patrick.net

That's why Trump is trying to do all this silly Peace Board stuff and having envoys with Putin. Goal is to break up BRICS, they are the system not under our control. We can't sanction away when they can trade with each other. Can't globohomo if there is no leverage.

Patrick says

Yes, it was a disaster when Biden seized Russian assets.

Trust lost is hard to regain. Now every country realizes that it is very dangerous to hold any assets that are under US control.

Most of the funds are stuck in EU banks where the EU has jurisdiction. That's why the EU were the ones trying to use the frozen Russian funds as collateral for a loan to the Ukraine. The funds are simply denominated in US dollars.

You're right:

Most frozen Russian funds are under EU jurisdiction, not U.S. jurisdiction.

The European Union holds approximately €210 billion ($245 billion) of the frozen Russian assets, making it the largest single holder.

The United States holds only about $5 billion in frozen Russian assets, a small fraction of the total.

When gold hit $900 back in 1979, it was tracking the real inflation in the economy; nowdays the inflation numbers are essentially made up. In most things I think we've seen > 200% inflation over the last 20 years (housing, education, food, medical - anything you really need, not bullshit electronics).

After Volker took the US economy out to the woodshed in the early 1980's and shot it twice dead with >15% interest rates, gold dropped back to around $400 and stayed that way until the late 1990's, when the US nominally ran a surplus (mostly by legerdemain by "unifying" the budget - before then, the SS trust fund was kept separate from the Federal budget).

If the past is a guide, then wherever gold ends up, we might expect a 50% retracement to a lower, but stable value. This will only occur if a major deflationary event occurs, such as turning off the spigot of $trillions in deficit spending every year.

Silver at $99 today. What is driving the 220% increase in silver prices over the last 12 months ?

Chicoms are hoarding and stockpiling since solar panels and Tomahawk cruise missiles use a lot of silver ?

Commodities are very volatile.

Just look at natural gas prices over the last week. We saw an increase of 60-75% in ONE WEEK.

You can make a lot of money at market peaks, but watch that fucking timing.

stereotomy says

After Volker took the US economy out to the woodshed in the early 1980's

There is no rampant inflation, like the trade, auto and teamster unions causing massive wage inflation, and no OPEC embargo.

Eggs, gasoline, townhome rental prices, etc are all notably down in Panama City Beach.

As of January 23, 2026, the current Truflation US CPI inflation rate is 1.21%.

The Federal Reserve should just keep the Fed Funds rate around 3.75%.

And the Federal Reserve is buying about $50 billion a month in US Treasuries now since QT is over and it has not restarted QE; the purchases are replacing matured Treasuries to keep the balance sheet around $6 trillion.

stereotomy says

When gold hit $900 back in 1979,

Didn't hit $900. See below.

B.A.C.A.H. says

The peak price during my senior year of high school on January 21, 1980 was $850 per ounce.or 142 hours of median labor.

What I left off the earlier post was this calculation. Assuming the 1.3% decline in purchasing power of American wages since 1967, what costed 142 hours of median labor in January of 1980 would be expected to cost about 260 hours of median labor in January 2026. This would correspond to a gold price of about $7000 per ounce to match the January 1980 mania.

We'll find out

I wonder if Iwog "backed up the truck" when silver was less than $20 per ounce.

At a silver spot price of $100 per troy ounce, the melt value of one silver dollar is 0.7734 × $100 = $77.34

That dollar coin used to be one dollar.

Goddamn, gold broke $5K:

They're not reducing the amount of dollar reserves. Those are at an all-time high and are increasing.

What's happened is that the price of gold has more than doubled.

Brave AI:

Central banks worldwide are actively reducing U.S. dollar reserves and increasing gold holdings, marking a significant shift in global monetary policy. This trend, known as de-dollarization, has accelerated since 2022, particularly following Western sanctions on Russia that froze its foreign exchange reserves. In response, countries like China, Russia, India, Turkey, and several Middle Eastern nations have diversified their reserves by purchasing record amounts of gold—over 1,000 tonnes annually in recent years.

Gold's share in global foreign exchange reserves has risen from 13% in 2017 to nearly 20% by 2024, and it has now overtaken U.S. bonds as the largest foreign reserve asset, according to the World Gold Council. This shift reflects a strategic move to reduce exposure to U.S. financial sanctions and geopolitical risk. Gold is seen as a neutral, physically held asset that cannot be frozen or seized, unlike dollar-denominated assets held in Western institutions.

A result of Biden's mega fuck-up in freezing Russian assets.

Patrick says

that cannot be frozen or seized

Didn't quite work out that way for Stalin. The first harvest season after the commies took over in the Soviet Union was an epic bust. Stalin tried to purchase grain from the UK with Russian gold, but was told they wouldn't accept Soviet gold. Mass starvation occurred in the Soviet Union. Plenty of bad blood to this day. One of the reasons Putin says that if there is a nuclear war London is the first to go.

Patrick says

At a silver spot price of $100 per troy ounce, the melt value of one silver dollar is 0.7734 × $100 = $77.34

That dollar coin used to be one dollar.

To put that in perspective, there was a time then when 6,465 oz of silver denomination in dollars would buy the equivalent of the average $500,000 house today(and still would if physical silver)….. Pretty wild stuff, this inflation / currency devaluation is….

I think in some way Bitcoin and crypto competed with silver and gold, and explains partially why silver prices were depressed since 2012 to 2024.

Now a lot of wealth managers are recommending 3 to 5% of assets being in Bitcoin like Blackrock Bitcoin ETF.

I look at silver price manipulation being like a finger pressing down on a spring. The less manipulation means the less force of the finger against the spring.

The estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for silver from its 1980 price peak to today's price is approximately 5.45% (from $49.45 per ounce on January 18, 1980, to approximately $111.71 per ounce on January 27, 2026).

The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for inflation in the US from 1980 to early 2026 is approximately 3.02% to 3.03%.

Silver real or inflation-adjusted CAGR

Chinese Silver Fund Halts Trading as Frenzy Drives Up Premium

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-silver-fund-halts-trading-021541976.html