51 Comments
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Kml's avatar

There is still some complications I understand in setting up the Unit. I think India is objecting to China’ lead role. Also I think there are hang up on the backing of the other 60% which is local currencies. Lastly - I thought it was all delayed and not really set for roll-out? Maybe I am wrong but this would only be a question on when because eventually I agree it likely happens. The tariffs to me look like a bid to try to crush the Chinese economy which is languishing and needs US purchases to operate profitably. Real estate is also a non-performing issue in China.

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David Jensen's avatar

Wait till fiat currency crisis strikes in the open. Objections will disappear.

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Kml's avatar

Yes there is enough groundwork that it could be assembled quickly

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David Meredith's avatar

Back in October, when it was supposed to be announced, BIS pulled the plug at the last minute. We surmise it was due to pressure by the US. BIS was to provide the digital infrastructure of "M Bridge". BIS had white papers on its website. It was all out in the open. And then BIS rug-pulled the project. There were participants from five monetary jurisdictions leading it: Russia, China, Hong Kong, UAE and...(curiously) Thailand.

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David Jensen's avatar

Thailand has a ton of physical gold.

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Kml's avatar

Yes I recall now

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JohnA's avatar

The 'Unit' white paper was a proposal written by two fund managers from what I remember. Is there any reason to believe it has any official backing?

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DLDawson's avatar

yes, there will be short term turbulence as Trump reset finances for US. BUT, We are moving off the federal income tax, shrinking the federal government to a manageable size where tariffs can pay for it, and preparing to end the Federal Reserve and the fiat currency debt slave system. Good time to build a life raft of Gold & SILVER, Constitutional money…

A new day for America & Americans!

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David Jensen's avatar

Central banks have led our economies and well-being to a cliff edge.

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DLDawson's avatar

Agreed, with minor difference, we have left the cliff & the grounding is rapidly approaching. Thanks again…PS, if the US fiat dollars go de funk, China is a big loser being the biggest holder of funny money…https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/314771578850275329?s=61

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David Jensen's avatar

I suspect the CCP gov holds more than 20,000 tonnes of gold.

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DLDawson's avatar

Sounds reasonable, how much does US have buried in the Grand Canyon? Enough to blow the system?

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David Jensen's avatar

There may well be vast deposits - we will find out in the future as anything gold becomes the rage.

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The Lusty Servant's avatar

Is "BRICS something houses" polite code for 'brick shithouses' or am I wrong to call a fiat dollar turd a turd?

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David Jensen's avatar

Maybe. :)

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David Meredith's avatar

"Total US system debt stands at $102 billion..." That's 100,000 billion, isn't it?

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David Jensen's avatar

Good catch David - thanks.

Should have been $102 trillion or 102,000 billion.

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David Meredith's avatar

I'm ready to post it all over the interwebs, but waiting to see if you want to run the edited version. Many thanks for your diligent analysis over the past few years.

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David Jensen's avatar

Update was posted - cheers.

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Flo Philpot's avatar

What if the Trump admin is just using his bankruptcies/business experience to rewrite trade with: “you have all this debt we sold you as the other side of selling us products subsidized…blah blah. To eliminate tariffs “en masse” we will reduce tariffs to low levels in exchange for the redemption of your US Notes at a very low price? Like say 10 cents on the dollar? Though surely the dollar would be toast as a reserve, does he really care? Call it a great reset. I am not suggesting this as a good idea but rather as an alternative Trump reality.

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David Jensen's avatar

The Fed is against a wall.

New system coming.

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Flo Philpot's avatar

Agreed. The good news is in the bread line, the product is free.

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Dimitri's avatar

I agree

I'm watching gold and silver fall with the market.

I think we can agree the market is in a free fall and gold and silver seem to be moving down as well.

I'm guessing gold will drop to around the lower Bollinger band on its daily chart before a new direction or a continued downtrend is determined. That's around $2900/ounce .

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David Jensen's avatar

Treasuries sold-off in the last half day of trading on Friday.

Selling of gold and silver during a combined stock and bonds sell-off will not likely last.

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Paul Repstock's avatar

Precious metals sell-offs, also likely suggest a fall in 'Dollar Liquidity'. Debt destruction through market defaults and margin calls, shrink the Money Supply. So a fall in the dollar price of metals is to be expected. The drop in the price of all assets will continue until the US Government is forced to make a choice between default and hyperinflation. We do know which they will choose because the people are addicted to debt! At that point Metals will go "To da Moon"! ( In Dollar terms)

We have already seen hints of this "Hyperinflationary trend" with Gold exceeding the definition of Hyperinflation (15%/month) over the past year.

"Importation of goods in return for fiat currency export will become very difficult outside of unified trade blocks."

-The pressures on gold and silver prices will mostly affect high debt Western countries, because the BRICS and others will be reluctant to accept the $US as it deflates.

Foreign Goods will become unaffordable for ordinary people. Prices for 'luxury' products like chocolate and spices will be similar to those of 1700's Europe, and supplies will shrink.

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Paul Repstock's avatar

I expect the Golf/Silver prices to fall until the "Leveraged Longs" are flushed out of the market and the big shorts are resolved?Given the looming cliff of Debt Rollover (8 Trillion) this will probably be very fast: Watch the Bond Markets.

edit: I may over state this progression because there is too much to happen in a short period?

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David Jensen's avatar

It's been two trading days - let's see what happens.

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Paul Repstock's avatar

Margin Monday?

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David Jensen's avatar

Let's see. The stakes are upping.

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Th232's avatar

Debt can only be extinguished against…. gold. Otherwise somebody is getting shafted. I‘ll take my chances with precious metals and arable land. Also, it shows that I want to have as little to do (and not support) current fiat system.

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Paul Repstock's avatar

For all my blather, I have no crystal ball!

I think the very best we can do is, to' encourage and assist' as many people as possible to get out of Debt. Being debt free opens a lot of options that the majority doesn't have.

This is a predatory world, and the "Lenders" are not your friends!

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DLDawson's avatar

After learning of the 14 magic money computers operated by USG, does this make the markets a house of cards?

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Dimitri's avatar

HA....a 37 trillion dollar house of cards.

9 trillion of which matures this year and needs to be refinanced.

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David Jensen's avatar

The word trillion is unfortunate - we should use the word 1,000,000 1,000,000 or million million to give a sense of the enormity.

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Colleen's avatar

Hi David - speaking of owning G & S, I just wrote my first substack on an experience I had over the last several years with an unscrupulous metals dealer who is currently under federal investigations, such that their long-term IRA administrator won't take their checks for mutual clients to cash out. This is putting customers in a real bind as they've created a closed market, and unless the customer moves their IRA to someone who will take their checks, they're only offered spot for their over-priced metals.

I left out a lot of what made it all so complex for me, so as not to bore the reader. I learned A LOT and had help and advice from AmFed through the journey of getting out out it which I did with my principle and a small profit - which I was grateful for and reinvested with an honest dealer. But AmFed has told me this dealer is the one they get the most complaints about and have used my story to help those people. So I wrote about it for them, and decided to turn it into a substack in order to figure out how to share my lessons learned with a wider audience. I would love your feedback on it. https://mcmurray629.substack.com/p/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-free Thanks, Colleen

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David Jensen's avatar

When you ask someone else to hold precious metals for you, 1) you are subject to fraud and 2) the safe haven role of gold and silver against financial system chaos is greatly diminished if not terminated.

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Colleen's avatar

What else is one to do with an IRA other than have it in a depository? I did hear the guy from Verity Metals say on a podcast the other day there was a way to legally do it, but he was mum on the specifics other than to say you had to store the IRA allocation separately from any other metals you have. Do you know about that? I don't understand how you get around the taxes if you have them in your possession?

I've also heard Martin Armstrong say if the government wanted to confiscate like they did a century ago, they wouldn't go door-to-door, they'd just raid the depositories. So this could become a real conundrum.

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Paul Repstock's avatar

Wisdom and clarity for any interested in the trade wars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0swAZQeZRc

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Kevin Rasmusson's avatar

So excellent ! Thanks David. BRICS has been on the back burner on X for quite a while and is such an important consideration. Tremendous insight into their coming impact.

Reposted on X as always.

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David Jensen's avatar

Thank you Kevin!

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Dimitri's avatar

It seems to me, that the tarriffs were a faint, a kabuki theater to "sell assets", as bessent recently said in an interview. The tarriffs crashed the market, which the administration probably was referring to the bloated market as an American "asset". The hope was that assets would flow from the equity market to the bond market and bring down yields to refinance the 9 trillion in debt that matures this year.....Imho.

The silver and gold miners took a hit Thursday and Friday. So did royalty companies like FNV.

The recession has started or is flashing big signs. Im wondering about liquidating my gld and gdx positions. Along with silver miners. And buy back at the bottom. These position adjustments seem to be unnatural. But looking at the gld chart, it looks like the next level of support will be the lower band on the daily chart, and the next level of support for gdx will be the 200 day MA.

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David Jensen's avatar

We will see how the bond market performs.

If you no longer sail, then you can sell your lifeboat.

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Dennis Kruize's avatar

As you wrote : China owns about 3.2 Trillion of USD debt (treasury bonds, I assume, and will receive, I assume again, on this debt 3%~5%, as they bought this debt long ago, when intrest rates were higher then today, on 20 & 30 year bonds)...

You also stated, they have debt which they must repay, in USD, calculating the 7% interest in your post, which accounts to 225 billion each year, so that debt would (also) be around 3,2 Trillion, more or less the same as the us treasury bonds they own)... So probably they pay more on their debt then they receive (7% against 4~5%). Knowing that in reallity, all Chinese Companies are "state owned, or at least controlled).. why don't they pay off this "private" debt with their USD treasurie bonds, or with their trade surplus...as again, I assume they end up each year with more USD then the year before...

I don't see the problem, then, to their difficulty, to acquire the needed dollars for Oil....

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David Jensen's avatar

China is indebted to the extent of $3.2T of USD denominated loans.

China holds $750B of Treasuries.

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Dennis Kruize's avatar

From their 3.22 foreign reserves, 750 billion is indeed in treasuries...so the other 2.5 Trillion is in other foreign investments, which do give a dividend or an intrest. So their debt and their assets in USD, roughly square....

I was a bit amezed, that China, as an exporter country, had such amounts of debt.. as they rank in each year such a surplus of USD.

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David Jensen's avatar

The question is liquidity and ability to convert to USD.

Note the reserves are held by the government and the debt is private sector USD denominated debt.

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David Jensen's avatar

China also imports 80% of their food: $150B p.a.

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i3utm's avatar

What is considered...

> "by an order of magnitude" in this instance?

2x? 10x? 30x? 🤔

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Darren's avatar

Great insights and analysis as ever thank you very much for sharing.

The big question for gold and silver investors is do they track down with the stock market...?

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David Jensen's avatar

I suspect margin calls will force many asset classes to be sold, initially. But then there will be a sorting.

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