Alex Deluce & Frank Giustra: The Future of Gold, Money & Power

[00:00:00] Frank: The system is teeter-tottering on breaking down. You go back the last 500 years and all paper money eventually gets destroyed. What amuses me is that people think this time it's different. America is exceptional. It can't happen here. But you know what? This time is not different. We're coming into an era, a very dangerous time, because when the social fabric starts to break down in societies, a lot of bad stuff starts to happen. [00:00:30] Speaker 2: Frank, it's great to have you on the Gold Telegraph show. We've had some fun conversations together over the years in Beaver Creek. But this is, I can't believe it, this is the first time we've done this officially on the show. Given everything in the world right now, I think we have a lot to go over. [00:00:54] Frank: Boy, I don't know how we're going to get through this in an hour. There's so much material. [00:01:00] Speaker 2: Well, I guess, Frank, for us to start, I know you have such a storied career. But one of the things is I'd love to go back to when you were really young. And I think something that maybe not a lot of people realize, but your parents were from Italy and they eventually did settle in Canada. But you did spend some time in Argentina. What do you remember most about Argentina when you were a kid? [00:01:32] Frank: You know, there are certain traumas in life that you don't easily forget. They get ingrained in your brain and you kind of, it sets your view of the world for life. And for us, it was the fact that my father lost everything in Argentina due to hyperinflation. We lived there in the 1960s. He had moved us there originally because Argentina in those days was considered one of the richest countries on the planet. And so he thought there would be a great opportunity for us to live there instead of Canada or Italy or anywhere else. And so he invested some money in some businesses down there. Then he saw the writing on the wall. Things were starting to change politically. And it was, you know, the whole Peronis movement was happening. And he thought he'd better get us out of there. So he moved us back to Canada. And unfortunately, he couldn't get his money out in time. He had, you know, had to settle with his partners. And so by the time he received his money, a few years later, it was worthless. And when I say worthless, I mean, it didn't buy anything. It was worthless in dollar terms. And it was worthless in purchasing power. And as a result, we had to live in a family of six, two parents and four kids, had to live in a trailer for three years. A very small trailer. It was only 50 feet long and I think about 12 feet wide for three years until he could make his money back. We had no money. It was, you know, we came to Canada like broke. And so you remember these things, you know, and, you know, I always wondered whether, you know, had my father had the knowledge about gold and the, and how to protect yourself against hyperinflation, whether that would have made a difference. Because, you know, in those days, I mean, Argentina was considered like, there was a term, it was called riches in Argentine. And that was meant to mean that if you're from Argentina, you were a wealthy person. And that was very true in the forties and the fifties, but starting in the sixties, it started to go downhill. So, and, and we, we're sitting here today and this is why it's important to me thinking it can never happen here. You know, the, the sort of hyperinflation, but ask yourself, they never thought it could happen there either. They thought Argentina was set, you know, set for life, but you know, it does happen and it can happen here. In my opinion, it will happen here when currencies fall apart, you know, hyperinflation sets in and, and then you wipe out, you have to wipe everything out at that point and start over again. [00:04:03] Speaker 2: And, and, and with that, Frank, it's such a good point. Like what you experienced in Argentina, like, especially today, most people in North America would never, by the way, this is, this is not, this is not champagne. [00:04:16] Frank: It's, it's water, but I couldn't find a water glass and I'm in France. So it looks like I'm drinking champagne, but it's water. [00:04:23] Speaker 2: Well, no, it's, no, no, you know, what, you know, I think having champagne, having discussions about hyperinflation might be fitting. Cause it's, it's quite depressing, but it's, but with, you know, most people in North America, like they can't even imagine that event hitting them. Like you, you do have firsthand experience of living it. Like when you lived it, what was it like to like really witness for you and your family? Like, did it shape your thinking, I guess now in retrospect, as an investor and as an entrepreneur, just living through that? [00:04:56] Frank: In retrospect, it certainly has, obviously, obviously as a child, I, you know, I was too young and to really understand what was going on. I do remember vividly the fact that we had no money and that my father said, I received my money from Argentina and it's worthless. I remember that day when he said so, but I, I had no idea why and what, didn't know what inflation was. But years later, you know, as soon as I started to understand how the monetary system works and how inflation works, how money printing works, how debt works, you know, it brought me back to those years. And I realized, you know, you know, here we are, we're doing, we're making all the same mistakes again that have been made throughout history. By the way, it's not just Argentina, you go back to the last 500 years, and all paper money eventually gets destroyed every time. And what makes me, what amuses me is that people think this time it's different. America is exceptional. It can't happen here. But you know what? Paper money are just promises, and governments break those promises all the time, and they're going to do it again this time. So this time is not different. You know, when you abuse money, as most politicians do eventually, it comes back, there is a day of reckoning, and we're coming to that day. [00:06:14] Speaker 2: And with that, Frank, like, an interesting con, I know I spent a lot of time in my head about this kind of concept and just way of thinking, you know, me and you both, like, we spent a lot of time talking online about inflation and that. But, you know, a lot of people think of inflation in the economic sense, but they don't think about it psychologically and what it can actually do to societies. What happens when people stop trusting money? [00:06:47] Frank: Well, basically, it becomes a self-reinforcing phenomenon. Inflation is about, and this is why central banks are very careful, to anchor expectations. That's the phrase that they use, because they understand that it's the expectations of inflation that drive inflation faster and higher. When people think, if you think in very simple terms, if you know a loaf of bread is going to cost twice as much tomorrow as today, you're going to go buy that loaf of bread today. And if everybody's rushing to get rid of their paper, to buy things that they need, it just reinforces that inflationary cycle. So that's why central banks try and pretend that there is no inflation or they understate it, as we do with the CPI. The CPI is the biggest joke in the world. I wrote an article on this about, I don't know, seven or eight years ago about how the CPI is manipulated and has been changed about 30 or 40 times in the last 40 years. And it's so confusing. And you can't even figure out the tricks that they use to keep the inflation number low. If you want to read that article, go to frankjuicer.com. And the article, it's titled something about, is CPI the right measure for inflation? It's on my blog. Go read it. You will learn something new. Inflation is caused by money printing, money supply growth, and then expectations that inflation will be there. Those are the drivers. [00:08:24] Speaker 2: And well, with that, Frank, with inflation and you having such a firsthand experience living through hyperinflation, what's fascinating is your family, you guys were living through that event in Argentina. And the entire world was going through its own monetary experiment in the 1970s. Once, you know, when we broke from the gold link in 1971, we're still living through a new form of experiment today. Do you think most people appreciate how important 1971 really was? [00:09:00] Frank: I don't think most people do because most people are not really informed on monetary systems. You know, most people don't even know what causes inflation. You know, and that makes it easy for politicians to shift the blame, the policymakers to shift the blame of inflation to things that have nothing to do with the cause of inflation. You know, they talk about unfair trade practices, you know, all sorts of things, you know, relationships, China, Mexico. They'll blame everything except the true cause, which is debt, starts with debt, and then it goes on to money printing, and then the, you know, the explosion of money supply. That's inflation, and that causes prices to go up because you're measuring an infinite amount of currency being created against a fixed number of things of stuff, you know, that, you know, has a fixed supply. So that's how inflation affects the price of goods. But inflation is a monetary phenomenon. [00:10:07] Speaker 2: One, it's, it's interesting, Frank, like, one of the most interesting conversations I've had recently was with the former president's economic advisor, Judy Shelton, where she, she told me that President Nixon admitted, to your point, like, he didn't really understand monetary policy. [00:10:27] Speaker 3: You'd see, you'd see, it would say Richard Nixon at the top, and then the first line would say, your article in today's Wall Street Journal was brilliant. We exchanged letters, I guess, for two or three years, and at some point, I told him, my next book is going to be on the Bretton Woods system and what was lost when that was ended, because I thought I should, I mean, I should at least be honest, because some people saw him as the villain. For sure. And, um, also, I thought, maybe he'll tell me something of his thinking. And what he wrote back was maybe more interesting. He said, um, I know very little about monetary policy. And I thought, and yet he's the one who ended that system. [00:11:16] Speaker 2: And like Paul Volcker at the time mentioned to Judy that he always thought gold wouldn't disappear permanently. The, the thinking at the time was that it would be valued and at some point it'd be reinstated into the system. When you, when you hear that, like, what, what do you, like, what do you think? [00:11:35] Frank: Well, yeah, what I think is, first of all, Nixon was a very smart guy. Okay. He was no dummy. Nixon was a very bright guy, but even he didn't understand how the monetary system works. And like I say, most people don't, you really have to dig deep to really get an understanding of how money works, how money supply works, how it affects inflation. All these things, most people, you know, even very, very smart people don't understand. So I'm not surprised that Nixon didn't understand it. As far as Volcker is concerned. Yeah. Perhaps he was, you know, being honest that he expected it to be a short term because they're not when they announced the closing of the gold window, they said it was going to be only for temporary for short term. But here's the problem. Once you remove the shackles from politicians and policymakers, it's hard to put those shackles back on. And the problem is that the gold system, the gold backed system put shackles on politicians in terms of the amount of spending that they could do without the revenues coming in. And, you know, the Europeans saw that coming in the late sixties that America was overspending. They were creating deficits and so they started to ask for their gold. They were exchanging their dollars for gold. And so that, you know, that came to an end very, very quickly. But but most people really don't don't get it. They just don't understand how it works. And, you know, and that's why they're easily fooled with, you know, stories of, you know, yeah, this is temporary. Yet again, once they remove the shackles, they couldn't put that genie back in the bottle once they took it off. And here we are today, you know, the dollars lost what 99% of its value in the last 50 years. And you have to keep in mind that gold was only not money ever just for the last 50 years. We've been growing, our generation has grown up to believe that gold is not money. But it's just in our last, this generation, 50 years before that gold was always money of some sort. The U.S. went out of its way to make gold not seem like money. You know, they downplayed it, they pooh-poohed it, you know, they made all the companies, you know, it's an ancient relic. It's this, it's that, it's in a pet rock for a reason. Because if you acknowledge the value of gold, you're basically suggesting that your currency does not have that value alone without gold. [00:14:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, no, it's, it's, it's crazy to think, Frank, like, you're 100% right. Like, it's been a 50 year experiment where prior to these 50 years, gold was always directly linked to the monetary system. So it's, it's pretty unbelievable to think that the mainstream media's approach when it comes to labeling gold a relic and it's, it's an old person's asset. It's, it's, it's ancient, it doesn't, it's, there's no utility. It's what, it's funny, one of my favorite, I'm so happy he mentioned it on the show, but it was when Dr. Paul, Dr. Ron Paul mentioned his exchange with former Federal Reserve Chair, Ben Bernanke, when he, when he asked Ben, if what, why does central banks own gold? And Bernanke said it's tradition and tradition looked at him appalled. But do you, do you think people that, that made those big decisions that changed the entire global monetary system in 1971? Do you think, you know, they, if, if they saw the world today, do you think they would have a lot of regrets with making that decision? Or do you think they had no choice given the run, the run on the gold? [00:15:21] Frank: Well, they, they had a choice, but they, the, the choice they made was to continue to deficit spend. Um, and so that, that's what they were doing before the gold window closed. And then they, they continued to, they continued to do that and more afterwards. So, you know, the problem is that you, you put too much faith in politicians and policymakers. You know, I've come to the conclusion that, you know, they're not, they only care about the donor class. You know, who gets them elected? Who, who writes the big checks to get them elected? And once they're elected, they're not going to do anything that's going to remove them from office. And so if you, if you think of what needed to be done to avoid the situation we're in now, you needed to either raise taxes or dramatically cut spending or both. And both those things don't get you reelected. And so, you know, politicians and they're getting worse by the way, you know, politicians at least used to have some integrity when it came to managing the economy. Now they could care less. They, cause they're not stupid. They see that this train is heading towards a cliff. Okay. And, but while it's still on its rails, they're going to take advantage of it as much as they possibly can. And you see how much they're lining their pockets right now. It's like, you know, like when you see a riot and there's looting, you know, their policies smash and grab at the moment because they know this game is almost over. So they have to line their pockets, stay on the gravy train as long as possible and kick the can down the road. So it's not their problem. And, you know, and that has been, that attitude, that mindset has gotten progressively worse. Now you look at this, the current state of both the administration and Congress, how the insider trading, they're making hundreds of millions of dollars based on information that you and I don't have. And, and nobody seems to care anymore. Everybody's lining their pockets. It's, you know, I have lost faith for politicians of all parties. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I think that they're all, they're all useless. They really are. Because in your, in the quality of politicians that are coming into office these days, I mean, where are the leaders anymore? These people, they're just, they're just takers. You know, they don't really, they're not very smart. And what they do know, they don't use that knowledge for the benefit of the voter. They use it for the benefit of themselves. So, you know, I, I've lost all faith in politicians. And I think we're coming to the end now. You're, you're coming to a climax now where everybody is grabbing as much as they can and hoping that they can take care of themselves and their family and the hell with everybody else. It's every man for himself now. That's the ad. [00:18:10] Speaker 2: I shouldn't laugh, Frank, but I think one of the reasons I feel like, whoa, there's many, but I think one of the reasons why we've developed such a great friendship over the, over the years is I think, well, one, I think gold is, I think both of us are so cynical when it comes to promises and, and what politicians and just gold requires zero trust. It's there. It's proven. It has thousands of years of history. And it has thousands of years of history. And I think it's true. Like there's zero counterparty when it comes to gold, especially physical gold. But when you, when you look at the last 50 years, this is a loaded question because you could go anywhere with this, but what, what do you think has been the biggest consequence of abandoning that gold link? Is it discipline? Is it the destruction of the middle class? Is it price instability? Yeah. What do you, what do you think it is? [00:19:10] Frank: It's all those things. I mean, obviously it's, it's, you know, allowing the central bank, you know, first of all, governments have been overspending that we all know that they're overspending. You know, you got $2 trillion a year in deficits, which is just going to rise. And I think it's going to be probably 2.4, 2.5 trillion this next year. Um, they, they just, they don't care. So, um, but what's happened is that what that's created is an erosion of the middle class. You've created the biggest wealth gap. The U S has the biggest wealth gap in all of the developed nations. Okay. So you have the extremely rich now because they were able, they had assets and they were able to borrow using cheap artificial money. To buy things. Whereas, you know, middle class and lower middle class didn't have those assets. They couldn't borrow. They couldn't access money at 1% that we had for, for years and years. I know, I know friends of mine that are very wealthy people that were borrowing huge amounts of money based on their assets at 1%. And they were just going out, buying real estate, arts, stocks. This is why you've had this big asset bubble. And so it's, it's, it's basically killed the middle class. You know that in America today, half the population can't make ends meet. Credit card debt is at 1.1 trillion. It's a record number. Um, it's, uh, I, I think margin debt, you know, just stock market related. It's gone. 1.4 trillion dollars. There are banks that are underwater. The system is teeter tottering on breaking down. And you've got a population now that's pissed off and they don't know who to blame. That's why you're getting, you can get these populist movements that I'm seeing. I'm living in the UK now and I'm seeing that whoever the incumbent is, throw them out. It's the next, it doesn't matter if it's left or right. It's just the public is pissed off. They've been shortchanged and they don't know who to blame, but they have to blame their politicians. So right now we're, we're coming into an era, uh, a very dangerous time because when the social fabric starts to break down in societies, a lot of bad stuff starts to happen. And I think that that's where we're heading. You know, you got the haves and the have nots and the, and the Gulf is getting wider and wider and wider and people revolt and they revolt in different ways. But you, you certainly don't have a stable country and a stable system when half the population can't, can't buy groceries, can't make ends meet, can't pay the rent. So that is the big, I think that the biggest, biggest outcome of all of this is what is done to the middle class. It's just, it's basically wiping them out. [00:21:59] Speaker 2: Well, and it's, it's pretty, I think over the years, Frank, the last 10 years, since I've been a student of monetary history, I think the biggest thing I've, I've learned to come to peace with because I've realized there's not, not a lot I can do about it. But like, I find it unbelievable how, like you mentioned, like we, we, we saw years of zero interest rates. We saw massive asset bubbles get blown. We saw financial markets get distorted. And then you have like the most powerful institution in the federal reserve. You have a bunch of people that are on the board there. And even, you know, Janet Yellen, and it's a revolving door. A lot of them go and work on wall street on the other side of their career. So it's, it's great. But when you, when you, when you, when you, when you look at central banks today and like all the intervention mechanisms that they've done, do you think they're solving any problems? Or do you think they're simply managing the consequences of earlier decisions? Yeah. [00:23:00] Frank: I, I, I think, you know, I, I read somewhere recently that, um, that all policymakers, including the central banks are now preoccupied with managing the debt crisis as opposed to preventing a debt crisis. So they all know it's coming. So now everybody's trying to figure out how do we navigate knowing that there's a debt crisis that's about to, you know, implode the system. So they have to come up with mechanisms now to, to deal with that before, before it happens. I'm not sure there's much you can do without creating a tremendous amount of destruction. There's no easy way out of this thing. It's that there's no secret sauce here. You you've got a situation where you go way too much debt, way too much governments, corporations, individuals, everybody's loaded, especially government. The sovereigns, their debt has gone up six fold. Global sovereign debt has gone up six fold in the last 25 years and, and up 50% just in the last four years. And so it's, it's spiraling out of control and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And I don't think that is going to implode at some point is going to have, and it's going to take down a lot of asset classes with it because everything's leveraged to the held. Everything's interconnected. Everything's the world is too interconnected. The system did the financial systems and derivatives. Everything is too opaque. And there's too much leverage. Yeah, it's an accident waiting to happen and it will happen. And I, how it manifests itself. I don't know what event triggers it. I don't know, but it'll be something. And it'll be a great unwinding. The stock market trading at all, all time record highs. This, this market is way beyond even the dot com market of 2000s. And at that point, the NASDAQ, when it finally crashed, it lost about 80% of its value. And it took 15 years to get back to its old highs. So I think that there's going to be a, chickens are going to come home to roost. And it's going to be very ugly. Very ugly. And there's very little that governments and central banks can do about it. Except what they always do. Print more money. It's, it's, it's, it's the fallback. It's the fallback position because it creates a silent tax called inflation. People can't quite put their finger on it. If you raise taxes, people will notice. If you cut costs and services and whatever, people will notice. But if you print money, you know, all of a sudden things get expensive or whatever, but you can't put your finger on why it happened. Most people don't understand how that works. So the politicians can bullshit their way out of it. [00:25:46] Speaker 2: One. And with that, Frank, like in touching on the, the sovereign debt levels that have just ballooned, you know, shifting a bit to purely to gold here, like central banks are buying gold at the fastest pace on, on record in recent years. Yeah. What do you think they see that most investors don't? Do you think they're preparing for, like you mentioned, like this sovereign debt problem where they could essentially revalue gold? Or do you think they're using it as a, and, you know, neutral reserve asset that can't be weaponized against, or especially when it's on their own shore. What, what's your read on that? Yeah. [00:26:23] Frank: It's a combination of two things. It is the weaponization of the dollar, which is causing de-dollarization. And when you want to sell your U.S. Treasuries or your central bank, what do you replace it with? There's no other really great currency out there, no currency option out there, because, you know, people in the, here's the mistake that most people make. They, they look across currency, currency rates, you know, the U.S. dollar versus the yen, U.S. dollar versus the euro. But that's just looking at one abstract illusion and comparing it to another abstract illusion, because these things aren't anchored in anything. Okay. They're just paper promises. The only currency, when you sell your, your central bank and you're de-dollarized and selling U.S. Treasuries, the only tier one currency that is not someone else's liability, that has no counterparty, that is neutral, is gold. Gold's a tier one asset, just like U.S. Treasuries, as far as central banks are concerned. So that's their only real option. Sell dollars. You want to get out of the dollar, the dollar system because you're afraid of sanctions or you're watching the U.S. fiscal situation fall off a cliff. You go, why would I want to hold long-term treasuries? Maybe I'll hold up, you know, 30-day, 60-day, you know, two years max, but why would I own a 10-year when, you know, when they're printing money, when inflation, you know, when the debt is out of control? So, yeah, so I think that that's basically what's happening there. The central banks are looking at it from two perspectives. One is the avoiding sanctions and threats of sanctions, secondary sanctions. And the other one is just why do you want to own an asset that, you know, where they're just, you can see the fiscal situation is going to end badly. So you, why would you be, you know, China's gone from $1.2 trillion in U.S. Treasuries down to 700 billion. They're selling it all the time. And also, like, India and Brazil have reduced their dollar reserves by 25%. Saudi Arabia sold 15% of their holdings. Everybody's selling, coming off. Now, they can't do it very quickly. You can't just sell all your dollars. But you're seeing it, you know, they're doing it step by step. China's reducing its dollar reserves, replacing it with gold, now reporting all the gold that they're buying. They're buying a lot more. You know, they just announced that they're, they're, uh, imported a record amount of gold just, was it this last month? And you know, it's going into some, into some of the, uh, into the government institutions, but they won't officially report it. They, they, they claim they only have 2,300 tons, which is absolute BS. You know, they've got probably 10 times that amount. [00:29:01] Speaker 2: Well, and do you think Frank, like with the obscurity around the Chinese gold hoarding and purchases, do you think there is a chance in your view that China could have more gold than the United States? [00:29:15] Frank: Oh, easily, easily. Like I said, if they're, they've reported officially 2,300 tons. Okay. Goldman Sachs suggested it could be 10 times that amount. The U S has 8,100 tons. If they have it, we still haven't audited for Knox. We don't know, or if it's somehow encumbered or pledged or whatever, but supposedly we have 8,100 tons in the United States and China, my guess is they have more than that. And when they're ready to tell you how much, because there's a reason to tell you they will, but right now they're still accumulating. [00:29:46] Speaker 2: Do you, and you, you bring up a, uh, interesting point, Frank. Like, do you think we will, do you think we will see that, that Fort Knox audit? Like it's been very sporadic in, in the media cycle and the president has been off and on with it. Um, I know there's, everybody wants to see it. Do you think, do you think we will? [00:30:06] Speaker ?: Okay. [00:30:07] Frank: Okay. There's, you ask yourself this. It's a simple thing to do. Auditing for, it's not just Fort Knox. It's also the federal reserve. So the gold is in a couple of different places, but let's see the bulk of it's Fort Knox. Um, it's just to audit your gold is not rocket scientists. You walk in and you check all the gold and make sure it's pure gold. And you make sure there's enough bars and segregated. And, you know, depending who it belongs to. And it's not that hard. So you ask yourself why they've talked about it. They've threatened to do it, but they don't. They don't, there's a reason. And I don't know what that reason is. Okay. I can only speculate and could be like very different reasons that are actually tell you different stories, but there's a reason they're not telling you. Is it because they don't want to give gold that credibility? Because if they start to give gold credibility by counting it and reporting it, it suggests that that gold is important because all along they're telling you gold is worth, you know, gold is worthless. You know, is it because they don't have enough of it? And when you start to dig deep, let's say they even reprice it. It was from the 42 at $42 an ounce to his current market value. It's about a trillion dollars worth of gold. But if they do that, then people can start number crunch and say, well, okay. Now you have a trillion dollars worth of gold. You got $39 trillion worth of debt. You're adding $2 trillion more every year. How's that going to help? I don't think, you know, and I know Judy Sheldon came up with that idea about the 50 year bond convertible into gold. I still don't understand what that will achieve because it's only a trillion dollars. It's not going to change anything. It might set the stage for sound money, the concept of sound money, but it doesn't fix the actual problem. So I'm not sure. My guess is this. Okay. For gold to play a role in the United States today, they're going to have a lot more gold. They're going to need a lot more gold or a much higher price or both for it to actually make a difference. Yeah. [00:32:13] Speaker 2: That's my take on it. [00:32:14] Frank: Well, it's interesting, Frank. [00:32:15] Speaker 2: I think with Judy Sheldon's like 50 year treasury bond, I think what her vision is, it's almost like the first step for a sound money era where even that's a first progression into like gold back stable coins. If the United States gets involved where you can almost back a gold stable coin with that 50 year treasury bill that is redeemable into gold. So it's kind of that kind of foundational layer that's potentially applied in a digital era, but it's interesting. Like it's, and I think as well, I think one of the things the United States is now paying a lot of attention to, like you mentioned is China, like China's gold purchases. They're very, it's very obscure. I think there's a lot of concern that China could be help leverage their gold position one day. And I know you've talked a lot about that in the past of like, we could wake up and China could declare how much gold they really have. And, you know, as you mentioned, it's a tier one asset. So I, I wonder how much of, of these ideas, you know, Judy's having and others in the United States is about playing a bit of offense on China. [00:33:34] Frank: Given their, yeah, well, yeah, yeah, China's is definitely the, you know, the 800 pound gorilla in this geopolitical game that's taking place. It's basically China in the U.S. What China is doing and they're, I hate to say this, but they're playing this brilliantly. The whole game, they're playing it brilliantly. First of all, they're long term players. They think strategically, 20, 50 years down the road, and they have a, they have a, an objective. The objective is to be able to function outside the U.S. dollar system. And as you know, they've created all sorts of mechanisms, including the Ambridge project, including, you know, these gold, the ability to exchange your wands for gold on the Shanghai gold exchange. These gold vaults, the first one being in Hong Kong and talking about other ones in Singapore, Switzerland, UAE, Saudi Arabia. So they're, they've got a strategy and they're playing the U.S. I think beautifully. Just look at this last, the, the war in Iran. China's come across as the responsible, stable global player that's seeking peace and, you know, allowing America to create this blunder, which they've created. The Iran war was a complete and utter stupid move. It's a disaster for everybody, including the U.S. And, and, and China's basically, I don't know if you ever heard of Napoleon's phrase, you know, never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake. So, and so China is just sitting back, allowing the U.S. to hurt itself, to inflict its wounds on itself. It doesn't have to do anything. It just sits back and it gets stronger and stronger economically. It's growing its gold reserves and it's positioning itself, not that it wants to supersede America as the global hegemon. They don't want that. What, what China wants is to displace the U.S. as the sole global hegemon and create a multipolar world. And, and they have the strength to do it. I mean, you know, Trump has tried those tariffs threats. You know, he tried everything against China. It was like water off a duck's back as far as China. You know, I don't know if you ever saw the movie, The Godfather Part II, with, when Michael Corleone, where there's a senator who's trying to, to blackmail him. And, and Michael Corleone, he wants some money, you know, to, to allow Michael to get his gaming license. And he goes, and he makes some outrageous claim. And, and, and Michael Corleone goes, you want to hear my offer now? My offer is this, nothing. [00:36:02] Speaker 3: Senator, you can have my answer now if you like. My offer is this, nothing. [00:36:12] Frank: In fact, I would like you to pay for my, my gaming license or whatever. And, and, and China is saying the same thing. They gave Trump a nice reception, a nice photo op when he went to China recently. You know, the girls, school girls dancing, all that. It was a nice photo, but he walked away with nothing. They, they, they, they're not giving any concessions. In fact, what they've said is our offer is this, nothing. And in fact, you have to pay more for critical minerals and, and, and, and, and rare earths. That, that was their counter offer. So I think China is playing this because they know that the US is destroying itself with their, their policy. I mean, taking on the entire world with tariff threats, including their allies. I mean, you have to ask yourself, you know, where does that get you? You have no friends left and everybody is trying to get away from your system now. And it's fueling this de-dollarization movement. And I think it will fuel the purchasing of gold. So that that's the world we live in. [00:37:16] Speaker 2: How, how much do you think Frank is like, you know, mentioning some of the geopolitical. Um, kind of events that's, that's taking hold right now around the world. And we also saw the United States, uh, going to Venezuela. Like how, how inner intertwined is the whole de-dollarization trend to these geopolitical kind of hotspots emerging around the world. Do you think? [00:37:42] Frank: Yeah, I wrote, I wrote an article about this a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if you read it. And, and, uh, it was called the petrodollar police. [00:37:50] Speaker 2: No, I, I missed that one. Okay. [00:37:54] Frank: So for your audience, go to my blog. FrenchEustra.com. And about three weeks ago, I wrote this article called the petrodollar police. And what I pointed out in there, and I'm not the first to point it out. So, but is that every time a large global oil exporter has made threats or moves to sell their oil outside the US dollar system, something bad happens to them. So, uh, Saddam Hussein threatened to say, and he was selling oil in euros because the US had sanctions against, against Iraq. What did they do to Saddam Hussein? Libya. And Gaddafi was trying to convince the oil producers to sell oil in gold dinars. What did they do to him? They took him out. Venezuela. Maduro was selling oil for yuans at a discount. What did they do to Maduro? Iran. Same thing. Selling oil to China in yuans, not dollars. What did they try to do to Iran? They didn't succeed, but they tried. You have to understand when, when they closed the dollar, the gold window and the dollar went into free fall against gold. The only thing that saved the US dollar was the introduction of the petrodollar in 1974. And that for your viewers that don't know what that is, is basically they cut a deal with Saudi Arabia saying, we'll provide you with security guarantees. You only sell oil in dollars and we'll give you a security guarantee. We'll protect you. And then everybody adopted that within OPEC. And so that's what's kept, it's the demand for dollars to buy oil, which is the largest, biggest commodity in the world. That creates demand for dollars. And, you know, the Saudis in turn, initially recycled those dollars back into US treasuries and more recently into your US assets, stocks, real estate, etc. But always something in dollar terms. And that's if the petrodollar goes away, because now 20% of oil is sold outside of the US dollar system. Yeah. As that becomes a bigger number, you know, the sold not in dollars, it's going to create a problem for US dollars. So they're quickly trying to figure out how do we stem the tide so you can stem it by making threats, but you can't stop this forever. So they have to think, what is the net? What can we do long term to prevent the dollarization? And I think I explained it in another article recently about stable coins. I think the stable coins, the biggest reason they want this clarity act to go through is because stable coins, when you have to have US Treasury backing. So if you create a stable coin to create payments and settlements and financial apps and all sorts of applications, you need to back that with US Treasury. So it creates demand where demand did not exist before at a time when central banks around the world are selling their US Treasuries. So I think that that's one of the main reasons they want stable coins to be the next sort of banking mechanism. Obviously, it's, you know, still caught in the Senate, and I'm not sure it's going to get approved this year. There's a lot of opposition from the banks. The big banks don't like this at all. And so we'll see if that actually happens. But that's the reason they're doing it. [00:41:28] Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, it's interesting, Frank, like, I wanted to get your thoughts on something that I mentioned this week, but I don't think it's receiving a lot of attention right now. It was it was reported and there are reports that BRICS nations are developing a blockchain based settlement token backed partially by gold and partially by member currencies. Importantly, this there's the report stated that it's not a common currency. And I know that's the United States has made it very clear that if BRICS creates a common currency, there will be a tariff. It's a settlement mechanism designed to facilitate trade without relying on the US dollar. When you look at developments like this, do you view them as isolated experiments or are we witnessing the early stages of a gradual restructuring of the global monetary system? [00:42:20] Frank: The latter, absolutely the latter. I mean, there are a number of these mechanisms being created. I've heard about the one you're referring to. I think they suggested it should be 40% gold, 60% local currencies and for trading purposes only, not trading and settlement as opposed to reserve currencies held by central banks. And this is a point you were just making. Yeah, no, I think that this is the beginnings of what will someday be a new monetary system. And much like the 1930s, until Bretton Woods, after the war of Bretton Woods created a new monetary system, but during the interwar period, you had a whole bunch of hodgepodge payment systems between countries. There was even barter involved in a lot of places because there was no supreme global currency. The British pound had lost its appeal and the US dollar still hadn't been, you know, the system where it was backed by gold for the world had not been created. So absolutely. Now, I think that the intermittent period between now and the time we have a brand new system, it's a long period. And it's going to be a lot of chaos in between because I doubt we're in a world where all countries are going to get together like in the Bretton Woods agreement and agree now without the shit hitting the fan first. Agree now what what the system is going to look like and you basically have this China US competition. So I doubt it's going to be happening in friendly terms. I just hope it doesn't happen with a kinetic war, which is usually what happens when global power shifts from one to another. So, yeah, but I definitely think we're heading towards a new system. But in the meantime, we're going to see a number of different systems all designed to operate outside the US dollar. Yeah, that's that'll be the main concern. [00:44:20] Speaker 2: One in with that, Frank, like with with gold being this ubiquitous asset where it is valued around around the world and as countries like bricks with that framework, whether it's 40 percent gold, 60 percent localized currencies with that type of mechanism. And then you add stable coins on top of that with, you know, if the Clarity Act gets gets passed. Don't you think the Western world needs to leverage their needs to leverage gold in some capacity or the Eastern world who represents half of humanity essentially that that could be. I know you've talked a lot about the multipolar component of where we're going, but like, don't you think with what gold represents, it shouldn't be like this two very different systems being, you know, don't you think it comes together? It converges at some. Yeah, I think at some point, yes. [00:45:20] Frank: But again, Alex, I don't think it's going to happen until it's forced upon people. I don't think it's something that's going to voluntarily happen today where China and U.S. sit down and say, OK, let's create a new monetary system. This is going to let gold's going to play a role. I just don't see that happening today. I think that the U.S. is behind the eight ball on this and they're going to have to do something to catch up. Now, they may think that the stable coins is the solution to create demand for dollars, and maybe it will be. I think it's way too early to tell. And we're still not sure whether the U.S., what the U.S. thinks about its gold reserves. We don't know because they're not telling us. If you ask me, if I were the U.S., if I were the U.S. president or I ran Congress, you know, I was in charge. I was a dictator. I would take all my funny money that I'm printing and I would buy as much gold as possible. I would exchange my funny money for gold. I would absolutely do it covertly and not tell anybody until I had enough gold. And maybe they are doing that. I doubt it, but there's a chance that they could be accumulating gold. That's what I would do. That's a smart thing to do. But, you know, not all politicians are very smart. [00:46:31] Speaker 2: Well, it's funny too, Frank, to think that like, you know, even some of the people that knock on gold in the media, like you see the central banks who issue the fiat currency buying record amounts of gold. What other signal do you need when you when you see that they're the ones issuing the fiat currency that is backed by nothing and they're stockpiling all this gold. It's I've always found that when you think about it with that logic, I just I find it. I just shake my head. It's just like, yeah, yeah, you shake your head. [00:47:05] Frank: But you have to understand if you're a normal Joe in the United States and you you watch CNN or Fox or whatever you're watching, they're never going to explain that to you. Okay, that gold is that important that you should own it to protect your wealth because it is ultimately the only currency is going to be left when when everything else blows up and they go out of their way. The media, politicians, central banks, they go out of their way to make sure that you don't understand gold enough. And that's why Americans are not, you know, what do they buy? If they if they're trying to protect their wealth, they're buying Bitcoin. Okay, that's they've been told that Bitcoin is as good or better than gold actually is what they're saying. So you should own Bitcoin to protect your wealth. You know, when they start printing money again, and money supply growth, Bitcoin is going to do really well. I'm sorry, I don't buy it. I think Bitcoin's had its day. I think it's lost. It's the enthusiasm is gone in Bitcoin. It's, you know, what happened is all these Bitcoin Maxis were creating this FOMO that it was going to a million and 10 million and people piled in as a function of greed and FOMO. It didn't work, you know, topped off at 125. It's gone down. It's lost its energy. Nobody cares anymore. Like, you know, I don't know where they're going to find the next buyer because it's it's kind of like a Ponzi. It's not I don't call upon but it's kind of like you need new buyers all the time. And I think they've lost the they've lost it. I think Bitcoin is which is been touted as good as gold or better gold is going to lose its efficacy. And I think that eventually people will start to, you know, to look at gold. And I think what will motivate them is what always motivates people when it goes up in price. Yeah, the more it goes up in price, the more people want to jump in. Now, we've had a correction in gold. It's come from 5,500. It's down to 4,000 today. That's a correction. It happens. You know, it nothing goes straight up. I mean, it tripled in price in a very short period of time. What do you expect? It's going to correct. But the next run and whenever it happens, you know, I know. I never time these things out. But the next run as central banks continue because they've all 68% of them said they're going to continue to buy gold. The foreign central banks. And this is a long term purchase program. It's not like you buy a bunch of gold. It's done over a number of years because you get rid of one currency. You have to replace it with gold. So it happens very slowly, but it's happening. And as we see this continue to happen, I think people will start to realize that there is value in owning gold and you have to own it. You have to own some physical. Yeah. [00:49:49] Speaker 2: One. And with that, Frank, like it's so interesting to like with the whole Bitcoin and crypto side of things like we're even starting to see like like Tether, who's essentially the plumbing of the entire crypto market being the largest stable coin in the world. They've totally pivoted towards our world, whether it's mining or physical gold. So it's almost like they foresee and they agree with with central banks where they want to have that exposure. And with their gold position now, they're sort of becoming like a central bank. So it's it's interesting how you go from saying Bitcoin and the crypto world is going to just totally dominate and and supersede gold. And now you have one of the biggest players in that market participating alongside central banks. But one of the one of the things, Frank, a quote that that's always. I it's always stayed with me since 2022 is a quote that Vladimir Putin said, where he said the economy, the economy of imaginary wealth is being replaced by the economy of real and hard assets. When you hear that, what goes through your mind? [00:51:03] Frank: Well, when you compare two asset classes, one, you can print to infinity. So how do you assign value to an asset class that you can create out of thin air as much as you want? And compare it to other asset classes that have fixed supply and the things that you need in life, commodities, energy, water, all the things that are in food, the things that are necessary, that are limited in supply. And to me, that's the world we're headed into. We're going into a hard asset environment. And no, not everybody's bought into it yet. I certainly have. And, you know, and I know yourself, hard assets, tangible assets are where you have to be, because the world, especially now with the geopolitical fragmentation that's taking place, there's a scramble to secure all sorts of resources that are scarce. And I assure them French or them fine. So there's, it's a bit of a battle for resources right now. And, you know, we're not a unified world anymore where we're cooperating and it's that, that ship has sailed, you know, the world order is dead as the dodo right now. And until we get a brand new world order after a lot of chaos down the road, you know, it may be different, but right now you need to own things that people need and that are in short supply. And, you know, every metal, oil, gas, food, fertilizer, whatever, whatever it is we need to function as a, as a society, as a civilization. That's the stuff you got to invest in. The paper stuff is all levers to the hilt. It's got derivative. You don't, like, you got to, you have all of these financial products that are derivatives of each other and they're, they're leveraged to the hilt and it's opaque. You can't see behind it. What's really going on. It, that's a disaster waiting to happen. And it will implode at some point, but if you have a hard asset, you own it. It's physical. You, you know, if you have a chunk of gold, a bar of gold, that's yours. They can't print that. They can't, you know, leverage it. You know, that's, you own it. And if you've got other metals that we need, copper, especially, you know, those are the important things. And that's what you need to invest in today. Things that are not easy, that are limited in supply and can't be printed. [00:53:30] Speaker 2: And, and with that, Frank, like how you've been arguably one of the best resource speculators and investors in, in, in history. When you, when you look at this mineral kind of cycle or hard asset cycle that we're in, how is it different from previous cycles that you've lived through and, and just what feels different? [00:53:53] Frank: That's a really good. That's an important and a very good question. The difference between this market environment and past bull markets that I've witnessed in metals is that this time, there's a structural change taking place. This is not a normal bull metals market that's driven by investors. We're talking about a change to the global monetary system, an entire structural change. And most people don't know that yet. They don't get it. They, they, you know, if you read when these legacy media write articles about gold and they ask some expert why people buy gold, they're missing the whole point. You know, I've been asked and sometimes I supply answers. They won't print my answers usually, but you know, it's, it's, it, we're in a very different market right now. This is structural. This is a structural change that only happens every 80 to a hundred years. And we're long due now. And it's, it's the same pattern every time. So I, I just don't, I, I don't think you can compare this to the markets that we've experienced, especially in my lifetime. I've been doing this gig for 45 years. Now this market is very different than the last cycle, which was from 2001 and 2011. That, that was completely different reasons. Now we've got a structural global change. That's driving the gold price. Yeah. [00:55:14] Speaker 2: And, and with that, Frank, I know you've been, and you, you just touched on it in, in this conversation. And I know you, you're, you, you're really starting to talk about it and it reminds me of like, when you, you know, you've always championed gold and highlighted the importance of gold. But I've noticed recently, especially the last couple of years, you, you've really started to, to get, um, educational and, and loud on, on copper. What, what's, you know, I've heard you say before that people dramatically underestimate what's coming in copper. Uh, why is that? [00:55:49] Frank: Well, I don't know why, because by every measure it has been well documented. Okay. It's not like it's one person that's saying it. It's almost every major mining company, every economist, everybody that's in the industry, bankers, whatever, have come and told us that there's a supply deficit of copper facing us. And it's a big one. And it's happening in the next five years. The next five years, I think it was JP Morgan said, we're going to, uh, an 8 million ton deficit. You know, 30% supply deficit, 30%. We're currently we're producing about 23 million tons a year of copper, 30% supply deficit in the next five years. And no one knows where all this copper supply is going to come from. No one. You know, a friend of mine is the chairman of Rio Tinto. He said, we don't know where this, you know, because their minds, the big minds owned by the majors are being depleted. Their grade is dropping like crazy. Uh, they have to mine a lot more dirt. Now move a lot more dirt to get that same amount of copper. So it's becoming more expensive. There haven't been any major, not a lot of major new minds put into production in the last 20 years. And it takes a long time to find a tier, to find and develop and put into production. A tier one copper mine is really a long, long time. You know, tier ones are the big porphyries that you see in places like Argentina and Chile and Peru. Um, those take a long time to find, develop and put into production. And there are, by one estimate, we're going to need 30 to 60 new tier one, tier one copper mines in the next, uh, in the next five years. We only like, I look at what's not owned by the majors. Okay, tier one assets are over a billion tons of copper, usually a porphyry, you know, decent grade point, you know, 3.4.5. Um, and I only know of five of them that are owned by juniors that are not only owned by majors that are undeveloped near surface over a billion tons of decent grade. And so you're going to need the other estimate that I heard is you're going to need about a hundred new mines of all sizes. Like even the smaller mines. And I know you've got the, that Appitibi company in Quebec, you know, that's going to be a medium sized mine. It's not a large porphyry, but you know, in this, we, we finance the Salkirk mine in the Yukon. These are, we need so many of these to meet that supply deficit, especially the tier ones. And the tier ones, the big porphyries take a long time. They're, they're, they're multi-billion dollar projects to put into production. And so, you know, I've got one that's in Columbia called copper giant. It's over a billion tons. And I'm going to stick with it. And I, my recommendation to people is find one you like, buy it. Because the M&A frenzy will come. The senior mining companies, the reels, the BHP, they're going to have to take over some of these juniors with these large mega copper deposits. They're going to get gobbled up. So my advice is, find one you like, good grade, near surface, over a billion tons, or, or an underground mine like yours with high grade, really high grade mine, 2%, 3% copper, buy those and just hold on. If, if the economics makes sense today, they're going to get gobbled up. [00:59:24] Speaker 2: Well, and it's. [00:59:25] Frank: So that's my strategy. [00:59:26] Speaker 2: Well, it's, it's interesting, Frank. Like it's, it's like you mentioned is like the VMS deposits versus the porphyry deposits, like the VMS high grade, smaller scale, higher grade always has higher profit margins, but the porphyries have that scale long life assets. And I, we're both shareholders of, of copper giant. And it's quite exciting with what's going on with, you know, the drilling looks good. And, and is, I guess, next steps for copper giant. And is it the PEA coming in, in, by the end of the year? [00:59:57] Frank: Yeah, the PEA, there's a PEA coming at the end of this, uh, the third, third or fourth quarter of this year. Um, they just had an election on the weekend in Columbia and, uh, the pro mining guy won the election. He's going to be the new president. So that creates a whole different perception of Columbia. So, yeah, no, I think, I think they're on the right track. I think it's going to be way bigger than a billion. It's 1.1 billion tons right now. Um, just looking at where these drill holes are, it's open all direction, open a depth. I think it's going to, my personal opinion is going to be over. It's going to be a much bigger number than, than a billion tons. But a billion tons is all you need to, to, to, to value one of these porphyries. Cause you know, that's about thing for us is about a 30 year mine life. You know, after that, you know, when you discount the future cashflow, it doesn't really add any value. But the big companies like it cause they want multi-generational projects to last forever. [01:00:48] Speaker ?: Yeah. [01:00:48] Frank: Okay. So, so again, find ones you like, buy them, be patient. [01:00:53] Speaker 2: And do, do you think, do you think we are entering a true copper super cycle? And, and if so, Frank, how long, how long do you predict it could last for just given all the deficit? [01:01:04] Frank: Well, it's good. I think until 2035, 2040. [01:01:09] Speaker ?: Yeah. [01:01:10] Frank: Because it, again, it takes so long to get these things into production and that deficit is going to come at us. And the only other thing that's going to fix it are two other things. Higher copper prices is a fix. One of the fixes and less regulation. You know, the permitting process by countries, especially the US, Canada has to be more accommodating to allow these things to be permitted faster. And, and believe me, when that supply deficit hits, they're going to start permitting, permitting these things a lot faster. Yeah. [01:01:42] Speaker 2: One. And with that, Frank, transitioning to the, the kind of the last theme of this. And by the way, Frank, thanks for, thanks for your time. It's always great. Having conversations with you. We got to do it more, but you, you've spent decades. Yes, we do. Financing discoveries, building companies and studying history and watching markets. When you look back on your career, what are you most proud of? [01:02:08] Frank: I just wrote a book. It's going to be out this fall. It's basically my life story. It's a journey, which talks about, you know, coming from nothing, making a bunch of money, realizing that that wasn't enough in life. And then where it took me from there, but I wrote an entire chapter on Gold Corp. And at the end of the chapter, I said, this was the proudest, this company, Gold Corp, which we created, starting, it was started as Wheaton River back in 2001. And finally, it was acquired by Newmont about 10 years ago. The proudest achievement of my life was founding and creating Gold Corp. And, you know, which became one of the biggest gold mining companies in the world. I'm more proud of that than I'm building Lions, you know, creating Lionsgate. And Lionsgate, the movie company that I did for six years. I'm way more proud that how, because if you, when you read that chapter, you'll get the book and read that chapter, you'll see what a journey that was. It was not easy, but man, it was exciting, like thrilling to create from nothing, from an idea to create one of the world's largest gold mining companies in a period of 10 years. Like, it just, we just did it. And, you know, obviously I, I was the creator, the guy that put it all together, made, brought the people in, brought in Ian Telfer. Ian Telfer made it work. It was his management genius that made it work. I was a great cheerleader after that, but, you know, but I put it together. [01:03:38] Speaker 2: One of the things, Frank, too, about the whole Gold Corp story, correct me if I'm wrong. One of the things I always thought was incredible when I heard the story is when Ian would mention, like, your conviction during that stretch in gold. Like a lot of people at the time when you guys were on doing acquisitions, a lot of people thought you were overpaying, but in hindsight, on the other side of that, it looked brilliant. So that truly comes down to the conviction and the, just the, the, yeah, it's, yeah. Yeah. [01:04:14] Frank: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You had to have the conviction because we were working against time. We knew that, well, we knew I felt very strongly that gold was going to go up in price very quickly. And I was right. And so we had to move quickly. And so that meant sometimes we paid full price for things with the knowledge that gold was going higher. And we, oh, I mean, I tell the analysts, they were so, they were, they hated us. Every move we made, they hated. You paid too much. It's too much silver and not enough gold. It's too much copper and not enough. Everything we did, they hated until it became a very large company. Then they loved us. [01:04:52] Speaker 2: Well, my last question, Frank, with, with everything you have seen over the years, and we've covered a lot in this conversation, but what are you paying attention to today that almost nobody's paying attention to that you haven't really discussed? [01:05:08] Frank: Yeah, that's, that's a very good question. I think that the, the, the, the part that people are missing in today's market, not everybody, but I would think that the majority of the investing public is missing is that, hey, as I just mentioned, we're going through a structural change in the global monetary system. This is not like anything we've ever experienced in our lifetimes. Like I said, this happens every 80 to 100 years, because people after 80, 100 years, they forget. So our generations don't know what they went through 80, 100 years ago, but it, so we're going through a structural change in the global financial and monetary system. That's the one thing that people are missing. The second thing that people are missing is they, they don't see, they tend to dismiss the dollarization because they see, well, the dollar is strong. You know, today it's, you know, one of the reasons gold is down because the dollar is strong. The DXY is over 100, now it's 101. And they go, the dollar is strong, but you're confusing cross currency rates of dollars, which are in demand because of liquidity. Sorry, there's mosquitoes out here. Liquidity crisis is going on around the world that people need dollars to buy oil at a much higher price. All these things drove the dollar higher. And, and, and they confuse that with the fact that central banks are selling us treasuries. Okay. You, and a lot of countries have to sell treasuries to get dollars to pay, you know, whether servicing debt or to buy oil or buy commodities. So there's a demand for dollars right now, but that doesn't stop the central banks from selling treasuries. So you're having both these things happen. You got a strong dollar in the cross currency rates, but you're also having a de-dollarization, a reduction in dollar reserves at the central banks. And I think people have missed that part. Okay. They don't, they say, no, a dollar is fine, it's strong. Everybody wants a dollar. No, they don't. They don't want, they're trying to get rid of their dollars, but they need it for short term payments. So there's, you have to sell dollar assets to get dollars. The third thing that I think most investors are missing is that this metals market is, it's got a long ways to go. There's a real need for all of these metals. And there's going to be an M&A frenzy coming our way in the next few years, where majors are acquiring juniors. Juniors are coming together to create bigger companies. Intermediates are acquiring, merging with, like there's going to be a merger mania, because the only way you're going to access these metals, the easiest way to access is through acquisition, as opposed to trying to find them. They're becoming very hard to find now. The easy deposits have all been found. Now it's getting much, much harder to find deposits. So what do companies do? When they can't find them, they acquire. And so I think we're going to see a merger mania happening at some point in this market. And like I said, what you, as an investor, what you should do is find really good quality assets. Remember, scale is important. Grade is important. Bigger is better. With sound management. Okay. Because management can really screw up these things. You know, you can take a great asset with bad management. And we at Fiori are very good at cleaning up other people's messes. But so with good sponsorship, good management, great. Buy them. Just hold them. Be patient. They're going to get taken out. They're going to get gobbled up. [01:08:47] Speaker 2: Well, Frank, this has been an incredible conversation. I'm also, I'm looking forward to continuing this discussion with you live at Beaver Creek in September. It will be our third year. All right. We'll have lots of fun. Thanks for it. [01:09:01] Frank: Thanks for it. It'll be fun. My pleasure. You know, Alex, I always enjoy talking to you. [01:09:06] Speaker 2: And thanks everybody for watching the show.