What's The Point Anyway?

Episode #37 - The World of Gold & Silver with Eric Yeung

• Luke McInnes

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For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in financial markets and it was actually in the process of studying this that I really started to get interested in broader things like history, philosophy and faith. Anyone who is a skeptic and studies finance ultimately ends up being very interested in gold - the shiny yellow rock that has shaped empires for as long as man has been on the earth.

I reached out to Eric Yeung, a Hong Kong based gold & silver investor who is one of the most prominent content producers on the topic on the internet today. Eric was all too willing to join me for a very engaging discussion on the role of gold in the global financial system and how it may feature as we reach the end of the world as we know it.

For more of Eric's content, check out his X profile where he shares his analysis on a daily basis.

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and then I can edit later once we actually sort of start the conversation. But thanks for joining me from Hong Kong. It's pleasure. Have you? I'm just wondering, do you want me to send you my avatar so that you have it to put on? Yeah, sorry. that I can I can edit it in after the fact so don't worry about doing it now but yeah after this combo I'll put that background. Hold on, let me just see if I can grab it and send it to you. Perfect. Yep, go on here. Did you see it on your... Do see it? On your X? Yeah. Yeah. Perfect, got it. So I'm looking at it now and I guess anyone looking at this, looking at this recording later will see it, but it's a picture of a gorilla with a gold necklace, a crown and a bunch of gold bars. Maybe it's a good place to start. What's the story with the avatar? Just, you know, like I had it for a while. It's the uh Silver Stacker guys, they made it for me. So I'm, they call themselves like the Akes, right? So I'm like the king, king of the Akes. It's King Kong. That's it. It's that simple. So it's just a funny, funny joke kind of thing, right? That evolved into, into what it is today. That's what it is. Yeah. Eric, what do do with yourself? So you run a, your, mean, I've been following you for some time and you're very sort of highly regarded content creator and I guess commentator in the goal in the around sort of precious metals and gold, ah which is it, which is an area that I find truly fascinating. And what I do want to definitely get into is I think the whole precious metals and gold space, the intersection of that with sort of history, philosophy, faith, everything is a fascinating topic that I hope we can explore. But what do you, maybe just for a bit of background for everyone, what do you do with yourself? What do you do day to day? Well, I was a contract manufacturer for big box retailers for a couple of decades, basically. So I'm pretty much retired now from that. But I guess it's good timing, right? Because look at what's happening with the tariffs. So that's actually my expertise, which is why recently a lot of people are talking about the tariffs. They are talking about what's happening and what... may actually transpire in the future, right, with the Trump tariffs. And I'm pretty much, em I'm participating in that conversation every chance I get because that's pretty much my business. That's why I did. Yeah. in Hong Kong, right? I'm based in Hong Kong, but I had a setup in China as well. So I was traveling, you know, Hong Kong and mainland China a lot until recently, right? So, uh you you're in Australia, right, Luke? That's where you are. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm Melbourne, Australia. so I've been, you know, been to Hong Kong a couple of times, been to China, um, know the, know the area reasonably well, actually, uh, many years ago worked for a Chinese and Melbourne based Chinese family, um, for their sort of family office. So I know, yeah, which was, which was really interesting. So, um, gave me a great insight into the crazy world of Chinese business. Yeah, so anyway, uh so you probably know China more than most people, right? But like the good news is that if Australia don't get bullied by uh the US and if you're doing something stupid, I think the future is bright for Australia. I mean, it's just gonna be more business between, I think the biggest trading partner of Australia right now is China. Like I have a chart here from, yeah, it's China. uh Yeah. So like I said, looping back to what I just said, if Australia don't give in to the pressures by Donald Trump and the US government, think Australia is gonna do well. That's just my opinion. Yep. up in, did you grow up in Hong Kong or China? North America. So I grew up in Hong Kong, like a bit, and then I moved to North America at a very young age and then just, I guess, 20 years ago I moved back to Hong Kong, China. And where did the interest in gold come from? Mainly right after the GFC, like the great financial crisis, I really dug into researching on precious metals and I got into gold. It's funny because I didn't buy, like my first serious batch of gold is, I bought a lot. mean, we're talking about a couple hundred ounces, right? Even back then. I bought it not that cheap. Like, I mean, talking about, you know, the price levels back then, right? Of course it's cheap now, right? Anything that you bought in the last 10 years is cheap compared to what the price is right now, right? But yeah, I bought a whole bunch and I sat on it for a long time. And then I really added, like I buy multiples in 2019. Okay, so just before... Yeah. Yeah. COVID whole situation around there, right? I bought it because of the repo crisis and the Fed pivot by power. So I saw like what he did, which is like Donald Trump gave him pressure. And then he just, you know, from, you know, potentially increasing interest rates to at that point, he started taking that interest rate to zero. Yep. And I thought, hey, know, something wrong there, right? So I got, I really bought a lot of gold in 2019. Yeah. That's what happened. when you looked at, mean, you know, people use, I sort of lean into the term that some people take as a criticism yet, like the whole idea of, know, like there's been gold bugs that have been out there, you know, for 20, 30 years waiting for the end of the system. What, what, what were your conclusions when like the G and I think the GFC, it was actually, I literally was. My last year of university, I studied finance commerce was 2009. So I sort of graduated right into uh the heart of it, but it was a period in time. I look back now in retrospect where people started to realize that there was some serious sort of structural issues in the way that financial markets were put together. What was, how did you conclude? Like when you looked into it, what did you learn about markets and why did that? Why was your conclusion that you wanted to be invested in precious metals? know, tell you the my business was doing really well, like around and after GFC, right? Like, I mean, if you look at the Chinese trade surplus with the world, especially the US, it just shot way up. It went straight up, right? Like, so I was a beneficiary of that. So I bought the gold, you know, dropped a little bit, dropped, I think, 30 % from 2000. I didn't buy it at a peak. bought it at like, I think 2013, 2014, 2013. That's my first big batch. And I really just forgot about it. know, I mean, my main investment before 2019 was tech stocks. I made a lot of money. I made millions of dollars in tech stocks. And everybody did, right? Anybody who... you just bought your board and I you bought in your hold and I just went up. Yeah. Yeah, exactly, it went up, right? So like, I mean, it didn't go up hockey stick, like it did post COVID, right? And after 2022, but it did go up, uh especially the Chinese tax dogs, which I was really heavily invested in, right? So yeah, like Tencent, Alibaba, et cetera. Alibaba wasn't public yet, but it was mainly Tencent. Anyway, so the whole point is, uh I bought the goal, I just forgot about it. Set and by votes, and I didn't really do anything about it. So, to answer your question, yes, I did realize something was wrong with the whole Supreme situation, the CDOs, et cetera, but because my business did so well, I just didn't think about it much. I just really focused, yeah. for the end. were, you were making money in business, but you'd say that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. that thing hit the bottom in 2012, I was actually in the US buying properties. So I still own those properties and they went up multiples in terms of value. But I bought it with cash in 2012 because nobody, back then post GFC, nobody would give you a mortgage plus. yeah, yeah. a foreigner, right? So they wouldn't give me a mortgage anyway. So I paid in cash, I bought a whole bunch of real estate. I bought, like I said, tech stocks and gold was part of it. I diversified and I just forgot about it for almost a decade. That's it, yeah. you, if you went back before that, like, you know, early two thousands, did you have any idea? Did you understand gold? Did you know what gold was? What, what function it served or, or, or did you really start your research into a post JFC? It's really post-GFC, Like, before GFC, I think I was like everybody, right? Like everybody else. If I have a time machine and travel back in time to 2002 and tell my younger self that this is gonna happen, I probably don't believe myself, right? Because back then, everybody was a milkshaker. Like the milkshake guy, right? Everybody believes that... the US dollar is going to last forever. mean, some people still believe that, right? But like, like back then, it's probably 99.999 % of the people. You know, you've, yeah. Oh, absolutely. And you know, like my whole focus back then was, you know, US, US equities and, and merging markets like China equities. I bought stocks back then. I mean, I bought Apple. Yeah. I didn't hold on to it, but I bought Apple back in 1999, before the tech bubble included. So, there you have it. so, so, so I guess what I'm getting at is like with your, with your research into precious metals in that period of time, even, even though you bought some, and then it sort of just became back of mind as, the show went on, what, why did, why, what about this sort of shiny yellow rock became interesting in the wake of what we'd learned during the GFC? Like, why would you, why would you buy gold? And I'm asking this potentially to sort of draw an answer out of you that's for the person listening to this that still may not actually know all that much about gold. They think it's interesting, but they can't quite wrap their heads around what's the investment case for. Well, back then it was very simple, I mean, I didn't know as much as I do right now. Didn't do the research. Twitter wasn't, I don't think Twitter is anything like what it is right now. Maybe it was around, it was a text thing, On the old, not a smartphone, right? So anyway, yeah, yeah. So basically... You know, back then, my whole thought process was that the US is doing this QE thing. It's basically printing money. mean, that's, at least that's what I thought it was, right? uh You know, now I know the difference between QEMDS and QE US Treasury bonds, fine, right? But back then, it was so new, I just thought, okay, well, they're printing this much money, so I better buy something that retains value. as kind of like insurance, right? So I took a little bit of money off my total net worth and I bought a whole bunch of gold. And that's it. It was as simple as that, yeah. so, so if you, it's just basically a hedge of something, hedge of something. How much, how deep did you go? Did you go into the history of it or did you just know gold was sort of a hedge and that was enough for you? You know what? I read a book written by Jim Rickers back then. I mean, he was like, I know that Mike Maloney existed even back then, but I didn't really, you know, watch any of his videos back then, all the way back then. But I did read the currency wars by Jim Rickers. So I read that, I saw the QE and I thought, okay, buy some gold. It's that simple. Yep. mean, back then things were simpler, right? Than today. Yeah. So what have you learned? What have you learned in the last 15 years? And how is your, how is your understanding of sort of gold and precious metals in lieu of the world that we're living in now evolved and developed over time? Well, lot, obviously. You look at my X accounts, it's just something new every day. But the bottom line, I think, is that the world is trying to diversify away from the US dollar and US treasury bonds. I wouldn't say completely give it up because uh then we'll see violent reactions in the market. Yeah. outsized reactions in the market right now, but not to the point of complete implosion of the market, right? So what that tells me is that, yes, the world is moving away from the US dollar and US treasuries, but they're not completely giving it up. Since it's still, you know, like the existing system, right? Yep, yep. So I think what's happening and uh facts actually support my thesis is that physical gold is increasingly becoming a replacement to the US treasury bonds as a alternative global neutral reserve asset. So that's the main theme. Yeah. what is happening right now. And everything else revolves around this concept. And where, where do you sit? within the gold community, there's varying scales of, I think anyone that's, that's a gold sort of fanatic doesn't trust sort of the mainstream position. So as a, as a starter, so I think, so I think anyone that's into gold is, is skeptical of mainstream, but, then I find that that the people in the community sort of range from a little bit skeptical to full blown sort of conspiracy. And I don't even say conspiracy theorists as a negative word, but basically of the view that everything is sort of a conspiracy and there's all different sort of games going on. Where do you sit on that? You seem to be fairly level-headed on it. I don't take everything. I don't, I try not to go like who conspiracy theory, like some people say Fort Knox is empty. I don't, I don't think that I think, I think they do have to go. Maybe they were shot, you know, I'm talking about all four, all four of the votes that the U S government keep their physical golden, right? Denver, Fort Knox, the New York Fed and you know, was it the... the uh... I forgot the last one. Well, it's Fort Knox, Denver, New York Fed, and West Point. Got it. West Point, right? So anyway, all four of these valves combined, probably they were missing a couple thousand metric tons. But look at what happened in the last couple months. 2,000 metric tons plus, floating to the US, right? And probably more by now, probably around 3,000. Yeah. So, you know, my belief is that they probably do have the gold. It's just a matter of time before they pull the trigger and revalue the gold that the US Treasury has on its bottom sheet, which is 8,133 metric tons. Right now, it's valued at 42.22, I believe, right? ounce. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that needs to multiply by at least a factor of 15 or something. Yeah. So what's your view on who the various factions are? Like when we talk US and, know, I think we've lived particularly into the post 1971, we've lived in a, a US dollar. dominated financial system. And then you've got the whole Euro dollar market where there's us dollars sort of being created in offshore markets. And this system has served certain, I think it's served a lot of factions and it's been, but it, but it's come to the end of its natural life. My position sort of at this point in time is that to me, seems like And this is, and this is why I think things have just got really weird post GFC that we're coming towards the end of a system that always had an end date. And now you have different factions sort of jostling over who's going to have the power in whatever spills out of it, which is why you sort of have deals being made and it looks like there's alliances and then there's, and then the alliances quickly change. who, when you talk to us, do you, like, do you think the U S has been acting in its own interest? Or when you talk US, are we thinking about sort of a more sort of global sort of cabal that had been sort of controlling things using the US as its proxy? I know some people think, you know, the U S is completely controlled by, you know, foreign countries, maybe like some people say Davos, which is, you know, the Europeans. some people say it's the banking cartel and, um, some people say it's Israel, right? That controls, you know, Washington DC. It's probably a mix of. Like the truth is never, like I find a singular reason. It's a lot more complex. Yeah, exactly, it's a lot more complex, right? So, you know, that's my belief. I think it's a complex, you know, situation that is going on, but you look at Donald Trump uh getting into power and what he's trying to do, well, somebody is definitely trying to, you know, do something different versus what the globalization crowd has been doing for the last, what, like 60 years? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it seems we've hit like the end of that hardcore sort of open borders, globalization, because, because I think that to me, it seems like the sort of societal impact of that was reaching a tipping point where you couldn't just keep gutting the middle class from all these countries or they were going to lose, just lose control of them. Yeah, mean, that's one narrative, another observation that somebody made is that uh during the initial phases of this transition, the ultra wealthy got even wealthier, a lot wealthier. So wouldn't that speed up that uh process you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. interesting. So is it like purely a planned transition? Or is it a bunch of guys, you know, who are using this um so-called planned transition as an excuse to make more money off the masses during the confusion? Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of, it's definitely, it's, you know, it's almost like, I don't know, like the end of a board game or the end of a game where, you know, you've had a lot of the key players, there's been a set of rules and it's worked, you know, and you could just play by those rules. And if you knew how the game worked, you could do very well for yourself, but it's almost like the last few years, it's like, rules have gone out the door and now it's just become sort of vicious at the top. like, yeah, as markets have sort of imploded and then completely re-inflated post COVID, it's like everyone's just run and rushed and grabbed to get as much as they can before it all sort of starts over. Yeah, it looks like that's what's happening right now. That's a very good description of what's happened. and so what's your, I'm, I'm interested to hear your perspective from someone that's sort of, you know, based in Hong Kong and, and China, because again, I've, I've sort of heard different theories that, you know, that, um, that China, China has essentially just been used by the Davos crowd to, um, you know, to further their own sort of wealth interests. And, that, you know, it'll be cast aside whenever they don't need it anymore. How sovereign do you think China has been over the last decade or so? they really now a global power that's calling their own shots or are they, do you think China is controlled by sort of global interests? mean, if China is completely controlled by the so-called colonial, neo-colonial global interests, look at Africa. That's Africa, or even look at India, right? Look at Africa and India. Do they have the kind of, you know, first rate infrastructure that China has? I don't think so, right? Because you visited China, you know. I don't know if you visited recently, but if you go to the uh coastal cities in China, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. it is. And look at Chinese industries. They're all vertically integrated. I mean, I just recently shared a, you know, fact sheet from Trading Economics to my followers. And on that list, has a whole bunch of items that China is currently exporting to the US. You know, I did that because like a lot of people in the US, I don't know, they might be busy, they might be lazy, they might be ignorant, I don't know, but they keep telling me, China only export mixed like cheap plastic crap. That's the most common line, right? Like I mean the person who doesn't know better, who don't know better, that's what they say, right? So let me just read it off. to you, okay? Right now. So the top items, this is for 2023. 124.5 billion US dollars, electrical and electronic equipment. 89 billion dollars, machinery, nuclear reactors and boilers. 30.1 billion, furniture, lighting signs, buildings. Like they actually make like sections of buildings and you ship it off. You know what I'm talking about, right? now, yes. one of the, they, um, so you probably know it CIMC. Okay. Yeah. So I think they manufacture half the world's shipping containers and they, they're, they're also, I think set up a division. That's the biggest modular hot modular building company in the world as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then 30 billion, that's toy, games, sports equipment. That's number four, okay? Number four, number five is plastics, 23 billion. So the top three are what we call first world advanced manufacturing products, right? I mean, I don't see Africa or Mexico. manufacturing nuclear reactors, do you? Right? Like that's pretty high end, right? So, you know, and then there's a whole bunch of other stuff like vehicles, know, iron, steel, uh know, clothing, commodities, looking down the list, footwear, organic chemicals, you know, so you name it, it's on it. But my point being, yeah, sorry, go ahead. anecdotally, cause this will tie into it. just, um, I'm a groomsman for a wedding in a, in a month's time. And, uh, and my friend's organized tailored suits for, for all of the groomsmen and, he's organized it for, you know, basically probably a company that's the best sort of tailored suit brand in Australia. And I was chatting to the guy there who's the tailor and All of their suits now get made in China. And these are like high end two, $3,000 suits. They're not made in Italy or Australia anymore. Like they're made in China. Whereas, I don't know, 10 years ago, it would have been like, yeah, you get a cheap suit from China, but if you want a really nice suit, you go to Europe. It's just not the case. Totally makes sense, my friend is a tailor. And that's what they do as well, right? I mean, they do the stuff in Hong Kong, the really, really high-end stuff, but for the low-end stuff, they do the measurements in Hong Kong, and then they ship it off, like ship off the measurements to China, and the Chinese tailor makes it and then ship it back to Hong Kong. That's how it works, right? So, completely normal, right? Everybody wants to make money. If the Chinese tailors can make it at, let's say, 90 % the quality that the Italian tailor makes it at, right? Why not? People want to make money. So that's the way I see it. So that's a good observation, Luke. Thank you. Pleasure. And so what do you say? So with the gold revaluation that you touched on before, who do you think, you know, obviously the U S has a lot, you know, you think it has a lot of gold. I would agree. I don't think, I don't think the volts are empty. think they've got lots and whatever they do have, we've seen a huge influx of have got additionally come in, um, just this year, China obviously have a enormous bank of gold Russia. think the same, like all of these key sort of powers in whatever this new, I'll call it new world order, not to just sort of use the conspiratorial term, but, essentially I think what we're seeing is some new order of, of doing things emerging. All the key players seem to have. accumulated a significant amount of gold to sort of control, you know, to, um, to establish themselves in the realignment of things. Are they all, are they all in the same situation in that they're incentivized to have a much higher gold price to sort out the sovereign debt issues? Yeah. look at what's happening right now. The US, you're talking about solving debts, right? Let's look at the US. Almost 37 trillion US dollars uh worth of national debt. That's the US treasury bonds that are out there right now that they have to pay back, right? Around eight trillion of that is foreign held. Yep. Let's say gold gets to, I don't know, $4,000, let's say, right? So we did some calculations, I think that's around a trillion dollars worth of the US hell gold at 8,133 metric tons. So that would solve, that would do what? 1 eighth. That's 12.5%, right? Yeah. the foreign held US Treasury debt What if they take that number to 8,000 Yeah, guess took a quarter. Yeah. And what if they take it to, let's say, 20,000 dollars? That's almost 40%, 40, 50%. And at 40, 50%, a lot of problems will just melt away. Do you see that? And Luke Roman, you know Luke, right? Very famous guy, right? He recently said that if gold is at 20,000 dollars, China doesn't have a trade surplus anymore. Yeah. the world would have trade for Libra, especially for a country like Australia, because you guys produce so much gold. Do see what I'm saying? So the entire world, the trade environs will sort of melt away if gold is at 20,000 US dollars per troy ounce. Now, are the central banks gonna take it there? uh with a sudden gold revaluation. I don't believe so. I think what, I don't believe so. Because if they do that, you know what's gonna happen, Luke? The physical gold flows are going to be imbalanced if they do a sudden revaluation. Because what that means is that the US government will have to be ready to buy back any physical gold that flows back to the US. Yep. unless the US government put huge tariffs on physical gold, which wouldn't work, because gold is money. You see why saying you don't tariff money, right? So I don't believe that's gonna happen, so what I do think is gonna happen is what people like Judy Shelton are saying. The US government is gonna revalue the US Treasury held 8,133 metric tons physical gold. Yep. at market to market. So if you answer your question, if loop back to answer your question, I think what's gonna happen is that the market is gonna revalue physical gold for all these central banks. And we got a little pace of that recently, right? It went up like 100 bucks a day, right? So it doesn't, know, if physical gold is going up 100 US dollars per day, it wouldn't take that long for gold to get to 10,000 dollars, right? So people say, well, 20,000, let's get to, well, first let's get beyond 4,000 orders first, right? Let's go to 4,000 orders first and then see how quickly it'll get to like 6,000 or 10,000. That's where I'm at with my thinking, yeah. the U S government obviously has a significant amount of foreign held debt. And as we've touched on a lot of the other key countries do as well. Who, who doesn't, who doesn't want a significantly higher gold price? Cause it's, know, it's like the old that yeah, it's like the old Charlie Munger quote, isn't it? It's like, you you show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. Well, If the incentive to clear your debts is basically to not go through any particular hardship yourself and revalue what's already on your balance sheet and the only thing that you can do that with is gold, it makes sense that they're all interested in a higher gold price. Absolutely. mean, silver is another, you know, it's a totally different ballgame, right? The silver is industrial metal and it hits the bottom line of uh countries that uses silver to manufacture stuff, right? But for gold, it's not useful for anything. Like, you know, on a industrial scale, right? So again, I loop back to what Luke Roman said recently in his podcast, and he's right. Like, gold is the prime candidate. to go up in US dollar terms to solve a lot of these problems that we're talking about here, right? So I do believe that this physical gold revaluation is gonna come sooner rather than later. Because the later it comes, the more damage it's gonna do to the world economy. The more damage it is gonna do to the US, right? So I think they are on a tight time schedule. Judy Shelton suggested around July 2026. So that's just like a year away, pretty much. There's not much time. There you are. announce a mark to market change in the pricing of it. Well, no, she's talking about July 4th, em which is the 4th of July, right? Like the uh Independence Day, right? So she's talking about the issuance or the launch of the US Treasury physical gold bonds. That's what she's talking about. But the prerequisite of that is to revalue the US Treasury physical gold market. Mm-hmm, and what do you think? why I say that you lie time drink. sorry. Go ahead. does something like that do for things like inflation and the value of people that own cash? Well, inflation, think this em is a monetary revaluation against physical gold. So I don't think it has much to do with, directly with inflation per se. Why do I say that? Well, who has the biggest concentrated physical gold positions in the world? Concentrated, the central banks. Are they gonna start spending the gold into circulation? No. They're just gonna hold it on their balance sheets. That's the trick they use. It's an accounting transaction, exactly. But people own gold, yeah, sure. A lot of gold, not per individual, per se. There might be some gold bugs, sure, but we are the minority of the minority. Even more rare than the uh the crypto guys, right? They're more crypto people than gold bucks. So I don't think that will cause a lot of inflation, but the terrorist situation will definitely cause inflation to the trade deficit nations. That's what I believe. So like for the trade deficit uh nations, like what I mean is if you're a country that don't really manufacture a lot of items. Mm-hmm. depend on imports, right? Then you're gonna see a lot of inflation if your government slap tariffs on everybody. I mean, that's just the definition of inflation, right? On the other hand, if you're a nation that depends on exports, you export a lot of stuff, you're a manufacturing powerhouse, right? Okay, and all of a sudden you lose 14.8 % of your customer base. Mm. exactly what's happening to China, because China exports, know, out of all of China's exports, 14.8 % goes to the US. Let's just say you lose all of it, but let's face it, they're not gonna lose all of it overnight. Let's say half of that, so seven percentage, right? So China is gonna experience some deflation. Deflation, so that's, like, yeah. biggest customer, it's, it's, it's a deflationary move for you. Yeah. Yeah. in the 1930s when the US government started, know, tightening up its monetary base, right? The Great Depression happened. That was a deflationary event in the US. Remember it like, you know, the US erected a whole bunch of tariffs, you know, towards the European impulse, right? So the European countries, what happened? they experienced a whole bunch of inflation. Because back then, the US was the biggest manufacturer in the world. Especially after World War I. After Europe's uh manufacturing was devastated by war, right? So this time, it's kind of like the US is in the same shoes as Europe. And China is in the same shoes as the US was. expect in. Yeah. that's what I see. you know, it's not rocket science. Let's see if I'm correct. It's already happening, really, right? Like I mean, China, I see the deflation that is happening in China right now as we speak. And uh I think the inflation in the US is already happening. Yeah. So when you, um, you mentioned just before how you asked the question who, who holds the, um, the most concentrated sort of holdings of gold and, it's clearly the central banks and then it's a handful of gold bugs. I had a, I had an interesting conversation, um, on the weekend with a good, a close friend of mine who works in wealth management. And, I basically made the same point to him that the only people that really own gold are central banks and lunatic gold bugs like us. Right. And, and, and, and he said, um, well, no, said all of my clients. Owned gold and they've got, you know, five to 10 % allocation into gold. And I think you probably can guess where this is going. I said, yes, but did they own, did they own the physical goal? No, no, of course not. They own it in. funds like GLD. So what, what do you think, what do you think happens with these gold funds over the next period of time and what's your assessment on those? Well, first of all, your friend is Australian, right? Correct? This is Australian fund. that's not the norm worldwide. And especially not the US. The US, I believe, has less than 1 % allocation into, you know, even gold funds, okay? Like GLD. So it's under-owned, under-allocated in the US. And em I believe Hong Kong as well. China, there's a frenzy right now of people trying to get into gold. So, you the gold funds are doing well. So that's an exceptional case. But if you ask me, I think if Australians are buying GLD, they're getting paper exposure into physical gold, but you got to remember. how GLD works, right? GLD, I call it a piggy bank, physical gold piggy bank for the banking cartel, for the Boolean banks. Why do I say that? Because the Boolean banks, they are the authorized participants of GLD. They can borrow GLD shares to redeem gold, physical gold. Yeah. You see how that works? So if they don't have enough physical gold elsewhere, or they want to trade arbitrage, right? They can go to GLD, they can borrow shares from people, and then they can redeem those shares with physical gold, effectively sucking out the physical gold from GLD. That's why I was tracking GLD in the beginning of the year. That's why you see like all this gold influx into the US and GLD's physical gold vault levels didn't really move. It was around, I think, 800 metric tons. Yeah. you know, like between eight to 900, it didn't really move that much. Because every time, you know, added a little bit of gold, the APs just sucked it right out. You see, so if you're fine with that, as a GLD investor, you know, all the power to you. Yeah. But you lose that. You lose the biggest selling point I think that gold has is that it's a independent asset that sits outside the system. My position with that is that if you don't hold the physical gold, why even buy GLD? It doesn't make any sense, like you said. The whole point of physical gold is that you want that physical asset outside of the system that you can keep yourself. Yeah. That's it. Definitely. So Eric, I'd love to segue a little bit into this sort of intersection of the gold market and understand, you know, the things we've spoken about how gold helps us to understand incentives and how the, you know, how the world works and how the world of finance works into how that's impacted your worldview. So how did, you know, I saw, you know, um, last week you put up a post about Easter. So I think you're, you're Christian. So what's your. How do you see the world? What's your, what's your outlook on things? What's your sort of philosophy for living and life? Well, I think, you know, I say this a lot on my ex-channel. I think it's everybody's responsibility to take care of their own finances and to protect their own wealth. You know, so you don't go out and start blaming other people or, know, like, I mean, you can get blamed the government because they're definitely trying to screw us, but, know, In a sense, you can protect yourself, right? If you make the right decisions. That's my point. So I'm really focused, yeah, sorry. but you can't don't just blame the system and, sort of wallow in your mind a bit, you know, take, take control of your own circumstances within that is what you say. Yeah. So I'm really focused on that and I try to educate people on what's actually happening because there's so many false narratives out there that it's just, you know, a lot of these people are, some of them may be government agents. Some of them, you know, may have some sort of motive because they run a subscription service, I don't know, right? But I'm sure you know this, you look out there, there's just a lot of stuff that doesn't make any sense. Like the stuff that they say, right? I don't know if you remember, but for the longest time, a lot of these people are saying that the US is in deflation. I mean, come on, right? No. I don't think the US has ever been in deflation since the GFC. You know, maybe this inflation for a couple years, but mainly inflation. you know, I think ongoing that inflation is really gonna kick in. Now, is it gonna show up in the numbers? I don't know, because of the way that they calculate CPI, right? They take everything out, essentially. And yeah, if, if something rises too much in price, they pull that out, you know, if, something's falling in price, they add that quickly add that to the basket. Yeah. is it going to reflect that? I don't know, right? So for example, give an example, Adidas came out yesterday and said that they're gonna start increasing prices on the sneakers in the US. It makes sense. I bought a pair of Adidas sneakers in Europe and it was 100 Hong Kong dollars, so that's like 20 Australian dollars more expensive than the same pair of shoes in Hong Yeah, yeah. But that makes sense because Hong Kong right now is flooded with stuff that can't make it to the US because of the tariffs, right? So, yeah, so they're getting rid of it in Hong Kong, right? So Hong Kong, have, even if you shop right now in Hong Kong, you're in luck, right? Because a lot of this stuff, 30 % off, okay? But, you know, ongoing, what's gonna happen to these shoes in... in the US, it's gonna double in price. More than double. I mean, that's insane. So are they going to report that in CPI numbers? Who knows? You see how much of a joke CPI is? Doesn't tell you anything, right? So that's my point there, right? But I guess it will help go because if they don't include anything of importance in the CPI, Yeah. and they only uh include mostly the domestic produced products, CPI may actually be flat or go down, right, which gives Powerwell an excuse to cut rates. Yeah. Yeah. So where do you think, where do you, so where do you think rates go? You think rates go down and then how does that work with in a world where US treasury bonds, which essentially the price of bonds equals the price of, of money and the price of rates. Like how, how do you have, how do you have lower rates in a world where they increasingly can't sell treasuries to people and therefore have to discount them? Yeah, so this is my understanding of the situation, right? At 4 to 5 % interest rate for US Treasury bonds, T-bills, et cetera, the US government is now paying around a trillion dollars a year to service its debt of 37 trillion dollars, right? And by the way, that's gonna only increase. Because let's say if they curve their spending. It's not gonna go to zero, right? You see what I'm saying? So they might decrease the speed of increase, but it's still gonna increase. So trading plus a year. on debt keeps getting added. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. paying a trillion dollars interest on debt and increasing per year, right? So, you know, people like Judy Shelton did brilliance, by the way. She said em one way to alleviate the situation, and she's really talking about em pushing more people into long-term US Treasury bonds. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, of course. you got to pay off not only the one trillion per year, you also need to find new buyers, right? Because you have to pay back the principal too, right? That's a big, big freaking problem, right? So, you know, that's one of the biggest concerns is to get people to buy more long-term US treasury bonds, okay? Versus the T-bills. So she said, okay, one way to do it, is to just cut rates. Because the em federal reserve fair funds rate, that essentially is the T bill rate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. they cut rates, that's gonna affect the T-bill rate, that's gonna push that down, which means it incentivizes, theoretically, right? Incentivizes US Treasury buyers into the long-duration product. That's the logic there, right? But going back to what you said, does it solve the overall problem of lessening US Treasury bonds and T-bills, et cetera, appetite from foreign buyers? I don't think so. I think it's just deferring the problem down the road. Yeah. So what do you think's ahead, like culturally and as far as society goes? So, know, there's, which we've spoken about sort of the jostling of central banks and the, and the accounting, you know, the accounting transactions they might do and, um, and tariffs and how that's changing sort of inflation and deflation. What's your prospect for the world over the next decade or two? Does it get worse or does it get better? Are you optimistic for the future or do uh you find it hard not to be pessimistic? pretty optimistic, You know, I think, you know, if the governments of the world don't screw it up badly, I think eventually things are gonna realign. What I mean by that is, you know, the US, they're trying to reshore all this money. They will have some success. That's my belief in certain products, especially the high-end products. Yeah. That's what Scott Besson came out and said recently. He said that Trump and himself want to really get the high end, the high value manufacturing back to the US. I believe they will have some success with that. It's an interesting statement because the whole promise that Trump and Besson gave to, especially Trump, gave to their constituents is that they will bring back a lot of jobs for the regular Joe, right? For the regular Joe American. But if you're only talking about the high-end stuff, microprocessor or semiconductor manufacturing, that doesn't benefit the regular Joe now, would it, right? eh They're always contradicting themselves, right? So that's one thing I noticed, right? But I think they'll have some success with the high-end stuff. Because I know for a fact that some high-end strategic manufacturing already moved back to the US. And most guys are having some success. So I know that for a fact, because I'm in the industry, right? In terms of China, people say, well, China's gonna be screwed. A lot of people are going to be unemployed, et cetera. Let's put it this way. em Scott Vesem, he said what? He said 10 million Chinese people are going to be unemployed due to the, their jobs due to these terrorists, right? He said it yesterday, I believe. So let's say that's correct. China has 1.4 billion people. He's talking about 10 million. Think about that. Okay, that's a percentage, right? That's a percentage, right? Okay, and it's not a set number, it's dynamic. What I mean is, it takes a bit of time and then that manpower is gonna be reallocated to other areas. And people say, what about all these factories? Well, I wasn't in the manufacturing business, I tell you. A lot of these factories are dead wood. They're overextended. You work for one of the top guys in China, you told me, Container manufacturing. There tons and tons of people who are unqualified, right? Okay, who are barely qualified. Because in the past, especially in past 10 years, the world demanded so much cheap. manufacture products from China. So all these factories sprung up, know, that some of them unqualified uh in terms of the actual manufacturing time. Some of them may make very good products, but they are very de-qualified financially. Okay? So I see this as a, just to reshuffle them. The dead wood has to be burned off, and once this process is done, I believe China will do well. That's why it couldn't happen. Do you agree? mean, you worked with a Chinese company yourself. Tell me. I think so. was, I mean, one of the main reasons I got into it is that I was bullish. I was bullish on China and I was, I mean, when did I go over there? I was there in 2018, 2019. I mean, it's a phenomenal place. Like utterly phenomenal. And advanced, I think you touched on that at the start. it's like, I find it hard to see a world where it all just blows up for China. It's built, I hadn't really considered it, but when you touch on it before, I haven't spent time in Africa, but I've know enough about it that it's, you know, it's... comparing apples with oranges. Like this is a place that's advanced. It's not a place that's just had factories set up sucking its cheap labor and then it's going to be left out to dry. Like it's a well and truly established country. yeah, I'd agree with it. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I'm still unsure about what on earth the next decade looks like. I think the reshuffling of the deck chairs and the realignment of things is going to be pretty painful. for a period of time. I lean towards the idea that the world's, and I haven't always been this way. I don't think it's as conspiratorial as I once believed. I think there's a lot more chaos than we give it credit for, which is why I don't subscribe to this idea that this is just some. long drawn out plan to move the whole world to a bunch of sort of serfs that are going to be in this, you know, agenda 2030 system. I think, I think a lot of these ideas are sort of pipe dreams for, for globalists, the actual implementation of it is near impossible. And they're just repeating the same attempts that have been made over and over through history from sort of ruling powers that have tried to overextend their powers and, and uh you know sort of fallen on their sword in the process of doing it. I just think, um Luke, just think at the end of the day, I think China's going to adapt and move on. And to a certain extent, the same with the US. US situation is a lot more volatile because Donald Trump got what, three and a half years left of his term. So let's say he finishes, who's the next guy, What's the next guy gonna do? Who knows? Yeah. So I think the US situation is a lot more volatile, but like I said, I think they will achieve some success in terms of reshoring. So that's my base case. And I try not to assume the worst. So the worst is another world war, or war spreading all over the world, right? So that's pretty much it. Perfect. Well, Eric, I've really appreciated the chat and, um, and it's been good, really good to bring you on and bring a different perspective, not just from, you know, someone who's based in a different part of the world, but, um, someone with sort of the depth of knowledge on, on financial markets and other things like, um, like you are. So, um, I love that takeaway that you had of sort of people sort of seeing things as are and. trying to control their own destiny. Any final pieces of advice or I mean the name of the show is What's the Point Anyway? I actually usually ask that question at the start, but maybe I'll ask it at the end. Any thoughts in addition to sort of taking control of your own destiny around the question, what's the point of our existence anyway? Yeah, well I think my last word on your show is just to tell people if they don't own any physical gold and silver right now, they should go out and buy some. Just buy some physical gold and silver. Just so that you you're hashed, you're slightly hashed. Anything is better than nothing. I always tell people big things start from small beginnings. So you've got to start somewhere. Perfect. Good advice. And, uh, I would reiterate that it's funny. The amount of, I mean, I've been banging on about gold to everyone in my sort of circle for a good four or five years now. And I'm disappointed at the amount of people that just to haven't followed it up and gone and done it. And people seem to think that owning gold or buying gold is such a difficult thing to do. But, uh, whether you're in Hong Kong, Australia or America, it's ridiculously easy. Isn't it? You just literally walk into the. local sort of gold dealer, buy some gold and it's yours. Yep, I mean I'm playing with my gold bracelet right now while I'm talking to you. So it's that easy. There you are, there you are. Perfect. Eric. Well, thanks so much for the chat. look forward to uh continuing to follow you and your commentaries. I'll point people to your ex account. uh, was it at King Kong nine, triple eight. Correct, King Kong 9888 on X. where you are, guess, a leading sort of figure in the industry with lots of awesome thoughts and you post very, very regularly. So anyone listening that wants to learn more, go check out Eric's stuff and uh I look forward to following it. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Luke. Thank you.