Free Republic

Expectations for Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska have been downplayed but diverted attention from a stalling US and global economy. Any independent observer will note that the outlook for the dollar is deteriorating, credit risk rising, and a debt trap is being sprung on the US Treasury. Tonight’s Alaska circus is a diversion from this reality. Gold and silver continued to consolidate earlier gains this week, but the market underneath continues to tighten. In European morning trade today gold was $3340, down $60 from last Friday’s close, and silver was $37.90, down 40 cents. Comex volumes in both contracts...

In the quiet woods near Kalisz, Poland, a group of amateur archaeologists uncovered not one, but three extraordinary treasures over the span of just five weeks this summer...The Denar Kalisz Group, in cooperation with the Voivodeship Office of Environmental Protection in Kalisz, conducted their exploration in the Grodziec Forest District of Zbiersk.Their work began in early June with the discovery of a Roman-period burial ground linked to the Przeworsk culture. Among the finds was the grave of a warrior, complete with a spearhead and shield boss.Just days later, they recovered a coin from the 11th century alongside a small ceramic...

If gold were judged in an impartial court of law, the jury would find the majestic metal a superior form of money. Fiat currency advocates would lose the legal battle and debate, and the sound money defense would rest and win the case with overwhelming documentary proof and supportive testimony. A growing body of evidence provided by central banks, national governments and a global banking regulatory body reveals an irrefutable and long-known truth. The bulleted evidence: • The world’s central banks officially hold some 38,000 metric tons of gold, an all-time record according to one estimate, and around 20 percent...

As my sources told me, Miran is a rarity, a highly trained economist who knows all the jargon, has absorbed the peer studies, brings intellectual heft, and makes a logical-sounding case for Trump’s stunningly contrarian game plan. “To say the least, it’s a relatively small pool of PhD economists who are economic nationalists. That’s a blinding reality. But Steve is one,” says someone outside the administration who knows him.

China's massive, potentially undeclared, gold reserves could challenge the dollar's dominance, says expert Craig Hemke. In a recent interview on The Deep Dive, prominent precious metals analyst Craig Hemke of TF Metals Report delved into the escalating US-China trade tensions and the intriguing possibility of China amassing a significantly larger gold reserve than officially reported. Hemke, a respected voice in the precious metals market with over 15 years of experience, offered a compelling analysis suggesting that China's strategic accumulation of gold could be a key factor in a potential shift away from the US dollar's global dominance. The interview, hosted...

Do you remember about 6 months ago when President Trump and Elon Musk and DOGE were talking about auditing the gold in Fort Knox? Or even just going in there to look around? It sounded like it was going to happen imminently and then nothing ever happened. A new theory has emerged from Ed Dowd, who you might recognize. Ed did terrific work during COVID exposing many of the fake narratives back in 2020-era, and now he’s back with a theory he’s calling the “White Swan Collapse” and what’s really going on with Fort Knox. I’ll just tell you the...

The potential proceeds from a revaluation of U.S. gold reserves to current market price would equal about 3 percent of U.S. GDP, according to Figure 2 of the paper. On Friday the Federal Reserve Bank website published a “FED Notes” article by Colin Weiss regarding the theory and phenomenon of central banks revaluing their gold reserves in order to increase nominal wealth without increasing debt from the printing of debt-based fiat currencies.“With public debt at high levels, some governments have begun to explore financing additional expenditures without raising taxes while also not increasing public debt outstanding. One possibility is...

National Resources Limited claims massive new gold and copper discovery, raising hopes for a mining bonanza and fears of local conflict At the Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum 2025, Muhammad Ali Tabba, chairman of National Resources Limited (NRL) and CEO of Lucky Cement, unveiled what he claimed are hitherto unknown substantial gold and copper reserves in Balochistan’s Chagai district. Announced in the company of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief General Muhammad Asim Munir, Tabba’s claimed discovery signals a potential turning point for Pakistan’s laggard mining industry at a time global gold prices are touching record highs of over...

A piece of silver associated with pirate folklore has been extracted from a dig site in a quiet Australian town. Prospector Angus James was searching for treasure in Stawell, 237km northwest of Melbourne, when he found half a Mexican 8 reales coin. “I first thought it might have been a half crown, but then I thought why is it cut in half? I was looking for the other half and couldn’t find it, so I took it home and washed it clean,” he told Yahoo News. Mexican 8 reales were linked to the term “pieces of eight” because they were...

With the Trump Administration headed down the road to higher inflation and the political chaos that results, it is worth asking why there are “only” $4 trillion in notional crypto tokens, this according to the Financial Times. The rise of bitcoin and other ethereal instruments evidences a strong desire on the part of many Americans to escape a sinking ship, but also confirms the love for creating new games to enable speculation. Are the crypto tokens really a way to avoid the demise of fiat dollars? As we noted in a recent comment in The Institutional Risk Analyst, the best...

A Silicon Valley startup claims it can turn mercury into gold. San Francisco, California-based Marathon Fusion is proposing a process that uses nuclear fusion to turn mercury into gold — something that has been sought by people for thousands of years. "Unlike previous attempts, our method is massively scalable, pragmatically achievable, and economically irresistible," Marathon Fusion said on its website. "Using our approach, power plants can generate five thousand kilograms of gold per year, per gigawatt of electricity generation (~2.5 GWth), without any compromise to fuel self-sufficiency or power output." In a Cornell University scientific paper submitted July 17, Marathon...

Beware of Fake Financial Experts (a critique of Lyn Alden, Luke Gromen and the like)There is a sense in the world that 'something' is wrong with the global economy- the rise of populism in numerous countries evidencing the growing discontent of the people. Unfortunately, with this rise in discontent has come a number of monetary 'experts' who attempt to address this sentiment by propagating narratives that are not only extremely ignorant, but dangerous, profiting themselves as they take advantage of the emotions of the people.For example, Raoul Pal runs a financial platform called 'Real Vision' in which he continuously states...

For today's column, we have something a little bit different. Because while there is certainly plenty happening that is worthy of comment, I'm not sure it would be possible to put it all in better context than how Luke Gromen just did in the interview I recorded with him yesterday. This is the one I mentioned on Tuesday, that is perhaps the episode of the Arcadia Economics YouTube channel that I've been most looking forward to in the entire time I've been doing the show. So I've posted the gold and silver charts below, but rather than writing any more...

Here’s why Fort Knox gold will never be audited. Not in the past 70+ years, and probably never in the future. What are they hiding from us—and why do even presidents back down when they try to investigate? President Trump said multiple times that he wanted to visit Fort Knox to verify if the gold was really there. Elon Musk offered to livestream the whole thing. And then… nothing. Total silence. No visit. No audit. Not a single follow-up. The story just kind of disappeared. But why? In this video, we talk about the Fort Knox gold controversy—why there hasn’t...

The company claims it has cracked a scalable method to make stable gold from mercury. Ever since the discovery of alchemy, or since humans thought gold was a precious object, a worldwide quest to turn common elements into the yellow metal has been ongoing. Folklore and fables sing praises of humans who went on this quest and those who received such blessings. No such claims have yet stood the test of science, and this could change quite soon. An engineering firm from the United States – Marathon Fusion – has claimed that making gold from mercury is possible, and they...

Russia’s new gold exchange severs London ties, challenging Western price control and signaling a seismic power shift in the global precious metals and financial order. In a transformative move shaking the bedrock of the international precious metals market, Russia is preparing to launch its own gold trading platform, decisively severing ties with the London Stock Exchange and the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). This bold initiative signals not only a dramatic assertion of financial sovereignty, but a direct challenge to three centuries of Western dominance over global gold pricing. London: The Historical Epicenter of Gold Power To grasp the gravity...

His expedition found a “mountain of gold” at the bottom of the Atlantic. But he might never see a cent of the lost fortune. It was late in the summer of 1988 when Tommy Thompson finally located a big rusty paddle wheel buried in ocean floor sediment. Now he was banking on an even bigger discovery: a cache of 19th-century gold worth as much as half a billion dollars. On September 11, Thompson and a crew of explorers hunkered down aboard the Arctic Discoverer, a retrofitted Canadian icebreaking ship about 160 miles east of South Carolina. There they deployed an...

A Sudden Dislocation in the Silver Market July opened with an alarm bell. The Exchange for Physical (EFP) premium for silver, which reflects the cost of converting COMEX futures into deliverable metal, surged from near-zero levels to between 60 and 80 cents per ounce. This kind of move does not occur in isolation. At the same time, spot silver jumped more than two dollars, pushing beyond $38 per ounce. These changes appeared within a 48-hour window. Us Metal War Silver Becomes Strategic As Premiums Explode 01 The market had not been showing extreme activity beforehand. There was no retail panic....

Remember the cycles of the mining industry. For multiple reasons, the price of extracted ore tends to fall, particularly due to competition. Thus, as a mine is operated, the metal content generally decreases, reducing its profitability until the company decides to close it. There are therefore periods during which the extraction of a particular metal is no longer profitable, leading to a sharp drop in production, and then, gradually, a shortage. For precious metals, to mask the erosion of the purchasing power of currencies, prices were long tightly regulated, first by specialized administrations, then by groups of central banks, such...

Could a gold revaluation be on Trump’s mind? Below, we consider the options facing a debt-sick America. A Bug Racing for a Windshield As we’ve been warning for years, the US and USD are a bug rapidly seeking a debt-hard windshield. The trend and speed of this collision (and debt trap) are becoming increasingly more obvious with each passing day and headline. In simplest terms, as US debt levels soar moon-bound, trust and interest in its IOUs (and the currency/dollar backing those IOUs) are sinking toward the ocean floor. The evidence of such otherwise “dramatic” statements is literally everywhere. Hard...