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Ep. 14 Free the Money | Billions in Physical Gold: Who’s Standing for Delivery? | Andy Schectman
In this episode, I’m joined by @ASchectman, founder and CEO of Miles Franklin Precious Metals to unpack what he believes is the single most important story in markets right now: not the rising price of gold and silver, but who is taking physical delivery. Month after month, billions of dollars worth of gold are being removed from the COMEX, yet mainstream media avoids the obvious question: who is standing for delivery? Andy argues this shift signals something far bigger happening beneath the surface of the financial system.
From there, the conversation expands into a stark warning: if the U.S. doesn’t bring back manufacturing, future generations are in serious trouble. With exploding debt, declining industrial output, and AI poised to disrupt millions of jobs, Andy suggests a structural reset may be underway. He speaks of the possibility of a “soft default” on U.S. reserve currency status before the end of the Trump administration as part of a broader effort to bring manufacturing back to America and shift from being the world’s largest debtor nation toward becoming a creditor nation again.
The episode also explores why governments are accumulating gold, citing outperformance, neutrality, lack of counterparty risk, and protection from sanctions and examines how stablecoin legislation could create synthetic Treasury demand while gold potentially anchors the back end of the bond market.
We close by bridging precious metals and crypto, emphasizing a shared goal: preserving wealth, privacy, and financial freedom in a rapidly shifting global system.
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0:00 Andy’s origin story “buy every 2 weeks,” and the power of compounding
5:20 The big tell: record COMEX deliveries — who’s really standing for physical (billions of dollars per month)
9:14 Strategic stockpile + Exchange Stabilization Fund — debt math and a trust-based system
12:35 Sanctions, regime change, and the trust problem — why gold wins (neutral, no counterparty risk)
16:12 Cato data: biggest federal workforce drawdown on record, yet spending still rises
18:06 Retail all-in on stocks while “smart money” rotates — deliveries signal the other side of the trade
18:39 Triffin’s Dilemma — reshoring manufacturing and a “soft default” on reserve-currency status
23:23 GENIUS + CLARITY Acts — stablecoins as synthetic Treasury demand + the gold feedback loop
28:03 Measuring stick reset: price in dollars vs price in gold — Dow/house examples expose dollar dilution
32:43 Judy Shelton: peg the back end of bonds to gold (zero-coupon, long-dated)
38:03 Bloomberg/Russia headline — paper smash, repositioning, and the silver supply math
48:27 Crypto— why privacy matters
54:42 Spending privately: using Zebec so you don’t have to “off-ramp” to banks
56:04 Digital ID— the surveillance-state conversation
57:42 United front: gold/silver + crypto privacy people aligning to protect freedom