David Hunter Big Precious Metals Moves And Corrections Are Close

TITLE: David Hunter - Big Precious Metals Moves and Corrections Are Close CHANNEL: Auctus Metal Portfolios DATE: 2026-05-29 ---TRANSCRIPT--- Grow an actively managed portfolio of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium with Octus Metals today.

What it really is is this is one big Ponzi scheme and we’re reaching the end of the Ponzi scheme where the music stops and you find out that there’s really nothing underneath this. You know, it was all blown up by debt and and money on currency. Welcome back to another Octus Edge. I’m your host Patrick Viera. Known as the contrarian, David Hunter stops by to give us his take on the economy and of course precious metals. David, thank you for stopping by. How are you doing? Hi Patrick, great to see you again. It’s been quite a while. Yes, it has. Glad to have you back on. Yes, it’s definitely been a while. Um, I want to start off and and touch on an outlook where you have where you are looking at $7,000 gold. [snorts] So, I want to ask you, how do we get there? Yeah, so we obviously we’ve had quite a run here. You know, gold only a couple years ago was back in the mid to low 2000s and I’ve raised my targets a few times since then. I was at 3,400 and then I raised it to 4,000 and 5,000 and 5,500 and yesterday I raised my price and then 6,800 in February after the sell-off. Uh, yesterday I raised my target to 7,000. Um, I think you know, a lot of it’s monetary. We’re obviously seeing all kinds of you know, money printing around the world, not so much short-term here, but but over over time that’s been the case. I think you’re you’re going to see a a very weak dollar going forward. I think that will be part of the move from, you know, 4,400 up to 7,000. Um, and obviously there’s all kinds of geopolitics out there and lots of lots of reasons to have consternation about you know worldwide situation. So So I think gold gets a bid under those circumstances and you know the other the other metal silver also does. So and I I also raised my silver price yesterday. I had increased it at going coming into 2026 in my first quarter letter I increased to 125. And we quickly got up to 120 20 122 within weeks of that. And so when when it sold off the first time went down to the mid 60s I raised my target to from 125 to um

And yesterday I increased my target to 200. So that’s where I’m at. I know there are few people out there higher than me but not too many. Most you know Michael Oliver’s the high guy out there on the street talking about three to five hundred dollars and saying it could happen this summer. I think my 200 could happen this summer. Doesn’t have to but I think it could. And I don’t you know I can’t get to 300 or more right now but I certainly don’t you know I respect Michael’s work and then you know if we get there more power to him.

Yeah, it’s um a lot of different things to to look at right now when we’re considering the the price action for the the precious metals. Um and we’ll definitely touch on silver but I just wanted to ask you the the current gold price. I think right now it stands at about $4,400 an ounce or somewhere around there. The current gold price does what does it do for you? Does it worry you somewhat? Does it excite you? What is it telling you where it seems to, you know, be um a bit in uh it’s not moving as quickly. It’s it’s a bit uh more labored. Yeah, well, I I am forever telling people on X to um stretch their their time horizon and and have for you know stretch out their their um viewpoint have perception. Um cuz I think you you can or have perspective. Because I think you can get caught up in the day-to-day and it seemed like forever if you’re watching if you’re watching the the price day by day when it when it takes a month to move everybody’s going oh, it’s it’s stuck in the mud. What’s going on? Um when you’re looking at a picture that’s, you know, 20 years or 10 years or even 5 years, you get an entirely different perspective. I mean, gold had a great run from from the low 2000s to 5500 in a couple years, you know, a few years. Um and people people then expect it to do that all the time. It’s like they, you know, and it is moving. Um so so what we’ve had since February we had, you know, the the big run up to

5500. That was a a big jump. I mean, we were down at 3000 not long before that. So, that was a big run. Um it needed to consolidate that and it it did that initially in February and then and then the Iran war started in, you know, right as March 1st came. And again, the metals are risk off. I mean, they are they I mean, they are risk on. And so, when when the market decided when investors decided it’s time to take some chips off table to reduce our risk because of what’s going on in Iran um it wasn’t just stock market. it was metals that got hit. So, I think you know, number one, it was a big run-up, so it it deserved a consolidation of a few months. And number two, the Iran war gave it an excuse to to carry that. The The first sell-off in February could have been it if we hadn’t had Iran, but it probably makes more sense that it did need more time to consolidate. So, I don’t view it as anything but just a normal consolidation. I know there are people talking bearishly and lower prices, and it has to go back to whatever, you know, below 4,000. Um, I don’t think so. I think we’re very close to a turn here. Um, could be any day now. And I think it’s off to the races again. Now, obviously, Iran’s still sitting out there as a as a problem until that you know, if we get a negotiated settlement and the strait opens up and oil prices come down, and it looks like um, Iran’s been resolved at least for, you know, a quite a while. Um, I think that will that will cheer up investors everywhere. You know, stocks, bonds, um, metals, everything. So, Iran’s still kind of the big the big thing sitting out there that needs to get resolved, but you know, it’s hard to know. You know, the Iranians play games. They talk like they’re going to, you know, meet meet you and and have a settlement, and then then the you know, the terms change, or they make ridiculous statements, or what have you. I think you just have to let that play out. Um, you can’t guess it. Um, but I do feel, looking at just looking at the markets themselves, st- um, without, you know, without trying to guess Iran, it does look like we’re very close to a turn in the metals, and I think it will be off to the races.

That’s a great point because I think um gold and silver precious metals they’re basically a a mid a mid-term investment at best, mid to long-term. And I think what happens is we get caught up in in the short-term the short-term noise and uh there may be a thousand short-term incidents that will happen before you even hit a mid-term much less even a long-term. So, I think you know, we we lose sight of of the long-term investment. But, it’s interesting what with what you said about Iran because say let’s if things should um calm down a bit [snorts] will we then see the fundamentals start to take over the the psyche of investors uh where right now we’re seeing more monetary policy uh taking over the the psyche of investors? Oh, for sure. I mean, for sure because um you’ve got obviously at any time if a if a market uh and obviously going back to early February, you had a very overbought market. Um when you when you get something like a a an uncertainty of a war it’s obviously going to change the psyche of investors. It’s obviously going to have them It’s It’s actually remarkable where where that we’re where we are. I mean people forget um in February um February yeah, it was yeah, before the I think before Iran it was either February or early March. Um silver was down to

And $62 and and gold had fallen down to 4200 I think it was maybe it’s slightly below that. Um we’re above those numbers. The Iran war is not resolved yet. Um it’s remarkable they’ve held steady. I I I the look there is very bullish. We’ve got, you know, wedge pattern in in both that look like they resolve to the upside in a in a pretty vertical way. Uh so, I I think it’s just a matter of probably days before we’re off to the races. Again, who knows for sure, but um I do think it’s going to be a strong summer, and you could get all the way to my targets by Labor Day. You might not. If it stretches, you know, for another month two or three, who cares? But, I’m just saying it could happen that fast that we go from, you know, silver at 73 to silver at 200. We could go, you know, gold at 4,400 or slightly below to, you know, to gold 7,000. Those are remarkable runs if they can happen in the next three or four months.

Interesting where we’re we’re looking at these outlook for for silver prices, for gold prices. And um UBS at um the uh CNBC website, UBS recently came out and said, “Silver’s breakout 2025 rally has created the conditions for demand destruction among buyers of the precious metals, according to analysts.” We love all these uh unnamed people. But David, at what price do you see demand destruction occurring with silver? I mean, we’re looking at a $200 price target. And that demand destruction, would it come from a price spike, or would it be a continuous maintained elevated silver prices to to cause it? I I’m not sure where they’re coming up with that. You never know exactly whether somebody’s got a preordained view of where silver should go after a big run, and so they’re just coming up with a a reasoning or rationale for that, or what, but the you know, we we all hear that the the amount of um silver required in in all these new technologies including AI, EV obviously, in solar panels, etc. Silver silver demand is growing. It’s not shrinking. And yes, I I think I know where it’s coming from. There’s been talk about substitutions with copper and things like that to try to you know, and that’s that’s an economic postulate that’s been around forever is when when prices rise for one good, you find the substitution if you can. So, you know, that can happen at the margin. I don’t think it changes the supply-demand picture in any meaningful way that would cause silver to sell off in any big way. And and those changes happen slowly. You can’t immediately just say, “Okay, we’re substituting copper for silver or we’re doing this or that or we’re we’re just going to stop production cuz silver’s too high.” So, and and you’ve obviously heard the government say we’re going to include silver in those those strategic metals that we need to kind of make sure we can can keep the supply coming. So, I think I think you And the other thing about silver is it is a monetary metal as well. It’s you know, yes, supply-demand from an industrial standpoint is is more important silver than gold, but silver is still poor man’s gold. You know, when gold moves because it’s $4,400 on its way to $7,000, there are lots of people that would prefer to buy silver at $75. So, so I I think it has a monetary component even though it is more of an industrial metal than gold is. So, I you know, I could be wrong, but I don’t think demand destruction is is the reason to be concerned here. I will say where where I think demand destruction will take place is not for that reason so much but because where you know I have a a global bust forecast for next year could start late this year even but if we go into global bust which you know just simply I’d say is something along the lines of 2008-9 where you have a big financial crisis accompanied by a pretty severe downturn in the economy if we see that you’re going to see demand in all industrial goods um you know fall and silver will will see that as well so I that’s where I think you can get the big correction in in the metals. You if if I’m right about targets or anywhere close you know you could have gold at 7,000 and see it fall maybe maybe to 4,000 or below you know certainly back to 4,000 in a bust. If silver goes to 200 and I’m right that that’s where it goes to you know silver could fall by more than 50% in a bust. So that’s where I think you’ll see the big correction and and by the way that should not be um something that shocks people. We just came through silver going from 122 to 60 to basically low 60s so it got cut in half in a matter of days or in a matter of a couple weeks so so it’s not it’s not beyond belief to say that in a global downturn silver could get hit by more than 50% and gold could get hit by you know certainly 30 or 40% so so that’s where I think you you do get a big correction and then coming out of that global bust, my longer-term um forecast for gold is and target for gold is 20,000. My long-term target for silver, uh which for a long time was uh four or five hundred dollars, I raised that to a thousand recently. So, I I see that as probably sometime out in the early 2030s. Um so, you have to go through probably a weakness next year. And then, you know, 28 to say 2032 could be, you know, unbelievable in terms of the the kind of price rises we see in the precious metals. Yeah, David, I think you also adjusted your numbers for the S&P and and for [snorts] Nasdaq. Uh those targets. Are we still in that that melt-up phase? And and when you talked about the bust, are these the two culprits that are really going to start that drain uh start that drain moving? Right, right. Yeah, I did raise when I wrote um raised my targets on the metals yesterday, I also raised my targets on all four of the indexes that I forecast. So, the S&P, um I increased that from um 9,500 to 10,000. So, that’s I’m I I’m already before these raises, I was way higher than anybody on the street and these drives just on the street. So, these numbers may seem a little bit um wild, but I’m pretty confident in my my forecast. And and I I raised S&P to 10,000 from 9,500. I raised Nasdaq from 32,000 to 36,000. I raised my Dow target from 65,000 to 67,000. And I raised my Russell 2000 target from 3,800 to 4,000. So, if you do the numbers on those, they’re all probably somewhere between the low 30% and the high 30% type increase from present prices. Um and I I think we could be there this summer. So, that’s a again a pretty pretty um amazing thing if we see it is that you could see 30% 30 to 40% increase in in the equity indexes in a matter of a few months. Why I make that call is because I believe we have entered not only are we in a melt up, but we’ve entered the parabolic melt up stage, which means it’s going to go vertical here. My thesis is all along is that if you go back and look at this whole cycle going back to probably 2009 um each successive leg has gotten steeper than the previous leg. And then what happens in in the final leg, which is what I think we’ve entered um it goes vertical. You know, we we’ve seen it in Micron, we’ve seen it in Nvidia in past years. When when these things go parabolic you cover an awful lot of ground in a hurry and I think I think we when we came out of that that um Iran war correction back at 6200 on the S&P and and ran up to 7500 here was the beginning of this thing really steepening. And it’s funny to watch, you know, all the analysts on the street, all lot of commentators on the street, they keep wanting to see a correction because they just can’t believe this thing can move that far. You move over 1,000 points and not correct. But that’s what happens in a parabolic is yeah, you can see one, two, or three percent pullbacks at any time based on Iran or you know, news or anything else. But you’re not going to have a drawn out five or 10% correction or more I don’t think until we reach the top. I’m I’m calling this now, you know, the it’s a it’s it’s ultimately going to be the end of a 44-year secular bull market. I had been saying 43 years, but it it tracks back it dates back to August of

So, we’re coming up on that 44th anniversary and I think it pretty much will be around that time where you could see uh a top of a secular bull market that goes back 40-plus years. Um and um and then I think you have a big bear market follow. So, global bust means it refers to the economy and the financial [snorts] system. I think just like 2008, you’re going to have a big financial um meltdown, financial crisis that accompanies the economic uh downturn and and then that’ll be accompanied by a bear market that could could be as much as 80%. So, in the last bear market that was anything close to that was 1929 when we went down 90%, but I will remind people that in 2008-9, I believe it was, that we we went down 66% I think in the S&P. So, when people when I say 80%, people go, “Oh, you In this day and age, that will never happen, you know, they can print money, they can do whatever.” It was only last cycle that we had 66% decline. This one I think it’s going to be bigger. The reason I say that is because of the leverage in the system. You know, we are and I’m not talking just margin on stocks. I’m talking about overall leverage in in the global economy. You know, we’re at 33 uh 330 trillion and counting in global debt. A lot of it’s sovereign, but a lot of it’s private debt. A lot of it’s um you know private credit a lot of it’s off balance sheet credit. We’ve got We’ve got leverage everywhere. It is so much higher than it was in 2000 going into 2008. So it stands to reason that when we have a downturn that leverage is going to hit us even harder this time around. So you know, that’s kind of the thesis behind it, but or the rationale behind it, but that’s that’s in a nutshell that’s what it where I think we’re headed.

You talked about the the melt up. Uh you talked about parabolic. Uh but before we get to to to those two points especially the the the downside what what are the signs we we should be looking for that we are getting close to that market top? Yeah, I’m a I’m a contrarian. I’ve been a a contrarian my entire 53-year career. Um it comes naturally to me naturally to me. I mean I learned it too. It was something that you you learn the cycle the cycle the cycle how important sentiment is in markets, but but I’m naturally comfortable having a view that’s completely opposite to the street. And uh and you know, people people criticize me when when I’m that contrarian people will criticize me when they think I’m consensus and they’ll go I thought you were a contrarian I go contrarian investing means at at the big turning points at the big inflection points you’re probably going to be a lone wolf. You’re going to be very alone in your view. But in the middle of the runs a lot of times the consensus is right and it’s not you know, I’m I’m not contrary just to be contrary. But what is going on right now is we are in the last stage the last leg of the bull market. So yes, there’s lots of bulls out there because um you know the market’s come a long way from where it was I mean the Dow just to give you some perspective the Dow at the bottom in 1982 I was running equity pension money back then and I was responsible for an entire you know the entire company it was a I was corporate you know inside you know they manage their own pension funds so I was running their equity pension fund you know I was responsible for making the call so I I went in in August of 1982 the Dow was 780 or 782 was at the bottom of the Dow in in 1982 from 782 we’re now above 50,000 that’s how far we’ve come in 44 year 43 plus years and so you know yes we’re we’re we’ve come a long way and yes in general the sentiment is bullish sure you know when you look at kind of some of the sentiment indicators and the you know stochastics and things like that they all are up up high on their long-term numbers you know very bullish or very overbought that’s to be expected given where we are from a shorter terms perspective though there’s still a lot of skepticism in in the you know certainly among institutional investors they fought this thing from the tooth of from the 2022 bottom in October of 2022 all the way up till now you’ve heard invest institutional investors keep talking about well this thing is high valuation how far can it go it can’t go much farther you know they they may raise their targets but they don’t raise them very far that’s all a sign that they have one foot out the door they’re they there is a wall of worry yes they have to be invested yes Yes, they’re the tape has them you know, they’re basically, you know, pulled in by the momentum. So, I’m not saying they’re bearish like bearish of October 22 or bearish like March of 2020 but they’re skeptical and they’re not they’re not all in. What you will be looking for at the top is that all in mentality. When you start hearing um that um this market has legs, you know, the Fed let’s let’s say well let’s say the Iran war ends and oil falls into the 70s, which is my expectation and then from there falls into the 60s. You’re going to see the reflation indexes roll over. You’re going to see the inflation indicators start indicating disinflation again. And you’re going to hear people say, “Oh, the wind is at the Fed’s back again. They can they can they can cut.” Now, it doesn’t mean they’re going to cut in the next month or two, but it means they can build in that expectation that before the end of the year you’re going to see cuts. Right now, they don’t believe you’re going to see cuts. So, you’re going to have that. You’re going to have a a look in the economy that’s it’s not roaring hot. It’s it’s moving along. And you know, areas like manufacturing durable goods are strong because of the big beautiful build and you know um because of reshoring etc. Because of AI and and the power build out, all of that’s going to keep the economy going. Um meanwhile, under the surface, you know, the consumer’s weakening. Certainly half of the consumers are really struggling, but they’re going to have a little bit of relief if oil goes down gas prices go down um and some of the other inflation commodity, you know, commodity inflation turned turns over uh rolls over. Um you’re going to that all is going to feed into the institutional investors and and economists and strategists saying, “This thing’s, you know, this thing’s going to have legs. It’s going to go for another two or three years.” When you hear that, and if it coincides with what I think is going to be a big run-up here, a big parabolical run-up, it’s at that point that I’m going to be starting to get nervous and and say, “I think I’m not going to be able to call the top. I’m not, you know, nobody can know until after the fact what the actual top is, but I think I think that’s what’s going to be certainly putting pressure on me to say, “Enough is enough. I can’t keep raising, you know, my targets. It’s time to look the other way.” I’ll probably be early. My history through 53 years of doing this, both as a money manager and a strategist, is I see things early and then I comment on them early. Um, so, you know, I don’t expect to be late. When when we start to see all these moves, uh, surely there’s going to be a type of a asset rotation starting to happen. Do you think most investors will have time to to to move into this asset rotation, or will they also simply run out of time and and the markets will just the floor will start to fall from from beneath them? History will tell you at market tops you have the most people invested. At market bottoms, you have the least people invested. So, people people tend to buy at tops and sell at bottoms or and, you know, in between, but but so momentum, you know, FOMO, um, you know, momentum of the tape is what I call it, is what pulls investors to the bullish side. Uh, they can talk all they want about fundamentals, technicals, et cetera. Ultimately, it is momentum of the tape that kind of drives sentiment and and and people act on their sentiment. Um I should say this cuz I’m not sure everybody understands this. The reason the reason you want to be bearish when everybody’s bullish is because people have already acted on that bullishness. When when institutions are saying you know, we’re bullish to the moon, you know, we think I’m not saying they’re saying that now, but when they say we’re really optimistic, this thing can run for 2 or 3 years. That doesn’t mean they’re just beginning to invest. That means they’ve acted on that. When when strategists and institutional investors are saying uh I think this thing is going a lot lower, that doesn’t mean they’re about to sell. That means they’ve already sold. They’re they’ve already acted on what they’re telling you. So, when when everybody is fully bullish most of that’s already taken place. And again, I’m not talking about I’m talking generalities. It doesn’t mean there aren’t still people buying every day, but but to to answer your question, at the top everybody, you know, both retail and institutional will be all in. And that’s why the next step will be to start moving it the other way. And then as they come out, they don’t all you know, they don’t just sell everything at the top or or you know, after it roll you know, starts rolling over. They gradually they they the um decumulation stage or the you know, where they’re where where they’re taking money off the table, where they’re removing either selling stocks. That happens through the entire bear market. It doesn’t doesn’t all happen at the you know, in most of it doesn’t happen at the top. Most of it happens closer to the bottom. I am by the way, when we get into a bear market, it won’t be you know, from From down I’m calling let’s say I’m I’m calling for an 80% um bear market. So let’s say 10,000 is the top on the S&P. That’s 2,000 is where it would head for in those numbers. It’s not going to go 10,000 2,000 in a month. You know, it’s going to you might have a step down where you’re down 20 or 30% and then you bounce. And then you go down again or you might go down, you know, even a bigger step and then have a you know, you’ll probably have at least one and probably two, maybe three bear market rallies within the bear market. So, you know, you could go down 40 or 50% and then that retrace half of that decline over two or three months. And then down another you know, 30 40% retrace that um 50% or what have you. So So it will take time for the bear market will play out over, you know, 8 10 12 months. It won’t it won’t be something that happens over a month. Japan went into its uh government went into its equities markets uh bond markets ran uh low to zero rates for some 30 years, I believe. If, let’s say, the Fed has to buy up treasuries, uh goes into the equities markets, um may even go into um some type of uh nationalization of mines or at least buying up shares in mines. Uh low to no interest rates. How does this affect both the investor and the contrarian investor? Good question. So, you’re right. Japan Japan’s done zero interest rate policy for decades. And they’re starting to see the downside of that policy. You know, it works until it doesn’t. As as it as as you do that you’re ultimately creating an inflation problem down the road, right? So, they’re starting to see that and their interest rates are starting to break out to the upside. They have very little wiggle room because they are so leveraged to, you know, the government did so much that they are probably going to be one of the reasons why the bust is so severe or why the economy and and system is so severe because they spent, as you say, 30 years doing this. Um I think they are one of the wild cards or one of the real potential problems in the bust. We will and and again, the globe will see. If I’m right about a global bust and I say it’s bigger than 2008, it’s the biggest downturn uh combined with a financial crisis since the Great Depression. It’s a bust, it’s not a depression, it’s not going to be drawn out. And the reason it’s not going to be drawn out over many years is because of central banks. We will see just like we saw in 2008-9 that that right now they’re saying we’re not going to do that again. We we you know, we realize the error of our ways. Jerome Powell was quoted many times saying, “When we’re not going We’re not going back to a zero interest rate policy. We’re not going back to QE infinity. Those were bad policies. We learned our We We learned from our lessons.” Uh Kevin Warsh would say the same thing if you asked him. Um he wants to in fact shrink the balance sheet now. Right now Not right now, but I mean he’s talking about needing to do that at some point here. Um So, so these guys all think, “Okay, we’re not going to see 2008-9 again.” That’s easy to say, but if if you get something that happens very fast where you know, because of leverage things go from seemingly okay to bad very quickly like they did in October of 2008, um they’re going to abandon that. Now, they’re going to be reluctant to abandon that cuz their mindset is we know what we shouldn’t have done last time. We’re not going to do that again. Uh so, they’re going to be slow to respond. They’re going to respond, but they’ll do it in kind of baby steps. And And when you have a very leveraged system, baby steps don’t work, right? If things can happen fast. So, so every delay is going to lead to some real problems. And they’ll they’ll then take another step towards doing what they should do, but not nearly big enough because they’re reluctant, because they’re they’re fighting the 2008-9 war and saying, “We learned our lessons. We’re not going to do that again.” And And ultimately, what I’m saying is it will take, and not just the Fed, but all central banks, it will take them some time to get to a right-sized policy. They’ll be, you know, that’s where people make a mistake. They think it’s either you ease or you tighten. No, it’s how much are you easing? You know, it’s When you’re in a crisis, it’s it’s what’s What is the needed policy? You know, in 2020, we had to do $5 trillion to pull us out of that mess, right? I’m I’m estimating this time it could be 20 trillion out of the Fed. And And if it’s 20 out of Fed, it’s, you know, 50 or more out of the the world’s central banks. And that will be accompanied by a lot of fiscal expansion as well. So, that’s what you’ll see, but you won’t see it early on. It You’ll see it You won’t see it in in timely enough fashion to head off a bust. At least my my forecast is. Um it will be in response to a bust. They will They will have delayed and delayed enough that the bust will hit. That’s why we’ll have a bust. And then they will I I can say with all kinds of confidence, I know they’ll respond. It’s just when they respond and they won’t be responding in anticipation, they will be responding in after the fact. They will respond to the crisis. So, we will have the bust, but we will also have a very quick, relatively quick, recovery after that because if you print $20 trillion and that’s 20 trillion after a Fed that was only 875 billion total from 20 from 1913 to 2008. Uh, you know, in 2008, we ended October 2008 with 875 billion on our balance sheet. And now we’re talking about Well, you know, we went up to 9 trillion in the pandemic, backed off to 6 and 1/2, and now we’re talking about it maybe being 30 trillion. All right, we’ve come a long way, baby, from from 875 billion. Um, but but that’s if you do that, that does everything you asked about. That That means money’s, you know, obviously to to do 20 trillion means they’re buying every Treasury in sight. Treasury bill, Treasury note, Treasury bond, and they’re probably buying, you know, mortgage-backed securities, they’re buying um maybe they will buy stocks this time, who knows, but um my guess is that’ll be way down the road if they do it. Um, but they’ll be and they’ll be finding places for that money. Like I said, it’ll be accompanied by fiscal fiscal expansion, too. They will be bailing out pension funds. I would guess they’ll be bailing out money market funds or at least, you know, like they did in 2008, you know, don’t break We won’t break the buck um type of policy. You know, they’ll be doing everything they can to keep the system together because without that the system would break because with what I always say is what I’ve been saying for a number of years now is we’re at the we’re in the last decade of a super cycle which I define as this the long cycle between two two depressions. So, between the 1930s and what I think will be the 20 mid-2030s depression. So, this is not the depression. This is the the um shot across the bow before the depression. Um so, it’s a bust because they have because they have a printing press this time around and they can print you know, if we’re in a bust we’re in deflation cuz we’re you know, we’re at 3% inflation let’s say or 3.5% inflation now. If oil goes to 60 again or 50 you know, you’re back down to 1 or 2% inflation and and that means you’re heading into a maybe the worst downturn in 100 years. Um and with 1 or 2% inflation we’ll be in deflation during the bust. So, if we’re in deflation during the bust central banks have almost infinite ability to print money, right? If things are falling they’re not going to worry about inflation. Um so, you’re going to have infinite ability and that’s why you can have another recovery. When we when we go through the next cycle that will be driven by all that money and fiscal fiscal monetary expansion you’re going to have a big inflation cycle with a lag. It won’t you know, we don’t go from deflation to high inflation all at once. But over the course of 6 7 8 years inflation will go from negative to maybe 25% in this country in the US. Um so, it’s worse than the early ’80s. Interest rates will go from zero to maybe high teens or 20% for bonds. You know, uh Treasury bills will probably be, you know, 22-3% or more. Um so if you’ve got and you won’t have you won’t have fixed your fiscal problem because you’re actually going to expand fiscal so that the 40 trillion we talked about today as government debt that could be up 50% or more, maybe even double from there. Um and and 330 trillion global debt could be 500 trillion global debt. So you could have even more leverage. But this time around, meaning the early ’30s you’re going to be looking at high double-digit interest rates. And how do you service debt with high double-digit interest rates? You can’t service it at 5%, right? We’re eating up our entire budget at 5%. How how the heck do we do it at 10 or 15 or 20? So So that’s what I think the longer picture of what we’re doing, uh you know, what where we’re heading. There’s there’s one last very exciting blow-off here in the next two, three, four months. But don’t get overly excited about that because what comes after that I think is going to be pretty negative. You know, David, that that’s one thing with policy makers they can promise everything they want, but unless I see a rainbow around that promise, I’m thinking twice about about what they say. Well, let me just respond to that because what we’ve done is each successive cycle we came out of the Great Depression with all kinds of capacity, right? The capacity was there was plenty of excess capacity, there was no inflation, we had a World War uh we came out of that World War with pent-up demand, uh consumer demand, and housing demand, etc. We’ve gone cycle to cycle to cycle to cycle to cycle with each successive cycle um leading to more debt, more excesses, more inflation, and then that required each successive cycle required more cranking down in terms of fiscal policy and and monetary policy, and we’d overshoot and we’d have each successive cycle generally we’d have a bigger correction, and then we go um blow it back up again and then crank it down. We If you look at the cycles all the way back to, you know, the Great Depression to forward to now, each successive cycle is getting more extreme. We’ve now reached that crazy time, that’s why it’s been so crazy that we had 2008-9, then we had, you know, we have what I’m calling for here so quickly on top of that. Cuz normally you have something like 2008-9, and that’s generational, and you say, “Well, it’ll be many cycles before we get there.” But we’ve been blowing up the cycles to, you know, bigger excesses and bigger imbalances each time, and it’s like somebody described it as a buggy whip, you know, the you know, the the cycle get more volatile. And we’re at that last, you know, in that last 10 years of that super cycle. So that what it what it really is is this is one big Ponzi scheme, and we’re reaching the end of the Ponzi scheme where the music stops, and you find out that there’s really nothing underneath this. You know, it was all blown up by debt and and money, you know, and currency. So, just kind of to sum up everything we’ve talked about. You you mentioned pensions, and and I wanted to ask you because during the the the Biden administration, uh he basically gave fiduciaries the green light to go ahead and and invest people’s pensions in ESG types of uh uh programs, I guess, or or portfolios. Um environmental, social, governance. Uh fiduciary responsibilities were gone. They basically had the green light just go ahead and move people’s money in there. Today, we have Larry Fink talking about pension funds again and moving them into AI types of uh portfolios, I guess. You have a knowledge of pension funds. Is this the right thing to be doing? Absolutely not. I mean, we we’re we’re Pension funds, um both private and public, there’s so many issues. One, you know, they they tend to be like everybody else. They’re they’re fighting the last war. They’re copying what should have been done last time or what have you. But so, you know, they decided many years ago, um I think uh Yale may have been one of the first and they were so successful in their endowment that, you know, Harvard copied it, etc. But they decided long ago that, “Hey, we need alternative investments in our pension portfolios cuz it it, you know, we don’t have the volatility we get from market portfolios. You If you If you buy public stocks and public bonds, you know, you have volatility, but if you buy private equity and private uh credit, um it gets doesn’t get marked to market every day. So, they and they decided that that would In their infinite wisdom was somehow reducing risk. And so, we’ve got that. Well, what what, you know, when when we’re going into what I’m describing, the worst thing you can have is leverage, right? What What did we used to call private equity? Lever- Leverage buyouts. You know, Mike Milken, leverage buyouts. So, they they They came up with a pretty name private equity. But leverage, they’re very leveraged. Um private credit, obviously, is another, you know, it’s more leverage in in their portfolios. Uh and and less less transparency. So, we are looking at both public and private pension funds, as well as endowments, as well as institutional portfolios, loaded with this kind of stuff that I think, you know, is going to show up as a a bad decision when when all the when when, you know, the proverbial the proverbial crap hits the fan. Um you know, it’s going to be it’s going to be tough. Um and and not not to mention, like you said, all the ESG uh whenever we decide um that we’re going to use we’re going to encourage retail to do things that they never did before because institutional dude does it, it usually turns out to be they’re getting the the wrong end of the the curve, you know, they’re they’re getting it after all the money’s been made, you know, they’re going in at the top. So, I I you know, there’s a lot of problems out there. Those are some of them. David Hunter, before we head out, can you let the good people know how they can follow you and get more of your views? Sure, I’m I’m on X every day. My way of communicating is through replies cuz I have 300,000 followers and it allows, you know, so I I’m, you know, I’m communicating to people who who have learned to how I work and kind of understand that if you follow me, you have to get your settings set up so that you see replies. So, I’ll have somebody who’s followed me for a number of years and they’ll go, “I haven’t seen you in 2 years. Where have you been?” And I’ll go, “I’m on there every day. I probably post a dozen or two or three dozen posts a day. Your settings are not set up to see that.” So, so people have to figure that one out. I can’t do it for them, but um just so people understand how how my my uh feed works, anyway. Um and then I put out a quarterly letter um, by subscription. So, that means there’s a cost to it. Um, it it is a macro letter. Um, I have lots of retail people. It was originally institutional letter I started writing in 2000 after I retired. Um, I realized that, hey, I, you know, I write pretty plainly. People, you know, retail people can understand it. So, I started offering it to uh, you know, sprinkling of retail and it’s now grown into it’s more retail letter than anything. But, it’s the same letter. Um, and it, you know, I don’t do any, give any advice. I don’t make recommendations. It’s just a, basically, I make my forecasts and and give my rationale’s for why I believe what I believe. So, um, but if people are interested um, they can direct message me, which means use the X chat. Uh, and I will provide them the details for the, you know, cost and what’s involved in signing up for it. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And it’s, um, it’s good to get in contact with David because David, he will respond. So, if you guys got questions out there, go ahead and, uh, and let him know what what they are. David Hunter, we want to thank you, want to thank you tremendously for your time and I I hope we can do this again soon. And let’s see how summer comes into play. Yeah, let’s see how much fun we have. It could be a lot of fun. Thanks, Patrick. All right, thanks again, David. That was The Contrarian, David Hunter, sharing his views on the economy and precious metals. And if you own or are thinking of owning precious metals, consider giving us a call. We actively manage precious metals portfolios to optimize them for today’s macro environment. Visit us at www.octusmetals.com.