China's savings rate was calculated at 47% of GDP as of 2022, representing $18 trillion of unspent income that must be allocated somewhere within the Chinese economy

Chinese individuals are both enormous savers and 'the maddest punters in the world'—they love to speculate and bet, so financially sophisticated Chinese are buying paper gold futures on the Shanghai Futures exchange, which forces the bullion banking system to go short and cover positions elsewhere in London and COMEX

Chinese financially literate individuals understand that the People's Bank of China is not actually 'buying gold' but rather 'selling dollars' and exchanging them for gold as a policy of winding down dollar and euro credit exposure

China holds roughly $700 billion in US Treasuries as part of a total multi-trillion-dollar dollar position, and is actively selling these treasuries alongside selling dollars, which means the US government cannot rely on foreign funding going forward

Mainstream media in Australia (and implicitly elsewhere) imposes censorship through editorial control such that if someone made the case for gold, they would be cut off, because mainstream media needs access to government information provided in off-the-record briefings, and media organizations no longer seen as friends of government are excluded from these briefings

Jamie Dimon's 2023 shareholder letter states he expects volatility in interest rates that could reach 8% or even higher, anticipates stagflation, and is expecting to reduce exposure to risk—signals that interest rates will go up and the largest, most important commercial bank (the Fed's market conduit) is positioning defensively

Despite mainstream Keynesian economist consensus expecting lower rates in a recession, historical pattern shows interest rates have fallen during recessions because central banks suppress them—but today's situation is different: after decades of rate suppression, government debt has reached unsustainable levels, so central banks have lost the ability to suppress rates further

Governments have 'run out of road' for kicking the debt can down the road because debt levels are already unsustainable; any attempt to increase debt further signals to markets that debt levels will go even higher, and for nations already in debt traps (particularly the US), the only buyer for new debt becomes the Fed itself (monetization)

Ordinary Americans, Australians, and citizens of major Western currencies are the last to understand what's happening to their currencies; they will hold onto their currencies, see prices rising, not realizing it's the purchasing power of their dollars/pounds/euros declining, not goods prices rising—this is an education process that only resolves over time

Politicians represent the 'zombies'—big incumbent industries that want government subsidies and cheap credit and don't want to face competition—rather than new businesses, causing them to lock up capital and labor resources inefficiently, which is the root problem in the broader economy

Commercial real estate has become 'unmarketable' and 'valueless' because banks don't want to take it on their balance sheets; property financed at suppressed interest rates is failing as rates normalize and offices sit empty due to work-from-home trends and economic downturn

The current situation is 'a train wreck rapidly approaching'—McLeod finds it 'very difficult to see how we're going to get out of this year 2024 intact' with currencies that still have value

The immediate recommendation is to first 'sell Australian dollars' and then get out of credit and into real money (gold and silver) as a matter of urgency

Private equity model for utilities like Thames Water: buy the company with 5x debt leverage, harvest the 8% guaranteed profit (set by regulator), achieving 40% ROE on equity before capital costs—this works fine until rates rise, then the company can't refinance and is bust

The gold-to-silver ratio currently stands at 82 times and has historically spiked to 112 times, representing a severe mispricing of silver relative to gold

India continues to open coal power stations despite environmental criticism, creating political pressure to offset this with increased photovoltaic cell production, driven by government encouragement and likely subsidies, with major conglomerates like Reliance Industries expanding photovoltaic production

Reliance Industries commissioned the first phase of a 5 gigawatt photovoltaic cell production facility in March, with total capacity to reach 20 gigawatts, requiring massive silver acquisition

This convergence of Chinese dollar-selling (driving gold demand) and Indian industrial silver demand (eroding China's price control) at the same time creates a simultaneous shock: money returning to both gold and silver, causing an exceptional repricing opportunity

A strategy for experienced investors is to buy silver now (capturing both volatility leverage and suppression-correction dynamics), hold it until prices rise significantly, then exchange it for gold at favorable ratios (potentially getting 2x the gold amount compared to buying gold directly now)

Alistair McLeod provides detailed analysis on his Substack newsletter (email: Google 'M Cloud finance substack'), with both free and paid subscriber tiers, and paid subscription ($100-150 AUD annually) provides more timely, detailed, and relevant information than free content