In this episode of the Gold Exchange Podcast, Dana Samuelson, president of American Gold Exchange, joins Monetary Metals to discuss the forces shaping the gold and silver markets. From central bank gold buying and global currency risks to rising inflation, mounting government debt, and geopolitical tensions, Dana shares his perspective on why precious metals remain relevant in an increasingly uncertain world. He also explores the impact of AI on the economy, the differences between gold and silver as stores of value, and the potential for future market volatility.
Plus, discover which countries could play the biggest role in precious metals demand and why financial education is essential to understanding gold’s place in a portfolio.
Read the transcript below.
Transcript
Monetary Metals
Welcome back to the Gold Exchange Podcast. I’m joined by one of my favorites, Dana Samuelson. He’s the president of American Gold Exchange. He joins me today to talk about all thing’s gold. Dana, I want to start on a macro view. Obviously, gold had a crazy run-up in prices, then it came down a little bit, and we’ve kind of been consolidating, kind of slowing growing up in prices. Do you think that we’re waiting for the next major catalyst, or do you think that we’re just in a slower bull run?
Dana Samuelson
Oh, well, first of all, we’re digesting the biggest run we’ve had in history.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Japan’s yen carry trade and global market risks
Dana Samuelson
Right. Typically, this takes a while. Number one. Number two, we’ve hit bottom levels, major support levels at $3,950 and held. Right. And silver at $55 and held. So that’s very good. And I thought that we might have a little bit more price liability but a couple of weeks ago, we had a coordinated intervention in the Japanese yen by both the US and the Japanese governments combined.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Which hardly ever happens, which signaled distress in the currency markets, specifically the yen. Right. Which potentially could create implications for a ripple effect around the global financial system, which is why they did it. And then gold and silver caught bids and moved higher towards the higher side of their recent trading ranges. So I was thinking that we were at bottom levels and that maybe the bottoms were in actually for this cycle so far. And now I’m much more confident about it because we have had that catalyst, which is the yen intervention.
Monetary Metals
And when people hear about this yen carry trade, is that kind of signaling that, hey, maybe this carry trade, whether it blows up or not, or just that people are worried about Japan’s yen currency in Is that something where, you know, US investors need to focus on multiple different currencies rather than just what’s going on in the US stock market?
Dana Samuelson
Well, it’s a ripple effect for potential investments around the world because for a decade or more, you could borrow in yen at a couple percentage points lower than an interest rate elsewhere. And then reinvest that money in the US or somewhere else and earn the spread, the arbitrage, right? Pretty easily if the yen and the dollar don’t move too much against each other. Right. But when the yen starts skidding like it was, that takes away the arbitrage spread. It narrows it and potentially negates it to go negative. Right.
And at that point in time, the end carries trade starts to unwind. Now, if that’s a disruptive unwind of a trend that’s been in place for years, that could potentially ripple through and destabilize other markets meaningfully, which is why they intervened. Right. And so it’s a tip of what could be bigger problems. I don’t think that’s going to blow.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
But it could mean that things could really start to unwind much more. It’s like pulling yarn on a sweater.
Monetary Metals
Mm-hmm.
Dana Samuelson
At first you’re just pulling a little bit off the bottom. Right. But if you keep going, pretty soon you’re not going to have a sweater. Right?
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Yeah. So, to me, that was a major signal.
And it suddenly created re-interest in precious metals, which had been waning. Right. And the fact that they held those bottoms, $3,950 and $5,550 for silver in the face of, you know, a weaker market, lack of interest. Right. And now there’s a reason to have a hedge again. And China’s been buying gold. You know, they put in another record month, I think in June. I haven’t seen the numbers yet because we’re on the road. It’s a big deal and I think it’s meaningful. And I do think that probably the bottoms are in place now.
Central-bank gold sales and why China keeps buying
Monetary Metals
And the last time we talked, we discussed while some central banks are buying gold, that’s positive in terms of, hey, they’re adding to the price potentially. But also, there’s that risk that, hey, when a crisis comes for that central bank in Turkey or China or India that they say, hey, now’s the time to sell that gold that we’ve been kind of having in our rainy-day fund. Do you think that has also kind of peaked in terms of central banks’ selling, saying, okay, we think the storm or maybe the worst of it is over?
Dana Samuelson
Well, who sold? We had Turkey sell, we have the oil fund for Azerbaijan sell, but they sold because they weren’t getting oil revenue, right? It’s not because they sold because they wanted to. They sold because they needed to, to supplement the income they weren’t getting from oil sales. That stopped. Right. So, I don’t think this is a trend change. I think this was an event that caused them to use gold for what it’s necessary for, raising some cash if you absolutely need it. Otherwise, I don’t think they’d be sellers.
Monetary Metals
And so that like acute crisis maybe didn’t change the trend, which is China, all these other central banks and Russia, they’re buying gold, they’re buying gold. Do you see that as a, just a strategic reserve asset for moments like this? Hey, there’s an acute crisis. We sell some gold. Or is it more of a kind of longer strategic play where they say, hey, we want gold to make sure that our currency in general is stronger because we know, hey, people can always trust that we have gold in the bank to kind of at least pseudo-back this currency?
Dana Samuelson
Yeah, I’m not sure how much it’s backing their currencies as it’s being a hedge against other currencies failing against them. Right, right. So it’s more a hedge against risk than it is to back their own currencies. China, Obviously, they want the yuan to compete with the dollar at some point in time, and they don’t have the attributes that the dollar enjoys,
Monetary Metals
Right?
Dana Samuelson
That is, it enjoys world reserve currency status. Free flow of money over borders, number one. Number 2, market price setting. Number 3, a credit market underneath it. The bond market. The bond market. Number 4, rule of law. Without those things, you know, the world can’t trust you as the world’s reserve currency. And China doesn’t have those things. So if they have gold, that could impart some trust towards the yuan.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
And China remains under invested. I did some research recently that told me that China has about 4% of gold value relative to their reserves in yuan.
Monetary Metals
Wow.
Dana Samuelson
Well, many other countries have 15 to 18%, so they’re under invested, which is why they keep buying and price doesn’t matter. They got to get that level up. So, it’s not so much about currency, it’s about risk. And when did central banks start buying? After the Great Financial Crisis. For 40 years they were disowning gold, right? Then they started buying it because the printing presses got turned on, and then they doubled their buying after Russia invaded the Ukraine.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Grant Williams said it perfectly at the Rules Symposium in July. He said, if you hold dollars outside of the country, and you run afoul of the United States, your dollars could now become hostages.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
I never thought about it that way.
Monetary Metals
Right.
What Americans miss about global gold demand
Dana Samuelson
We have to think about this from a US investment perspective, about how the rest of the world looks at us and looks at gold. And that, I think, is what most Americans miss, is this is a global phenomenon. It’s not a US-centric phenomenon because we have the world’s reserve currency. We don’t have to think about things the way most of the rest of the world does. And that’s why last year when the gold price took off so much, right?
You know, most people in the US were sellers into the rally instead of buyers into the rally. They didn’t understand why it was happening. They just knew that they could get more for it and maybe they could get a better return with that money in the stock market now that gold had performed. But the reasons why gold is running, you know, there’s some real fundamental reasons why it’s because of a lack of trust. in the US and some of our policies, the tariffs,
Monetary Metals
Right?
Dana Samuelson
Turbocharged the market to a degree, but India and China. So, all of these things combined led the world to go on a global buying spree that most Americans don’t have a clue about. And it’s sad. That’s part of why I like being able to talk to you about it, because we’re trying to educate, right?
AI, crypto and investment risks
Monetary Metals
Talk to me about shiny object syndrome. So a lot of people say, well, AI’s the new thing, or crypto’s the new thing. And gold sometimes is unloved because There’s this new shiny investment that’s going to make gold obsolete. What do you think about AI being this new kind of shiny object, taking away some of the kind of interest in hedges like gold or even crypto, where crypto for a while was going to take away from gold and now crypto is kind of being unloved because of AI? Do you buy that narrative?
Dana Samuelson
No, not really. You must give it time just to see how these things pan out. I mean, Bitcoin’s had a wild ride. Crypto’s had a wild ride. It’s more speculative than stable at times, right? There’s a place for it. It’s here and it’s going to stay. AI is transformative, but there’s 4 or 5 or 6 major AI LNN models. Not all of them are going to make it, right? It’s like VHS and beta. It’s like albums versus CDs, right? Something is going to fail.
Monetary Metals
Going to break.
Dana Samuelson
Yeah. Somebody is going to make it and somebody is not going to make it. So, until we get to that point, there’s going to be a weeding phase and somebody is going to do spectacularly well, continue to do well. And a couple are going to fail and they’re going to fail completely.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
I’m kind of worried about Oracle right now, which has been a great software company that sold software to businesses for years, that’s now taken on so much debt to go all in on AI. If they’re not one of the one or two, they’re
Monetary Metals
Not a winner.
Dana Samuelson
They’re going to be huge losers. Right. I’m out of my wheelhouse on some of that, but it’s a possibility.
Monetary Metals
And so for me, it just feels like with the AI realm, this kind of new era we’re going into, it’s just high volatility in terms of outcomes. It could be great. There’s going to be deflation because we figure out all these new medicines because of AI. Or it could be like, wow, a lot of people are out of jobs because we just don’t need accountants anymore because AI can do your taxes. So in that spectrum, if that is true, do you think that we’re going to see more volatility, not only in the stock market, but politically in general? People feel like, well, I’m losing my job, but then someone else gets fabulously wealthy. Do you think we’re in a kind of realm or an era of more volatility?
Dana Samuelson
There’s going to be some turbulence for a while until we settle through this because You know, Austin’s been red hot for years where I’m from. And a lot of it’s because of tech. Yeah. But AI has put coders on the street. So now the housing market is tumbling for 2 reasons. We overbuilt and now we’re shedding jobs both at the same time. Right. So housing prices, which were running hot, are now running cold.
Monetary Metals
On the opposite.
Dana Samuelson
Right. So we’re going to see some of that. The thing about AI is it’s still going to need a human to make judgment calls. So. Right. There’s a lot of rote things that AI can do and a lot of analysis that AI can do.
Monetary Metals
But do you want to go to jail because the IRS said, oops, your AI did this wrong. Probably not, right?
Dana Samuelson
Or, you know, I heard of a story about a lawyer submitting a brief to the court that had, you know, smiley faces in it, emojis in it.
Monetary Metals
Yeah, terrible, terrible, terrible. So, okay, in that world, right, where we kind of have to have some of these AI companies just aren’t going to make it, there’s not enough room for us all to eat at the AI pie, the debt load that they have taken on, that could spill into kind of the public equity markets. I mean, Oracle is a public company, Nvidia is a public company. So is that a threat to the public stock market, but not for people who are kind of outside of the public stocks and real estate or gold? Or do you think, no, this is kind of going to affect and touch everyone?
Dana Samuelson
No, everything’s interconnected, you know, and some companies are going to do well and some others won’t. And the ones that don’t do well are going to affect equity values. So, and that’s going to ripple through to some degree. But the fact of the matter is a lot of Americans just don’t own any stocks, right? Don’t have assets right now like that.
So it’ll make it seem like things are maybe worse than they are in some regards. But what really matters is employment. That’s really what matters to most Americans is jobs, right? And whether their wages are high enough to exceed inflation, the rate of inflation or not. That’s a good thing. If they’re not and inflation’s eating into, you know, wage growth, that’s a bad thing. And employment is what underpins the whole economy. That’s really what I’m looking at and worried about more than anything else. Right.
Inflation, affordability and supply chains
Monetary Metals
Let’s talk about that affordability crisis and inflation. Obviously, some of these politicians recently, from Trump to Mondani, have been saying affordability It’s all about this crisis in affordability. So if you price things in gold, maybe there’s no crisis. But for the people who are pricing in dollars, they’re saying, I’m seeing my grocery bill go up, my rent is going up, you know, just the price of gas is going up because it’s war. Do you think that now we’re just in an inflationary environment because we’ve said, yeah, to heck with globalization, we don’t want to work with the best producer if they’re in China, we just want to work with the best producer next to us? Do you think that that just means, hey, prices are going to be higher, kind of structurally going forward from here on in?
Dana Samuelson
Absolutely. I think we are absolutely in an inflationary environment because we had a single just-in-time inventory manufacturing and delivery system that now we’re duplicating because of global bifurcation.
Monetary Metals
Right. Redundancy now.
Dana Samuelson
Number one. And that’s a good thing for the US because we’re relying on China and other nations for a lot of things that if we get into more conflicts, Right. We already have a lot to start with. We’re going to be beholden to an external source.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Number one. But number two, we’ve got rising energy prices because of the Iran war. And what else comes out of the Persian Gulf? Well, fertilizer.
Monetary Metals
Totally.
Dana Samuelson
Helium, aluminum, sulfur. These are all necessary commodities to make other things. And Chris Martenson made a great presentation here at the Limitless Conference where we’re at, saying that these are, you know, the fundamental building blocks of the supply chain and that any one of them can put what he calls a pig in the pipe. That when it gets down the line, it’s just going to make everything more expensive if you don’t have it because it’s— you don’t have the one necessary component you need to keep manufacturing something.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
And that’s going to make things more expensive because people are going to be bidding for the lesser products that are there, which is fundamentally inflationary. And this is a trend that we don’t know how it’s going to resolve yet because the Strait of Hormuz and all those products that have been flowing out of there, are still, still not flowing.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Right.
Monetary Metals
And so do you distinguish between what could be described as monetary inflation? Hey, the Fed is just printing money out of thin air versus, you know, supply chain inflation because there’s a crisis in Iran or because of COVID Do you see those as different kind of inflationary pressures? How do you think about that? And especially in regards to gold prices?
Dana Samuelson
Well, if you print a lot of money and tell people not to work and they sit around for a year,
Monetary Metals
Pretty easy math.
Dana Samuelson
That’s kind of a monetary impulse. Well, you have a supply shock that coupled with that is an inflationary impulse. You know, they both work differently. And now I think they’re in a way working together. Right. So, and that might be just a little bit above my pay grade. Remember, I’m a humble precious metals dealer.
US bullion demand and precious-metals premiums
Monetary Metals
Well, okay, let’s talk about precious metals. How do you think about the precious metals market in the US? Because a lot of people say, well, I want to go buy bullion, but the premiums are this versus globally. I’m seeing prices maybe different in different markets. How do you think of this? Obviously, there’s a, a law of one price, right? If metal’s cheap in one place, you’re going to buy it there and sell it where it’s high. But how can people think about, you know, bullion prices in general from kind of an insider view?
Dana Samuelson
Well, we have to get used to the fact that gold has doubled from where it was 2 years ago. Yeah. And silver is almost tripled from where it was 2 years ago.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
And I think we’re still having a bit of sticker shock in the US. Plus the stock market’s been doing fairly well. The economy’s not doing great, but it’s not doing badly.
Monetary Metals
Yeah. Right.
Dana Samuelson
And employment remains doing okay, although the trend in employment has weakened decidedly in the last 5 or 6 months. You know, we got a negative print for July, right? The June print was reduced from 40,000 to 20,000 jobs. The May print was 220,000 jobs to start with. And in 2 revisions, they whittled it down to about 60,000.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
So if you look at the chart for the last 5 or 6 months, it’s down and now going negative. That is really where the economy matters, right? So people buy precious metals in the United States when they’re scared and they haven’t been scared. We don’t have a fundamental precious metals culture in our country,
Monetary Metals
Right?
Dana Samuelson
Like most other countries do.
Monetary Metals
Right. India, China.
Dana Samuelson
Right. And I, the way I say it is if you’ve had your currency fail or if you’ve had war on your shores, which most countries have in the last 100 years, and you don’t forget about it easily, and your parents and your grandparents teach you about it.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
You have a precious metals culture and we have not had that.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Plus, we do enjoy the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. So really, the only main motivator for the public at large in the US to buy precious metals is fear. And we’ve seen it happen during the great financial crisis.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
We trained a lot of people who had never bought gold before to buy gold over a 3-year period.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Right. And when COVID hit, all those people knew how to do it. They did it in about a 3-week period.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
And they continued to do so for another year or 2.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Right. And now they’ve kind of relaxed again and their insurance policy— probably a better way to prove it— has been a good insurance policy. It’s paid dividends, right? But they haven’t needed to really use it. Not yet.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
But if we see a major stock market correction, an inflationary surge due to what’s happening in Iran for a host of reasons, oil or some of these other inputs that are not coming through right now, where we get a really much weaker US economy, That fear factor will kick back in and metals prices may not go a lot higher, but we could have a stampede of demand. And when that happens, what the premiums are, whether they’re normal or higher because there’s a strain on precious metals product supplies,
Monetary Metals
Right?
Dana Samuelson
It doesn’t matter. They’ll pay it.
Gold vs. silver: different roles and tradeoffs
Monetary Metals
And talk to me about the difference between gold and silver in this environment. A lot of people say, hey, when I have fear, either because of the monetary system or the central banks or the financial system, I’m going to gold. But not oftentimes do they jump into silver. So silver is kind of, has some monetary qualities just like gold, but also some industrial qualities like copper and platinum and these other metals. So where do you kind of see silver in the same way as gold? Is it a monetary metal that just acts a bit like gold on steroids, or is it kind of becoming more like copper and these industrial metals?
Dana Samuelson
Well, silver’s necessary in a lot of electronic uses and there’s no good substitute. There’s copper’s a second substitute, but it’s way, way lower in its functionality. For what they want silver for. So I think the gold-to-silver ratio is very telling.
Monetary Metals
Interesting. Okay.
Dana Samuelson
Because during the last several years when central banks were leading gold higher but silver was lagging, the ratio got to about 85 to 1, which is historically extremely high, and stayed there, which meant that gold was much more valuable relative to silver. So silver was cheap right now. Now silver’s played catch up.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Because of the tariff turmoil last year. And we saw that there were some fundamental potential real supply strains. I mean, last October, the London over-the-counter market for silver broke for a couple of days because Indian demand was so high that they literally cleaned the vault out. Right. And deliveries got pushed way back. That brings the gold-to-silver ratio back towards equilibrium, which to me is about 62 to 1. And right now it’s sitting at about 69 to 1. I think we’re back to where we need to be. And most people ask, you know, what should I buy, gold or silver?
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Or what do you want? I look at gold as portable, transferable wealth, no counterparty risk, an insurance policy. Silver is currency in a crisis. Right. And when the ratio’s went high and silver’s cheaper, I mean, it’s easy to tell people, well, you need to have some gold, but you probably ought to buy more silver right now because you’re Probably have better opportunity there. And that’s what we did for a couple of years, and it’s worked very well. Now, I would just say buy both, right? They both have a need,
Monetary Metals
Right?
Dana Samuelson
But silver is more currency in a crisis. It’s also a bit of a store of value and some transferable wealth, but it takes a lot more storage space, right? So there’s some structural issues with silver, physical silver, especially if you have a lot of it relative to gold. You have to consider where are you going to put it, where you’re happy and safe about it, right?
What the Fed can, and can’t, do about inflation
Monetary Metals
Talk to me about the inflation versus deflation story. So, obviously the Fed has said, we’re going to try to fight inflation. That was kind of Powell’s big thing. And now we’ve got Kevin Warsh who’s there saying, I’m also going to be able to kind of right the ship. We’re going to make sure that not only the stock market’s good, but employment’s good and inflation’s good. It’s like this guy has 50 jobs. Do you think that really because of the way the inflation’s kind of baked in structurally, that we shouldn’t be focusing on the Fed as much because they’re just not able to do much about the inflation and instead, We should focus on tariffs or kind of non-monetary factors, or is the Fed still important when it comes to the inflation story?
Dana Samuelson
I’ve been saying for months since the war started that this neuters the Fed.
Monetary Metals
You
Dana Samuelson
No, they can’t do anything to bring the oil price down. Right.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
So yeah, it doesn’t matter if they raise a quarter point.
Monetary Metals
What do they reckon they do? Right.
Dana Samuelson
And the market on the interest on the 10-year Treasury yield, right, has gone from 3.5% to 4.75%. Right. While the Fed funds rate has stayed at 3.75%. Wow. And the 2-year is higher. That’s where the market thinks the Fed wants to go or should go. And the 2-year, I think it’s about 4.25% right now. So the Fed’s decidedly under where they think the market should be. But I think the Fed’s kind of immaterial right now. I think really what matters in the shorter term is whether we can get energy flowing like it was before, because we still haven’t really had that supply shock hit. There’s been a host of reasons why oil didn’t really kind of hit real supply shock. Right now, we’ve released oil from the SPRs around the world.
Monetary Metals
Yeah.
Dana Samuelson
Some more than we thought has gotten out of the Persian Gulf. More got out during the MOU than I think most people realize. I didn’t know that till a couple of weeks ago. But still, we’re getting low on storage tanks in the US. The SPRs are getting lower. And so I think an inflation shock is very likely. You know, the cure for higher prices are higher prices, which— so we could have a kind of a ride higher for inflation, which leads to a slowdown, which leads to a deflationary wave. And that’s kind of my base case right now.
I think that that is a possibility. And if we get that, then the Fed decides they need to stimulate the economy by lowering rates and/or printing more money to supplement an economy that’s contracting. Then precious metals prices have a huge tailwind behind them if that happens. Now, we don’t know how it’s going to play out, but my base case is we’ll get an inflationary surge. Who knows how strong or for how long?
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Which will lead to a deflationary rollover. And again, how strong is the force? And I don’t know how much the Fed can really do or the government can really do that’ll fix things. They might just make things worse by trying to fix things, which I think is kind of how we got here in the first place.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
$40 trillion in debt, you know.
US debt, the dollar and purchasing power
Monetary Metals
Let’s talk about the debt question. Comes up, oh, we’re raising the debt ceiling. No, we’re not going to do it. And we always end up raising the debt ceiling. So should people no longer focus on this debt question? We’re always going to raise the debt ceiling. People are always going to complain, oh my gosh, we can’t pay the debt. And then we continue on with our day. Or is there going to be some number, whether it’s debt to GDP or Scott Bessent saying, hey, we’re not doing X, Y, and Z anymore? Do you think that the debt issue is kind of secondary to all these other issues that are more acute?
Dana Samuelson
Well, what we’ve been talking about so far is kind of immediate,
Monetary Metals
Right?
Dana Samuelson
Right. The debt’s just going to keep building up. There’s no way that we can meaningfully reduce the debt in any substantial way. This is a trend that we’re on. And the fact that the interest payment on our debt has gone from about $600 billion to now $1.2 trillion in the last 2 years—
Monetary Metals
Crazy.
Dana Samuelson
It’s going to hockey stick because the debt’s accumulated, but now the interest rates are higher too. It’s going to create a weaker dollar. Which is fundamentally inflationary for the things we need to buy. We are in a fundamentally inflationary cycle right now. And, you know, for how high and how long, I don’t know. But it just means fiat currencies are going to continue to lose purchasing power. It’s what rate, what speed. You know, it’s been higher than the Fed wants it to be, which proves that they don’t have control.
And, you know, whether it’s the interest rate matter, the Fed’s losing control They’re losing control. And what really matters is what will the world think about the dollar, right? Because a lot of our debt’s outside of the country. And if, right, if they send those dollars home, we’ll have more inflation here. And that’s all good for gold.
What could weaken the gold bull market?
Monetary Metals
And okay, now let’s just be good discussion partners here. I’m going to say, actually, Dana, you’re all wrong. We’re going to have this Great Moderation. Who needs gold? Because we have this AI stock market and it’s going to fix everything. Trump’s going to lower the debt with Doge 2.0. We’re going to get along because once the Democrats get in office, we’re going to have, you know, world peace all over again. What is the argument against this kind of, hey, we see fiat money printing, currencies getting debased, gold going higher. What’s the best argument against that argument?
Dana Samuelson
When was gold lowest in the last 30 years? It was 1999 and 2000. And what did we have at that point in time that we haven’t had for 40 years? A balanced budget in the United States. Yeah. Right. And reasonable debt.
Monetary Metals
Right, right.
Dana Samuelson
Right. That’s not going to come back at any time soon.
Monetary Metals
Okay.
Dana Samuelson
If we have a world where no wars exist.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Right.
Monetary Metals
Praying for it.
Dana Samuelson
That’s going to be bad for precious metals. I hate to be so blunt about it. Yeah. But you asked what, you know, what’s going to counterbalance that? A kumbaya moment for the world where we all get along. And what are we seeing? The world is increasingly bifurcating right now. It’s kind of an us against them mentality. Global South versus the Western nations. Right. That’s not going to change anytime soon.
China wants to rise and they will challenge us more and more. And I think we are decidedly behind China in many ways. Their manufacturing capacity far exceeds our ability to produce, so much so that they’re in a bit of trouble right now because the world’s a little slower and they can’t sell enough inside the— Yeah, they got to sell it to the world somewhere, but they’re making EVs that are And I haven’t been in a BYD vehicle, but people have told me they’re great. Right. And they’re making more solar panels than anyone else. So they have energy that we don’t have. Right. And that takes silver.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
I heard China’s taking 20% of the world’s silver supply just for solar panels. Right.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Which is going to help to underpin silver. So we need to have a lot of really big changes. Better financial health, a more kumbaya world.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Right. And economies that are humming, you know, like kind of like we had
Monetary Metals
Back in the day, right?
Dana Samuelson
Yeah. To get gold back down substantially. And I don’t see it anytime soon.
Rapid fire: gold, silver, the Fed and global risks
Monetary Metals
Okay. Let’s end with rapid-fire questions here. So I’ll ask you a bunch of quick questions all over the map. You can answer short or as long as you want. So for the rest of 2026, do you see gold or silver outperforming?
Dana Samuelson
I think they’re probably going to move pretty equally to each other. I think that they’ll move in price and I do think they’ll grind somewhat higher in value, but I think the ratio between the two will stay somewhere between 65 and 70, you know, because the world wants both of them right now.
Monetary Metals
Okay. Now, next rapid-fire question is about the Fed. Obviously Powell’s actually decided to stay on. He’s not in charge of the Fed, but he’s still kind of involved. Do you think that the politicization of the Fed is kind of over now? Trump’s got his guy in there, or is this the beginning of the political Fed?
Dana Samuelson
Politics? No politics. What matters is there’s 9 voting members and we had 3 dissents this past time, which is crazy. Well, Powell, he made sure that he had a unified Fed.
Monetary Metals
Right,
Dana Samuelson
Right. I think Warsh is going to let the members do what they want to do. I really think he’s kind of laissez-faire about how the Fed actually works. And the fact that he said You know, we’re not going to tell you what we’re going to do. We’re not going to really give you
A lot of forward guidance because the markets game forward guidance. Right. And back in the day when I was coming up, you know, Greenspan, they— the press would try and guess how thick his briefcase was.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
What does it mean? You know, and then he’d mumble into the microphone and nobody could tell what he said anyway.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
Worse is going to be more transparent, but he’s still not going to tell us much. I think what we really have to watch is what they actually do and how each meeting is comes out. But I don’t think the Fed’s going to matter that much. I do think Warsh is capable, and I think he’ll do his best to guide the Fed the way that’s best for the country. Maybe not quite the way Donald Trump might want it to be, but I think that he’ll, he’ll do his best. He’s highly respected and he’s very accomplished, and I know he’s well-liked.
Monetary Metals
Yeah.
Dana Samuelson
Yeah.
Monetary Metals
All right. Next rapid question. If not China, which country do you think is going to be the most important for the gold story going forward?
Dana Samuelson
Oh, that’s a good question. India. India matters. You know, the most populous nation in the world, right? They don’t have the economic clout. Russia is obviously going to matter because they’re still fighting Ukraine. And that’s another war that’s going on right now. And it matters. So surprisingly, Poland’s been buying a lot of coal.
Monetary Metals
Tons. They’re on the second largest.
Dana Samuelson
Yeah. They’re on the Russian border.
So what does that tell you? Right. They’re hedging their bets a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
And another thing to do with the oil story we didn’t talk about is Ukraine’s hitting Russian refineries.
Monetary Metals
Refineries.
Dana Samuelson
Right. And really the part of the oil rub is the distillates. It was gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel. Right. Those 3 matter. When the war started, the difference between a barrel of oil was $60 and gas, jet, and diesel was $90. $30 spreads.
Monetary Metals
Okay.
Dana Samuelson
Now diesel, which the whole country runs on, is double The price of a barrel of oil.
Monetary Metals
Wow.
Dana Samuelson
And refineries in the US are running full capacity and around the world. And Russia refineries that used to export diesel may now— Russia may now be forced to import diesel because Ukraine’s taken out like 5 or 6 of their 7 refineries in the last couple of months.
Monetary Metals
Wow.
Dana Samuelson
It’s going to compound the problem, which is why I think inflation’s coming, because everything moves on diesel trucks.
Monetary Metals
Okay.
Dana Samuelson
And that wasn’t quite a rapid-fire response, but No, no,
Monetary Metals
That’s great. Let’s do one more in the rapid fire, which is, you know, we’re seeing this almost polycrisis. So there’s a crisis in Ukraine with Russia. There’s a crisis in the Middle East. There’s a crisis with Iran. There’s a crisis back home. There’s just crises everywhere. Which of these, if it were to be resolved, do you think is the most impactful for the economy? So for example, if tomorrow we could snap our fingers and the war with Iran were over, or if the war with Russia and Ukraine, you know, we all hope would be over, which do you think is most impactful for putting us back on a track Towards globalization, this kumbaya moment?
Dana Samuelson
We’ve got to get the Strait of Hormuz open and the fighting stopped in the Gulf, Persian Gulf. That will have the most direct positive effect on getting things somewhat back to normal.
Monetary Metals
Okay, now I got to ask you a personal question. What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?
Dana Samuelson
Oh, the best gift I’ve ever received. Well, life. I got it from my parents. Right? We got one life to live.
Monetary Metals
Yeah.
Dana Samuelson
Let’s live it to the fullest.
Monetary Metals
All right. Thanks, Papa and Mama Samuelson. All right.
Why Americans misunderstand precious metals
Monetary Metals
And now Dana, it’s a question I ask all my guests. What’s a future question I should be asking for all the future guests of the Gold Exchange Podcast?
Dana Samuelson
Why do you think more Americans don’t understand precious metals?
Monetary Metals
Okay. And I get to turn it around on you. What is missing in our American culture where we just really don’t get precious metals like everyone else?
Dana Samuelson
We don’t teach finance in the United States. What does Robert Kiyosaki say? Right. You know, he’s railing against the education system in the United States. He thinks we’re teaching communism and Marxism.
Monetary Metals
Right.
Dana Samuelson
And to a degree, he’s absolutely right. So we don’t have the right education system in our country to teach people why precious metals are part of a good financial portfolio. Is the word I want to use.
Monetary Metals
Yeah. All right, Dana, obviously people want more. Dana Samuelson, where can they find you and all your work?
Dana Samuelson
I’m president of American Gold Exchange. We’re a national physical precious metals dealer in Austin, Texas. Website is amergold.com. Email [email protected]. And I’ve got a YouTube channel where I post, you know, regular market updates talking about all the things we’ve talked about and, and what is coming, you know, I see coming next.
Monetary Metals
Absolutely. Dana, as always, a pleasure. Thanks so much.
Dana Samuelson
Thank you very much.
Monetary Metals
All right.
