Health Ranger - Mike Adams - BBN, Dec 23, 2025 – Samsung’s Battery Breakthrough, Silver Projections Through 2027, and New Music V

Dec. 23, 2025 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams

01:42:43

BBN, Dec 23, 2025 – Samsung’s Battery Breakthrough, Silver Projections Through 2027, and New Music V

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	December 23rd, 2025.
	It's two days before Christmas.
	So Merry Christmas.
	And I don't know if you remember last year I did a Christmas music, you know, Christmas song.
	And I created it using Suno, the, you know, the music engine.
	And that was actually one of the very first songs that I had ever created with Suno.
	I had maybe done two or three before that.
	And then since then, Suno has become way more professional and impressive.
	And also I've done, you know, 20 plus songs on Suno that have been published.
	And I decided to do another song for you this year for Christmas, but it's a song about Bright Learn for Christmas.
	And you're going to love it, actually.
	It's called The Greatest Gift is Learning Free.
	And it's about, well, you'll hear it in lyrics, but it's about how what I want to give you and what I want to give the world is the gift of knowledge for free.
	Because I believe it's a fundamental human right to have access to uncensored information.
	And that all of those governments around the world, especially the European governments, now they've lost their minds, but all governments that censor people are violating human rights.
	And now, you know, our government also censors somewhat, but not nearly as badly as the EU and some other governments around the world.
	You know, China also has pretty aggressive censorship on certain topics, but not others.
	So it kind of depends on where you go.
	I mean, I'm sure, you know, Saudi Arabia has extreme censorship, like you can't criticize the royal family, you know.
	And Iran has censorship, etc.
	But I want the world to be as free as possible.
	And so what I'm singing about or creating music about is how I want to give the gift of decentralized uncensored knowledge to the world.
	And what's really cool about this song, which is coming up, we have an early version of the music video.
	It's not the final version, but it's an early version.
	It's still pretty good.
	The final version might be released on Christmas, or tomorrow maybe.
	But anyway, this early version, it reminds me of Backstreet Boys.
	And for those of you who are around my age, you know, we all, everybody knew about the Backstreet Boys 20 years ago or whatever it was that they were very, very famous.
	You know, it was one of the boy bands, which the term boy band was kind of an insult at the time.
	But Backstreet Boys have maintained this loyal following and this certain style, pretty amazing vocals, etc.
	And they still have a following to this day.
	And I got to admit, there's some of their songs that I like as a musician.
	Like, I want it that way, for example.
	I think it's one of the best pop songs that has ever been written and performed, actually, for a lot of reasons, structural reasons, vocals, you know, lyrics, you know, etc.
	Anyway, so this new song I'm going to play for you coming up here, The Greatest Gift is Learning Free, is it reminds me of Backstreet Boys.
	It's not officially affiliated with Backstreet Boys, just to be clear.
	And I did not use the band name Backstreet Boys in the prompt.
	I don't even think Suno lets you do that, by the way, but it sounds like Backstreet Boys to me or maybe inspired by Backstreet Boys.
	That's that's a compliment to the Backstreet Boys and the band.
	Not to say that they, I mean, they're not endorsing this song, obviously, but they might.
	I mean, if they hear it, they might love it because it's a really positive, uplifting message for humanity.
	So that's coming up in just a few minutes.
	And speaking of BrightLearn, hey, where are we with that?
	Let's see.
	Over 7,300 books, oh, 7,400, excuse me, as I'm recording this.
	And somewhere between 500 and 1,000 books a day are getting published at brightlearn.ai.
	And remember, you can publish any book you want completely free.
	Now, if you want to get a book token, we are about to email a lot of our lists.
	We are emailing free tokens to every subscriber at naturalnews.com, which is a free subscription, by the way.
	And we're also emailing everybody, or I think we already did, at brighteon.social.
	And then we're going to be emailing all the registered viewers at brightyou.com also.
	So we are sending out like close to a million tokens, which sounds crazy because I don't think we can handle that many book generation requests.
	The thing is, only a very small percentage of people who receive the tokens actually end up using them for whatever reason.
	I don't know.
	Maybe they missed the email or maybe they don't want to create a book, but that's whatever.
	If you want to create a book and you're subscribed to the naturalnews.com email newsletter, watch your email.
	You're going to get a free token within the next seven to ten days at most, maybe sooner.
	Just kind of depends on my network admins and when they're going to get ready.
	Oh, before I cover the other topic real quick here, I do want to say that we found, well, me and the AI agents, we found out that about one out of every 700 books that was submitted to the BrightLearn engine has, well, it's vanished.
	I mean, it hasn't vanished, but it had to be deleted because there was a failure to submit the book outline into the database on the submit page.
	So anyway, it only affected, what, like seven books or maybe eight books or something like that.
	But yeah, unfortunately, we had to shred seven or eight incomplete books that never got written because they were broken.
	So I assume that the authors out there just figured after a few days, this isn't working.
	I should resubmit.
	And that is the correct answer.
	So if you have any problem with a book that you've submitted to BrightLearn, even though we've also beefed up the submit confirmation, double checking, you know, retry fallback logic, all that stuff.
	If you have any trouble with a book, or like if you don't see it within 24 hours, let's say, something's wrong, and you should probably just resubmit it.
	Oh, and by the way, if you use a token to submit it, your token will not be used until the book is actually published.
	So if you submitted a token and then the book died for whatever reason, then the token is still good.
	The token is not used until the book is published.
	Okay, so just something to keep in mind.
	Okay, now the next topic we're going to talk about is the Samsung battery technology that uses silver.
	And there's been a lot of buzz about that, even though we talked about this, I think, months ago, but we didn't really dwell on the issue.
	I think I just mentioned it for 10 minutes or something and moved on.
	Solid state battery technology, right?
	But now it's become a huge deal because of what's happening with the price of silver.
	And a lot of people are pointing to this development as the driving force behind silver reaching nearly $70 an ounce.
	So we're going to jump into a special report on that.
	And that's coming up right now.
	Here we go.
	All right, this is Mike Adams.
	Welcome to the special report about Samsung's new solid-state battery technology using silver carbon anode technology to increase energy density for one thing, and also charging speed and also the number of cycles, etc.
	So we're going to talk about this technology now and what this has to do with silver demand and silver pricing and also the timeline of this.
	The reason this is a very big deal right now is because silver, as I'm recording this, is just touching about $70 per ounce.
	That's a troy ounce, by the way, which is different than another ounce.
	That's why I strongly prefer the metric system because a kilogram is always a kilogram.
	But in the imperial system, ounces are not always ounces, which is confusing.
	But anyway, silver is sold as a troy ounce, and there are apparently right around 32 of those in one kilo.
	So in case you're wondering, like a kilo of silver is about 32 silver coins or so-called one-ounce silver coins.
	Okay, so with silver hitting about $70 per troy ounce, or very close to that, even we've had a lot of discussion about what's going on with silver, and I've talked about silver demand for the solar industry and why that's critical, because solar energy is the only energy source that can be rapidly upscaled to power data centers that are necessary for the race to superintelligence.
	And I'm not going to go into all the details here, but in previous reports, I've mentioned I've compared many different sources of possible energy, and none of them work quickly enough to compete with China in the race to superintelligence.
	None of them work other than solar.
	In other words, nuclear power, you know, 15 to 20 years out.
	Hot fusion power, who knows?
	Maybe one day, maybe in the year 2075.
	Fission, small modular reactors, fission, yeah, those work.
	Those are available now, but they're not available in large enough sizes to really power all the data centers, and they can still take many years for permitting and so on.
	And you still have to swap out the nuclear fuel rods so there's security issues there and possible dirty bomb potential and terrorism, that kind of thing.
	Then there's gas turbines that burn natural gas in order to generate electricity.
	Gas turbines, as we established in a previous podcast, the wait time on those, depending on the output rating, is anywhere from three years to now almost 10 years.
	So forget that.
	And the three years on that, those are the smaller gas turbines that are not really going to be helpful.
	If you want a large gas turbine to power a large data center, you're going to need to wait easily five, six, seven years at this point.
	So that puts us well into the early 2030s.
	And by that time, the race to superintelligence, it's already over.
	Probably is my guess.
	And then there's other kind of generators, diesel generators, etc.
	None of these can scale.
	Solar can scale.
	Solar can be deployed very quickly within a few months if you've got the solar panels.
	And if you combine it with battery storage technology for grid shifting, then you can actually power data centers with solar alone.
	Although it's expensive, it's doable.
	It's a lot more expensive than grid power, but it's still feasible.
	So that's why right now there's huge demand for silver from the solar manufacturing giants in both China and India and a few other countries, but mostly it's China and India.
	So that explains silver demand from the solar industry and why suddenly there's this massive ramp up and why solar manufacturers in India and China are scrambling to acquire physical stockpiles of silver.
	Not silver coins, but just sometimes unrefining silver dore, you know, just sort of silver coming out of the mines even before refining.
	They're stockpiling that stuff too, because they just need the silver.
	Everybody realizes it.
	Okay.
	Now, as if that weren't enough of a driver, we've also talked about how silver is used in telecommunications and electronics and of course conductive components that are on circuit boards, etc.
	It's used in data centers.
	It's used in weapons.
	The military industrial complex uses a tremendous amount of silver.
	I mean, only a small amount per cruise missile, let's say, but in the aggregate, it's a large amount of silver.
	There's also silver in other areas of technology and medicine and computing, etc.
	Okay.
	But that's already been known for a long time.
	What's new is, or relatively new, is this Samsung announcement of silver carbon composite layers to be used as the anode of lithium-ion batteries.
	So this is a lithium-ion battery that is vastly improved by adding a silver carbon composite layer as the anode, which allows the lithium to be a solid state instead of a sloshy liquid type of thing.
	And then they no longer produce the dendrites from the anode that leads to degradation of battery capacity and also problems with recharging.
	So as a result, the new Samsung battery technology, which was announced by the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, and this was, by the way, this was announced back in 2020, okay?
	So this isn't actually a new tech.
	What's new is that they're going to start mass producing it.
	And I'll tell you about that schedule because that's going to drive silver well over $100 an ounce in my view.
	But I'll share with you why I've reached that conclusion.
	And you are free to agree or disagree.
	But anyway, this was announced in 2020.
	And so as a result, they can use these ultra-thin silver carbon composite layers that are only five micrometers thick.
	Pretty amazing.
	And this means they can really sharply reduce the thickness of the anode overall.
	And they can increase the density of the battery to 900 watt hours per liter, which is really extraordinary.
	900 watt hours per liter.
	I mean, it wasn't that many years ago that we were looking at maybe 100 watt hours per liter, and then it got better at 200, 200 plus.
	I don't know where it is right now, but 900 is a big deal.
	So it means that the batteries that go into EVs can be 50% smaller by volume, 50% smaller.
	That's also a huge deal for safety.
	And, you know, it weighs less and it's less likely to be destroyed in an accident, etc.
	And also, according to this, that even at 50% reduced size, Samsung has estimated that an EV, a typical EV, could travel 800 kilometers on a single charge and a life cycle of over 1,000 charges, which that's actually improved since 2020.
	And then on top of that, the recharge time is only nine minutes to get most of the capacity charged up if you have a very powerful charger.
	So all of these are huge things.
	So here's where all of this gets really, really interesting.
	So Samsung SDI, that is the battery manufacturing group of Samsung, has confirmed that they are going to begin mass production of this new silver-based solid-state battery in 2027.
	So it's still over a year away.
	And what that means is that the silver bull market is probably only barely getting started.
	I mean, seriously, when they start cranking production of these batteries, you're looking at an estimated one kilo of silver going into every EV, one kilo, because there's about five grams of silver per battery unit.
	And a typical EV pack needs 200 cells.
	So that's 1,000 grams or one kilogram, hence the name, because I'm speaking to an American audience.
	So in any case, you're going to need a kilo of silver, which is 32 ounces.
	Now, if 32 ounces of silver costs, let's say, let's just say $100 an ounce, that's $3,200, obviously, right?
	That's just in the silver that's going into the battery.
	So that means the silver alone in the EV is worth thousands or will be worth thousands of dollars.
	It's going to add to the price of the vehicle rather substantially.
	But the performance gains are going to be worth it for most buyers.
	You have extended range, you know, you have reduced volume, you have rapid recharge, and you have better life cycle of the battery.
	So as a result, the Samsung CNT Group, which is the trading and construction arm of Samsung Group, they have, and this is confirmed, they have entered a silver supply deal from a mine in Mexico called, or located in La Parilla.
	So let's see.
	So this is, let's see, Samsung did a deal with the Canadian company called Silver Storm Mining, and that company has, they're going to restart production at its silver mine in Durango, Mexico, and that mine is called La Parilla.
	And that deal was announced in October of this year.
	So Samsung is going to receive 100% of the lead, silver, and zinc concentrates produced at La Parilla over the next two years once the mine is restarted.
	So in other words, yes, silver mining is going to increase here with this mine, but none of that silver is going into the retail market.
	You know, this isn't going to provide supply for consumers or anybody other than Samsung.
	All this silver is going directly to Samsung.
	And then they're going to have to line up all the refining and everything else.
	This is a big undertaking.
	And Samsung has announced in Japan, this was earlier in the year in March, Samsung SDI announced a 200 billion won capital raise.
	That's 1.4 billion US dollars roughly in order to raise funds for this project of setting up the manufacturing of these batteries.
	So in other words, Samsung is not messing around here.
	Now, Samsung already has experience manufacturing this because they ran a pilot program in Korea in 2022.
	This pilot program was at the SDI R ⁇ D Center located in Suwan.
	And it's about a, reportedly a 6,500 square meter production line.
	And then in 2023, Samsung SDI supplied samples of the batteries produced at that line to customers so that customers can begin the process of engineering testing and integration into their products, including vehicles.
	Now, probably this is going to go into robots too.
	Now, see, this is the other side of this whole conversation.
	When you can reduce the volume of a battery by 50%, you can stick it in a robot chest.
	Yeah, or wherever it goes in the robot, in the robot.
	It's probably in the chest.
	It's in the torso somewhere, you would imagine.
	Probably in the back, you know, where you can swap it out easily.
	Anyway, if you can pack essentially, you know, 50% more power into the same space into a robot, now robotics makes a lot more sense.
	And Samsung, clearly, these cells that they are manufacturing, these cells could be combined into a giant battery pack for an EV car or a battery pack for EV trucks or a smaller battery pack for robots.
	And that's, I believe, although this hasn't been announced, but I believe that's what Samsung is doing with this.
	So they're not just gearing up for EV vehicles, or I guess that's redundant, sorry, for electric vehicles.
	They're gearing up for robotics.
	So you might be asking the question that once the La Parija mine is reopened and producing silver, how much silver can it produce?
	And is this enough to supply Samsung with all the silver it needs to provide all the battery packs to all the EV manufacturers and robot makers around the world?
	And of course, I've done the research on that.
	Well, I mean, I've used AI agents to do that research.
	And the answer is no, it's not even close.
	So the answer is it's estimated that somewhere between 80 to maybe 100,000 kilos of silver could come out of that mine each year.
	That's still a lot of silver.
	You know, if you have 100,000 kilos of silver, that's a lot of silver.
	But that's only enough for 100,000 EV battery packs per year, which is, I mean, how many EVs are produced in a year?
	Millions, millions across the world.
	So this silver supply isn't going to cover, you know, the global demand for silver in EV batteries, not even close.
	Now, it's going to help Samsung tremendously, but there are other battery manufacturers like Catl out of China or BYD, et cetera, that, and that's, you know, Catl, C-A-T-L, that's where Tesla gets some of its batteries.
	They're going to have to find other sources.
	And they are also doing deals with mines behind the scenes in order to get their supply of silver.
	The bottom line is the reason all these companies are scrambling to do this is because they know that silver is hitting massive global scarcity.
	And the solution to global scarcity of silver for these manufacturers, the solution is to allow silver or even hope that silver goes much higher in price.
	Why?
	Why do they want silver to go much higher in price?
	Because that's what convinces people to sell their silver into the system.
	You're not going to convince people to let go of their silver until it's, you know, $100 an ounce or more.
	At that point, when it hits 100, there might be some people, maybe some of you listening, you might say, well, hey, I bought this stuff at 20.
	Now it's 100.
	That's a 500% return.
	I'm going to sell now.
	And you might be wise to do so.
	I don't know.
	It depends on what's happening at the time.
	But at $100 an ounce, a lot more people are going to suddenly find silver to sell.
	Or they're going to dig it up or wherever they have it.
	They're going to take it out of vaults.
	They're going to gather up silver spoons.
	Everything that's silver, they're going to turn it in.
	And then that's going to be bought by companies that then sort of re-smelt that silver back into an industrial form to go into the robots and the EVs.
	Now, if $100 an ounce silver is not enough to generate all of that, then the price is just going to keep going higher.
	And the truth is that annual demand for silver, I believe, in industrial uses is hundreds of millions of ounces.
	But let me ask an AI agent to research that.
	Okay, I paused while that ran, and sure enough, industrial demand for silver in 2024 was 680 million ounces.
	So, I mean, I was right that it was hundreds of millions of ounces, but I didn't realize it was that large.
	So, 680 million ounces of silver.
	Whereas, let's see, the Samsung silver mine is going to produce maybe 100,000 kilos of silver, which is, of course, only a tiny fraction of 680 million ounces.
	Again, God, I hate ounces.
	Why can't we all just use units that make sense?
	But anyway, that's metals.
	So, if you're wondering where all that silver goes in industry, check this out.
	So, electronics and electrical use, which is semiconductors and 5G and AI chips and stuff like that, that's about 450 million ounces a year, which is the largest use of industrial silver.
	And then, photovoltaics, solar energy, is about 200 million ounces.
	So, what that means, I mean, think about this.
	That means that when all these EV batteries come online, the solid-state batteries, you know, with the silver carbon anodes, there's not excess silver anywhere.
	There's no extra silver sitting around or being produced that somebody can tap into.
	It just doesn't exist.
	And the annual production of silver is a tiny amount.
	So, in other words, if you do the math, and I asked the AI to do it, the La Parija mine, if it outputs 93,000 kilos of silver per year, that's less than one half of 1% of global mine production for silver.
	It's not even one half of 1% of industrial demand.
	Okay, so it's a drop in the bucket.
	But Samsung's doing that because silver is about to go crazy scarce.
	And by crazy scarce, what I mean is, you know, unless aliens arrive, unless billions of people die, unless there's World War III, unless there's some major, major economic shockwave that just crushes humanity, demand for silver through all of these vectors, industry, microchips, data centers, solar panels, EVs, batteries, et cetera, et cetera.
	The demand is going to freaking skyrocket in 2027 when Samsung brings these plants online.
	And what that probably means to me, again, this is my personal conclusion, so don't take this as financial advice, but I believe that whatever silver does price-wise between now and 2027 when Samsung goes online, it will skyrocket again when Samsung announces that it's bringing that plant online, you know, to produce the silver cathode or silver carbon anodes, excuse me.
	Too many terms here.
	At that point, silver may go to $200 an ounce.
	I'm just guessing.
	Who knows?
	There's a lot that could happen between now and then.
	But I could see silver at $100 an ounce easily in 2026.
	And then I could see it at $200 an ounce in 2027.
	Because at $200 an ounce, then even more people will find silver to sell.
	And even more silver production will be shifted into the battery tech and out of other areas such as electronics, etc.
	But this is going to create a global supply crunch on silver, and it's going to drive prices of silver much, much higher, significantly higher.
	Whereas when you and I were buying silver at $20, not that long ago, you know, two years ago, whatever it was, $20, that could go 10X by 2027 into $200 an ounce.
	So, yeah.
	And that would also mean that the amount of silver that goes into a typical EV would be worth over $6,000 just in the batteries alone.
	So if you thought it was crazy that people steal catalytic converters off of cars right now because of the platinum, wait until the thieves figure out how to process car batteries, you know, EVs.
	They're going to pull thousands of dollars of silver out of the EVs.
	They're going to steal cars just for the silver.
	Oh, my goodness.
	But I guess you have to be a breaking bad chemist to get the silver out of the batteries because it's not like it's just sitting there.
	It's built into the carbon laminate anode layers.
	So good luck.
	You're going to need some harsh acids probably.
	Like some labs in the Midwest will probably shift from making meth to like pulling silver out of car batteries from stolen cars or something.
	I could see that happening.
	All right.
	So what could clobber this plan, you might be asking?
	How could this whole plan collapse?
	Well, it could collapse if somebody develops a new technology that's better than Samsung's tech that doesn't use silver.
	And for example, I've talked about sodium ion batteries, which are great, great chemistry.
	They rely on sodium.
	But the problem with sodium ion batteries is that they use more volume than lithium.
	So they don't have the energy density of Samsung's solid state batteries, not even close.
	So lithium, I'm sorry, sodium ion batteries are great for grid operators or solar farms that want to grid shift or time shift solar production using batteries that are built on site that are shipped in 20 foot or 40 foot containers.
	That's what sodium ion batteries are really great at.
	They don't use any lithium.
	They don't need any silver.
	They're very low cost, relatively speaking, once they scale up.
	And they can cycle many, many times, like even 8,000 or 10,000 times, some of them.
	So it's great for that, but not so great for putting in a vehicle or putting in a robot because it's too heavy and it's too large.
	So that's where the solid-state Samsung batteries are going to come into play.
	And you can imagine Samsung is also going to roll out this battery tech for all kinds of edge devices, mobile phones and tablets and laptops, you know, everything you can imagine is going to end up with these improved batteries sooner or later.
	And they're all going to have silver in them.
	And worldwide demand for silver is just going to absolutely skyrocket.
	So, you know, people who want to drive a car that has the performance of the solid-state batteries, they're going to pay thousands of dollars for the silver in the batteries.
	But there might be cheaper cars that are running on sodium ion that the battery pack is just more bulky, you know?
	But it's going to be thousands of dollars cheaper.
	And that's a very viable option.
	I actually, I think sodium ion batteries could be great in a truck or like an SUV or something where you've got more space to stack them in there, you know, under the floor or whatever.
	Whereas in a little tiny city vehicle, you don't really have much space.
	Like you open the trunk, it's full of batteries.
	Oh my God, we don't have a trunk.
	Yeah, they put too much junk in your trunk.
	And your trunk is sagging too.
	It's sagging because you got all these batteries in your trunk.
	You're driving around town with your ass hanging out.
	That's the problem.
	So that's why sodium ion is not going to be very popular in EVs.
	That is, you know, when Samsung's solid-state batteries come online.
	So there you go.
	Let me see if there's anything else that I found in my research on this.
	Let's see.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah, there is something else here.
	Samsung has estimated how much silver is going to be needed just for this battery technology by the year 2030.
	So let me back up for a second, give you some technical stuff here.
	The battery uses Argyrodite, which, of course, the prefix means silver, but Argyrodite, not sure how to pronounce it, a sulfide solid electrolyte, you know, chemistry, chemistry, chemistry, solving issues of lithium dendrite growth.
	Okay, good.
	But Samsung says they estimate that after wrapping up production in 2027, that just their own production will need 500 metric tons.
	Is that MT is that metric tons of refined silver per year?
	500 metric tons doesn't let me do the math again.
	Jeez.
	Because I don't think it couldn't be 500 million tons.
	There's no way.
	It's got to be metric tons.
	So 500 metric tons is 16 million Troy ounces, according to AI.
	Got it?
	Okay, I know there's a lot of math in today's episode here.
	Math and chemistry.
	It's like geek town.
	So Samsung is saying that by 2030, they estimate 16 million Troy ounces of silver that they will need.
	And remember, the La Parilla mine, what was that going to produce?
	Maybe up to 100,000 ounces of silver?
	They need 16 million.
	Oh, so better start shoveling.
	You know, going to need some more mines.
	And it takes years, like five to ten years to open up a silver mine, by the way.
	So that's not going to happen by 2030.
	You know, realistically.
	So good luck.
	Anyway, I hope I'm doing all the math correctly here.
	Double check all my numbers, if you would, please, especially before making any investment decisions, you know.
	But with all these freaking conversions between ounces and tons and metric and back and forth, obviously it drives me freaking bonkers because as a lab scientist myself, you know, I do everything in the metric system where math makes sense.
	And, you know, the imperial system drives me absolutely nuts.
	Bottom line is my conclusion, but don't take this as investment advice.
	My conclusion is silver demand is about to skyrocket, not just because of solar right now and the data centers, which will continue through 2026, but also because of this battery tech from Samsung coming online in 2027.
	And if we see silver at $200 an ounce by the end of 2027, I would not be surprised.
	And there are some experts who are saying numbers so high that they sound crazy.
	So I'm not even going to mention them.
	But let me assure you that $200 an ounce is kind of on the conservative side to what some people are saying.
	You know, it's not going to go to infinity.
	I mean, there's some price at which market forces balance this out or they just stop making the products that use it.
	You know, there's some price where that's true.
	I don't know what that price is.
	I think it's way beyond $100.
	It's probably beyond 200, but it's going to take a few years.
	And then at that point, I don't know.
	I don't know where it goes.
	But if you have silver, you might want to consider holding on to it, not cashing it in right now.
	But again, don't take this as investment advice.
	If you don't have silver and you want to get some, I believe that we are early in this massive multi-year ramp up of demand.
	I think we're early.
	So I don't think we're in a silver bubble.
	I was unsure a few weeks ago, but then I started doing a lot more research on the actual what's driving the demand.
	And now I'm convinced that this has just begun.
	In fact, for me personally, although I'm not in the silver acquisition mode right now, but if I were, I would just buy it where it is right now.
	If you want to buy it, then definitely visit our gold and silver sponsor, which is Battalion Metals, co-founded by Tucker Carlson, and Chris Olson and his whole group, who I just interviewed recently.
	You can get there by going to metalswithmike.com.
	That's our affiliate link, metalswithmike.com.
	If you use the code Ranger at checkout, they will waive the shipping insurance fee, which will save you a little bit, especially since silver is heavy.
	Well, I guess the insurance doesn't care about the weight, but it's the shipping insurance fee, whatever that happens to be, that will be waived for you.
	Final disclaimer, again, don't take this as investment advice.
	Do your own research.
	Check all my math.
	You know, some of these numbers are estimates from some of the experts, like how much silver goes into every car.
	Those are estimates.
	Or how much silver is going to come out of this mine in Mexico?
	That's an estimate, right?
	So there's going to be some wiggle room in all of this.
	So nobody knows for sure what's going to happen to silver pricing or silver scarcity.
	But all the, from what I can tell, all the vectors are pointing in the direction of like shockingly high demand over the next five years, combined with scary short supply.
	And that means prices are almost certain to skyrocket.
	There could be bumps along the way.
	There could be corrections.
	Maybe in the short term, maybe silver dumps to $50.
	Maybe.
	I don't know.
	If it does, I'm going to buy as much as I can at 50.
	But I wouldn't even wait.
	People who have waited have missed out on a lot of the rise in silver.
	In fact, where is it right now?
	Yeah, it's $69 in change right now as I'm looking at it.
	And by the way, gold is over $4,400.
	It's just about to hit $4,500.
	But gold doesn't have this new use in the batteries or in the solar panels, etc.
	So gold's being driven by monetary phenomena, whereas silver is being driven by industrial phenomena.
	And that's a really important distinction.
	That's why I think it's good to own both in various formats, because sometimes there's a monetary crisis, like the collapse of the Western fiat currency system, which is probably coming.
	And then other times there's a crazy high demand for silver for industrial use, which is what we've been talking about here today.
	So it's good to have your foot in each of those so that you can take advantage of those price increases or value increases as they take place.
	JP Morgan is long on millions of ounces on silver.
	They actually have physical silver now.
	They are stockpiling.
	They're no longer short.
	They're not shorting silver.
	And China's buying silver like crazy.
	And China is reportedly going to be blocking exports of silver at the end of this month, which is only a few days away.
	So all of this adds up to crazy high silver prices, probably, unless there's something that I've missed between now and the year 2030.
	So get ready for that.
	And thank you for listening.
	Oh, by the way, if you want to read about silver, we've got a lot of books on silver at the book creation engine website that I've built using AI.
	And that website's called brightlearn.ai.
	It's got a great search function.
	You can just search for the word silver and it'll bring up all the books on silver for you right there.
	And those books are written with our AI engine that's been trained on all my interviews with Andy Sheckman and David Morgan and Steve Quayle and a bunch of other people, John Rubino and many others who are experts.
	And Chris Olson, you know, a lot of gold and silver experts that I've interviewed over the years.
	And that's all, you know, that's all folded into the engine that writes those books.
	So if you download those books, they're all free from books.brightlearn.ai, you're going to discover that the books are really well informed in terms of silver and central banking.
	And, you know, I interviewed Ron Paul too, and that's part of it.
	I interviewed all these people.
	I mean, you know, I've done thousands of interviews over the years, and every single interview about gold and silver will impact the book that's created at brightlearn.ai because that's how it works.
	So punch in the keyword silver.
	It'll bring up a bunch of books and then you can click on those books and you can download them for free.
	So take advantage of that.
	Again, it's at books.brightlearn.ai.
	And if you want to get physical gold and silver, the website for our affiliate intro is metalswithmike.com.
	So thank you for your interest.
	Thank you for your support.
	And keep stacking silver because this is going to get very interesting.
	All right.
	Take care.
	All right.
	So I hope you enjoyed that.
	I'm pretty sure that you would or did.
	I've got something else to mention here that's pretty cool.
	One of our content partners has created a course called Addiction Rescue.
	And this is from Sean Cohen, who I've interviewed also with some of his colleagues.
	And this is available right now at rangerdeals.com.
	Addiction Rescue, it's a seven-step dopamine reset protocol that shows you how to eliminate addictive cravings.
	Now, this is about more than just drugs or alcohol or smoking or things like that.
	It's also about behavioral addictions.
	It could be gambling.
	It could be sex.
	It could be shopping.
	People have shopping addictions.
	And this approach, of course, requires no medications, no expensive therapy, nothing like that.
	And this course is on sale through rangerdeals.com.
	It's right there at the top of the site, rangerdeals.com.
	Click on it.
	And it's how you can harness your body's natural dopamine with some additional signals and some supplementation where necessary to increase mental resilience and to stop common addictions.
	Oh, I'm also saying that list, social media addictions, food addictions, pain pill addictions, etc.
	So this course is available right now.
	It can help you break through negative thoughts and bad emotional reasoning, things like that.
	So it's available right now, rangerdeals.com.
	Click on the link there.
	It's called Addiction Rescue.
	It's a seven-step program available right now from our content partners.
	Oh, and I forgot to mention, if you buy the course and then you use it, if you have not significantly reduced your cravings in 21 days, they will give you your money back.
	Yeah.
	It's like, you know, day 22.
	I'm still smoking and gambling and shopping and sexing and, you know, what it's like, didn't work.
	Okay, you get your money back.
	You're going to need it because you're gambling and smoking your life away.
	I'm sorry, that would just be a hilarious conversation.
	You know, like, yeah, I'm calling you back.
	The program didn't work.
	Really?
	What's going on?
	Yeah, I'm still smoking and drinking and gambling like crazy.
	Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
	I don't mean any judgment to anybody out there that's dealing with such addictions.
	I think I'm addicted to vibe coding.
	Seriously, I must be addicted to vibe coding because that's what I do with all my free time now.
	Now, I don't know.
	I don't know that's addiction.
	I'm just very mission-driven on the things that I do.
	And I'm able to focus very with great, great strength, just focus and block out everything else.
	So, I don't know.
	You could call it an addiction, but it's not a harmful addiction.
	That's what built the Bright Learn book website for you is my focus on vibe coding.
	But anyway, I don't know.
	I don't have a shopping addiction.
	I have shopping procrastination.
	That's my problem is I don't buy enough stuff.
	And my shoes used to be my shoes would just be torn to shambles, you know.
	And then I bought extra pairs of shoes when Trump announced the China tariffs.
	So I'm sitting on five pairs of shoes, you know, extra pairs.
	And, you know, I haven't even used them.
	I still have this old ratty.
	Oh, man, look, the front's coming off.
	Okay.
	This pair is done.
	Now that I'm looking at it, yeah, this pair is done.
	Like the insoles are all worn out and everything.
	Now I'm going to have to switch.
	But I have like a, I have the opposite of a shopping addiction.
	I have shopping procrastination.
	It's like, don't you need new socks and pants and shirts and underwear?
	Nope.
	Just going to wear these out until there's nothing but skin showing.
	No, that's my problem.
	I'm reluctant to shop.
	Okay, but anyway, enough about that.
	Hey, I promised I would play for you my Christmas song.
	So I want to play that for you here.
	It's the new music video.
	The video is not finalized, so keep that in mind.
	But the song is final.
	The video is going to be enhanced over the next day or two.
	But here's the new music video, which is called The Greatest Gift is Learning Free.
	Oh, and then after that, I'm going to rerun the Andy Sheckman interview with Michelle McCorey from Friday?
	Yeah.
	Because of what's happening with Silver.
	And a lot of people miss that interview because it was on a Friday.
	So I'm going to rerun that interview today.
	I will have a new interview for you, maybe not.
	No, not on Christmas Eve.
	I don't think so.
	But I am conducting some new interviews this week.
	I'm just not sure when I'm going to play them for you, but they'll be coming up.
	I just, I'm going to, I'm going to take off, I think, one or two days or something.
	We'll see.
	I'll probably end up vibe coding and not buying shoes.
	So we'll see how that goes.
	All right.
	Enjoy the rest of the show and the interview.
	Take care.
	Not wrapped in ribbons, not tied with bows.
	But it's the greatest gift anyone knows.
	From physics to history, gardens to gold, finance and chemistry, stories untold.
	Nutrition and survival, living off the grid.
	Open the door to knowledge once here.
	No more gatekeepers standing in the way.
	No more dollars, you just can't pay.
	Right, learn to lie the night.
	Knowledge is a human right.
	All I wanna give you for Christmas is the gift of learning free.
	Unsensor wisdom for the world now, diabolical for you and me.
	Create a textbook in just minutes on any topic that you need.
	All I wanna give you for Christmas is the knowledge to succeed.
	Your greatest ideas can become a book.
	Beautiful covers, just take a look.
	Every language spoken, every voice is heard.
	Audiobooks bringing life to every word.
	Preparedness and medicine, economics too.
	The things you want to learn are waiting for you.
	More barriers, no more heavy costs.
	The freedom to learn is no longer lost.
	All I wanna give you for Christmas is the gift of learning free.
	Uncensored wisdom for the world now.
	David both for you and me.
	Create a textbook in just minutes on any topic that you need.
	All I want and wanna give you for Christmas is the knowledge to succeed.
	Oh, decentralize and open wide.
	No truth will ever have to hide.
	From every corner of the earth, we celebrate what learning's worth this Christmas.
	Let the whole world see That knowledge finally runs.
	Uncensored wisdom for the world now available for you and me.
	Create a textbook in just minutes on any topic that you need.
	All I want, I want to give you for Christmas is the knowledge to sense.
	Right there shows you what it means to have the power in your hands.
	Free knowledge reaching every land this Christmas underneath the tree.
	The greatest gift is learning.
	It's finally.
	You know, this is what happens when manipulations end.
	They always end badly.
	And we are being beaten, have been for the last several years.
	And I've been screaming about this.
	We've been beaten at our own game because they realize what we're doing.
	They being the global south.
	And now someone got to President Trump and said, if we don't do this, we're dead in the water.
	I think that we are in the beginning of a global monetary reset.
	And what really stands out to me is how gold is quietly re-entering the system as a neutral reserve asset, not only on the governmental front, on the national front, but of course on a retail front.
	Access to the dollar is not guaranteed.
	It's political.
	We can cut you off just like that.
	If you're the global reserve currency and we don't like you, well, we can just disconnect you from everything.
	All right.
	So, Todd, we're going to be joined by our special guest now, the incredible analyst of Andy Sheckman, as well as Michelle McCorry, who's also an incredibly well-informed and sharp analyst and interviewer.
	They're both with Miles Franklin Media on YouTube.
	And the website, of course, is milesfranklin.com.
	And so, Andy and Michelle, it's a great honor to have you joining us today.
	Welcome to the show.
	Great to be here, Mike.
	Thanks for having us.
	Good to see you too, Todd.
	Great seeing you guys.
	You know, I think people may want to tune out about now because there's not really much happening in the precious metals market.
	So, yeah, exactly.
	We've been busy.
	Yeah.
	Nothing interesting going on with silver pricing.
	So, anyway, let me just give a quick intro.
	So, Andy Sheckman, of course, has been right about everything.
	Andy, you and I started talking years ago about the BRICS system, and you were the very first person who was anticipating the construction of the BRICS settlement infrastructure, which continues to accelerate to this day, largely due to weaponization of dollar hegemony, et cetera.
	And then Michelle McCorry joined with you not that long ago.
	And Michelle, I think a lot of our viewers are fans of yours, even before you joined Miles Franklin.
	And now you have a huge number of fans that appreciate your analysis and your courage to ask tough questions to your guests when they're trying to bullshit you.
	You don't take any of that.
	You push back hard.
	So with that said, can I ask each of you to introduce yourselves, Andy and Michelle?
	Well, I appreciate that, Mike.
	We're very lucky to have Michelle first and foremost, and I'll let her tell you all about her background.
	But as you know, Mike, I've been on your show a few times.
	This will be 36 years that we've been in business this February as a company.
	And all along, the way that I have looked at precious metals is as wealth and not as an investment.
	And I think it's much easier to see what's happening in the world with the accumulation of wealth that is not simultaneously someone else's liability.
	And things are coming full circle.
	not only in the way the world looks at it, but also I think the way that the United States is looking at gold and silver.
	I've always looked at it as wealth, not as something to invest to become wealthy, but because it has outlived in the form of wealth, you know, two world wars, German hyperinflation, the Great Depression, every pandemic, everything.
	And here we are, what, 6,000 years after it was it and silver were mentioned cumulatively over 700 times in the Bible.
	And here we have the most well-informed traders on the planet, let alone the most well-funded.
	But the most well-informed is the important thing, the central banks that have been buying it for six or seven years.
	And now the most well-informed and well-financed traders, arguably in the world, those on Wall Street, seem to have a very, very, very keen interest in it as well with the massive amount of deliveries.
	So absolutely.
	I guess I'm just someone who tries and tries to put myself in the position of the rest of the world.
	And gold has always fit that narrative for me as an asset that will always be there when you need it and just a better way to save money.
	Well, it's clearly performing its role exactly as it's supposed to.
	It's preserving assets at a time when dollar or the devaluation of the dollar continues to accelerate, despite what we're told from the administration that there's no inflation.
	But Michelle, tell our audience about you because this is the first time you've joined us today.
	We're honored to have you on.
	Love to hear more.
	Well, thank you very much to both of you for having us on.
	I appreciate it.
	By way of background, I am a broadcast journalist.
	I've been covering global news, finance, macroeconomics for well over two decades now over three continents.
	I've anchored and reported for Bloomberg, CNN Money, SABC, CGTN, I-24, Kitco.
	I've also led news teams as editor-in-chief.
	And, you know, one of the things that I've really valued in my career has been the opportunity to speak with and interview so many interesting people, CEOs, heads of state, political leaders, policymakers.
	Hearing how they think both on and off camera has really given me a front row seat and a unique perspective as to how decisions get made and how narratives evolve.
	And people often ask me, who has been your most interesting interview?
	And for me, it's the people that I learn the most from.
	And really, that was truly Andy Shechman.
	And I'm not, and he knows I'm not just saying this, because for me, it's when I learn something new and when my eyes are opened to something that I had no idea was going on.
	And that was exactly the case when I first interviewed Andy and he set out his thesis of how we're entering the sparification of the global monetary system, how gold was working its way back into the financial system as a neutral reserve asset.
	And I'm sure we're going to get into this at length during this conversation and how we were seeing this de-dollarization trend.
	And really, he was the first person that sort of planted that seed, which now for us following the story, it seems a bit obvious.
	But at the time, it wasn't a conversation that I had before.
	And, you know, and to that end, I now am the head of Miles Franklin Media, which I started as part of the initiative from the parent company, Miles Franklin Precious Metals, which of course Andy is the founder and CEO of.
	And I also host the real story with me, Michelle McCorry.
	And we're building an independent news and analysis platform.
	We want to go deeper, like we like to say, beyond the headlines, beneath the surface behind the curtain to show people what is really happening with money, markets, power, and global events.
	And yeah, you know, I do ask the tough questions.
	So I'm not usually on the receiving end of questions, Mike.
	I'm making an exception for today.
	No, we appreciate it.
	I realize you're making an exception and we are grateful for that.
	And the fact that you and Andy are such sharp people yourselves, I think you respect others who bring knowledge to the table.
	And also, I want to say to our audience that, and Andy knows this, he's confirmed this many times, that my company, we do not have a financial relationship with Miles Franklin Media or anything.
	This is not a paid appearance.
	I advocate for you.
	And let me give out your YouTube channel here again, Miles Franklin Media on YouTube.
	And I've got it up on my screen.
	If my producers can show that here it is, Miles Franklin Media.
	You should subscribe to this channel if you watch on YouTube.
	You should follow this channel.
	And then you can also go to milesfranklin.com.
	But again, this is not an affiliate plug.
	We don't have a financial relationship.
	I respect the knowledge of both of you.
	And so does Todd.
	Todd's got a bunch of questions he's waiting to ask.
	I know, but I respect your knowledge.
	So, Michelle, what you bring to the table is, I think it mirrors what we do as well.
	We want to ask tough questions.
	We want to have an uncensored conversation that bypasses BS.
	Does that resonate with both of you?
	Absolutely.
	Sure does.
	Well, Andy, I'm going to subject you both in to Todd's grilling.
	How about that?
	No, Todd's very nice.
	He's polite.
	He's polite.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I've been shining up my softballs for this.
	No, no, man, what a great time to be alive.
	I was thinking, Mike, when I was prepping that you and I began talking about silver a couple of years ago, pretty hard, and it was priced.
	And I remembered it was 18 bucks.
	That's right.
	It is over $65.
	Now, during the interview, I presume that we're going to get into and explore the why world demand for silver specifically is exploding and why we're likely nowhere near the top.
	But Andy, Andy, what do you say to people who believe prices have already risen too far and that they've missed out?
	And I believe the term is fear of buying at the top, Andy Sheckman.
	Yeah, well, that's a fair question.
	It is at an all-time high.
	But the real question, and I wouldn't say this if I didn't believe it.
	That's not how I'm wired.
	I think that this is something that hasn't been allowed to achieve true price discovery forever.
	It has been held down in my mind largely by about eight banks, very large banks, five in the United States, three throughout Europe and or Canada, that have been holding it down largely because of the military-industrial complex's desire to make high-tech weaponry and sell them to countries around the world and NATO.
	And if silver were allowed to rise to a level of price that they don't care about, right?
	They don't care about the price.
	They don't care about the price because it's inelastic.
	If you need a few hundred ounces for a cruise missile that's $20 million or $10 million, what do you care?
	You don't.
	And so they've been holding it down in concert with one another for a very long time, metal going back and forth between the banks to make it look like there's activity.
	But in essence, they're just selling back and forth to each other for a very long time, holding down the paper price with levered futures contracts so they can make high-tech weapons.
	Now, this worked for a long time, and the West has been the ruler of the roost for a long time in terms of military prowess.
	It's allowed us to, in all the Western world, to, in essence, you can say, make the rules globally.
	And as a result, they had to keep silver cheap.
	They had to keep it cheap because they need it to build this infrastructure.
	So, what you have now and have for the last few years are countries that, way back when, were borderline third world in India and China and Russia and countries that had no business challenging the Western hegemony.
	Add Saudi Arabia to that list.
	You mentioned the BRICS.
	They are, whether or not they fully accepted their invitation to the BRICS, they are the fifth full member in the Enbridge technology, which allows the movement of money to sidestep SWIFT and are key, central to that type of, I think, pattern where we're seeing countries move away from the West.
	But in any case, they have kept the price down for a very long time.
	And these countries are now sophisticated, they're coordinated, they're motivated, and they're standing for delivery.
	And they have been for quite some time.
	And so now you have something.
	Hang on, real quick.
	One, let me just finish this up because it's very important.
	But you've never had something in terms of policy in this country.
	You never had any country say we're going to go out and buy it.
	You have Russia saying we're going to go out and buy it.
	You have the United States, who has just came out and said that silver is a critical mineral.
	They put a floor underneath it.
	The European Union did that in 2023.
	China is now retaliating with currency or excuse me, with export restrictions that go into effect January 1st.
	They refine between 60 and 70% of the world's silver.
	A lot of it would come to them in the form of dore that they would refine and send back out to the Western markets.
	You have effectively shut off 70% of the world's refining or finished product if that is the case.
	And now there's rumors in the economic times that JPMorgan has flipped and gone from the largest short to now net long by closing a 200 million ounce short position, buying 21 million ounces of physical over the last six weeks, and now being net long.
	In fact, it goes as far to say that the five Western banks in the United States, anyway, the main banks in the U.S. are almost, if not entirely, net long.
	And so you have the banks in Europe holding the bag.
	And I don't know if I talked with you about this before, but Tom Luongo's thesis that Trump is very angry with the European aristocrats for, in his opinion, this is a rumor, not mine, Tom's election interference in 2020 and the color revolution.
	And if that is the case, well, they told the whole world, all the banks that they were in concert with over there, hey, you got to send back the metal because when you go short in New York, which drives down the price, the banks would take the corresponding long position in London, which doesn't affect the price.
	Hey, guys, send me back the metals.
	Tariffs, we got to cover.
	Don't worry, it'll go back.
	And I was screaming for the last year: no, it's not tariffs.
	It's reshoring.
	All this metal comes back, and the LBMA is in big trouble.
	Well, and they have 2 billion ounces of paper contracts, Mike, with 140 million ounce float.
	And if this is true and those banks over there are holding the bag, yeah, you could see the price explode to levels that people wouldn't even believe as the short squeeze really ratchets up with one of those big banks.
	You've hit upon some really critical key points here.
	And I want to pivot to Michelle to answer the question I'm going to pose here based on what you just said, Andy, which is: so, number one, the same banks that were very aggressively shorting paper silver for price controls, we believe, they are now long physical silver.
	JP Morgan, long, many millions of ounces of physical silver, physical possession.
	What does that tell you?
	JP Morgan doesn't trust the paper silver market, huh?
	How's that for a bumper sticker, right?
	And then, so, Michelle, what do you think are the real industrial drivers now behind silver demand that are going to feed into this price increase as JP Morgan allows silver to rise organically?
	Well, you know, I think we need to keep in mind here that even with this spectacular gain of more than 100%, silver is still trading at levels that don't really accurately reflect its full industrial, strategic, or monetary significance.
	Just to put this in perspective, in real terms, it is still well below the inflation-adjusted high that it reached in 1980.
	And, you know, silver has a dual identity because it is a monetary metal.
	It has been for 5,000 years.
	As Andy mentioned, it's mentioned in the Bible.
	In fact, the word for money in the Bible is silver.
	So it has a monetary function trusted across civilizations for thousands of years.
	But it is also now one of the most essential industrial metals on earth.
	It's one of the most conductive metals known.
	You know, if you think about it, without it, solar power collapses, electric vehicles stall, semiconductor manufacturing fails, medical imaging, diagnostics breakdown.
	You don't have modern communications.
	And the world is running through the available silver stockpiles at a speed that many would say is just mathematically unsustainable.
	Obviously, solar demand, to answer your question, is one of the largest drivers.
	About 10 years ago, photovoltaics barely registered, but solar is consuming close to 20% of the annual global silver supply now.
	That's obviously a big demand.
	Electric vehicles require significantly more silver per unit than combustion engines.
	Semiconducting manufacturing, I mean, that's a big deal here when we look at AI.
	Semiconductor manufacturing really relies on silver quite significantly.
	And new battery technology uses silver.
	Battery technology, medical devices, aerospace systems, 5G networks, cost sensors, defense electronics.
	And the defense thing is also a very, very big issue here.
	And that's why we saw silver being put on the critical minerals list because there is a national security angle here.
	And precision guided munitions, satellite communications, radar systems, drone technologies, they all rely on silver.
	Now, the exact numbers are classified, but I believe the Silver Institute doesn't actually publish a specific military demand category.
	And that in itself tells you something.
	And that's one of the reasons why people believe that the price has been suppressed all this time because it's so critical to the defense sector.
	And I don't have the exact numbers, but I think it's, I'm sure Andy has them about how much silver goes into every kind of missile that's needed.
	And as we're seeing, unfortunately, more kinetic war on the horizon, I think the demand coming from the military-industrial complex for silver is only going to continue to accelerate.
	So, you know, you've got this convergence of it, as I say, being a monetary metal as well as an industrial metal.
	And it's still not even at the inflation-adjusted price that it was at 1980.
	Well, and critically, you mentioned 1980, which invokes the history of the Hunt brothers.
	And that was an attempt to corner the silver market monetarily for profit.
	And what we're seeing today does not resemble that at all.
	It's not sort of, you know, fictitious.
	It's real.
	It's real core industrial demand and all the examples that you just gave, Michelle, that are driving all this.
	And I know Todd has done a lot of research on this as well.
	So Todd, the next question is yours in that sector, if you want to take it.
	Thank you.
	I'm going to go to my favorite book to research, which is Tip and Mitten.
	And I like pictures, guys.
	So I just want to show this is exactly what you were just speaking about in picture form.
	This is from 2016, okay, to the end of 2024.
	But look at the trend, okay?
	That is, let's see, that tell us the axes on that.
	I can't quite read it.
	Yeah, silver supply versus demand growth.
	So, yeah, look at that.
	That is astonishing.
	Can you see that?
	Is that coming through?
	Yeah.
	So is that demand?
	It's the demand-supply ratio.
	Is that what that's showing?
	Yeah.
	So, I mean, look at that.
	That's now look at this.
	Comex, paper, silver versus physical availability in a picture.
	Yeah, simple chart right there.
	It's a binary.
	Yeah.
	That's great.
	Andy, you know, silver is undergoing a structural transformation, as Michelle articulated so nicely, from a monetary metal into a strategic industrial resource.
	And I want to just list four facts.
	One, AI and energy infrastructure are silver intensive.
	Two, China and BRICS nations are stockpiling.
	Three, paper, silver vastly exceeds physical availability, as we just saw.
	And four, Comex delivery credibility is increasingly questioned.
	So my question to you, Andy, is the silver market approaching the point where price suppression mechanisms may actually just fail under physical demand, leading to the repricing phase driven by industrial necessity rather than market speculation.
	Yeah, very much so.
	I believe it is.
	And it's a race like the Hunt Brothers were two brothers trying to capitalize on leverage where they realized similar today, where there were more contracts issued than bars in the vault, and the COMEX changed the rules on them.
	Now you're dealing with sovereign powers that are racing to get it for national security.
	That's a whole different thing.
	And to your point, Todd, so you know, when you see the amount of deliveries, like for example, just in the first, I don't know, seven or eight days of the December contract, and which went off the board the day after Thanksgiving.
	And just so happens that the CME group and their servers that run about a thousand commodities traded on the exchange in the, you know, at 11 o'clock at night when there's so much volume on Thanksgiving night, the server is overheated and they were down for 11 hours.
	Allegedly.
	So when they open back up, over the first five or six or seven days, over 59 million ounces have stood for delivery.
	And this is a trend that we've seen continuously over the last 13 months and continuing.
	And first of all, my question is, who's got that kind of money?
	JP Morgan, as I mentioned, all the stuff that they did, and a lot of metals actually left the Colmex somewhere in the neighborhood of 16.6 million ounces, left the Comex recently too.
	And so when this happens, the exchange starts to freak out and the exchange starts to raise margins.
	And it's not to control price.
	It's to control the exodus of metal leaving the building.
	And so they raise margins.
	Now, this is the interesting point to your question.
	Normally, that would break its neck.
	The margin gets raised to a level whereby the short, the small trader who is using leverage on margin gets squeezed because the amount they have to have to back those contracts goes up exponentially.
	And if they don't post the money, their positions get liquidated and it flushes out the weak hands.
	Now, imagine there's a neighborhood not too far from me, another community down the road where Mark Wahlberg lives and Stevie Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets and Alicia Keys.
	And you think that neighborhood cares if mortgage rates go up?
	No, they don't because they're paying cash.
	Now, here's what's interesting.
	This would have broke the COMEX's neck in years past.
	Literally, it would have fallen by 10, 15 bucks, whatever, and it would just be an afterthought.
	And everyone would have laughed.
	See, we told you it was a sucker's game.
	It's too late.
	But it didn't.
	In fact, it only came down a little bit.
	And then yesterday went way up and down a little bit today, 1% or whatever means nothing.
	But the point is that little drop after they raised margins flushed out the weak hands and the hands that were using too much leverage, but then it went right back up.
	Why?
	Because the buyers are sovereign nations.
	They are governments.
	They are central banks.
	They are auto manufacturers.
	They are Tesla.
	They are Samsung, who just went to Mexico and struck a deal with a mine out there for two years worth of all of their silver concentrate.
	They have the right to buy.
	They're going directly, disintermediating the marketplace and going directly to the miners around the world.
	But the buyers on COMEX right now are the big, big money.
	And for them, that flush out represented a subsidy.
	Thank you very much.
	We'll buy some more because we don't go on margin.
	And I think that's one of the things that, yes, it is transitioning to that way, as I often like to say, little by little, and then all at once.
	And we're still going little by little, but it's speeding up and you can see it and you can feel it.
	JP Morgan, not only did they supposedly, according to the Economic Times article, flip, but they also did something I'd never heard of before.
	So 16.6 million ounces leaves the registered category, left the building, never coming back.
	Was that Elon Musk?
	Was that Samsung?
	Was it the Treasury?
	Who was it?
	Don't know.
	But they also took about 169 million ounces and moved it to what is called non-deliverable.
	Now, they moved to a non-deliverable vault.
	To me, that's the same thing, but it's not.
	And so there's registered and there's eligible, right?
	Registered is those are the bars that are backing the contracts and there's eligible.
	We have nine Brinks facilities.
	One of them is in New York.
	That vault is the only COMEX vault that we have an account in.
	And I have clients with thousand-ounce bars there.
	They are eligible category.
	They are not for sale.
	They're not backing the contracts.
	If they wanted to move them and registered, they could.
	So that's always the two lanes that I was aware of.
	Well, they moved it into a non-deliverable vault, which would, in essence, in this analogy, moving it from Brinks JFK, which is Colmex, to Brinks Salt Lake City, which ain't Colmex.
	And the only way that they can get back into the system is to be re-registered, which is a long, drawn-out process.
	In essence, they took another 169 million ounces and moved it out of the delivery chain.
	So you are seeing a race to secure stuff and by the big money that doesn't care about price or about margins.
	And if you mess up and try and smash the price down again, you only play right into their hands.
	So, Andy, as always, great explanation.
	By the way, your AI camera is interpreting your hand signals as Zoom commands while you're talking, which is kind of cool.
	That kind of leads me to my next question for Michelle, which is about the popularity of this topic.
	Let me set this up.
	I'm an AI developer and I built an engine, a book creation engine, launched it about 10 days ago at brightlearn.ai.
	All the books are free.
	There are 5,000 books that have been published there in 10 days.
	Yeah, it's went over 5,000 while we were talking.
	But here's the thing.
	Here's why this is a question to you.
	One of the most popular topics is silver.
	So people are creating books there.
	Silver sovereignty, silver linings, silver strength.
	That's actually weight training for elderly.
	Silver, the eternal metal, silver, an ancient modern miracle, the silver covenant, heavy fortunes, clash of the tie.
	I mean, it goes on and on and on.
	I mean, this is a long list of silver books.
	And, you know, Michelle, five or 10 years ago, we wouldn't have seen this kind of pop culture interest in silver like we do now.
	Are you noticing the same thing?
	And what do you think is driving this widespread acceptance, the expansion of the Overton window to talk about gold and silver?
	Well, I'll put silver in one category for now, and then I'll get into gold because I think that's actually being driven by a slightly different conversation here.
	But it's impressive that this AI engine of yours, so I'm just going to ask you a quick question.
	So you use it and it can write the books for you, practically?
	Correct.
	You put in a prompt and it creates a book in minutes with all their research and the cover art and a PDF that's downloadable and all the books are free.
	Wow.
	That's fascinating.
	And how factually accurate is it?
	Because I have noticed in my experience with the likes of Grok and ChatGPT that they're not always that factually accurate.
	We've eliminated all hallucinations because we've built over two years hundreds of millions of actual documents that are indexed and researched for the book writing AI agents.
	So they only actually cite real documents that exist in our database.
	All right.
	Fascinating.
	I can't help but default to my question.
	Please, yeah.
	But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, to your point, we have silver as one of the top performing assets this year.
	So obviously it's starting to gain attention.
	When you have Fox Business and CNBC talking about silver, it's no longer a story that they can ignore when it's up over, you know, 100% year to date, more than that right now.
	And, you know, people always like to see where they can, certainly on a retail level, where they can make money.
	But I think what's also interesting, you know, Andy mentioned something that I kind of want to expand on, if I may.
	And he said that a lot of these people are going to directly to the mines.
	And I'm also on the board of a gold and silver copper mining company, McEwen.
	And, you know, it's very important to mention that roughly 70% of silver production today is in fact a byproduct of mining for other metals like lead and zinc and copper and gold.
	So that means that higher silver prices don't actually necessarily trigger higher silver production.
	And new silver mines take seven to 10 years to bring online.
	So you can't just turn on the tap.
	You can't just say we want more silver.
	Exploration spending has been minimal for a decade.
	People have not been interested in miners.
	People have not been interested in mining.
	So it's not like there's this tremendous supply relief on the horizon here.
	So that's also a point to keep in mind that as we're seeing this growing demand, there isn't the supply that can come out from the Earth's surface.
	In fact, most of the high-grade silver deposits that are near the Earth's surface have already been mined.
	So those are gone.
	So you do have a major supply crunch coming as this demand is accelerating.
	As for why people are interested in it, as I said, I think when an asset starts to perform so dramatically, people want to see how they can profit from that.
	But also, people are noticing lack of purchasing power.
	This all kind of links back to debasement and devaluation of fiat currencies.
	And people are seeing that their dollar is not going as far as it used to.
	I mean, yes, sure, inflation coming in a bit cooler today at 2.7%.
	But if you look at inflation collectively, if you look at it, if you add it up from 2020, and assuming you go by those numbers, we're up about like almost 30%.
	And that's the official government data, which we all know is not exactly accurately reflecting what we're seeing.
	So I think people are sort of naturally gravitating towards hard assets like silver and like gold as they're starting to understand that sadly the dollar and fiat currencies are being debased and devalued and you want those hard assets.
	It's becoming a common experience, especially when people shop for food.
	And by the way, before we go to Todd for the next question, I will take the transcript of this interview and I will feed it into our book engine and I will create a book called Silver Supply Crunch 2026 and I'll send you both that book and it'll be based on this.
	How's that sound?
	Well, I hope we're all being 100% factually accurate.
	Yes, I believe we are.
	But there's so much happening.
	I mean, this is actually part of the conversation because, you know, AI tech is driving demand for the data centers, which is part of this industrial demand.
	So, Todd, I don't know where you want to take it next.
	I do.
	We've got so many questions.
	Go ahead.
	I do.
	But from what you just said, I'm going to take it to another place as well.
	But I just want to let everyone know that this is kind of an infomercial for Miles Franklin.
	So forgive me on this.
	But as Andy, you know, before we launched, is I really, really want to acquire a good amount of silver.
	And I ask questions about it, but I want to let everybody know why.
	And it was all because of the prep for this interview.
	And what I realized was these demand drivers that are out there are why silver is exploding.
	So Mike, since you are going to reference this interview, I'm just going to take a couple of minutes to be able to summarize what I shared with my wife to get her permission to go acquire a bunch of precious metals from you.
	Why silver demand is exploding?
	Three reasons.
	One, supply constraints, demand drivers, and market stress signals.
	I want to talk about supply constraints.
	Flat global mine supply, declining ore grades, silver mined mostly as a byproduct, as Michelle just shared, shrinking above-ground inventories, and limited recycling efficiency.
	That's one.
	Now, the demand drivers, my goodness gracious, AI data centers and servers, solar panels, electric vehicles and charging networks, power grids and transformers, defense and aerospace electronics.
	And the last bucket, market stress signals, COMEX paper leverage versus physical supply, which we talked about, rising delivery premiums, cash settlement pressure, China and bricks stockpiling, and industrial front running of supply.
	So bottom line is, my take out of it all is silver is not running out overnight, but the system that prices it is as abundant or that prices it as abundant is increasingly disconnected from physical reality.
	Would you all agree with that summary?
	Absolutely.
	And Andy, I know you're going to answer this question, but let me just add one more thing real quickly to it.
	The data centers in the United States are lacking power.
	We don't have the aggregate annual terawatt hours that China has.
	We're not even close.
	And the build out of nuclear power takes 15 to 20 years.
	The build out of gas turbine power is five to eight years wait time, depending on the size.
	And we have sanctions against Russia, which makes gas turbines, so you can't export those out of Russia and bring them to the U.S. Otherwise, we could have lots of power for the data centers.
	So solar is the source of power for data centers that can be scaled up rapidly.
	And that requires silver.
	So right there, Andy, you know, is another major driver is the AI race to superintelligence.
	What do you say?
	There's a massive amount of silver in those solar panel farms that run the mega AI data centers.
	And I forgot the amount.
	It's in the metric tons.
	It's a huge, huge amount of silver.
	There's only a little bit of silver in each server.
	Of course, that adds up.
	It is the solar panel farms that power them that has the majority of all the silver.
	That's then locked up for I don't know how many years those panels go for.
	But yeah, that's exactly what it is.
	It's a depleting asset.
	As Michelle mentioned, it's found near the surface, like your skin is epidermis.
	It's found in a form called epithermal.
	And so to her point as well, we have seen a continued massive increase in an asset that has plurality in demand from monetary to industrial to military to all of the other things we've talked about.
	And it's depleting in nature.
	And this is obviously why we have classified it critical, but to the point where every single year for the last now six years, we're between 200 and 300 million ounces shortfall between supply and demand.
	And it was said in this interview, and I'm glad it was that the military application in the Silver Institute's numbers, they're not there.
	In the early 40s, we were using between 1 and 200 million ounces of silver a year for military manufacturing.
	What about now when the componentry is far more, you know, specifically?
	Modernized.
	Yes, to those kinds of digital applications, electric electronics, let alone all the soldering.
	But this is happening.
	And I think the thing of it is, is that this is what happens when manipulations end.
	They always end badly.
	And we are being beaten, have been for the last several years.
	And I've been screaming about this.
	We've been beaten at our own game because they realize what we're doing, they being the global south.
	And now someone got to President Trump and said, if we don't do this, we're dead in the water.
	And so I think it was all a big ruse about the tariffs in metals and to bring back to cover positions because the tariff threat of bringing it back, which was just the normal back and forth flow, would have been a huge problem for the bank.
	So send it back.
	No, it's not tariffs.
	It's reshoring.
	They understand that if we don't get this in order very, very quickly, I think we're in very, very big trouble.
	And Trump is moving.
	I'm moving on that by designating critical resources and the tariffs, et cetera.
	And are you done with that thought there, Andy?
	Yeah, no, yeah, absolutely.
	Okay, absolutely.
	Okay, because let me segue to Michelle on this question, but picking up from where you left off, there's a saying in America, and I apologize for the profanity, but there's a saying, money talks, bullshit walks.
	And I would like to upgrade that saying without the profanity to say commodities talk, financialization walks, or currency walks.
	It's like currency doesn't matter because, Michelle, you can't print copper.
	You can't print nickel.
	You can't print cobalt or silver or anything.
	It's on the table of freaking elements.
	And as a result, the real core driver and the real scarcity in the world are things that no government can print.
	And that's commodities.
	What say you?
	I say you're absolutely correct.
	And, you know, I think we're actually at the very early stages of people being giving up on fiat currencies, fiat meaning by decree, paper promises, which is our current financial system, and looking towards hard assets.
	I think that we are in the beginning of a global monetary reset.
	And what really stands out to me is how gold is quietly re-entering the system as a neutral reserve asset, not only on the governmental front, on the national front, but of course on a retail front.
	But I'll focus on the bigger picture on governments.
	You know, a real inflection point, in my view, was the aggressive weaponization of the U.S. dollar, particularly when the Biden administration moved to cut Russia off from the SWIFT system after the invasion of Ukraine.
	Now, that moment sent a very clear message to the rest of the world, and that is that access to the dollar is not guaranteed.
	It's political.
	We can cut you off just like that.
	If you're the global reserve currency and we don't like you, well, we can just disconnect you from everything.
	And since then, you can really see the global monetary system starting to split.
	On the one side, you know, you do have the countries that are still operating within the dollar-based system, but on the other side, you do have countries looking to reduce their exposure to the U.S. to de-dollarize, to actively trade in their own currencies.
	And, you know, it doesn't help that the United States is sitting on $38 trillion of debt, right?
	We're just servicing that debt is equal to the annual defense budget.
	So, but also Euro clear, right?
	So Europe are now scheming to steal 200 billion plus from Russia via Euro clear.
	So factor that in, please.
	Yeah, no, correct.
	That's exactly right.
	They confiscated Russian assets and they have now, and I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head, but they usually vote on what they can do with them.
	And now they're actually changing the rules about the six months period to vote and not to vote.
	So they're just seizing assets and they want to give them to Ukraine.
	Now, whatever your thoughts are on the Russia-Ukraine war, who's right, who's wrong, and that's a whole separate conversation.
	But you're trying to run a system and trust is key to that system.
	And the thing that represents trust is gold, because the dollar has lost it.
	The Western system has lost trust.
	And, you know, we are seeing, as I said, a bifurcation of the global monetary system and people are returning to that neutral reserve asset, which is gold.
	Gold does not carry counterparty risk.
	It's not somebody else's liability.
	It can't be sanctioned.
	It can't be frozen with a push of a button if you have it in your physical possession.
	You know, Beijing, for example, is clearly using gold as a trust anchor.
	They have the digital yuan pilots like Project Enbridge, where they're experimenting with cross-border settlement systems that rely on a gold neutral reserve asset.
	They're moving away from the dollar.
	I mean, this is Andy's Forte.
	It's his thesis, in fact, that I'm quoting over here because I learn everything from him, from my interviews with him.
	But, you know, to your point, this commodity drive is because lack of faith.
	This is not a regular market cycle.
	This is a market cycle where trust is the issue.
	And people no longer have trust in fiat.
	People no longer have trust in government.
	People no longer have trust in media.
	People no longer have trust in statistics.
	So they're going back to something.
	And again, whether it's on a national level or an individual level, they're going back to things that they can trust.
	And gold and silver for thousands of years have been something that people can trust and they know retain and hold value.
	Well said.
	And this is also, in my opinion, this is why technical analysis tools of this current market are basically useless because things are changing so dramatically.
	I don't care if it's above a 50-day moving average.
	I mean, Michael Barry has said he's out of this market because nothing makes sense to me.
	You know, Michael Barry, he's like, I'm out.
	These fundamental analysis doesn't make sense.
	This market is completely disconnected from reality.
	So he returned his investors all the money and is like, I don't work in this environment.
	That's actually the wise choice.
	And then, all right, so we want to be respectful of your time, both of you.
	And so, Todd, you get the last question, but then let's leave time for Andy to give out his super secret email price list contact method for milesfranklin.com.
	I want to make sure we get that in for you.
	But, Todd, you get the last question.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	This is going to be a practical question for you, Andy.
	And I, as you know, Mike, I help people with these unincorporated nonprofit associations.
	And I'm getting mine set up with Andy.
	And I was doing a consultation and we were talking about precious metals, and this person really wants to acquire them.
	And I talked about Miles Franklin and connecting with you and giving your contact information.
	But they did ask the question: they said, okay, what if I put, let's say, $50,000 into precious metals and I take self-custody of those?
	And if things get a little tight and I need to liquidate that, how do I do that?
	Is that also a service that you all provide to where you buy silver and gold?
	I would tell you that any company that you intend to do business with, if they don't, you should run as fast as you can.
	And so, yes, a two-way market is something that's imperative.
	And we will always make a two-way market.
	And I will also, as I mean, I put my hand on the Bible as God is my witness that I will tell the public when I think it's time to sell at the same time to switch asset classes that maybe it's run its course, maybe it's time.
	If that ever happens, I don't know that it will.
	But if they do want to sell for, you know, people focus too much on having gold and silver as something for an emergency.
	As I've mentioned a million times, I view this as wealth.
	And so I've been acquiring it as per a promise to my father when I started this company 36 years ago that I'd buy something every two weeks.
	And I have.
	I've never missed a two-week period ever.
	And that compounding of time and interest is the best gift I've ever been given.
	But if you do need to sell for not just an emergency, an opportunity, and there will be opportunities in this environment.
	There will be.
	It's very easy to do.
	We assist you in getting it sent back.
	We can send you Federal Express air bill with insurance applied on it.
	You package it up the way we tell you to do so.
	You drop it off at a FedEx hub.
	If it's gold, it comes overnight.
	If it's silver, it goes by two, three day ground.
	Upon receipt, we cut you a wire or a check and send it right back to you.
	Actually, by no later, I think than January 1st, 2027, we'll send it to you via the Stablecoin Network, which is going to be the Genius Act where money will be moving like that.
	But that's down the road.
	Until then, old school, check or wire the minute it comes in.
	And we've done it that way for 35 years.
	Give the audience your email address for the VIP price list that you have.
	Yeah, you know, Mike, I work with a lot of not only influencers, but a lot of brokerages that run their business through me.
	And I give them the ability to sell as inexpensive as they want.
	We have a limit on how much they can.
	So that's why we don't really post our prices.
	And so our prices will be as competitive as anyone in the country.
	And you would send an email to info at milesfranklin.com, I-N-F-O, ask for the price list.
	We update it twice a week.
	If you find prices that are markedly better, which I don't think you will, but if you do, let us know.
	We will do the best we can to address that.
	But it's info at milesfranklin.com, whether it be for prices or questions that you heard here, precious metals IRAs, or, or even the topic that is now becoming the topic du jour, which is that you and I talked about before, the problems with IRAs that people have had.
	And we've had good luck helping people with that.
	So that was my next question.
	Are you still trying to unravel some of the scams out there with the unscrupulous companies?
	Mike, I can't.
	I mean, I had, what's his name?
	Michelle, what's his name?
	Dale Whitaker, Dale Whitaker on my show.
	Dale Whitaker is the whistleblower for one of these companies and he's blowing up.
	Oh, wow.
	He has a new book that's come out.
	And you should have him on your show, Mike.
	I'd love to.
	He's fantastic.
	Dale Whitaker is his name.
	And he has come out publicly.
	He was the CFO of one of those precious metals companies and he names them all.
	And Chris Olson.
	And Chris said he's going to start naming names as well.
	So this could get really interesting.
	He is.
	And I know that because of what Tucker and that's one of the reasons that Tucker did what he did.
	He was offered $20 or $25 million by one of these companies.
	And I know you were offered a lot of money by one of these companies.
	That says a lot about you that you didn't do it because these people who are doing that are whether they know it or not, you knew it.
	Others don't.
	But I will tell you, Tucker knew it and you can tell.
	And basically what's happening is that they're destroying people's lives.
	And that's not being sensational.
	I mean, truly eviscerating people's lives.
	And so we've had great luck in helping people with that.
	And those are shows I talked about this with.
	If you think you've been taken by one of these companies, you can contact Andy at info at milesfranklin.com.
	And Andy can probably, can't make any guarantees, but he could probably help you unravel that.
	And yes, I wasn't offered $20 million like Tucker.
	I was offered $100,000 a month, which is not pocket change, to promote this other gold company.
	And I said no.
	But anyway, that's for another podcast.
	Michelle, I want to give you an opportunity to plug your show and your channel again here before we wrap this up.
	All right.
	Well, thank you very much.
	And I've enjoyed being on your show.
	We need to have you on my show to talk about your Nigerian goats and your prepper lifestyle because that is something that actually resonates quite deeply with me.
	But yes, on the real story look, what we do is, again, we like to have a variety of perspectives.
	We like to challenge our guests.
	I like to always push back, even when I agree 100%.
	I like to play devil's advocate for the sake of the exercise.
	And just open our viewers' minds so that they have the information, that they have the knowledge, that they have the perspectives to make informed decisions to help them preserve their wealth, their future, and their freedom.
	Very similar to what you're doing, but mostly through a macroeconomic lens.
	But we like to talk about a range of topics.
	And again, challenge the mainstream narrative, challenge the noise, bring your real signal, as we like to say.
	Well, you do a great job at that.
	And I just want to advocate to our entire audience to follow your channels, Miles Franklin Media and your other shows and channels and interviews.
	Because Michelle, and I'm not just blowing smoke, I think you're one of the sharpest analysts.
	You have a lot of courage.
	You push back against people and you don't let people just spew nonsense on your show about crypto or whatever.
	And we love that about you.
	And also, Andy, you know, the same way you're critical thinker, love what you're doing.
	So thank you both for taking the time with us today.
	It's been a pleasure.
	It was great to see you.
	I really appreciate that feedback means a lot coming from you.
	So sincerely, thank you.
	Thank you very much.
	And thank you for watching.
	Absolutely.
	We'll have to have you on the real story very soon.
	Love to join you.
	Talk about AI and what's happening there because I'm tied into that community pretty deeply.
	But for today, folks, again, milesfranklin.com is the website.
	Miles Franklin Media is the channel on YouTube.
	And then info at milesfranklin.com is the secret email address.
	So thank you both for joining us today.
	It's been a pleasure and have a wonderful rest of your day.
	You guys too.
	Bye, everybody.
	All right.
	Take care.
	And then we will be back.
	Todd and I will be back with the after-party conversation coming up next.

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