in lieu of what’s been happening at the Bank of England. I mean, I reported on that on the 29th of January. The FT came out and said they have an eight-week delivery delay for spot gold.

So can you expand on that, Andy? Doesn’t that sound like a default to you in a T plus one environment, meaning trade day, T, plus one day settlement? Where’s my gold? Oh, it’s eight weeks. Sorry, Mario. That’s not right.

Mario, sometimes I wonder if the dots I try and connect are if I’m being led astray by my own mind. But something feels very different to me. And I don’t think it’s the Trump tariffs that we’re all led to believe.

And maybe I’m just looking for something, but I don’t know. Let me explain. We’ve talked a lot about the Basel III reclassification of gold.

We’ve talked a lot about the central bank purchasing of gold, the repatriation of gold. This is stuff I’ve covered forever. What we’ve really never seen here in the United States is something that happened since November.

It’s ironic, or is it, that since the election, the United States has become a net importer of gold rather than a net exporter of gold. And that, to me, is kind of a dinging bell number one. And when you talk about the amount of gold that has been coming from London to New York, it’s more than just startling.

The COMEX supplies of gold have increased by about 75%. In the month of February, for the February contract, a record 59,296 contracts stood for delivery. Each one of those contracts is 100 ounces.

That surpasses the previous record of 47,132 in June of 2020 during the COVID pandemic, QE to infinity debacle. So that’s an increase of 12,134 contracts. That’s 5,929,600 ounces that stood for delivery.

Who’s got that kind of bread? We saw 13,735,000 ounces stand for delivery. Huge deliveries in the month of January as well. So we’re seeing massive deliveries come from London to COMEX.

And when you look at the fact that JP Morgan is set to deliver 4 billion in gold bullion to the COMEX for the February contract, that’s one of the largest shipments ever. And since 2024 November, the election, over 12 and a half million ounces and over 40 plus million ounces of silver have moved from London to the US vaults. It’s as if the Federal Reserve or the government is accumulating gold and silver, and possibly is part of something bigger than we’re led to believe, a sovereign wealth fund strategy.

I don’t know. But something different is indeed, indeed happening. And it’s also ironic that somewhere in that November time frame, I’m not exactly sure when, but well, let me back up.

It’s always struck me as startling that JP Morgan, who paid the $920 million fine for manipulating the metals market, was still allowed to be the custodian of SLV. And it was HSBC Bank that was a custodian of GLD, until recently. Now, JP Morgan is also the custodian of GLD.

HSBC’s gone. So you have BlackRock and JP Morgan, the ultimate foxes guarding the henhouse, as the custodians of GLD and SLV, amongst other contracts. And so I want you to follow my line of thought here.

I’m going to try and put it all together here for you in a minute. We talk about the ETF outflows, right? GLD has seen 16 tons of gold exit the fund recently. And the conventional reasons that we’re led to believe, if you watch CNBC, is that, well, it’s a stronger dollar, higher interest rates, profit-taking, blah, blah, blah.

Bullshit. What it is, in my opinion, it’s the insiders cashing out before potential exposure to this scheme, if you will. I believe it’s share redemption by the big, big, big, big baskets that are redeeming the shares for the physical metal.

Following this trend, it’s not what we are led to believe. If you look at SLV as an example, as well, the borrowing costs on SLV, if you want to short it, have gone from 0.5% to 12% in just a couple of weeks. It’s a 24 times increase.

Really? What’s that all about? And the number of shares that are available to borrow have gone from 10 million to 10,000 in just a few weeks, 99.9% reduction. At the same time, there’s a 950 million-plus ounce shortfall in naked shorting on SLV. There’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s happening, a whole bunch of stuff.

And this movement from London to New York, to me, is signaling a coming market event. Now, could it be something deeper than we think? Remember what Blythe Masters told us? Blythe Masters, who used to run the JPMorgan trading desk, said, well, JPMorgan doesn’t buy gold for itself. It buys it for customers.

Well, who’s got $4 billion to buy gold? Could it really maybe be that these Trump tariffs is a ruse? A ruse? Remember what Judy Shelton said? Judy says, I want to issue 50-year treasuries backed by gold, redeemable for gold, and Trump will do it on July 4, 2026, the 250th year anniversary. We’ve discussed it, she said. She was his nominee for the Federal Reserve Chairman in 16, wasn’t confirmed, was an advisor, and I believe will be on the board of governors somewhere throughout his term, and maybe even replace Jerome Powell.

I guess we’ll see. But my point is that we are beginning to see gold and silver take on a different meaning, I believe, in the United States. And if you realize all of these things that are happening are so outside the realm of being normal, and now you see Scott Bissett, the Treasury Secretary, come out and say not only is gold his largest holding, but they want to remonetize the asset side of the balance sheet.

OK, look at the US government balance sheet once. It’s just pathetic. They have about $5 trillion in assets, the largest, about 40-plus percent of student debt.

Yes, it’s a receivable. It is an asset. And even if you file bankruptcy in the United States, you can’t get away from your student debt.

They passed a law to that degree, I don’t know, half a dozen years ago or so that says even if you do, they’ll take your Social Security. So you’re not going to monetize student debt. You’re not going to monetize the number two largest holding, which is military, military bases and guns and bullets.

Number three is land. I guess you could, but what about gold? Where is gold held? Oh, yeah, it’s called the gold revaluation account on every single balance sheet across the globe for central banks. The gold revaluation account.

What did the head of the Dutch National Bank say? What did the members of the Bundesbank say? What did Cynthia Loomis, the senator from Wyoming, say in advocating for ways to come up with revenue to buy Bitcoin for the strategic fund that she’s advocating for? All of these things are related in the fact that these people are all saying the same thing. Let’s revalue gold held in the gold revaluation account. Judy wants 50-year treasuries.

I asked her, why haven’t we audited Fort Knox? Well, we ought to. She said, it’s a lame excuse that they’ve given. It’s too much money and too logistically challenged.

And I say, bullshit. We’re the United States. Throw a few million at it.

Get it together. Get it done. Inspire confidence.

Judy, will gold be revalued held in the revaluation account? Well, about, yeah, maybe. What I’m getting at is this. Is it possible, Mario, and I’ll ask you, is it possible that what we are seeing is actually a ruse? A ruse to where Trump is telling the world, yeah, we’re going to tariff gold and silver.

He won’t tariff silver. It’s in the deficit. It will kill our industry.

And is he just saying we’re going to tariff gold? We’re going to do it. I haven’t done it yet, but we’re going to, as a ruse to bring all of the gold back under a different context instead of waking up the world to, yeah, we’re going to back our currency or our treasury market with gold. We’re going to revalue it.

We’ve got to suck it all back first. So maybe we’re not going to make it so easy to send it back to you guys, the rest of the world would think. But what if we say it’s a tariff thing and we’ve got these unbacked naked shorts? What I’m getting at is this seems much bigger to me than Trump tariffs and all of the dots lining up, especially Scott Besant saying we’re going to monetize the asset side of the balance sheet and his largest holding is gold.

And Judy Shelton advocates for this. And Cynthia Loomis says let’s revalue gold. All of these things make me say, hmm, could it be that the dots that I’m connecting, could I be looking at it right or maybe not? Maybe it really is taking advantage of the premium on COMEX for physical versus the LBMA.

Maybe it really is the tariffs. Or maybe he realizes, like the BRICS did, who said, what’s her name, Adelma Rousseff, the former president of Brazil, the head of the New Development Bank, we’ve agreed in principle to new common settlement currency called the unit, 40% gold back, redeemable. Maybe they’ve realized that if you want to remain competitive in the world, you better beat the BRICS to a new sound system that inspires confidence because no one wants our treasuries anymore.

And why would they? And so I think maybe Judy was right. Maybe you do need to collar it to gold. Maybe Cynthia Loomis is right.

We need to revalue gold. And maybe I’m right. The only way you can do that is to suck all the gold home before you do it.

And kind of the icing on the cake is, really? JP Morgan is now the custodian of BlackRock in two vaults, one in London, one in New York. They now hold more gold than half of the G20 countries under the auspice of GLD. And last thing before I stop and answer any questions that you have towards this, everyone has said to me, do you think they’ll confiscate gold again just like he did? No, I don’t.

I said for years on all sorts of videos, I think they’ll take the ETFs because you can’t take possession of the gold. Now, I said that the insiders took 16 tons out. They can, those that fund the basket.

I think you and I talked about that while you were here. I don’t know how much gold is in the basket, a lot, millions and millions and millions of dollars. But you and I, we can cash, get our money back in cash.

No one else can. So they can come in on a Friday night, close those two funds, say to the world, we’re sorry, those funds are now closed. You can still buy physical gold.

The money is in your money market account. Physical gold ownership is not illegal. Now they’re sitting on this massive stockpile of gold and silver administered by the crooked cartel bank who paid the largest fine the Justice Department has ever issued.

So what I’m saying is all of these things are lining up for them to be able to say to the world, we’ve decided to revalue gold, peg it to our treasury system and re-inspire confidence. And by the way, just like Elon Musk said, let’s put all of the government spending on a blockchain. Well, what if they put the gold holdings on a blockchain? Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about, what Zoltan Pozar has been talking about, Bretton Woods 3, transparency and commodities finding a connection, a marriage? To me, maybe I’m on something or maybe I’m onto something, not sure.

But I do think it’s a lot bigger, Mario, than just Trump tariffs. Yeah, I’ll make a few points to what you said. The first one is, do you think the CFTC and the regulators, the treasury would allow a private individual or institution to take the delivery of so much gold, 4 billion worth, and silver? I don’t think so.

The other one that I would say is, regarding Scott Besant, I listened to what he said, and he said liquid assets. And you mentioned land, of course, and the land has a lot of mineral resources underneath it, but it takes years to monetize that. So I see gold as the only real liquid asset on the Fed.

I didn’t catch that. Thank you for clarifying that. That’s balance sheet, yeah.

What else? Yeah. Could it be this is bigger than we are being led to believe? Do you think that maybe this is a plan to reintroduce gold at some point, but the first step is to get more because we’ve leased a lot of it out, maybe? Yeah. I mean, and Fort Knox, I think Steve Mnuchin, the treasury secretary in the first Trump administration, he visited Fort Knox, and he made a comment which was weird.

He said, gold is safe. He didn’t say the gold in Fort Knox is safe. So that was maybe a cryptic message.

I don’t know. And as regards to Judy Shelton, I’ve read her book too, and she talks about five and 10-year bonds as well, not just the 50-year. And you said silver is being shipped back to the US as well.

Do you think they’d ever think about bringing back pre-’65 coinage? I mean, that would be great. I don’t think it’ll be a bimetallic system, but I think they also realize that silver is almost, it’s not industrial, it’s strategic. And the amounts that, I mean, yeah, we saw 427 tons stand for delivery on the February contract, 13,735,000 ounces.

So I don’t know. I mean, maybe, I guess it’s a possibility. Judy Shelton certainly said that the best system was a bimetallic system, but something tells me no, but that it is being viewed and realized in a world where everyone is scrambling for the commodities that it’s a necessity, it’s strategic.

So I don’t know. But no, my gut is it’ll be gold, but it’d be pleasant surprise to be wrong. Oh, the other thing I want to note from your answer to my first question is that the BRICS, for example, we’ve been talking about the BRICS here for years, how they’re de-dollarizing, but they’re not as united and run as one unit as the United States.

So it makes sense if you want to compete with the BRICS that you would do what they’re doing and you do it a lot quicker, the gold remonetization. So I’m going to, before we go to the next big question, Andy, just wanted to ask you what you’ve got in terms of specials this week and going forward. And for the viewers, if you’re interested in getting in touch with Myles Franklin, all the details are below in the description.

And if you contact Andy or his associates, make sure you tell him Mario Maneco64 sent you there. That’s very important. Look, more or less everything is on special, but I mean, prices are stupid low.

In my career, Mario, the beginning of my career, for 15 plus years, no one bought gold bullion. Nobody did. They just bought these numismatics.

Nobody, nobody bought gold bullion. With gold at $300, $400 an ounce, you’d pay 4%, 5%, 6% premium for a gold eagle, $4.25, $4.30. For MS64 $20 Liberty like this, you may have paid $4.75, $4.80, which percentage-wise was still a 10%, 12% premium or whatever. And then right around the time Obama took office, the threat, the perception of a threat of confiscation was very strong.

And the premiums on these coins went parabolic, literally parabolic. And I flew all around America for about a year and a half telling people they need to switch out of these. And I had clients who had very large portfolios of them, huge.

And I would say, Mario, like if you’re one of my clients living in New Jersey, Mario, I’m flying to your house, and you’re not going to say no. Trust me on this, Mario. You have 500 of these coins.

There’s three or four auction galleries, Stacks and Heritage and Spectrum, these galleries that were bidding with $1,000 gold for a 6420 lib, maybe 75% or 80% above bid. Many of you will sell me. So $1,800 on 1,000 spot.

And I’m going to fly to your house, and I’m going to bring you 1,800 gold eagles for the 1,000 MS6420 libs you have, and we’ll make the swap. I’ll send them back FedEx as soon as they get to you. The point of it is that I’ve never seen anything like that since.

I mean, it went for two years where the premiums went parabolic. But then they started to come down, but never too much to where I would recommend them. And since 2009 or 10, all I’ve recommended was bullion, literally.

I mean, and I thought the world that we lived in justified bullion. These coins right now, and I took part in a monstrous buyback, I mean monstrous, and they’re all in stock, different grades, 62, 3, 4, $10 Liberties, $10 Indians, Saint-Germain’s 20 libs, all in stock. You can trade gold eagles right now straight up for 63 grade Saint-Gaudens without losing a coin.

That’s never happened even once in my career. Never, ever, never. Yeah, there you go.

And the thing I’m trying to simply say is this, that this represents to me the finest opportunity in gold I’ve ever seen in 35 years. And I don’t say that lightly, ever. These coins have zero premium right now to what they’ve always had even in bear markets.

At their peak that I witnessed for almost two years, they were trading at 70, 80, 90% premiums to gold spot. That’s unheard of on one end, but this is unheard of on the other end. And I don’t know.

I think that if you’re looking for opportunity to buy gold or to trade bullion into something like this, in my entire 35-year career, I’ve never, ever, ever seen anything like it. And there are a lot of other benefits that we can discuss about this entire transaction when people call us if they decide they want to make a trade or buy some of these outright. All I can say is that from a standpoint of special, this is the first real special I’ve ever offered.

I’m talking special, special. I would always own these over gold bullion if I had my druthers. But the problem is that they cost too much money most of the time.

At the same time, the biggest money in the world is rushing, scrambling to acquire and repatriate gold. The American public is so asleep that it’s created a market where these coins have, for 35 years, even in the worst of markets, always had a 20% premium to spot or higher, are now below gold eagles. Never seen that, not even for a day in 35 years.

So yes, I have specials on philharmonics, and gold eagles are on sale, and 10th ounce Britannias, and junk silver, the best value in silver, pre-’65. It’s all on sale. And even though we don’t publish most of this stuff on our website for specific reasons, and one day I’ll do a podcast and talk about the 50 reasons I don’t, if you send an email to info at Myles Franklin and say Mario sent me, ask for our price list.

Ask any questions, no obligation. And we’ll send you a price list that we don’t publish that will be as good or better than anyone in America. But if you like these coins, say, this is what I want.

I’d like some St. John’s. I’d like some 20 lips. Send me some prices.

And I think you will be shocked and blown away, or better yet, asked to be called or call one of our brokers. In my career, in my career, and I will say this loud and proud, I have never, ever, ever, ever seen a better value in gold than in the $20 and $10 pre-’33 numismatics right here, right now, because the premium is, in essence, non-existent. So sorry for such a long answer, but I figure since I’m saying this is, look, I’ve done this since I was 19.

This is the best value I’ve ever seen. I thought it warranted just a little bit of extra explanation. That’s great.

So moving on, Andy, just wonder what you think about the geopolitical and stagflation warnings right now for the United States and for the world. This is a topic I think you’ve been covering a little bit of late. Yeah, I mean, look, stagflation is something to me that is rather probable.

And the economy slowing down, in essence, and inflation not. A situation characterized by higher inflation, perhaps higher taxes, little or no economic growth, I think it’s highly probable, actually. I mean, look, there are a lot of things in motion, like could Trump revalue gold and how would that all play in? But when you talk about the fact that in terms of a slowing economy, the debt overhang is so massive.

There’s $28 trillion in US government bonds that are set to mature alone by 2028. That doesn’t take into account the current bonds that need to be issued to finance things. By every measurement, historically, we should be in a recession.

I don’t know if they actually say we are, but we should be. And if we’re all being honest, we probably are. Employment numbers don’t look so great, in my opinion.

The economy is sputtering at best. So I think that the likelihood of seeing some sort of 70-style stagflation is probable. A slowing economy, increase in interest rates, excuse me, in inflation.

And that seems to be where we’re going. Inflation is picking up again, as we see. And it’s probably much, much higher than we are being told.

And it doesn’t seem to me like the economy is hitting on all cylinders. That is, in essence, the genesis or the beginning of some sort of a stagflation environment. Look, the only reason I don’t answer that question far more definitively, and I’m kind of hedging, is that I just feel that there are things that are coming with Trump’s decisions surrounding what he’s going to do with the economy, that things are going to be a little bit different.

Look, if he does revalue gold, what does that do? That drops the dollar considerably. The dollar will fall in relation to gold. And so you could have a weakened dollar, massive inflation, and a weakening economy, along with very unstable banking systems.

So yes, you could see stagflation. You could see hyperstagflation. You could see a 1930s-style depression meets the printing press.

And onshoring all of our manufacturing, which he wants to do, will come at a massive price. Yes, maybe in the long run, it’s better for our families, our children, and our grandchildren. But that’s why everything left to begin with, because it was much cheaper.

You get much more in the way of profit. You bring all that stuff home, the manufacturing, just building the infrastructure, modernizing it, training, and the cost of labor. You’re talking a massive problem in terms of almost heading into a depression.

Costs will go way up. Profits will go way down. People will get laid off at the same time.

You have a weak dollar, higher inflation. Yeah, I think stagflation ultimately is probably the outcome. It’s the Shawshank Redemption.

It’s the tube that Andy Dufresne had to crawl through to get to the other side. The other side, there is hope. But we have to go through some form of pain due to the 30 years’ worth of suppressing interest rates and the distortions that it created.

There’s no way around it. The misallocations of resources and capital, the massive amount of debt that was incentivized through low interest rates, all of this stuff has to be worked through. And if you do bring home and try to onshore manufacturing and throw tariffs up and do all of these things, yeah, you could see higher inflation, weaker dollar, and a slowing economy.

To me, it’s highly probable at some point throughout this next cycle. Yeah. And like you said, if you want to bring everything back to the US, manufacturing, mining, extraction, it’s going to be painful.

And I agree, in the long term, it will be better. And it looks like the BRICS have been sensing this for years because they’re trying to look after their own interests and create their own system. And to me, geopolitically, it seems like this stagflation is going to be also a result of deglobalization.

Is that how you see it as well? 100%. 100%. Absolutely.

And at the same time, when you mentioned the BRICS, part of me feels, and that’s why, again, there’s just so much fluidity in all of this. I guess if I were going to encapsulate my feelings publicly in one sentence, it would be that if we fail to monetize gold before the BRICS, to what degree do we risk losing dominance in the entire global financial system? And what does that do if he does remonetize it to a level sufficient enough to, I mean, put it at $12,000 an ounce, and you’ve just added $3 trillion plus free and clear to the Treasury. And Trump, all he would need to do is to tell Scott Bissett to tell Jerome Powell to revalue gold.

No congressional approval. And so what does that do? Does that increase inflation immediately and devalue the dollar immediately on top of all of these other things, like bringing back manufacturing, which raises costs tremendously, which adds towards the deglobalization? And yes, I do think we are heading in that direction. And although there’s no playbook, it certainly makes a lot of sense.

Great, Andy. It was really nice to talk to you for the first time since I’ve come back from Florida. And hopefully, we’ll be coming over again.

I hope so, buddy. I mean, next, I’ve got to come to visit you. And you and I need to take a trip over to Scotland and visit the motherland over there and play golf, which would be fantastic.

And that’s next on the list. I’ve got to pay you back. I’ve got to come visit you next time.

That would be great. And so with that, Andy, I wish you a great weekend. And hopefully, we’ll keep in touch.

Don’t go, Mario. I need a friend, buddy. Don’t go.

I always enjoy our conversations. And I look forward to doing it again with you real soon. And there’s always a lot to talk about.

I could sit and talk with you about this for the next hour. But thanks for having me, buddy. And you stay well.

I look forward to picking up where we left off. And just another thing for the viewers, Andy has a really good YouTube channel as well, Miles Franklin. You should check it out.

He does some great interviews there. I appreciate that very much. Thank you for that remark.

And I even had you on the show. There’s an interview of me and you on there, and we’ll have to do that again real soon. So thanks for that, Mario.

You’re welcome. Take care. You too, brother.