The Gold Exchange Podcast with Keith Weiner Keith Weiner

This week’s episode of the Gold Exchange Podcast, Keith Weiner interviews independent precious metals advisor Claudio Grass. Claudio explains his sound money origin story and how the rest of the world understands gold vs Americans' understanding. The wide ranging conversation spans everything from history, to covid lockdowns, to how societies change, to our relationship to money and even political principles and philosophy.

This week’s episode of the Gold Exchange Podcast explores the topic of Central Banks, most notably the US Federal Reserve. Monetary Metals’ CEO Keith Weiner explores why the Fed was created and what deleterious effects it has on our economy including inflation, boom bust cycles and monetary debasement in this recorded talk given to investment bankers.

This week’s episode of the Gold Exchange Podcast explores the idea of profits, and why it matters how you get them. Much of the financial world has confused the idea of profit with price appreciation. Or as we like to say, they confuse investment with speculation. Investment is deploying capital productively in a business for a yield. Speculation is betting one's capital on an asset price rising.

There's a reason why this confusion exists. Central Banks have manipulated and distorted the most important market on planet earth - the market for money and credit. Interest rates are unhinged, and have been falling for over four decades. This has created an investment environment where more and more activity is speculative, and less and less is real investment. While both actions may produce a "profit" there is a significant difference. The results of one build civilization. The results of the other, tear it down.

The history of the Nixon Shock doesn't begin in 1971, it goes all the way back to 1792. As Keith wrote about in his article, Nixon's decision to close the gold window was the culmination of a long history of bad decisions. Decisions where government repeatedly and wrongly interfered in matters of money and credit, where each subsequent decision compounded the ill-effects of the previous one. In other words, the Nixon Shock is the not-so-grand-finale of a long and checkered history of the federal government messing with people's money.

Can there be innovation in physical gold? Absolutely! In our increasingly digital reality, innovation in the material world may seem a bit passé, but not to Dr. Adam Trexler, founder and President of Valaurum. Valaurum produces the Aurum® - the smallest verifiable unit of gold for investment available on the market today. Adam joined Keith and John for an invigorating discussion on what the future of gold is going to look like.

"We're at the tip of the iceberg in terms of mainstream gold investment in the United States."

That was how Adam began his thoughts on the state of gold today. Keith and Adam take a deep dive into all things gold - what makes gold money and the obstacles that stand in its way, the different forms and functions of gold, legal tender laws, and how we're rediscovering the foundational economic truths about gold and money in new and exciting ways. We were delighted to welcome Adam as our first guest on the Gold Exchange Podcast and we hope you enjoy their conversation!

It’s the proverbial elephant in the room. Everybody knows it’s there, but nobody wants to talk about it. When it is discussed (which is rare), it’s brushed aside, made to look like it’s under control, or kicked a bit further down the road. Meanwhile, it just keeps growing. Those that do see it as a problem tend to misdiagnose its cause, which assures their proposed remedies will miss the mark.

We’re talking of course about the national debt.

Now, as if it were a last-ditch, throw-your-hands-up-in-exasperation kind of attempt, there’s been talk of simply “resetting” the debt. We are reminded of Boromir at the outset of the Fellowship: “One does not simply reset the debt…”