Rick Rule on Gold: ‘$9,000 Isn’t That Farfetched’

James Connor 0:05
Hi, and welcome to Wealthion. I’m James Connor. Today, my guest is Rick Rule, and we’re gonna get Rick’s views on the economy, interest rates and inflation. One of the assets that does well during times of high inflation like we’re going through right now is physical gold. And if you would like to learn more about physical gold and how it can benefit your portfolio, consider visiting our sister company HardAssetsAlliance.com. It’s used by over 100,000 clients, and it has over $3 billion in assets, once again, HardAssetsAlliance.com. And there’s a link below in the show notes. Now for my discussion with Rick Rule. Rick, thank you very much for joining us today. How are things in the great state of Washington.

Rick Rule 0:47
Life is great, James, the better for being engaged in conversation with you. Thank you.

James Connor 0:52
And has it stopped raining?

Rick Rule 0:54
It has stopped raining right now. It’s lovely and pretty outside. I don’t want to press my luck. But so far, so good.

James Connor 0:54
So if I was going to go to the coast of Washington, I guess now would be a good time to go.

Rick Rule 1:06
August is probably better. But in the spring when it’s nice, I say when it’s nice. It’s very nice.

James Connor 1:13
Rick, let’s move on. Now I want to ask you about the economy and get your views on inflation and interest rates. And the last time we spoke, you are surprised at the strength of the economy and just tell resilient it was and it continues to grow at three to 4% annualized, the jobless rate is below 4%. And it has been now for many quarters. And we recently had a very strong non farm payrolls number and also a strong CPI number. What are your views on the US economy? And do you have any concerns either domestically or globally?

Rick Rule 1:46
I’m continue to be impressed by the strength of the US economy. As we said in our last discussion, I would have expected a doubling in the nominal interest rate, which is what we saw to have a much more deleterious impact on the US economy, given how much private credit there is in the system. It would appear to that confidence remains strong. Despite the ballooning interest payments that are taking place at the federal state and local level. All I can say paradoxically, is so far, so good. The Canadian economy appears less strong, which makes some sense it’s a smaller economy, a smaller domestic market. But the strength of the US economy impresses me. I suspect that given this year is an election year, that we will see the Fed under increasing pressure to lower interest rates. As a human being and a market participant. I hope they don’t. But I suspect that the political pressure to lower interest rates, even despite a very strong economy will be such that the Fed will feel the need to lower interest rates, which I think will have a very positive impact, if not on the economy and not on the country, on the stocks that you and I follow. I want to take a little issue with something you said to James which is to say a strong CPI number. I would argue that the CPI is not a relevant gauge of inflation. If your definition of inflation involves the deterioration of the purchasing power of your savings, relative to cost increases. The CPI, among other things, doesn’t include the largest household expense that you and I face, which is tax, and a cost of living index that doesn’t include tax is an erroneous index. So I would suggest to you that while the CPI number doesn’t look unattractive, it’s an irrelevant statistic, because it doesn’t measure the cost of living and the confidence that I talked about before. I think we’ll be challenged over time when Americans and Canadians understand just how much less far their paycheck goes than it went five years ago. But let’s enjoy the economy that we have.

James Connor 4:28
Well, I agree with you 100% on inflation and before we do a deep dive on inflation. I want to I want to just touch on one thing you said about the Fed you’re not suggesting that the Fed is political, are you?

Rick Rule 4:41
I’m in touch with several low level people at the Fed because I have a bank in organization in front of among other things, the fit I need to start by saying despite the fact that they’re my regulators, I’ve come to like these people. Nothing could surprise me more. But I do and And I think that left to their own devices, the Fed would stay strong. I think at least the low level employees in the Fed believe that they’re the only institution, the United States standing between Congress and the demolition of the purchasing power of the US dollar. The internal bias within the Federal Reserve, at least represented by the young people there that I know, is very much that they need to stand strong on interest rates. My suspicion is that the political pressure on the Fed governors, however, in an election year, when both parties or at least when the power elites within both parties would like to see lower interest rates. My suspicion is that the political and social forces at play around the Fed governors will prove to be too strong for them to stay strong.

James Connor 5:54
Yes, it’s very hard to escape the long arm of the government, regardless of who you are.

Rick Rule 6:01
Well, I think that’s right. And obviously, the Fed governors, although independent, or, and I don’t mean this in a corrupt sense, but they’re subject to influence. They exist in the communities and within the power structures, that they operate in an AI. Without belaboring the point. I think that there’s a political bias to lower interest rates that will ultimately overwhelm the institutional bias within the Fed for a strong dollar.

James Connor 6:29
Okay, so let’s talk about the debt levels. And as you alluded to earlier, the Biden administration is doing anything and everything they can to maintain control in this upcoming election. And they are employing some of the most aggressive fiscal policy campaigns that we’ve seen in decades, maybe ever in the history of the US spending trillions of dollars, one time a trillion dollars used to sound like a lot of money, but now it’s being thrown around. Like, it means nothing anymore. But And just recently, Biden, once again, is putting forth this plan where he wants to eradicate all student loans or at least loans for 23 million Americans. What do you think of this plan? And what do you think of the spending policies of the Biden administration?

Rick Rule 7:12
Let’s broaden it, because I think the Republicans are equally culpable. We are adding to our deficit at the rate of a trillion US dollars every 100 days. This is truly astonishing. And the problem isn’t just Biden, although Biden is certainly a problem. The Republicans are completely online with this. Mr. Trump himself when faced with the fact that things like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are unsustainable, suggest that he would like to raise as opposed to lower social security. Both parties are concerned with power. Elections are to quote HL Mencken advanced auctions of stolen property. Mr. Trump is trying to bribe old folks like myself with unsustainable Social Security. Mr. Biden is trying to bribe young people. With student loan repayments, what both parties are involved in is trying to bribe you with your own money. And I think we need to understand that I think we understand today’s politics two ways. One, the old joke, maybe it was Mencken, I don’t know, who said, do you understand the process of politics by looking at the origin of the word poly from the Greek for many, and tick from the English colloquial for small bloodsucking insect? If you think of the process, as involving many small bloodsucking insects, each trying to suck the lifeblood out of the other, you understand the nature of politics. And then of course, the obvious make unquote, elections or advanced auctions of stolen property. And that’s happening before our eyes in the United States. And in Canada.

James Connor 9:08
Well, very good points. And in when you’re in the position of the government, and you want to reduce debt, they have, I guess, three policies, one, they can stop spending. And there’s no way they’re going to do that going into an election of two, they can increase taxes, and they’re never going to do that right, going into an election or otherwise, because they would have a revolt. And I guess the only other possibilities is printing money. And that’s what we’ve seen here in the last number of years. And both Canada and the US. They’re just printing, printing, printing, it’s nonstop. So let’s talk about inflation. And you just made mentioned earlier about the CPI number. I agree with you totally by the way, every time I see that CPI number, I just multiply it by two or three to get the real number. But why don’t we have a discussion on inflation? Now what’s happening?

Rick Rule 9:55
I would urge your listeners to do a thought exercise and look at their budget. and determine for themselves what is happening in terms of the maintenance of the purchasing power of their own savings and their own salaries relative to the package of goods and services that they consume. I’ve tried to do this for five years running now, and I’m not suggesting that this is, by any means an accurate picture. But I would suggest that in terms of the basket of goods and services that I consume, that the purchasing power of my savings is declining by about 7% compounded the when I say basket of goods and services, that includes tax, I’m not sure that I consider tax to be either a good or a service. But the truth is that taxes consume more than 40% of my household budget, to spend, despite my best efforts to the contrary, in any measure of the cost of living, which didn’t include tax for Americans and Canadians is an erroneous sense of the cost of living. But a bit goes beyond that. The big thinkers would have you look at Core CPI, which doesn’t include food or fuel. The problem with that as I like to eat, so that sort of performance mechanism is a very little value to and beyond that. It’s hedonistic ly adjusted, which is to say, the people who compile the index of suit assign arbitrarily, values associated with the allegedly improving quality of the products that you buy. My suspicion, as I say, is that despite the fact that the CPI or the CP lie, as the WAGs describe, it is running at about 2.6% compounded my own arithmetic, the price of gasoline that I put in my vehicle, the price of food, I eat the price of airline tickets, and of course, the price of direct and indirect taxation, suggests to me that the basket of goods and services that I consume is increasing at about 7% compounded, that becomes problematic. Over time, I emphasize over time, many of your listeners who aren’t as old as I won’t have a memory of the late 60s In the early 70s. A period, which I would suggest is eerily similar to the period that we face today, the writing was on the wall with regards to US inflation, beginning in 1967. The combination of the war on poverty which we lost, and the war in Vietnam, which we lost, meant that it was very obvious that government debt and government promises were at an unsustainable level. Despite that it took from 1967 to 1972 or 1973, five or six years, for the average American to have experienced enough deterioration in their purchasing power, that inflation came to be a concern. I think that’s what’s going to happen today. I think what’s going to happen is in one of the out years 2025 2026, I don’t know. But in one of the out years, the incredible deterioration in purchasing power that we have seen as citizens between 19 permute 2021. And today is going to become very, very, very squarely in focus. And when that happens, the discussion of inflation, I don’t think will be academic. I think it’ll be systemic. Those are very different discussions.

James Connor 13:40
Yeah, and I agree with what you said about core CPI. Not to include food is ridiculous. And I don’t care if you’re shopping at Costco, WalMart or Whole Foods, everywhere you go, the prices are just astounding. I can’t believe it. I used to drink California cabs. I love a good California cab can’t do it anymore because of the effects and the inflation, right? It’s just killing me. I gotta make my own home wine now. Correct. So if you come and visit me in Toronto, I’m going to be serving Yep, some home brew. I’ll do that. So we, we talked about food. Let’s talk about energy. Now, because Boyle has had a nice move here in the last few weeks. It’s gone from $75 a barrel up to 85. We’re going into the summer months where historically, oil and gas become more expensive. What’s your view on oil here? Do you think there’s a threat of oil moving to $100 a barrel?

Rick Rule 14:31
Yeah, with the understanding that the dollar itself is deteriorating, a 7% compounded so $100 Next year won’t be the same as $100.02 years ago. But yes, certainly a nominal dollars. I think that there is a fear depending on whether or not you’re invested in oil stocks, that the oil price would go higher. Why might that happen? Well, the first is that the geopolitics of oil are becoming much more complex. That isn’t to say that the embargo against Russian oil is working. What’s basically happening is that the Russians are selling oil to countries that will accept it. And the cargoes of oil from other places that would have gone to those countries are being diverted to the places which are allegedly boycotting Russian oil. So to blame Russia for the higher oil prices is a bit silly. What’s really to blame? Well, people are scrambling to secure access to oil. At the same time that the big thinkers of the world the Biden’s into Troodos, as an example are looking to a world post oil, which I think is a very fallacious point of view. Both your Prime Minister and our president suggested peak oil demand will occur between 2030 and 2032. I would suggest to you that peak oil demand occurs somewhere between 2065 and 2070. Because investors and governments are treating the oil industry, like the half life in the economics of their reserves, begins in six years, rather than 46 years. The equity prices of oil and gas producers are stupidly cheap, relative to their free cash flows. And that means with their cost of capital high, that they are under investing in sustaining capital and new project investment. The International Energy Agency, no friend of the oil industry, by the way, is suggesting that if you include state controlled oil companies, particularly in Mexico and Venezuela, that the oil industry is under investing in sustaining capital by about a billion dollars a day and has been doing so since the COVID times when you over under invest, pardon me in sustaining capital in capital intensive businesses, in the out years, you impair your ability to produce. And the tightness that we’re seeing in the market today is specifically about the global industries unwillingness to make sustaining capital investments, and hence, the production shortfalls that we’re finding and those shortfalls are amazing. If you look at ped of Asa, the national oil company of Venezuela, their production is off by almost 80% p max to the national oil company of Mexico has experienced 10 or 15 year production declines in the range of eight 0%. These are truly staggering numbers when you understand that prices is on the margin between supply and demand, not through the totality of the supply chain. So I think what you’re going to see is oil and gas prices higher for longer. Investors say alternative energy, you know, parroting what the World Economic Forum and Trudeau and Biden and all those morons would have you believe, to stuttered? Well, one thought, if we didn’t have the end of oil, how would they fly those 1200 private jets to Davos in order to tell you to drive less, they wouldn’t fly. But a much more telling thing is the statistics. And I think I quoted this to you before. Over the last 40 years, we spent now well in excess of $5 trillion on alternative energy. And we’ve reduced the market share of fossil fuels from a high of 82% 40 years ago, to 81%. Today, I think that’s the most telling statistic of all, whether we like coal, whether we like oil, whether we like gas, they’re going to be with us and they’re going to be with us for a very long time. An energy transition will likely occur, mercifully involving nuclear, among other things. But it will occur over 45 years, and 45 years will only be the half life, which is to say that after 45 years, we will experience peak oil demand. But the business will continue after that for a very long time. So I’m a real energy bull.

James Connor 19:15
And so just to clarify or summarize a lot of the points you just made there. You think oil prices are going higher, but not because of geopolitical risk more due to supply constraints.

Rick Rule 19:27
I think that’s right. Often people investors use geopolitical excuses, to allow themselves to do psychologically what they wanted to do anyway. And I think that’s what the geopolitics of of oil is all about. The truth is, if you put oil on a tanker, sends it out to sea, you’re going to find a market. You’re going to displace oil from somewhere else. But the truth is that we’ve proven very conclusively in the last 100 years that sanctions on fungible materials don’t work.

James Connor 19:58
No that’s good points in and say what you will about Russia and Putin? There’s whole all of these sanctions that have been placed on them. It’s just made them more, what’s the word I guess he was able to pivot, right? He just is very agile. He just found buyers elsewhere.

Rick Rule 20:15
He hasn’t had to pivot last year. Despite the fact that the United States and Russia are not enjoying cordial relations, our imports of Russian uranium doubled. If we decided that we were going to sanction Russian uranium, then the Russians would sell that Iran into the Chinese. And the Canadian and Australian uranium, which goes to China would come to the United States. I mean, this is I’m not trying to make a moral point here, James, I’m not trying to say that what the Russians do, or what the United States does, or whatever is right. I am just suggesting that countries act in their own self interest, and commodities are fungible. The consequence of that is that they will find a bid.

James Connor 20:59
So we discussed we both agree, inflation is out of control foods going higher, the price of energy is going to go higher, a longer term. And so I guess I want to ask you how we can protect ourselves against inflation and against the erosion of our purchasing power. One of the ways to do that is through gold, physical gold, what are your views on gold inherited a nice move, I think it’s up over 10%. On the year, you know, goes

Rick Rule 21:24
down shop, people have asked me for years once gold gonna move, and I say 2000 price of gold in 2000 was 253 $254 an ounce. And it moved up to sort of $1,900 an ounce. So that’s what 8.6 8.7% compounded for 22 years. If you’re asking for a commodity, that as a savings instrument could shield you against inflation. If you look at when gold was going to move at the beginning of the century, it did move, the move has accelerated. And it has excited people. To me, the move that we’ve seen so far is a non event. Really, I think it’s a flow of funds issue. I don’t own gold, because I think it might go to 2400 or 2200, or whatever the number is, I own it because I’m afraid of the possibility, not the probability but the possibility that it goes to $7,000 or $8,000, or $9,000. That’s not very far fetched. In the decade 2000 to 2010, admittedly took 10 years, the gold price went up seven fold. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask, given the deterioration in the purchasing power around fit instruments for the gold price to triple. I frankly, hope that doesn’t. But I sort of think it will. Let’s examine James, the recent strengthen the gold price. This didn’t happen because retail investors were concerned expressing concerns about the deterioration of their purchasing power. It didn’t happen for traditional reasons. It happened because the US government weaponized the US dollar. They confiscated $300 billion worth of Russian holdings of US Treasury securities that made other countries who don’t necessarily favor policies that are attractive to the US government concerned about their own holdings of US Treasury securities. The second thing that the US did is they weaponized the Swift banking system. The Swift banking system is supposed to be an International Settlements mechanism, using the US Dollar as the reserve currency and it’s not the property of the United States. But when the Swift banking system began to be weaponized to further the political interests of the United States Government overseas, other central banks felt themselves left with no choice other than to look for a store of value and a medium of exchange that was outside of the control of the US government, the easiest place to go was gold. Many people say well, why don’t they just trade with each other in their own currencies? There’s an easy answer to that as little as they trust us. They trust each other less. The US Dollar laughingly is the worst currency in the world with the sole exception of every other currency. The Chinese don’t want a trillion rubles. And what that means is that in order for Iran to trade with China, China to trade with Russia, Russia to trade with Brazil, they need a medium of exchange outside the US dollar and the strength that you have seen in gold has been almost entirely foreign central banks buying gold because they don’t have any other alternatives if you lay on top of that the realization on the part of investors that their own purchasing power is degraded by hold by holding fiat currencies, I think you could see sharply higher gold prices. Here’s another statistic to support that, James. According to JP Morgan Chase, the market share of precious metals and precious metals related assets in the United States is about one half of 1% of the total value of savings and investment assets in the United States. For reference, the United States has a 23% market share of world savings and investment assets. JP Morgan Chase suggests that the four decade mean market share of precious metals related securities is 2%. So if precious metals merely reverted to mean, demand for precious metals and precious metals related assets, would quadruple in the largest savings and investment market in the world. And that’s precisely what I think is going to happen. Just a reversion to mean, just a reversion to mean, quadruples, demand, remember that prices are set on the margin, not across the totality of the market. And I think that that could not next week, not the week after maybe not this year, maybe not next year. I think if you think in five year term, six year terms, seven year terms, and you think about the continued political politicization of the US dollar, if you think about the deterioration of the purchasing power of US dollars, particularly given low interest rates, relative to the duration, the purchasing power of the dollar, and then you think about the infinitesimal market share, enjoyed by precious metals, those three factors come together. And I think they give you a picture of what I actually believe is likely to occur in precious metals markets, which is to say, not only higher, but sharply higher.

James Connor 27:16
So I would agree with you the move we’ve seen so far has been lackluster. That’s how I would define it. But you may mention to the fact that the move in gold in the early 2000s, when it went up seven times. What so why did it go up seven times? Why was it the move in the early? What was that 2000 to 2010? Or 2012? Why was that move so aggressive in why haven’t we seen that yet?

Rick Rule 27:42
Well, the first part of what not the first part of the move the middle part of that move 2000 to 2006, I think was a lot about the perception of the end of us hegemony, and continuously, lower interest rates, both real and nominal, and continued weakness in the hegemony of the US dollar. I think it was all about that. There was also a form of inflation that wasn’t felt throughout the economy. But there was raw material inflation. Well, the price of consumer goods fell through the decade as a consequence of advances in technology and productivity. The price of basic commodities fueled I would suspect largely by Chinese demand was very, very strong. And I think that some of the luster that gold enjoyed during that decade was reflected luster from other parts of the commodities complex, but I need to say I’m not an economist, I’m really truly out on a limb here. I I’d be leery about describing the whole causation. I just wanted to point to that event to put the possibilities of this market in context.

James Connor 29:13
Now, you also made a good point about Central Bank buying I believe they bought or acquired 25% of gold production in 2023. They did the same thing in 2022. So the retail investor, the institutional investor has not really participated yet in this move. And there’s still a I think I would refer to it as complacency. complacency. Would you agree with that?

Rick Rule 29:36
Until 12 days ago, if you measure retail interest by the physical gold ETFs retail investors have been sellers. They haven’t been complacent at all. They’ve been bearish they’ve been selling the psychological impetus that the markets got from gold breaking out to at least nominal as opposed to real highs has been such that the last 12 or 14 days have seen inflows into the ETFs. But before two weeks ago, it isn’t as though the retail investor was neutral, the retail investor as expressed by data was bearish. I think that changes, I really truly think changes if you if you consider the biggest enemy of gold to be the US 10 year treasury, the ultimate fear instrument. Let’s think about the arithmetic around the US 10 year treasury, the US government promises to pay and they will even if they have to print you 4.2 or 4.3% per year on your savings in a currency where the current with an appreciation of the purchasing power is 7%. Which means that the US government in actuality, is promising to make you poorer, by two and a half percent a year compounded for 10 years. I think they’ll keep that promise. But it’s not a very attractive one. So I would suggest to you that ultimately in the psyche of investors, goals competition is an instrument which promises to make you two and a half percent a year pourer for 10 years. I think gold can stand up to that fight.

James Connor 31:22
So so far discussion has been focused on physical gold, I have to ask you what your opinion is of the miners. If you look at the world’s largest producer Newmont, it’s still down on the year, which was quite shocking. Barrick, I believe it’s still down on the year and might be close to flat. But what are your views on on equities? And why is there such a large valuation discrepancy between the actual physical and the gold miners?

Rick Rule 31:48
Well, first of all, let’s remember that thus far, the buyers of gold have not been individual investors not been people who buy gold stocks, they’ve been central banks. Central banks are not gold stock buyers, they’re gold buyers. So when one wonders about the discrepancy and buy orders between gold and gold stocks, the gold buyer has been a very different constituency, one that’s not interested in the stocks at all, it makes perfect sense, given the nature of the demand that gold stocks didn’t respond to the influx of capital into gold. The other part of the problems I think, go deeper. If you go all the way back to the decade of the 70s, I suggest that most investors in gold stocks, own them as leverage proxies for the gold price. Ironically, of course, leverage to the gold price rewards marginality, which is to say a high cost producer enjoys better margin expansion in a relative sense, with higher gold prices than an efficient producer enjoys. As gold mining investors sought leverage. What they actually were seeking, unfortunately, was marginality. And they got it. The industry became stupidly marginal. If you look back to that decade 2000 to 2010, when the gold price went up seven fold, the free cash flow per share on the SAU fell. The mining industry actually presided over a decline in free cash flow when producing a commodity that increased seven fold in price. That means that investor expectations that the gold industry will become efficacious stewards of capital hovers somewhere around zero. The industry I think deserves that reputation and the investors who asked the industry to be marginal deserve the punishment that they received. Looking forward a little bit in favor of the industry while the gold prices increased. All of the inputs that they consumed to produce gold have increased as well. LED, of course by social rents, regulation, taxation royalty, offsite expenditures, the industry reports that total social expense is increasing at about 20% compounded annually. But the price of other consumables labor, cement, energy, steel have all increased. So while the gold prices increased, the gold price hasn’t increased relative to the expenditures required to produce gold. If we begin to see the type of move in the gold market, the metals market that I think we’re going to see and if leadership in the gold market goes from central banks back to the private sector that Traditional constituency of gold buyer gold stock buyers, I think you’ll see the gold stocks get much stronger. I think too, that they’re too cheap. They are, if you use the metric that I use, which is enterprise value, but market capitalization plus debt minus cash, and you juxtapose that to net present value. The gold mining industry is the cheapest that I have seen in a 50 year career analyzing gold stocks, which is attractive to me, I’m very familiar with the industry since I’ve experienced them, some of them personally, I also point out perhaps in favor of the gold sector, that the investors that demanded the circumstances that led to the performed poor performance in the period 2000 to 2010, or out of the investment business. They failed. And the managers that delivered that performance have failed to win the generalist investor comes back into the gold space. This time, my hope is that that generalist investor is the type of generalist investor that came into the gold sector early in the decade of the 70s, which is to say, a business person first and a gold bug. Second, if you see that, I think that you’re going to see a tremendous gap up. Now, I would caution your listeners James, not to invest in that sector, the sector is over capitalized, the sector is under Managed, particularly if you come into the juniors 85% of the listings are probably valueless. If you buy the sector, you will lose money. If you pick and choose if you do rational securities analysis, what you learn is that a very small subset of the sector as small as 5% of the juniors, and probably not more than 20% of the majors and intermediates are very fine companies. But in a market where the investors are throwing the babies out with the bathwater, you can buy high quality companies with low quality companies for the same multiple, which is an attractive circumstance for the people who take the time to listen to your broadcasts.

James Connor 37:23
Now, that’s a very good point. And if you don’t have up, like if you’re an investor, and you don’t have time to research the asset, and the management teams, and you want to play this move that we’re seeing in gold, the best way to do that is through the physical.

Rick Rule 37:38
I would agree with that. I personally believe if you think that the gold price is gonna go up, the place you start is with gold. It might not move as far it might not move as fast. But I actually am one of those who believe that gold is money. Gold is a medium of exchange and a store of value. I own gold personally, James, really the same way I own insurance, I hope in my heart of hearts, that whenever I shed my mortal coil, you know, I look back on my life and say, you know, all that gold you owned was a mistake. You didn’t need to own it. That would be lovely. Means I didn’t experience any bad economic circumstance, but I sure sleep better owning it.

James Connor 38:16
So let’s just summarize everything we just discussed. So when it comes to the economy, you’re surprised that it’s so strong, but you don’t see any threat of a pullback, it’s going to continue marching higher, the markets same thing, at least until the election or after the election. In terms of interest rates, you think we might see a cut in rates in the next couple of months before the election. And with that backdrop, you’re looking for a higher inflation, which means higher oil prices and higher gold. It wouldn’t miss anything.

Rick Rule 38:50
It wouldn’t surprise me to see the beginnings of economic weakness as a consequence of higher interest charges through the economy. I’m not saying that’s gonna happen. I’m not an economist, I’m a lender. I think that the Fed will lose its nerve. If they do and they lower interest rates. I think that will be reflected positively in equities markets very negatively in long debt markets. And I think it will be the impetus for not merely higher, but frankly much higher gold prices. I’m I’m a continued skeptic about the economy. And mercifully for me I’m I’ve been consistently wrong about it much to my delight.

James Connor 39:36
So Rick, as we wrap up, I think everybody’s been wrong on the economy, including myself. But as we wrap up, you and your team do an excellent job of educating investors on how to invest in resources and you’re always holding great events. What events can we expect from Rick Rule in the coming weeks and months?

Rick Rule 39:56
Any of your listeners first of all are invited to go to rule investment media. dot com my site. We have a free event there 24/7 list your gold stocks list your natural resource stocks, I’ll personally rank them one to 10 no charge, no obligation, rule investment media.com. Quarterly, we do a deep dive online symposiums called boot camps. We’ve done uranium, we’ve done silver. We’ve done royalty and streaming companies, development stage companies. The one that’s coming up is really out of favor. That’s exploration of Prospect generation, go to rule symposium.com or rule investment media.com. And look up that symposium it’ll cost you $99 to attend online, you’ll have access to the recordings for a year, you’ll need them, because we’re going to give you more information eight hours and you could possibly assume and there’s an absolute gold plated money guarantee back guarantee. If you go to any of my symposiums and you think for any reason you didn’t get your money’s worth, just email me and I’ll give you your money back. But our granddaddy James, I want to see you there. Our granddaddy is in is a four day live symposium. I think this may be its 30th year this year in Boca Raton, Florida July 7 through 11. This is the best event we can possibly do. Four days you can either attend live in Boca Raton, or you can attend from the comfort and convenience of your own home via live stream 12 hours a day for four days once again access to the recordings for a year. Great big picture thinkers, the James Rickards of the world, the bill Bonner is that Danielle DiMartino, Booth, the Nomi Prins, the Grant Williams, people who tell you about the world the way it really is not the way the World Economic Forum would prefer it to be. But beyond that, great analysts, great portfolio managers not investment bank hacks that failed in supermarket analysis and failed as Bond and analysis and were put by the investment bank into some subject that was too small for them to do any harm in but really, truly great people where the rubber meets the road beyond that. My favorite part is the Living Legends where I assemble a group of entrepreneurs who have individually built multibillion dollar natural resource companies from scratch, telling you about how they did it and telling you about how the lessons that they learned make them better investors and can make you a better investor to. And unlike any other investment conference that I know of on the planet. Our attendees have told us for 30 years that our exhibitors are content to they’re not just advertisers. At every other conference, I know the qualification to be an exhibitor is a pulse and to check that cashes in reverse order of importance. At our conference, every single exhibitor is vetted, if they aren’t owned in my accounts, or in accounts managed by me, which is to say if I don’t know them well enough that I haven’t invested my own money in them, they can’t come. Now, there’s no guarantee unfortunately that because I own them, they go up. But there is a guarantee that every single public company on that floor has been vetted deeply by me, once again, gold plated money back guarantee, whether you attend in person or attend online. If you don’t think for any reason at all, that you didn’t get your money’s worth, email me. And I will return your money.

James Connor 43:39
That sounds like an amazing event. You might see me there.

Rick Rule 43:42
I look forward to it. Among other things, we have a wonderful facility for folks like you to interview our speakers, and our exhibitors. And broadcast from there. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for a lot of folks over time to save themselves a lot of plane fares. And we invite you to utilize that opportunity.

James Connor 44:05
Well, Rick, once again, this has been a fascinating discussion, and I look forward to our next one. My pleasure.

Rick Rule 44:11
Thank you.

James Connor 44:12
Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Rick Rule. I always enjoy chatting with him. One of the reasons we do these interviews with people like Rick is to help you understand what’s happening in the economy and how to prepare for it. And during times of uncertainty and also never ending inflation, physical gold is a good way to prepare for it. If you would like to learn more about gold and how to buy and how to store it, visit our sister company’s website, hard assets alliance.com It’s used by over 100,000 clients worldwide. Once again, thank you for spending time with us today and I hope to see you again soon.