Hello everyone, welcome to Bald Guy Money. And with talk about Russia wanting to reenter the US dollar system, begging on their hands and knees according to some people on social media, people are once again questioning the long-term bull case for gold and silver, with some even declaring the end of bricks. Now, what we have to keep in mind is not everything is as it seems. First of all, the truth about Russia's re-entry to the US dollar system is a lot more complicated than most people are presenting it. As Russia hints, they


want back in to facilitate international business transactions. That said, they have been very clear that the dollar will have to compete with other currencies in those transactions with the central bank of Russia flat out saying they are not reversing course on ddollarization. And considering what happened in 2022, it's hard to believe they ever would as their US dollar assets were frozen, violating the neutrality of the US dollar. And the best way I can describe what is happening right now, using a little bit


of an example, is a father was banned from a local restaurant for what the restaurant says was bad behavior on the father's part. But his daughter is planning to have her 21st birthday party there. And instead of looking for permission to hang out at the restaurant all the time, maybe like the father used to do, he just wants occasional access to the restaurant to participate in things like his daughter's birthday party, things that he would otherwise not be able to participate in. Now,


probably the most important part of this equation and the fear people are trying to once again spread about gold and silver while they claim the US dollar is back and better than ever is that Russia was never the entity that was driving this overall move to gold and away from the US dollar because it's China that's been doing that. And China has not only purchased gold for 15 months straight despite gold's record rise in price, but it's dumping US treasuries at the very same time. And even just recently


instructed banks within the country to limit their exposure to the US dollar as Xi Jingping, who is the leader of China, says he wants the Chinese yuan to become a legitimate reserve currency. And it's very likely gold is playing a key part in that plan. So in this video, to better present this topic to you, I have a discussion with Hong Kongbased businessman, now retired, Eric Young, to get to the bottom of what's driving gold and silver in the Asian markets, how you can track this data that differs greatly


from Western data, including prices. We discussed China's endgame for gold and silver and much more in this conversation with fresh news that broke at the end of our discussion on how Chinese authorities are going after precious metals market manipulators. So, be sure to watch till the very end for that. Now, just before we start, I want to remind you all that if you're still bearish on the dollar and fiat currencies and you're bullish on gold and silver like I am, that it's only a


matter of time, probably a couple of months, maybe sooner, before prices truly start to rebound. So, if you're using the time you have now and making scheduled gold and silver purchases, please check out the new and improved Summit Metals website. The prices are great, the customer service is the best, there are DCA auto invest options, and you can be 100% sure when you buy from Summit Metals that all products are real, no fakes, no scams, and it supports what I do here on YouTube. So, please check them out at


summitmetals.com. So, Eric, welcome to Bald Guy Money. Of course, uh, I've got the intro out of the way, recorded separately, but I really thank you very much for doing this with me. Now, the reason I really wanted to get you on is because I think of all the people out there, you have a very good idea of what is happening in the Asian markets with respect to precious metals. Obviously, you're very knowledgeable about it. So my first question that I really want to tackle with you here is we are we regularly see


during the Asian market hours the prices of both gold and silver getting bid up only to get sold off when the American markets open. Now on top of that we also see a notable difference between the Shanghai exchange price for silver and the Western Comx spot price which may come as a surprise to some of my viewers. Now, I saw that silver, as we're recording right now, is trading for about $79 an ounce, but it closed in Shanghai today on Friday at $87 an ounce, where, you know, as I said, silver's not even trading above $80 per


ounce in the West. My first question to you is for people who this might be new for and who might want to track the price of silver on the Shanghai exchange, where do you recommend they do that? Where can we get good information about what the price of silver is in China? >> So, we can follow this guy, Oriental Ghost. He's my friend. He's um you know very seasoned um commodity trader based out of Shanghai and he post um Shanghai gold exchange and Shanghai futures exchange prices on his ex account on a


daily basis like during the trading days so people can follow him or they can follow me because I I post that those prices uh not as often as Oriental goes but I do it uh sporadically But if they if people want to get direct access to that information for the Shanghai Gold Exchange, they can just go on the Shanghai Gold Exchange website. It's pretty easy to navigate. you you go on it and then you know there's an English um option and then you can just simply find the uh AM PM uh Shanghai gold


exchange benchmark prices or if you want there's actually a uh real time price quotation directly from the Shanghai Gold Exchange. >> Great. And I'll link your X account as well as Oriental Ghost up in the video description. So now that we've got that out of the way and we have it established that clearly there is a difference in east and west when it comes to precious metals right now as I've already said the Shanghai price is higher than the western comx price specifically for silver the gap is is


very big. What is driving this price difference and Eric whose price do you think is is actually the right price? So I think the um Chinese silver price is um extremely physically driven and in terms of the right price I mean um I wouldn't say that the Chinese price is the right price and the western price is the wrong price because I think what is happening Roger is that um under the surface of the so-called calm ocean of precious metals especially for over. I think what is happening is that um the


US may in in in the background may be actually I wouldn't say stopping but definitely slowing down China's importation of silver concentrates from Latin America. Okay. So, so that's what I think is happening and that is probably why um you know it like the effects are trickling down right that is probably why the Shanghai gold exchange and the Shanghai futures exchange is bleeding silver okay that I think that's one of the major reasons another reason of course is you know we have a lot of lots


of investment demand in China right now for both gold and silver And especially for silver, I think that's draining the uh Shanghai gold exchange and Shanghai futures exchange v. [snorts] Now in terms of the US, I think what is happening is that um they they might have access to all the silver concentrates that they want to get their hands on. Okay. But I think what is happening in the US is that they simply do not have enough. um silver refinement capacity to take on all that raw unrefined silver.


So, you know, back to my original point, I think there's a disconnect. There's a dislocation in the global silver market. >> I've recently heard you say that there are forces in China that want the price of silver to be lower. Maybe that's in the manufacturing. I'm not sure whether that's in the government. What I'd like to ask you, Eric, is if that's true, first of all, and if it is true, can they achieve it? Is this something that silver stackers should be worried about?


Should they be worried about a 2011 or 1980 type of situation where they get rugpulled and and the and the price of silver falls because these institutional factors or forces want the price of silver to be lower? >> Well, I think um you know what I'm seeing is that uh the industrial players in China, they obviously want the price of silver to go lower. I mean buy of rental goals have been seeing this nonstop since uh silver crossed $45 US per troy. I mean even after the correction we at what almost 80 like you


said like 7780 US dollars in the west. So, [snorts] you know, that's what the industrial players in China wants. And it's understandable, like I explained to you off camera. Um, that's their input cost. So, of course, they want silver to be below $50 if they can if they can do something about it, right? But I think the Chinese government I I don't think they care if the silver price go up as much because um what does the Chinese government want? They want a higher gold price. They want a higher gold price


because they want to um they want to derize for for lack of a better word, right? They want to build a parallel system using physical gold that they can um for lack of a better word replace US treasury bonds with. So I think the Chinese government understands that um gold and silver are tied at a hip. And if you look at history, what did what did the US government do to knock down the price of gold in 1980? They you know what they did was they destroyed the Hunt brothers. They ruled the Hunt brothers right who were like


you know cornering the silver markets and when silver fell in 1980 gold fell next. So I think the Chinese government knows their history and they understand that gold and silver are tied to the hip. Therefore I think the Chinese government really have no choice but but to let the price of silver go up. So you mentioned 1980. It's funny because you know apart from just the Hunt brothers, funny enough, the US started selling their strategic silver stockpile also in 1980. And I think what's happening right


now is that they're rebuilding it which has also caused these shortages as well as this is also why them recognizing how important silver is not only in industry but as well as the mil in the military-industrial complex. This is certainly part of the motivating factor of why they are limiting the amount of that silver concentrate that reaches China. Much in the same way that they're diverting Venezuelan oil into the United States away from from China. Now, I think we've got silver pretty well


covered. I'd like to move to gold because you mentioned that China is very interested in seeing a higher gold price as a nation in order to drive that dolization and to have it as the more favored reserve asset as opposed to US dollars. Now, we've seen today stories being put out in the media that Russia is interested in getting back into the Swift system, getting back into the US dollar system. And it's created a little bit of panic amongst some people saying, "Oh, the the long-term prospects for


gold don't look as attractive now if Russia's let back in." Of course, I think the damage was done in 2022 when the neutrality of the US dollar was was violated. But building on what you've said, do you think that there could be a future where everybody goes back to the US dollar and decides, okay, we've flirted with gold a little bit, but you know, maybe ultimately we prefer the US dollar, or do you think that's not a possibility anymore? >> Um, I think uh the the boat has sailed


in terms of like, you know, in terms of your question, right? going back to the US dollar as a global reserve um currency and US treasuries more importantly US US treasuries as global reserve assets for these uh global south countries now for for US um allies like Japan and Europe maybe not I don't know right like I mean they are beholden to the to to the US because uh the US has their military presence at these countries. But um in in terms of the global south, ever since um the US decided to freeze Russian


assets, I think everybody saw what happened to Russia and nobody wants to have their US dollar assets be frozen by the US government at the press of a button. So if you ask me, I don't think like you know um a reversion to that is going to happen. I know that Bloomberg uh you know posted some news about Russia talking to Trump um in regards to get getting back into the into the US dollar system, but apparently it's not confirmed on the Russian side. And um you know even if it's true I think it's


only for um small things not across the board. Focusing in on the Chinese economy though and I'm very curious about this and this is the question I really really wanted to ask you because uh I I've been talking about it for well it was really a main focus of mine back in 2022 and 2023. I've talked about it less as of late, but the Chinese retail, it's not only the Chinese government trying to build massive reserves and and build an alternative to the US dollar, but also the Chinese retail, the regular


person in China was also buying up a lot of gold, especially participating in this as gold bottomed out in 2022, moving into the breakout in 2024 where I think it's really picked up a lot of momentum. Now, what I've said in past content is that the Chinese stock market was kind of in a in a bare market, a long-term bare market. I mean, even today, it still hasn't beaten the the 2015 high. The Chinese real estate market, we know what's happened there. It was a bit of a bubble and it's


suffered. It's kind of been a disaster really over the past five or six years. And that has driven a lot of Chinese retail people, so regular people, out of real estate, out of stocks, and leaving gold and and silver, so precious metals as really the best alternative to store their savings in. Now, recently, we've seen some recovery in the Chinese stock market. It's starting to move up again, and I'm hearing already that there are the early signs of recovery in the Chinese mainland real estate market. My


question to you is, is this trend a risk? Do you think that we could see the Chinese retail, the the regular person sell their gold or divert their money away from precious metals back into stocks and real estate? Is this something that Western people should keep in mind when for example holding precious metals or owning mining stocks? >> I think that's definitely a possibility. that um even with the um situation that is happening right now, I think um Chinese people own probably 5% of their investable asset um


liquidity in uh precious metals. So most of their money is still in property even though property prices drop so much, right? Because they got to lift. It's just a cultural thing, Roger. I mean like even for myself I own a very expensive property um where I live I own of course like um commercial commercial property because I used to like I explained to your audience I used to do um contract manufacturing so I need warehouse space I own all that I I don't lease it I didn't lease it or or rent


rent it I actually own it so it's it's really a cultural thing that um that we tend to own a lot of properties. So I think instead of um migrating capital away from gold and silver into property or the stock market, what I do see is that a lot more money is going to come into the precious metals market in China. Okay. So so I see the reverse of that. So from the point of view of the regular, let's call it 1 billion people in China, you don't think anything has changed here. You don't think any shift


away from that is going to happen anytime soon? >> No, we're just beginning, my friend. This is just beginning. They're just like getting their head around using gold as a as a um savings mechanis mechanism and they're beginning to look at gold and silver as potentially something that you can invest in for the next 5 10 years. So with the latest pullbacks we've seen in gold and silver prices of course you know my bias the the the most exposure I have when it comes to regular people who


are gold and silver stackers or owners of mining stocks are in the west. My question is, do you see retail people buying this dip or is there the same level of panic in China as there is for example in the west that this might be a bubble? >> I see people buying in China. I mean especially for gold like go it really surprised me that just like the gold buying in China is relentless. people buy gold at every price point. I'm not kidding you. Every single price point. I thought, you know, when they


had that dip like um 4,000, remember 4,000 we had we had the dip back to like the 3,000s, right? >> Yeah. And I thought like, oh yeah, they'll sell it. No, they bought more >> and now they're buying. >> So gold, I think, is just relentless. And silver is more speculative, but like because silver is so freaking cheap, right, Roger? It's so cheap. Even at 100 bucks, it's so cheap. I I I do see people buying like what can they lose if they buy like a kilogram of gold


>> very minimal, right? I can tell you it'll never go to zero. It'll never go to zero. >> Well, exactly. So, they they don't care. >> So, my last question to you, Eric, and again, thanks so much for doing this with me. And remember everybody who's watching this, please follow Eric on X. I will leave the link to follow him below. He's got great information on his X account. I'd like to ask you, Eric, if you could own just one precious metal for the next 5 years, silver, gold,


let's put in platinum, rodium, you know, a lot palladium. A lot of viewers ask me about those ones, but just one precious metal for the next five years. You have to buy it and hold it for the next five years. I'd love to know which metal you would buy and why. >> I would buy gold and I own like honestly I own more way more gold than silver. I'll tell you why. Number one is um in Hong Kong like in China is a little bit different but in Hong Kong gold is part of the banking system here. So the buy


sell spread is extremely small and like if I want to sell millions of dollar US dollars of gold like some people may not have that issue. I'm not looking down on anybody. Okay. It's just that with me I got to I got to figure out how to move millions of dollars of physical gold if I sell. And in Hong Kong like I don't need to worry about takers. Okay, for millions of dollars of physical gold. silver. There's a big problem because I went I bought a lot of my uh Canadian maples from from Kitco Hong Kong. I


asked those guys like what what happened? Let's say silver hits 200 bucks and I got like half a million dollars of silver or like a million hypo hypothetically speaking, let's say, right? I want to offload it to Kicko. They told me that like they might not be able be able to buy it all at once. it might take like however many days or a month like that's of course like a frontline employee but like that person would know right because they they deal with this on a daily basis so that's my concern with


silver okay practically I think like gold works out for me better but in terms of like um how I think it will go I think silver overshoot for sure like above >> 150 okay It always does. Okay. But then I think with silver above 150, it would just be really tough to for industrials to use silver. Okay. Like like the silver using intensive industrials like like solar that like solar power apparently for um for solar power at 100 bucks silver that was like 30% of the input cost. So you see my concern with the price


like with the um with the with the cost model of silver, right? So I think it's possible because like people in China tell me this all the time. They bombard me, Roger. Okay, I'm like information overload. Let me tell you that. And they tell me that um what they want is potentially a 200 gsl, 200 gold to silver ratio. Isn't that crazy, Roger? I mean, like the highest we've gone, I think, is 120 and these guys won 200. You know why? Because they they tell me that um they potentially see gold at


$20,000. That's no problem because gold is not an industrial metal, right? It's just for the banking industry for um you know like like I said uh potentially uh repo collateral collateral for sovereign countries um you know by um by companies international multinational companies etc individuals okay that's fine it's not used by industrials industrial users it's not a input cost. So gold can go to $20,000. It's actually like I think I did like a shot of who benefits if gold


goes to $20,000 is like everybody everybody wins if gold goes to $20,000. But silver is a different story. Like I said, if silver goes to like 500, I think some industries that use silver, unless they jack up the price, like 2x or 3x, I think they'll just stop using silver. So, what do you think is the sweet spot? Like, let's say taking today's prices. >> Yeah. You know, as somebody who's worked in manufacturing in China, mainland China, what do you think the sweet spot for silver is where the people who are


holding silver are happy and the people on the manufacturing side aren't, you know, pulling their hair out? >> 150 >> accounting for inflation 150. I think that's the max. By the way, just before I leave your program, leave your audience, I'm going to say this to the like today. just today or I think like earlier this week, okay, the Chinese government announced that it's going to slap a lot more control on the off exchange gold and silver markets in China. So, this is non Shanghai gold


exchange, non Shanghai futures exchange. Okay, I'm going to read this to your audience. Hold on. So, this is what they're going to do. Number one, off exchange leverage derivatives, uh, leverage longs, paper longs, or leverage paper nickel shorts will no longer be tolerated. So, if you're not on the exchange and you're doing all these shenanigans, okay, like like leverage leverage naked naked naked shorts or like leverage long, like you you you have all these leverage shorts, but you don't have the metal, okay? you


don't have the metal to deliver. That's not going to be tolerated. Number two, physical gold and silver deliveries will be enforced >> off exchange. So if you if you sold gold and silver, you better have the freaking metal to deliver it. Okay? No paper. Number three, off exchange, fractional reserve gold and silver will be scrutinized. So, if you're running a fractional reserve gold and silver system off exchange, good luck to you because they're going to go look at you with a microscope. Number four, off


exchange gold and silver rehypoccation will not be tolerated. Okay? So, if you think that you can get one gold bar or one silver bar and sell it to 10 different customers, good luck to you because you're going to jail in China. Okay? So, no more Buxy Seagull operations in China for gold and silver. [laughter] >> Buxy seagull. No more of that. None of that. Yeah. No more shenanigans. So, there you have it. >> All right. Last question because that was very interesting considering these


new rules and considering, you know, we we had such major volatility recently. How long or how soon do you think it will take before gold and silver retest their their highs from late January? >> I think gold and silver, you know, may go through couple months of consolidation possibly. Um maybe it'll get back to their highs in um in April or May. It's possible. Eric, I really appreciate that. Thanks for answering all those questions. Thanks for giving us all that fantastic information, and I hope we can do it


again sometime. >> Well, thank you, Roger, for having me on your show. Is a pleasure.