We have expectations that long run silver prices are headed higher, maybe much higher and and so I really see this as just a psychological barrier. In a couple of years, we'll look back on this day and uh we might not even be able to see the price variation um that we've seen the last couple of days. >> You're watching Silver News Daily. Subscribe for more. The dollar is evaporating in your hands and almost no one is prepared. According to Dr. Mark Thornton, we are speeding toward a financial inferno that will obliterate fiat currencies and force the world to return to hard money. Not gold, silver. As hyperinflation accelerates, central banks lose control and currencies melt down under the weight of their own debt, silver is preparing to do something historic. We're not talking about $50 silver or even a hundred. We're talking about the potential for $500 an ounce. As the gold to silver ratio implodes and transactional demand explodes in a broken economy, think that's crazy? Think again. Dr. Thornton says we're already on the road. And when confidence finally snaps, the shift into silver could be faster, deeper, and more violent than anything we've ever seen. So, what's triggering this meltdown? And why is silver the only metal position to survive the fire? Let's break it down. >> Well, I I try to stay optimistic about this question above all else, but uh and you know, I applaud the idea that at least um the people on the West Bank are getting food and water and so forth. Um and that a peace deal of some sort looks like it's being engineered and is forthcoming. And so we all have to um applaud that. um that action, that deescalation um in the Middle East, which is of course um the hot a hotbed for international conflict. Uh but the US is still in uh in military conflict around the world. We have sanctions all over the place uh particularly against Russia. But you know uh President Trump has been using these tariffs uh as a punitive sanction-like tool um on a regular basis. And so sanctions are out there. Um you know and uh and we and even the trade war um is a very uh disconcerting part of this militarization of foreign policy. Um and the tariffs are a big part of that. I mean slapping tariffs on these other countries that's obviously not taken as a positive that's taken as a negative. and and we've been doing that to uh just about everybody around the world. Our neighbors in Mexico and Canada, our friends uh in Europe, um India that um you know we've been trying to uh get along with for quite some time and to keep them out of the uh communist China and the and Russia, keeping them out of th those orbits. And what we're ended up doing is bringing them uh closer into the Chinese and Russian orbits of political influence. And um and so in total, we're definitely um escalating uh war measures across the globe really. uh we have a declining number of friendly relations and an >> hyperinflation doesn't start with panic. It starts with policy. And according to Dr. Mark Thornton, the policies are already in place. Years of reckless money printing, unchecked fiscal deficits, and a Federal Reserve boxed into a corner have set the stage for what he calls a total evaporation of the dollar. Look around. Trillion dollar deficits have become monthly news and interest on US debt is now the largest line item in the federal budget. Politicians have no incentive to stop and the Fed can't hike rates without triggering a full-blown debt crisis. So what's their only option? Inflate it away quietly, destructively, and absolutely predictably. It happened in VHimar, Germany. It happened in Zimbabwe. It's starting to happen here. Prices rise slowly at first. Then all at once, food, energy, housing, and suddenly the currency doesn't work anymore. Savings vanish. Trust disappears. And in that void, silver begins its ascent. But this time, it's not just inflation. It's something far worse. Hyperinflation, once it begins, feeds on itself. And when people stop believing in the value of their money, they don't wait, they run. That run is coming. And silver, it's the only door left open. >> And we would probably expect the gold silver ratio uh to fall below 20. Um and you would start to see people actually using silver in day-to-day transactions. And so there would be a greatly enhanced uh demand for uh silver. Now, of course, we don't want that to happen. Uh we don't want hyperinflation. It's the most destructive thing that government can do to society outside of war. And so we we definitely don't want that to happen, but that's probably what would happen uh if we got into that uh hyperinflation stage where the government was just printing money to pay for its operations to roll over the debt um so on and so forth. And um and people um found themselves not able to hold money. I mean, if you held money, it would just completely evaporate in your hands. And so, people would want to be dumping their money. They would want to be spending uh their money. And uh the value of money would depreciate extremely rapidly. I mean, a standard hyperinflation is where uh the consumer price index is going up by more than 50% per month. And so you obviously don't want to hold uh money under those circumstances. And so eventually people would transition over to um you know wages paid in silver and um day-to-day transactions in silver. And so obviously the demand for silver would increase the price of silver would increase relative to gold which isn't good for day-to-day transactions. And so you would see u an extremely low uh gold silver ratio probably um definitely less than 20 uh or maybe even less. >> The collapse of a currency is never just economic. It's psychological. And right now the world is beginning to lose faith in the dollar. The warning signs are everywhere. Foreign central banks are quietly offloading US treasuries. BRICS nations are building trade systems outside of dollar control. And after Moody's downgraded US credit in mid 2025, even domestic institutions started to hedge against what was once unthinkable, fullcale currency failure. Dr. Thornton's warning couldn't be clearer. The dollar's demise won't be slow. It will snap. Confidence will collapse like a dam. And the trillions of digital dollars sloshing through the system will be exposed for what they are. units of trust, not stores of value. And when that trust evaporates, prices won't just rise, they'll detonate. Everyday goods will become unaffordable, wages meaningless, and contracts worthless. What happens when a gallon of milk costs $50 and your savings by half a tank of gas? People stop holding dollars. They demand something real. And in that moment, silver doesn't just become valuable, it becomes essential. The public won't care about spot prices or mining reports. They'll want something they can hold, trade, and rely on. And silver, small, divisible, and universally recognized, becomes the money of the people. >> Well, yes. uh there's there's no doubt that uh individuals and small investors are catching on and so they're going out there and industrial users are adding to their have been adding to their inventories. Um, you know, I I guess I first contemplated uh the that type of gold silver ratio exchange when it was at 104 and then by the time I ran through the numbers and we talked about it on air, it was 100 to1. It's since fallen to 80 to1. That means if you traded one ounce of gold for 33 um ounces of or excuse me 100 ounces of silver uh with the ratio falling to 80 I if the price of gold hadn't gone up at all. That means you would have earned a 33% profit on that trade. And of course, because you're just trading metals, you're not putting any new money forward. And if you look at the profits on the silver that you would have received um versus the price of gold and the given that the price of gold has also gone up that you're basically making about 50% on that trade. and and uh and so it was a profitable trade and um I expect um that the gold silver ratio is going to fall even more. I mean and I think a lot of people in the marketplace are expecting the ratio to decline and so uh with a standard investment um horizon time horizon of a few years uh I think that it wouldn't be um outrageous for the uh gold silver price ratio to fall to something like 50 and then of course if you took my hyperinflation uh scenario seriously or if it actually happened. Then >> when fiat fails, people don't just panic. They reach for whatever works. And throughout history, silver has been the answer. In a hyperinflationary collapse, the public doesn't wait for central bank solutions or government bailouts. They go local. They go physical. They go silver. Dr. Thornton paints a future where silver isn't just an investment. It's the currency of daily life. Wages paid in ounces. Groceries priced in grams. Service workers refusing cash and demanding silver coins because they no longer trust the paper in your wallet. This may sound extreme, but it's already happened in Argentina, in Venezuela, in Zimbabwe. Once fiat loses credibility, trust shifts instantly to hard money. And silver, unlike gold, is practical enough for daily use. You can't shave off a sliver of gold for bread. But silver, it's divisible, familiar, and instantly liquid. As digital payment systems falter under inflation shocks and barter becomes mainstream, silver steps in as the medium of exchange. It's not a theory, it's a pattern. And this time, with AI and private equity bubbles poised to burst, the urgency is greater than ever. Because once transactional silver returns, price is no longer the debate. access is >> banded after 1980. Uh and the price of those metals rose and they're much higher now. Um today uh those industries as a group expanded and so the supply of silver from those industries also expanded from their historical levels. And so, you know, it's reasons like that that I want to try to eventually completely explain why silver has not kept up with um with the other metals with uh in and in particular gold. Of course, gold and silver move in tandem but not perfectly so. And there has been this divergence in trends where gold has done much better than silver. And of course as we all know the reason gold has done so much better uh in recent times is because central banks around the world have been adding to their gold reserves. And so there's been a big increase in the demand for gold that has not bled over into the demand for silver because silver is just, you know, it doesn't seem that way for us minor league uh stackers. Um that doesn't seem to hold that much volume. But if you're buying a billion dollars worth of silver, uh it takes up a lot more space than a billion dollars worth of gold. So there's a lot of fundamental structural reasons and I see um you know in terms of the momentum of price I see that reversing itself um in the future. Just before we get going we just launched the official Silver News Daily Telegram. To kick things off, we're running a 10oz silver giveaway. Yes, real physical silver. Not a voucher, not digital credits, actual bullion. This telegram will be our new home for real-time silver discussions, market insights, collection picks, and everything precious metals. It's where the community truly comes alive. Here's how to enter the 10oz silver giveaway. Be subscribed to Silver News Daily on YouTube. Turn on the notification bell, comment 10O giveaway on three separate videos. Be an active member of the Telegram group, and say hi. Once we hit 500 active Telegram members, we'll pick one lucky winner to receive 10 ounces of silver shipped directly to you. So get in early, stay active. The gold to silver ratio has always been a signal, and right now it's screaming. Historically, a ratio of 60 to1 marked balance, but in early 2025, it peaked at 104:1, a clear indicator that silver was undervalued to an extreme. Since then, it's dropped to 88. And Dr. Thornton believes that's just the beginning. In a true hyperinflationary event, he predicts the ratio could fall below 20 to1, a level not seen since the VHimar collapse. What does that mean? If gold stays flat around $2,000, silver rockets to $100. But if gold runs to $2,500 or beyond, and the ratio hits 20 to1, silver blows past $125. And in a full-blown collapse scenario where the ratio compresses to 10:1 or even 5:1 as it did during monetary resets in ancient and modern history, silver could hit $250. $500 or higher. These aren't fantasy numbers. They're mathematically implied outcomes in a system where faith in fiat dissolves. And here's what makes it even more powerful. Silver doesn't need new buyers. It just needs the rotation from gold. As investors chase ratio compression for higher returns, silver becomes the leveraged bet, the slingshot metal. In the race out of fiat, silver doesn't just catch up, it overcorrects violently. >> That's right. And uh I think that is true. And I think that there is a question mark um in this marketplace as to what hap what happened between 1980 and 2011 and the present. Um you know Michael Oliver is described it as a big mistake. And so I'm trying to piece together some of the fundamental uh structural reasons why that was the case. And I think there are some uh noticeable uh possibilities here. Of course, much of the silver demand in 1980 was due to uh photography and x-rays and that kind of thing. And uh of course we know that technology displaced the use of silver in what was its main application. Uh and so there was a downdraft in the demand for silver for many many years and of course we did have much lower CPI rates there for uh quite a bit um interest rates and inflation rates uh collapsed in 1981 and we saw a very multi-dead long process of lower CPI and lower in price infl inflation and lower interest rates over a very long period of time. So that's definitely contributing to the fundamental structural reasons. And then of course uh there's been a big increase in the price level for industrial metals um across the board. So things like lead and zinc and copper and so forth. And uh as I've pointed out here in the past uh and I want to develop that a little bit more and and on my own p uh minor issues podcast uh that silver is mined and and found and produced much as a byproduct of these industrial metals. And so people will go in and set up a copper mine or a zinc mine or a lead mine and the main product that they get out is copper, zinc and lead, but they also get out silver. So uh as those industrial metals exping the future while its monetary role is reawakening, its industrial demand has never been stronger. And that's exactly what makes this setup so explosive. Back in 1999, nearly a third of silver demand came from photography. Today, that number has collapsed to less than 1%. But it didn't vanish. It shifted. Solar panels, electric vehicles, AI hardware, and green energy infrastructure have taken Silver's place, and they're hungry. In 2024 alone, industrial silver demand hit a record 680 million ounces with solar accounting for 232 million of that, nearly 20% of total global consumption. And here's the catch. There's no substitute. No other metal offers the same conductivity and reflectivity silver provides. So as governments double down on green tech and AI continues to expand its need for high efficiency data centers, silver's industrial role becomes non-negotiable. Dr. Thornton highlights this collision. Currency collapse on one side, industrial expansion on the other. It's a rare convergence. One side drives panic buying, the other eats up supply. And with both moving in the same direction, there's simply no room for a gentle repricing. This isn't just a bullcase. It's a pressure cooker. >> Well, it is an historical level, but it's basically a psychological barrier uh for most people or even not even most people really. But if you look at $50 back in 1980, you have to realize that those dollars have depreciated by 70 or 80%. And so $50 back then does not mean $50 today. It's much much lower. And so really, it's a psychological barrier. There may be somebody out there who paid $50 a long time ago and they want to get out of silver right now, but it's really just that I don't expect this to become an impenetrable uh barrier to the pro progress of silver prices. uh even really in the medium term. I think this is just a very a short stopping point um and that we'll get through that price just given inflation over time and given that they're still printing and they're still borrowing and they're still spending in Washington DC. So we have expectations that long run silver prices are headed higher, maybe much higher and and so I really see this as just a psychological barrier. Traders are probably using it to take profits um and that kind of thing. But I I I suspect that in a couple of years we'll look back on that uh look back on this day and uh we might not even be able to see the price variation um that we've seen the last couple of days in the charts. Now there there's eventually going to be some big time pullbacks in this market. Um, as you said, silver's up 100%. It's up 20% this last 30 days. So, uh, it's going up very rapidly. And, you know, if you look at any market, you're going to see, you know, some noticeable pullbacks. Whether or not that occurs here, uh, is an open question, but, um, you know, you got to expect that thing in any commodity market. Now add a tightening supply chain to the mix and the pressure becomes unbearable. For five consecutive years, the silver market has run at a structural deficit, meaning more silver is consumed than produced. In 2025 alone, that shortfall is projected to hit 215 million ounces or roughly 18% of total supply. And it's not just a number, it's a warning. Mining output has been falling since its peak in 2016, down nearly 10% despite soaring demand. That's because 70% of silver doesn't come from primary silver mines. It's a byproduct of lead, zinc, and copper production. If those base metals slow due to economic contraction, silver supply shrinks with them. Meanwhile, recycling isn't coming to the rescue either. Photography scrap has dried up and consumer recycling rates remain low, especially with silver embedded in microscopic industrial components that are rarely recovered. This means that even as silver prices rise, supply is not responding. The market is cornered by demand, by deficits, and by the sheer physical reality of constrained output. Dr. Thornon sees this as the core driver of the coming price shock. Because when hyperinflation kicks in and the rush into silver begins, there simply won't be enough metal to go around and that's when the real scramble starts. >> Yeah. Like to a power bill in your mail mailbox in the in the future. So, you know, it those kind of surprises are actually very traceable um if you understand economic theory and the Austrian theory of the business cycle and what the Fed is actually doing to our economy. Now, Eventually it all comes together in the you know the CP lie and you know just general increases in prices. We get the general increases in prices but the people who first get the money, they're making all the wealth. They're making all the profits. They're seeing stock prices skyrocket to the moon. So the first feeders of the Fed's, you know, grand giveaway, um, they have the tremendous benefits, but the average person, middle class out there in America, they end up paying the higher prices of goods and services. And I see, you know, one of the few ways uh to protect yourself against that is to invest in inflation hedges. um you know such as gold and silver. >> The squeeze is already underway. You just have to know where to look. In the first half of 2025, silver ETFs absorbed 95 million ounces, nearly matching their total 2024 inflows in just 6 months. SLV alone is up 56% year-to- date in holdings. and comx deliveries shattered previous records in Q3 with physical withdrawals signaling a market on edge. But this isn't just speculative money. It's defensive capital. Institutions are preparing for something big. Dr. Thornton points to this as the early stage of a silent silver run. The smart money is moving first, draining physical inventories before the public even wakes up. And as the supply continues to tighten, the premiums are rising. Physical silver now trades well above spot and delays in delivery are becoming the norm. This isn't a glitch, it's a signal. The market is bifurcating. On paper, silver is $48, but in the real world, it's worth far more. And when that gap becomes too wide to ignore, paper markets will break. That's when price suppression mechanisms, shorts, deriv derivatives, synthetic silver lose their grip. We've seen this before in smaller episodes, but this time there's no backs stop. Once faith breaks and the ETFs can't source metal fast enough, silver's price won't just rise. It will disconnect entirely. >> Pay that debt. If private equity firms, not the the people that put together the deals, but the deals themselves, if they start to falter, that could cascade. uh and we could, you know, trace that all back to the Fed's easy money policy. So, that's something I'm very very uh concerned about is, you know, the situation with private equity type arrangements in the marketplace. Um that's really uh something that uh is easy to keep away from investors attention precisely because it is uh private equity and so private equity and uh and of course artificial in intelligence and everything uh that has to do with that you know the great data centers that they're building. Uh there there's classic signs there of the Austrian business cycle theory where they're trying to build out this brand new industry and this high-tech industry and they're putting strains everywhere on the system, including our very own electrical prices. They're driving up the price of electricity in states across the union. Wherever they're building, they're anticipating using massive amounts of electricity. And that's going to drive up the price of electricity because of the regulated nature of that marketplace. And the fact that energy sources to make electricity, you know, all of our investments have taken place in things like solar and wind and stuff. And that that's really not great sources of electricity for a data center which needs that power 247 365. And so, you know, we I'm just investigating right now um several of these possible black swans and but and and the the one thing that we can follow follow the trail is the Fed increasing the money supply and gendering new investments and then what happens as a result of these new investments and when are they going to break? There's a storm brewing far beyond silver. And when it hits, it could act as the ultimate catalyst. The AI boom, the private equity frenzy, the everything rally, it's all built on the same rotting foundation, cheap money. And that foundation is cracking. As central banks tighten too late and inflation refuses to die, the financial system is showing signs of strain. Venture capital is drying up. Unicorn startups are slashing valuations and private equity firms, once flushed with cash, are struggling to exit their overleveraged positions. Dr. Thornton warns that this isn't just a market correction. It's the unwinding of a fantasy economy. And when this bubble bursts, trillions will flee speculative assets in search of safety. But here's the twist. The old safe havens, bonds, blue chip stocks, even the dollar are no longer safe. They're part of the same diseased system. That leaves precious metals. And while gold may be the traditional fallback, silver is the one with the most room to run. It's still undervalued. It's still overlooked. And in a world where speed matters more than anything, silver's volatility becomes its weapon. When the AI and private equity collapse begins in earnest, silver won't be a slow mover. It'll be a rocket ship. >> Well, it really is hard to predict because when the Fed pumps money in and they buy up government debt and they expand the money supply and they lower interest rates, they really set off a cascade of negative effects throughout the economy. overinvestment, male investment, uh overend indebtedness. And and so that's the general phenomenon. And so it's hard to pick what's going to be the black swan. What's going to be the first thing to crater that's going to bring everything else down? So, you know, what's the what's the section of the stock market that's going to collapse and bring all stocks down with it? Is it going to be artificial intelligence? Uh that seems to be in a runaway boom. Uh it's really it really is hard to tell what is going to break first. Uh one thing that I have my eye on is um is the private equity uh section of investments because private equity uh just by definition means it's been taken off of the market. uh we don't have day-to-day market determined prices for those assets and so there's a lot of lack of information. There's a lack of transparency there. We have investors who have been taking stakes in companies uh that aren't traded and so we don't really know what the valuations of those are and even the the investors themselves and they have a hard time getting out of those investments. So, we don't know when there's going to be a run for the exits and whether or not private equity is going to be that source. But private equity uh is a prime candidate, you know, if those companies start to falter and not be able to pay make their bond payments. And that's part of the whole private equity thing is you buy a company, you take it off the market, uh you fill it full of debt, uh and then you sell it to somebody for a big profit, right? And so not being able to >> For decades, the $50 mark has haunted silver like a ghost. Reached in 1980, again in 2011, but never broken for long. It's been the ultimate psychological barrier. But now in 2025, that barrier has finally been shattered. Earlier this October, silver ripped through $50 for the first time in over a decade, peaking above $52 before a short-lived pullback. And that breakout wasn't a fluke. It was driven by record ETF inflows, physical tightness, and a wave of demand from industrial users scrambling to secure supply. Dr. Thornton sees this as the final unlock because once a psychological level like $50 is broken, it rewires the market's expectations. Traders stop thinking in ceilings. They start thinking in blue skies. And here's the key. While profit taking temporarily dragged prices down to $48, the structure of the market has fundamentally changed. The support is deeper, the buying is stronger, and the fear of missing out is only growing. With deficits raging, demand rising, and hyperinflation looming, the path forward is no longer capped. There is no technical resistance above $50, only momentum. And that's exactly what silver now has. >> Escalating number of hostile relations with other countries. And so it's a very dark time actually out there. And that's one reason why, of course, people are investing in gold and gold and silver. um because it's the ultimate protective uh device. It's the ultimate personal fire extinguisher device uh to have on hand uh to take care of the contingencies. Now, what President Trump has been doing in Venezuela um of course the Venezuela is very very uh bad off. They have a Marxist communist uh socialist dictator in charge down there. It's it's an awful situation for the local people. Uh but of course the President Trump has used the military to blow up a couple of uh small boats charged um sort of with drug trafficking uh violations, but everybody knows basically that they're making preparatory uh steps down in Venezuela in the northern tier of South America uh for military type actions. And you know the our oil companies are interested in taking advantage of the situation of the oil reserves of Venezuela but really the whole region. Um the oil reserves on land and the oil uh reserves and [clears throat] discoveries out in the water. And so I'm not sure what's going to happen down there, but the moves that we've been making so far are um you know, steps towards war. And I I don't see this as part of that grander military issue. It seems like it's more of something that a politician would do to bolster their chances in in an upcoming election where, you know, you you fire some weapons and some bombs and you have maybe a u a takeover of a third world dictator uh as a way to bolster your political chances in an upcoming election really um rather than as part of an affront to uh the Russians and the Chinese and and the Iranians and uh so forth. So um not sure exactly what to make of that, but again it's an escalation uh a destabilization of the international accord. >> The warnings have been issued, the signs are flashing, and the fuse has already been lit. Dr. Mark Thornton's prediction of 500 silver isn't some outlier theory. It's the logical end of a system unraveling. As the dollar crumbles under the weight of debt and delusion, silver is preparing to assume its rightful role. Not just as an asset, but as money itself. The gold to silver ratio is compressing. Supply is tightening. Demand, both industrial and monetary, is surging. And with the AI and private equity bubbles set to implode, silver offers something nothing else does. real tangible protection outside the system. The breakout past $50 wasn't the end. It was the beginning. If you're watching this and still holding dollars, ask yourself, how much time do you really think you have before the market wakes up? Because when it does, silver won't give you a warning. It will simply disappear. So, prepare now, stay informed, and subscribe if you want to stay ahead of the coming financial reset. And remember, this is not financial advice. Always speak to a qualified professional before making any investment decisions.