Gold continues above $4,200, and silver has surged past $53, but Scottsdale Mint CEO Josh Phair says this is only the beginning. “If you take the foreign debt of the United States, not domestic debt, but foreign debt, and its stated gold holdings, that number’s over 30,000,” he tells Kitco News Anchor Jeremy Szafron. “It’s already hit it twice in my lifetime. Why couldn’t it do it again?”
Phair calls this the Phair–Sinclair Ratio, inspired by legendary trader Jim Sinclair’s model that predicted past gold bull markets. He believes the same imbalance between debt and gold is now driving a historic repricing of real assets.
“We’re in a metal war,” Phair warns. “Whoever controls the metal will win the energy race, the AI race, and the military race.” Refineries face “four to six month backlogs,” silver is being “flown across the Atlantic,” and lease rates have surged “as high as 85 percent.”
He adds that the scramble for physical metal has gone geopolitical. “You’ve got one price for deliverable metal in Dubai or Shanghai and another for London and New York.” Phair says the world is already splitting into “a bifurcated trade, two worlds, think Axis and Allies,” as nations repatriate gold and rebuild vault networks outside the Western system.
(Recorded October 16, 2025)
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01:09 – Precious Metals Insights
01:58 – Global Metal Flows and Economic Implications
03:49 – Impact of Tariffs and Trade Policies
08:29 – Retail and Institutional Demand for Precious Metals
16:16 – Supply Chain Challenges and Refining Bottlenecks
19:58 – Global Trade Dynamics and Tariff Risks
20:38 – Impact of Backlog on Miners
21:31 – Merchant Banking and Metal Trade
21:56 – Retail Level Supply Shock
23:10 – Comex and Metal Stockpiles
24:56 – BRICS and Gold Trade Strategies
29:26 – China’s Role in Metal Wars
31:53 – Future of Gold Prices and Market Volatility
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