David Morgan and Mike Adams warn silver’s irreplaceable role in tech—from Samsung’s batteries to Tesla’s stealth materials—is under threat due to U.S. refining delays, $30/oz production costs, and China’s 100% control over critical minerals like graphite. Senator Rubio’s $12B stockpile plan falls short; Morgan argues $80B is needed to secure even 100M oz. The 2025 price surge (140% annual) and crash (33% drop) exposed paper market dominance, while refiners’ margin calls and hedging risks deepen shortages. Industrial demand remains stable at 80-85%, but monetary demand—even as low as 10-20%—can destabilize prices, hinting at future government intervention like stockpile mandates or price floors. Amid fiat currency fears, self-reliance in silver and critical minerals becomes a strategic necessity. [Automatically generated summary]
And as we keep saying it, it sounds perhaps hyperbolic, but it's not.
It's a required, essential, irreplaceable asset required for a high-tech society.
Period.
What else are you going to do?
You can experiment with grafting.
You can talk about copper solar panels and all this stuff.
But the march goes on.
And if you do a full analysis that you just outlined, it seems to come back to silver anyway.
All right.
Welcome, everyone.
Mike Adams here, joined by the silver guru, David Morgan, today, who is, you know, of course, he's been proven correct again and again.
And he's in high demand right now.
Everybody wants to know what David Morgan thinks about what's happening with silver and to some extent other metals as well.
But welcome, David Morgan.
It's an honor, sir, to have you on today.
Well, it's an honor to be on your show.
And, you know, the silver guru is sort of a tug-in-cheek.
You know that.
But thank you, Mike.
It's good to be back with you.
Well, I mean, you say tongue-in-cheek, but you certainly look like a guru as, you know, look at what silver has done in the last year.
And you talked about this for so many years, and now it's happening.
Well, I will say, you know, in all honesty, that there have been a few times where I guess you could say I've earned a title.
You could say, well, I didn't catch that last part.
I said there have been a few instances, certain conferences, certain questions, certain details about the silver market that let's say I had access to that probably very few did.
So in those circumstances, I would say that I had earned the title Silver Guru.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And look, you know, you've always said, and this is my message to my own audience, is don't go crazy with leverage risk bets and things like that, but just stack silver, stack it a little bit at a time year after year.
And here we are in 2026.
And isn't it true now that people who just stack silver are sitting on, in many cases, now generational wealth at this point?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, one of the programs that I partake in myself and recommended is one which is basically an automatic stacking program.
And they put you into a silver bar, a thousand-ounce bar.
And, you know, some people can't hold it.
You don't own it.
And I get that.
I always advocate that myself.
But there are times when we've got these extreme premiums, Mike, as you know, where like a Silver Eagle was like a $20 premium or something.
Well, I just suggested to my followers, just keep buying the silver bar, you know, nearer, much nearer to spot.
And then what happens at the end of whatever, you could determine it, but at an end of the quarter, end of the year, every six months, you then make the determination of how to convert that silver into a Silver Eagle, Silver Makeful, a 100-ounce bar, a 10-ounce bar, a kilo bar.
So they give you all these choices, but you get to see what the premiums are.
So in other words, you're accumulating silver in a commercial bar form.
And then when you take it home, which I advocate everyone does, you then set the premium.
Well, if the premium is real high, don't bother.
Just keep stacking.
Silver Paradigm Shift00:15:37
And, you know, I think in the long run, that really helped people.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And also, I see a lot more people talking today about the counterparty risk issue because there's a lot of distrust in the banking system.
There's distrust in pooled metals and brokerages and ETFs, things like that.
So are you also hearing that from people, just a lot more awareness of that issue?
There is.
And even, you know, I hate to say it, but truths are truths.
And one of the well-known depositories for gold and silver IRAs turned out to be not on the up and up.
Not all the metal is gone, but only like 25% is missing.
And that's just horrible.
I mean, people put their obviously their life savings.
Some people have more metals exposure than others.
My point being, you get an IRA.
I mean, that should be synchrosynced.
I mean, nothing should be in harm's way of that.
And yet, unfortunately, it does happen and it has happened.
Well, yeah.
And it seems like when organizations get into trouble, then their ethics start to slide.
And they like, hey, here's a pile of silver in the corner here.
No one will notice if we just sell it to someone else and pretend we still have it, right?
That happens.
Well, I don't want to go too far down the road, but they're on a topic.
I mean, the problem is ethics, and it's that, you know, I'll just do it once.
And once that thought comes, if you take action on it, you're in trouble.
I mean, I've met dealers that were on the up and up for many years.
And then, you know, David Morgan walks in and he says, hey, I want to buy a monster box.
And he knows it's going to take three weeks to get one.
And he's got five in the back.
And he says, yeah, sure, David.
Okay, fine.
And I pay him and he takes one off the back shelf that is really being stored by somebody else with the absolute full intent of replacing it, right, Mike?
But then the market runs away.
And he says, well, I'll just wait until it comes back down.
I'll replace it.
I mean, once you steal one time, one coin, one box, 10 bars, whatever, you've gone down that slippery slope.
And that has happened.
I don't want to make a big case that, but it has happened.
I'll put it that way.
And, you know, these are guys that have been on the up and up.
And then that just that one time, you know, I'm just going to do it once.
Well, good luck.
Well, right.
And the extreme volatility in this market tends to expose those who don't have rigorous standards, accounting practices, inventory practices, et cetera.
Especially a parabolic rise in the market that we saw all the way up to, what, 120-something per ounce.
That created real havoc for the industry, didn't it?
Yes.
And I think on that topic, I think we don't belabor it.
I really don't think that we have shaken the tree to the aspect of seeing how much fruit hit the ground.
My metaphor being, I think there's probably some people in trouble because of over leverage or not meeting maintenance margin or what have you, banks included, that could be a repercussion of that move, Mike.
And I don't think we have the whole story yet.
I think it'll be unfolding over the next couple of months or so.
Well, that's a really important point.
So there's yet more fallout is what you're saying from exactly.
Well, who's going to be hurt in the fallouts?
You said banks.
No, rumors only.
I'll say rumors again.
Not a money setter bank, but a pretty substantial bank that's a rumor.
I got it from an ex-floor trader, close personal friend, not a BSer, but I don't consider myself a journalist, but in a way, I want to obey the rules that if you don't get it from like two or three sources, kind of dismiss it.
Since it came from him, I'm not dismissing it totally.
And common sense.
I mean, when you get those kind of moves, I don't care if it's in the housing market or automobile manufacturers or whatever.
Common sense is someone's going to get hurt in that kind of a move.
Somebody's on the wrong side, and somebody's probably going to pay a price for that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's really interesting given what happened last Friday with the big plunge, 33% or more at one point, down to $76 or so.
I know you've covered this on other shows, but what's your quick take on how that was engineered and all the stop losses that got triggered along the way and kind of accelerated the whole thing?
Or what's your explanation of that event?
Yeah, I'm going to sound more of an apologist for the banks than I normally do.
I just be fair, and I know, Mike, you're one of the best.
I mean, you let people give their point of view, whether you agree with it or not.
Basically, I've been saying, particularly to my membership, look, this is a parabolic move.
I don't care what the commodity is or what the stock is, or anytime you see that kind of a move, you've got to be cautious.
Let's think about this for just a moment, Mike.
Silver had an astronomical move in 2025.
It was up 140% in the year.
Wow.
But in January, it was up almost 70% in the month.
Right.
Now, let's think about that.
You know, especially someone like me.
I mean, I'm no one special, but I traded futures for a living for some significant amount of time.
And so I know markets, no expert, no, you know, whatever.
And I saw that, I said, you know, buyer, beware, be cautious, don't buy unless you have to.
Well, David, I've never owned metal before.
Well, then buy half.
You know, I think you've heard me say that before.
You know, look, you've got to be, and you should have, it's better to have some than none, but please don't consider putting it all in at these levels.
And then again, you know, what took place took place.
So I would consider it more or less normal market activity.
Now, the sum set, the summation of that and going deeper, which I know you'll let me do, is that the CME, the commodities mercantile exchange, raised margins and tightened risk controls in the precious metals contracts.
And it's a moment of extreme volatility.
So the official rationale was risk management.
And in a way, I think they are correct.
I mean, they were forcing deleveraging by specs and some funds by raising margins.
This accelerated liquidity and liquidation into a thin liquidity, which means what I call a waterfall decline.
If you're on minimum margin and you got to sell, or the exchange will sell you out if you don't meet the margin call.
And so that reinforced the papers market's dominance over the short-term price discovery.
I want to re-emphasize that because, and I was among them, not to the level that some people were or how I perceived, oh my goodness, Shanghai's taken over the Asian markets.
It's a cash and carry physical delivery market.
The physical market has taken over the paper paradigm.
I said that a few times, but not meaning it was a permanent thing and that the paper paradigm people couldn't have their way again.
And they probably will a few more times on this ride all the way to the top.
So it's just another important point that stackers need to know.
And if you're a stacker, you probably weren't hurt.
In fact, maybe you didn't buy that month, perhaps.
I don't know.
Point being is that market wasn't a runaway market and it was due for a correction.
So it wasn't about the fundamental.
It was about protecting the clearing system.
I mean, these guys are human beings too.
I don't like the way they do things.
I don't like the way they run things, but it's their game.
And if you're in their game, and we all are in a way, even though we don't like it, we are in a silver mark.
We're on a physical side, but the paper paradigm still has a lot of clout.
Back to you.
Sorry.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
The paper side has a lot of clout and the spot price is still controlled by the paper issuers or the buyers or sellers.
But isn't it interesting that in that correction and by the margin requirements being raised now several times and by so many people's stop loss sell orders being triggered and sold, now the entire silver upside that if it continues is a lot less leveraged than it was before last Friday.
So a cascading waterfall collapse like this would be much more difficult to be triggered moving forward because there's less leverage in the system.
Do you agree with that?
Absolutely.
I mean, people may get upset with me, but it's really healthy to have this kind of correction.
I wish it was 10%, not 30%, but it's important for the market to have a strong basis of strong hands and weak hands.
And when the weak hands get shaken out, which is what happened Friday, now we have, as you said so well, a base to build from that will be a more solid market going.
And this is important for people that are long-term investors or maybe new.
I mean, there are people that are probably buying above 50 that are, you know, maybe a little worried.
I said, God, 50 was an all-time high not too many weeks ago or months ago.
And now, you know, it went up over 120.
Now we're back to 80.
And on and on, it goes, look, silver is so important for a high-tech society that we can't live without it.
And if you don't overload, the main problem, I know I've said it before, but please, Mike, let me go on.
People buy too much at one time.
It's usually why they get in trouble.
They hear the story.
They trust you.
They trust me.
They find out how the whole banking system is basically a ripoff.
Inflation is instilled in the market to steal our labor.
And they get it.
And they get upset and they take action, which a lot of people just listen, I'll never take action.
But they jump in with both feet in the deep end, and then they can't hold their breath long enough.
And then they come up and they're all upset.
So really, the best thing to do is what I said in the 10 rules of silver investing: start small, get your order, see how it comes to your house, unwrap it, and just start to dollar cost average.
It takes a lot of stress out of the whole situation.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And I've offered the same kind of information, you know, for many, many years.
And I've never encouraged people to make leveraged bets with futures or options because that's a whole different ballgame right there, right?
That's you can, especially on a move like we just saw, you could lose, you know, 10 times your investment.
Yeah.
It's a total wipeout.
Okay, next question is now you and I both know that the refiners are still logjammed for months to come of incoming silver.
So so many people were selling all kinds of sometimes like random types of silver coins, random pieces of silver, even silver, you know, spoons and whatever,
for all the way through January that the refiners are backlogged and the dealers themselves, a lot of dealers have already, they've used up all their available lending capital to pay customers while they're still waiting to get paid by refiners who are logjammed and backlogged for months to come.
So isn't it true, David, that it's going to take actually months for something resembling normalcy to return to the silver infrastructure?
Yes, Mike, and you outlined it well.
I thought you were going to leave a part out.
You didn't.
You did the whole big picture.
So one is that the refining capacity in this country is very minimal.
I mean, we didn't have, you know, we don't have enough demand.
And now we do.
So part of it is a backlog piled, you know, in the backyard, so to speak, of different various silver coins and what have you that need to be smelted into 1,000 ounce bars.
That's part one.
Part two, and I think more importantly, is it isn't just the backlog that there's such a flow rate, so many, you know, ounces per day can go through the process.
That's part of it.
And it's going to take probably weeks or months.
Probably the best guess, and I say guess is a couple of months.
But the other part is the financing.
I mean, you might not be able to buy any more silver.
Why?
Because you don't buy silver because you've got a huge bank account.
You are XYZ Refining, and XYZ Refining has a commercial credit line with their bank.
And that credit line is 200 million.
I don't know what it is.
Make up a number.
100 million.
Once you achieve 100 million that you have bought and stored on the shelves, it's going to take a couple of months to process.
You can't take any more in, not because you don't have shelf space, because you don't have the money to pay for it.
Exactly.
And the supply chain is weak because, for example, and you just said it, but I'll make them personal here.
A friend of mine bought silver at 18.
She called me and she put her mother into silver, believe it or not, which actually.
And so this woman wanted to cash out her 350 ounces at our local dealer here, which is a pretty sizable dealer.
He gave her a check, but it was post-dated for two weeks, Mike, because he said this will not clear from my bank account.
I've got to get paid by the refiner.
I plan that he's going to pay me in 10 days.
This is 14 days from now.
So please don't try to cast the check.
So that's the situation we're in.
And actually getting paid in 10 days from a refiner right now is pretty good.
Yeah, yeah, but he's probably, and I'm guessing this part, but maybe that payment 10 days was what he had set in three weeks before.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And also the other thing that I think a lot of members of the public don't necessarily realize is that when dealers take in silver, they buy a lot of silver at retail, and then they send it to the refiners if it has to be, you know, melted and turned into thousand ounce bars.
Then those dealers, they also, many of them, not all of them, but many of them, in order to reduce their risk, they will buy shorts on silver at Comex.
And then when Comex raises margin requirements, then those dealers have to come up with more money to cover the shorts that they have out there.
And so it becomes more and more expensive to hold the risk of price volatility of the silver that they're waiting to get paid on.
Is that all correct or what would you add?
China's Graphite Export Restrictions00:11:47
Yeah, no, very important point.
And this is the, again, I'll use the, I guess, the correct word, supply chain.
There's many little events that we're outlining that are critically important to how the whole silver market moves.
And you can say the same thing for cotton, but cotton's not a monetary metal.
Point is, there's these little details that people don't think about.
So think that the refiner's already tapped out his credit line.
Now he gets a margin call.
What's he going to do?
There's nothing he can do, really.
He's got to sell physical silver is what he's got to do.
So, the exchange is going to sell it for him, or he is going to maybe get an infusion of cash somehow, some way, or he's going to sell it off his own shelf.
So, these are disruptions of the market.
And that's why, when you get the kind of decline we saw, it wasn't because, you know, somebody hates silver and the paper traders are killing it.
The algorithms have a lot to do with it.
I don't deny that.
But everyone was so thin on liquidity, meaning Federal Reserve notes, that all of a sudden you're pulling your hair out.
How am I going to do this?
And if you don't have an answer, the exchange does.
They sell you out.
Right, right.
And there was a very important point that was also explained to me by somebody else in the silver industry.
And I want to get your take on it, which is that spot price doesn't actually refer to all silver.
You know, spot price only refers to typically thousand-ounce bars of a certain purity from certain mints ready to deliver to industry.
That's all it represents.
But yet, we, the public, we think spot price means that also applies to the odd silver coins in my pocket.
But it may not actually doesn't at all.
I mean, as you said, you were very specific and very accurate.
And fortunately, people get the idea that they should be able to buy at spot or sell at spot.
Now, in all fairness, I've been in this market more than 40 years.
And when I was a kid, from that time until, let's say, the last few years, in most instances, in a calm market, you could get spot price for almost any form of silver or very close to it.
But when you get into these volatility problems, what are you going to do if you're a dealer and you've got to take in more silver and your, you know, your credit line is tapped out, as I just said?
Well, you might discount.
Okay, I got a dealer, I've got a refiner buddy of mine.
I'm going to whatever, say they're not, they will buy it under spot, maybe a big spread, $10, because they know their buddy's going to pay them $5 more than what they just paid for it and make a quick five bucks per ounce.
And that's what's going on.
And I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
I don't like it, but market conditions force certain market conditions can force situations that you wouldn't have thought of as being reasonable a few months back because the tightness in the market is so great and the volatility so high that extreme measures are taken between the spreads.
If I'm making sense, Michael.
Yeah, yeah, you are.
And that sort of is a good segue to my next question for you, which is that, you know, I've spent a lot of time over the last few months studying the core industrial demand for silver and who are the players and, you know, Samsung buying the mine in Mexico to get their output going and, you know, the use of silver in so many things from weapons to medicine to telecommunications to solar panels.
And I think knowledge about that is spreading.
But here's the thing.
Despite the silver price crash last Friday, which has already recovered substantially, I'm looking at silver right now at $87, $88.
The core industrial demand has not dwindled.
It has not gone down.
Core industrial demand continues to vastly outstrip the annual mining output in terms of millions of ounces of silver.
So that means the above-ground silver that exists simply cannot meet current industrial demand.
And I mean, I took Economics 101 in college.
I know that's going to mean higher prices unless something dramatically changes.
So I think this is a good time to get back to fundamentals.
Like there's not enough silver, but it's in very high demand.
What do you say to that?
I agree.
It's indeterminable.
And it's indeterminable because even though there is an above-ground supply, it might be as skinny as 400 million ounces, which is two years normal market activity on the retail side, which is significant, but it's not even close to what could happen if Samsung, 3M, Apple Computer, Tesla, name another conglomerate or two that requires silver to stay in business, says, wait a minute,
you mean we've only got the availability and current supply to last another six months and then we're out of business because we don't have any silver?
But what are they going to do?
I've said this before.
They're going to put it on the shelf and make sure they don't go out of business.
Well, if company A does it, company B might think the same thing than company C D.
So indeterminable because there could be a run to silver on the industrial side to stay in business and make sure that you got a viable amount for the next year or two or maybe even three.
And then you throw out what Rubio's done with the critical stockpile, which used to be 140 million ounces.
And there's only $12 billion allocated to it presently.
So, you know, $12 billion doesn't buy 100 million ounces.
To buy 100 million ounces, you would need 80 times a million.
So you need that math, sorry, but you would need substantially more than 12, 12 billion that we have now.
You need like four times, five times that amount.
Point being, is that's another requirement.
And then you have to ask the question: well, wait a minute, if the United States considers silver to be at the top of the list of the critical minerals, what's to prevent Russia or China or the United Kingdom or some other military power from thinking the same thing and say, you know what?
We need a strategic stockpile of silver.
So you see where I'm going with this, Mike.
The indeterminable part means that there are many things that could fall as dominoes do because there are greater needs for the silver industry than ever in my lifetime.
Yeah.
And, you know, you just mentioned about this critical stockpile, what's called the Project Vault, I believe, is the name for it.
And I'm glad you mentioned it's only $12 billion.
It's a drop in the bucket.
And I even did a report on this that was released today, trying to share the idea with people that even though this has been announced, it doesn't create elements from nothing.
Like you, you know, you can announce it.
It's a great press release.
Oh, we're going to have all our mineral problems are solved, but they're not because you still can't get neodymium, dysprosium, terbium, even tungsten.
I mean, and China has massive export restrictions on every single one of these that are used, especially in military applications, but even export restrictions on silver right now as well.
And also, and I'd like you to speak to this: China, since last year has banned the export of the knowledge of how to extract rare earths from ore.
In other words, you can't even export.
If you're a company in China, you can't sell the know-how of how to do this to any other country, or you probably end up in a Chinese prison.
Do you know that?
No, I will comment on it, though.
And this comes from general knowledge because, you know, mining is one of my, you know, what we write about for 25 years.
My understanding up to what you just said was that it's a very dirty, ugly, environmentally unfriendly process.
Absolutely.
And the only way to do it and get away with it is China, where the World Organization said, you know, Chinese will give you a pass on the environmental restrictions that the rest of the world faces.
And that's why it's done in China and China alone, pretty much.
As far as technique specific, you may be right.
I'm not saying you're not.
But just what I said is important to understand that you couldn't get away with the cost-effective methodology used in China anywhere else in the world.
And that's why when I was on the last TV show with one of the mainstream reporters, she asked me about this new rare elements mine in California and how well it is and how wonderful it is that we are doing it in the United States.
And I said, well, it's well and good, but we're still exporting all the raw material to China to have it refined.
And she almost swallowed the microphone.
I said, yeah, we are not, we can't refine it under the standards that are put in place and make it economic.
So you mine it, but it costs you too much in the current supply and demand cost structure to make a dime ion.
Well, if you can't make a dime on any product, you're not in business anymore.
Right.
Right, exactly.
Let me add this, that China controls, according to my research, from 48 to 99% of global production and processing for nearly all rare earths.
And I know this is an interview about silver, but this is related.
But in addition to that, the United States military is 100% dependent on some elements and then less so on others.
But one of those is graphite, which of course is not an element.
It's a form, a form of carbon.
But China controls 100% of the graphite market.
And we don't have any ability to make it.
And so if you look at even where silver is used in, let's say, weapon systems, those same weapon systems, such as cruise missiles or F-35s or stealth, whatever, they also use graphite at the same time, which means that if you don't have both of these things, and you also need neodymium and all these other things in order to make an F-35, which has something like 600 pounds of rare earths in it, it's kind of like, you know, a recipe of baking a cake.
If you don't have eggs, you don't have a cake.
And that's where we are as a country right now.
Exactly.
And I am associated with probably one of the top, I'll say, experts in the world in the REE space.
I won't give his name.
He really demands anonymity, and I get it because he is who he is, and he's very connected to the Chinese REE market.
It has been for years.
Critical Minerals Vulnerability00:08:15
But you outline pretty much perfectly what he has said to me in the past.
And he also said, and I'll recommend what you implied.
And people do not understand how vulnerable we are in the REE space.
Yes, yes.
And I would add antimony, gallium, germanium, these other sort of super hard materials that are used in, you know, sometimes kinetic warheads, but also shielding, radiation shielding in some cases, or tank armor, for example, right?
Done your homework.
Yep.
Well, I spawned a bunch of AI agents that did the homework, and then they brought it back to me, and then I learned about it.
But back to silver then, how long would it take the United States to build out an infrastructure of increased silver mining and refining if we wanted to do it domestically?
Well, I'd say if you said there were no restrictions, you could have a basically, I'll call it a free-for-all and go out to the Silver Valley, which is an hour and a half from where I'm sitting doing the interview.
There's plenty of silver remaining in that area, but there's all kinds of restrictions with the EPA, and I'm not saying it wrong.
I'd say it'd still take five years, three.
I mean, if you cut every corner you possibly could, got rid of all the red tape just to get in there mechanically to build the roads, to dig into it, to put up the structure, even maybe put a small smelter.
There's a place on the way to the Silver Valley called Smelterville.
There used to be a smelter there, but that was probably 50 years ago, maybe long enough to look it up.
Probably 50 years has been closed down.
Point being, you could – it would take a minimum of three, but realistically, in today's world, obeying all the rules, five at a minimum, more like ten.
So, this idea that – Is this in California?
Where are you talking about?
I'm in Washington State.
I'm talking about Idaho.
The silver in Kellogg and Wallace, Idaho.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
So the government of Idaho would not be as crazy restrictive as California or even Washington.
There would be green light.
But even with the green light, it's still going to take years.
Okay.
And then is there enough silver?
Is there potential for the U.S. to meet its entire domestic supply chain with domestic mining and refining if we decide to invest in that?
No.
There might be enough in theory.
In other words, let's say I know a mine in Mexico that's probably got a billion ounces of silver.
That's one year supply, but you can't mine it at that rate.
You can't mine a billion ounces in a year.
So if you went full bore on the Silver Valley and maybe some other places in Nevada, U.S.-centric, you would not be able to meet the flow rate.
So if you need 200 million ounces a year and you got 10 new mines going at an average of 10 million ounces a year, which is a pretty healthy silver mine, you're still short by 50%.
Okay.
Follow-up questions.
I'm really going to tap into your mining knowledge here.
I hope you don't mind.
But silver is usually the byproduct of mining for other metals, right?
Like zinc or copper, I think typically.
So in the United States, the economics of mining, what could a U.S. mine theoretically produce silver for in terms of a cost per ounce?
Well, all in sustaining costs generally across the board for what we call primary silver mines, which are copper, silver, but the bottom line, the bottom line means most of the net revenue comes of sale of silver, not sale of lead or zinc or copper.
So we consider those to be silver mines, which they are.
In those cases, what was the question?
How, what?
Well, what's the bottom line cost of what we could produce silver for?
All in sustaining costs, about $30.
So that, okay.
And then in Mexico and other places, I assume that's a lower number.
Usually it's lower, yeah.
All right.
So it seems like that's a huge investment opportunity if someone could get past the red tape.
Yeah, it is.
But also, you got to remember how volatile silver is after how many times these guys have been burned.
You know, you go in and you get a multi-multi-million dollar project, maybe $1 billion to get this thing into production.
It's going to take you three years.
And all of a sudden, the bank says, well, wait a minute, I can't loan you the money.
Silver just went from 124 to 78 in one day.
Are you kidding me?
You're not going to get a loan from us.
Right.
So financing is a big part of the problem, but also expectation of volatility.
Yeah, and where is it going to be three years out?
I mean, that's the problem or five years out.
And that's the problem with the cyclical nature of commodities in general, mining in particular.
You know, no one's got a perfect crystal ball that five years from now, graphene won't be substituted in solar panels for silver.
I'm not saying it will be, but if you're thinking like a bank, which I don't even want to think about, sorry for the humor.
But no, you got to, you got to put those things into account.
And that's where it's so difficult, even outside of the U.S., to put a mine into full production in a, let's say, timely manner.
It's done more efficiently outside the U.S. in most cases.
But nonetheless, it's not something that isn't well thought out, usually over budget.
Usually, you know, here's the budget to build the mine.
And then, of course, it always has overruns for whatever reason.
So I was kind of screaming for government-backed loan guarantees because it would be.
Oh, yeah.
That's why you're going to see this, you know, what we've heard so often, Mike, this public-private partnership thing.
That's what's going on with the critical minerals.
It's the government and some private people coming in with another, you know, billion or two, I think.
It was $12 billion.
They're going to add a couple billion from private people or private entities.
And I think you'll see the same thing here.
I mean, we've moved more and more to socialism.
And, you know, you've probably done as much in the philosophical change in the nature of our republic than anybody I know.
But I don't want to get too far off topic.
But no, that's what's going to happen, Mike, exactly right.
And then you're just going to see, let's say, like fracking.
In the fracking world, when the government decided we can frack and get oil out of these rocks, what happened?
Well, the Clean Water Act got null and void throughout those states.
So it could be something similar to mining industry where this EPA law about clean water gets null and void because we need the material so much.
So it's such a demand.
And I don't like that, by the way.
I mean, I want to be on record, but I think it was wrong to do that.
But this is the kind of hard push the government can do.
You know, it's the animal farm.
All animals are equal, except some are more equal than others.
And we're the federal government.
We need it.
So we're going to mandate.
You know, that law that we passed?
No, we don't need it anymore because we need more silver.
Well, right.
And every nation has to make a series of choices between protecting the environment versus having silver and rare earths.
Really?
I mean, mining can be done obviously more responsibly.
It can be done in a more eco-friendly way along a spectrum.
But there's nothing friendly overall about digging up a bunch of land.
I mean, it's going to, you know, you're digging up a bunch of land.
Who Keeps Bidding Higher?00:03:44
It's just, it's going to look like a mess at some point, no matter how you do it, unless it's all underground.
That's right.
That's one of the reasons I think Mexico has deterred any open-pit mining.
And, you know, I live where I live.
And you know, you go into Montana and, you know, there's some really ugly places that were mining town because they were never restored back to, you know, the pristine conditions that they started at, which is required now.
But in the old days, no, and it's, you know, they're not pretty to look at.
I admit it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Missing the side of a mountain or whatever.
Let me ask you this question.
Out of the how much of the rise in silver valuations that we've experienced in the last, let's say, 14 months, how much of that has been due to the monetary demand side?
Putting the industry aside for the moment.
In your mind, have you separated those two?
Or could you?
Yeah, well, I'll answer the question.
I'll see if it's to your satisfaction.
So all markets move at the margin, and the margin is, well, what's the disposable income you might think of?
So, you know, when you're bidding at Sotheby's for a Rembrandt, it's the bidder, the last one that gets it.
And so the last demand on silver is an industry.
Industry is the demand that won't go away, that's required, that continues onward and upward over the last 25 years.
So that's a constant almost.
So that doesn't vary.
So what varies the price is something who keeps bidding it higher.
And who keeps bidding it higher is monetary demand.
And that's why even though monetary demand is maybe 10 in really big years, 20% of the total market, with 80 or 85% being industrial jewelry, silverware, that little bit, that 10 or 20%, is what moves the price higher because I demand silver for safe haven status.
And the industry says, well, I got to have it too, regardless of the price.
And then they start feeding on each other.
So it really is the last buyer.
It's the monetary demand.
It moves it higher and higher.
Well, but hold on.
I'm not sure I understand your answer there because I think you were also giving examples of industrial demand.
Well, it's both.
I mean, yeah, and I don't want to back up, but it's whoever, so it feeds on each other.
I mean, you could, you know, plot it out in a way.
I mean, you could say, well, all right, this investment fund came in and bought X amount of silver, and now the price is this.
And then the industry says, God, we got to stockpile some.
I'm going to outbid them and go higher.
So it could be a bidding war, which is what I've said on other interviews, but it's the marginal buyer.
It's who's willing to pay for it at the end.
And, you know, really, you do make the case better than I did, Mike.
It could be either.
But what's the biggest variable, I would say?
It is monetary demand, not industrial demand.
I mean, everybody says, I'm not buying silver at over $100.
It's too expensive.
It's coming back and puts their hands in their pockets.
And even the floor traders, which don't exist, but even the futures market guys go away and take a vacation for a month.
So if there was no demand on the monetary side, which of course is ridiculous, but as a thought experiment, if you did that and you only had industrial demand, the price would tell us, you know, if people in the industry are just buying it on an as-needed basis or buying it as a as-needed plus stockpiling for surety of business purposes would tell us that.
Need Lots of Land for Data Centers00:06:01
Okay, that makes good sense.
And I also want to circle back around to something you said earlier about solar panels and being able to potentially replace the silver with something else.
You were just speaking theoretically, I know.
Oh, yeah.
I've actually looked into that.
And what I found out is that there are Chinese companies that are experimenting with using near-zero silver in solar panels.
Problem is, then they give up the energy efficiency per square meter of the solar panel.
So, in other words, you will be able to have silver-free solar panels, but you're going to need a lot more land and a lot more other stuff, like the aluminum frame of the solar panel and more wiring because you're covering longer distances.
So, then your costs go up on the copper and the aluminum for the conductors and the wiring.
You know what I mean?
It's like I took the silver out, but it's costing me 20% more anyway.
No, you're exactly right.
I mean, just to digress for a moment, but you know, I go to a lot of investment conferences, and about a decade ago, one of the display trade show booths people with a mining company or a project came and got me and kind of escorted me over there.
They really want to talk to me and my team about their copper-based solar panels.
Well, I followed their story, and it really never materialized.
Well, see, this gets to the data center question.
So, data centers in the U.S., as you know, are having a very difficult time finding power.
And I've also looked deeply into this.
The gas turbines have a multi-year wait time.
The power grid is already at capacity for the eastern states.
And the fastest way to provide power is to build solar.
I know.
I'm laughing.
You know, and I know.
Sorry, I can't help it, but go ahead.
Well, okay, but two things about that.
Number one, you need a lot of land because these data centers are run like gigawatts of energy going into the AI training.
So, you need a big farm like a thousand acres and fill it with solar panels.
But then the sun doesn't shine 24/7.
So, you need batteries.
You need batteries to grid shift, and then you need triple the solar capacity of what your data center is using at minimum, triple because of rain and night and things like that.
So, then you need all this battery technology, and then the batteries end up the most efficient ones coming up from Samsung, use silver.
So, you're back to silver, you know, like silver is the irreplaceable element in this whole chain.
Well said, it's very interesting.
I mean, you know, I just was on another interview earlier and very, you know, conservative, not hyperbolic in any way, fund manager, money manager, brokerage house.
And he said, you know, well, what do you, me, think about the silver price for this year?
And he said, you think it'll go to 200, as one of another well-known commentator has said.
And I said, I don't think so.
Certainly, I don't know.
But I said, I don't think 150 is out of the question for this year at all.
I mean, we already hit over 120, and we're already back to what 8587 is doing in our interview.
Silver is strong and getting stronger.
And we keep saying that it sounds perhaps hyperbole, but it's not.
It's a required, essential, irreplaceable asset required for a high-tech society, period.
And that, let it sink in.
What else are you going to do?
You can experiment with graphene.
You can talk about copper solar panels and all this stuff, but the march goes on.
And if you do a full analysis as you just outlined, it seems to come back to silver anyway.
Right, right.
I've even been critical of some of the people I call the AI optimists.
And I mean, in essence, I'm an AI optimist in some ways, but there are AI utopia people who think that AI alone will solve the problem of all critical minerals.
And I don't understand how that could even work because the minerals are still necessary to run all the AI data centers.
The robots have to be made with these minerals and rare earths, and they all need battery packs, and all the drones need battery packs.
And just on and on, whatever you want to build in the world, you're going to need physical elements to build those things, especially if they're electronic.
Oh, absolutely.
Well, there's a guy named Craig Timsdale, and he boiled down the strategic mineral situation.
And what he talked about, of course, is that availability is more important than price.
The governments will intervene directly and indirectly, as you've already talked about.
But stockpiles are insufficient.
Years and just-in-time inventory have left nations exposed.
Rebuilding stockpiles are beyond our ability almost.
You can't just flip a switch and create the supply, environmental permitting and capital constraints we talked about, meaning persistent shortages.
So silver is at a crossroads, a monetary demand, industrial necessity, and strategic vulnerability.
The key takeaway, strategic metals are transforming from free market pricing to security-driven allocation.
And we could see where the government says, wait a minute, they already said there's a floor on these critical minerals.
Silver's Strategic Crossroads00:07:31
What if they set the floor of silver at 100?
Okay.
I don't think that's unreasonable.
Well, that's the lowest of the level.
All right.
Now, what do they do?
Well, it's security-driven.
What does that mean?
That they get to allocate what's in the SLV and some of these other holding ETFs that hold physical silver for strategic purposes?
I don't know, Mike, but I wouldn't rule it out.
Yeah, no kidding.
Kind of a brokerage-level confiscation, but not really.
I mean, they get paid, but the government says you have to sell it to us.
Yeah.
It's not quite confiscated.
We're stacking silver because we want to be out of the paper pairs.
Right, exactly.
Okay, as we're coming up on the end of the hour here, I want to give you a chance to talk about what you offer at your website, themorganreport.com, because you've helped many of our listeners over the years.
You want to talk about your site?
Yeah, so you don't have to be a member.
I mean, first of all, I give a free newsletter.
You can sign up for that.
That's step one.
This is a three-step process.
We've broken it down pretty simple for everybody.
If you're new or if you're not, you can go on the website.
Step one is get the free newsletter.
Step two is watch a documentary or two, The Four Horsemen, which is an overview of the end of empire and the Silver Sunrise, which is a critique on the fear, stress, and money, fear, stress, and control that money has in most people's lives.
And step three is more if you want to become a paid member.
And you don't have to.
Some people just hit the consultation button and they want to have a one-on-one for 30 minutes.
You get a lot done in 30 minutes of how not to get burned, where the best place to store is.
Do you need something overseas?
What are the restrictions going overseas and stuff like that?
I mean, there's all kinds of questions I get, but, and I'm not trying to sell the consulting service, but it is there because some people are unaware of it.
And they say, oh, my goodness, I wish I would have known this before because you helped me so much on what I wanted to accomplish.
Yeah.
And I just want to mention that's a link on the top of your site, consultations, right there.
So, yeah, that's definitely worth exploring.
You've helped many of our people.
Okay, so you notice I haven't asked you to predict the price of silver because that seems like a pointless exercise, right?
Well, I think I said it earlier.
I mean, my friend with the brokerage house, he's going for $150 this year.
I agreed with it.
Okay, that seems reasonable in my mind as well.
But as the final question to you, though, rather than a price prediction, what do you think, can you predict the dynamics of the fundamentals, the supply and the demand side?
Like, what big changes do you see happening this year in supply or demand?
I see even greater awareness from the general public on the precious metals at large, silver in particular.
And I think we're going to see retail come back into this market where they realize that this may be one of the very few asset classes that puts you outside the boundaries of the traditional financial structure.
And people that appreciate what I just said will actually take action because as we get to the end of the end of the age of empire, the end of the fiat money fiasco, people are going to be coming more and more self-reliant, which is you as put the health ranger moniker on you, has been instrumental.
In fact, that's how I discovered you was as a health ranger.
And then, you know, so much more than that.
And I knew you were.
It's just that, you know, having the honor of being able to be with you on these interviews, you know, we are bringing important information to people across the board, whether they take action or not, we have no control over.
But as things become more and more difficult, the more you can become self-reliant, and the community is very important.
I want to bring that out as well.
But the more your community can become self-reliant outside of the normal structure that we're used to relying upon, as the grid becomes more vulnerable, as security becomes more difficult, as the fluctuations in food and energy cost more and go up and down.
You really have to take a deep breath and get grounded and realize that we're in a situation that demands some real heart-to-heart, head-to-head community that can help each other in, let's say, the trials that I see ahead.
Yeah, well said.
I'm glad you mentioned that.
And it seems like that decentralization away from the central authorities and who print, they keep printing currency, obviously, which devalues everybody else's currency.
But decentralization is one of the key themes.
That's why I have the show, Decentralize TV.
So, David, look, I just want to thank you for all that you're doing.
And you've helped so many people over the years.
You've always had a very reasoned approach.
I've learned so much from you over the years.
And I'd like to think that my approach right now has been inspired by your approach.
It's like, keep the emotions out of it.
Do your research, dig, dig, dig, find out fundamentals, and then stop listening to the crowd because the crowd, they're all insane or they're panicked or they're driven by greed.
And all those things will get you into trouble.
Right?
Exactly.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, thank you so much.
Anything else you want to add before we wrap this up?
No, I don't.
Just keep on doing what you're doing.
I'm on your mailing list.
I see you've put out a lot of specials.
You usually do.
And, you know, you're on silver.
I mean, really, if you're kind of just making ends meet, the best thing you can do is have an extra supply of food.
It's a no-lose bet, especially if you can get it on a sale price.
And just be good to each other.
You know, we, whatever separates us is not what we should focus on.
We should really focus on more of what makes us, you know, together than apart.
I mean, we are all Americans and we don't have to agree on everything, but dog on it.
I think we really, when it gets down to the basics, we all want to be honest, truthful, and care for ourselves and our families.
And believe me, the government may put up a big facade that they care about you, but the reality is you don't.
We've got to care for each other.
Yeah.
Well said.
All right.
Well, stand by, David.
Don't disconnect.
I just want to tell the audience, thank you for watching.
That's David Morgan.
ThemorganReport.com is the website.
And of course, you can catch more of my interviews at brightion.com and articles at naturalnews.com.
And David, I will do an article based on this interview.
And I'm also, I've got, oh, I forgot to tell you, David, I created my own Asian guy avatar.
My Asian guy is named Mr. Huang, and he's an AI avatar.
He's older and wiser than the original Asian guy.
And Mr. Huang is the economics guy, and he's got a lot of great things to say about precious metals.
So you're going to see Mr. Huang rolling out here soon on my platforms.
But I'm not trying to trick anybody.
I'm like, yeah, he's AI avatar.
And basically, he's trained on everything, like he's going to be trained on this interview, as well as everything else we've ever done, David.
Valentine's Gift of Great Nutrition00:04:00
So welcome to 2026, right?
The age of AI avatars.
Okay.
Well, no one can replace you, David.
So thanks for being who you are and stay connected.
And we'll talk again soon.
All right.
Thanks for watching everybody.
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