The Fourth Taking
The only thing worse than a government that can’t control the nation's borders, or balance a budget, or keep track of how it’s spending trillions of dollars is one that knows everything about you.
Friday, June 06th, 2025
Laramie, Wyoming
By Dan Denning
“You just wonder what kind of lives all those men might’ve led…and you hope they weren’t sent over there to die for nothing. To be honest, I was surprised. I was sad. But more than that…I was angry.”
I found that earlier today in a note I sent my older brother (who served in the US Army) after visiting the American cemetery at Omaha Beach in September of 2009. I was in Normandy for a private financial conference Bill had organized. During one of the free afternoons, we drove up to the landing beaches on the English Channel.
It was a grey day. The beaches were covered in foam. There were hardly any people around. Just rows and rows of crosses and grave markers. Say what you will about the French. But they keep the cemetery immaculate and have never forgotten the Americans, British, Canadians, and others who fought and died there.
I was thankful that so many people–some without a choice–went and fought for something. It made me wonder how often people are asked to fight for things that are NOT worth dying for. But it also made me angry at how callous and casual political leaders are squandering lives in conflicts that America has no interest in.
In any case, most of those who began the liberation of Europe on this day in 1944 are gone now, 81 years later. I’ll come back to that later. It’s a key number in a cycle that may be repeating. And may have bearing on what happens in our lives and freedom (and with our money) in the next few years. First, though, to markets.
Platinum is within $100 of making a five-year high. Tom mentioned the price action in his note earlier this week. And it’s not just platinum. Silver is finally making a move, too.
It closed off the highs today. But it was up almost 10% in the week. And I saw two notes about silver by people I follow that I wanted to pass on to you. First is the ‘point of control’ chart from my colleague JJ at Market Vibes. The point at which buyers and sellers are meeting is now higher in silver. But for how long?
That depends on who is buying. But it also depends on who ISN’T selling. Like China. Alasdiar Macleod over at Macleod Finance wrote a great note this week about the price action in gold and silver this week. This point jumped out:
‘The Peoples Bank of China is the only central bank tasked with managing national silver reserves. China has a more recent history of silver standards, only abandoning the last one in 1935, which probably explains why the CCP leadership regarded it as a monetary metal when it delegated this function to the PBOC in 1983. Therefore, recent developments undermining the US dollar’s credibility are likely to have stopped silver exports being authorised by the PBOC.’
Alasdair made several other important points about China and silver. First, it’s widely thought (though not proven) that China supported suppressing silver prices for the purposes of accumulating it while it’s cheap. Now, however, China may be less interested in lower prices…and more interested in higher prices (no more price suppression).
Who knows? We’ve covered the silver supply deficit with Rick Rule in a Private Briefing. We’ve also covered the demand side, both for industrial/solar panels and monetary. It’s a good story. It’s always a good story.
What happened this week is reality began catching up with the story. Case in point: the gold/silver ratio retreating from over 100. When it went over 100 I said it wouldn’t last long would mean either higher gold prices or a faster rise in silver. We have the latter, so far. Never underestimate silver’s uncanny ability to disappoint. Still nice.
Is war driving precious metals? Again, hard to say. The futures markets are a combination of speculators and producers and institutional players. They have different goals. The price resolves all those competing interests. War–or the changing nature of it–is a much harder variable to measure, which is probably why headline writers like to say that precious metals are up on ‘fear.’
That doesn’t mean it’s not true. And it gives me the chance to bring your attention to another worthy weekend read. This one is by Robert Malone at Malone News. It’s about the arrival of 7th Generation Warfare.
Malone’s essay breaks down the long-term implications of Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian strategic bombers last week (as well as a naval base). One important point is that attacking two-thirds of Russia’s nuclear ‘triad’--missiles delivered by air, land, and sea–is highly provocative. Expect a Russian response, which may indirectly explain some of this week’s price action in platinum, gold, silver, and oil.
To me the more important point–especially in a country that spends more than $700 billion a year on armaments—is that autonomous drone-warfare is cheap and powerful. It has a very high return on investment, in financial terms. It changes the geopolitical game. From Malone:
‘Looking beyond the headlines, what really happened on June 01, 2025 was that the world was notified that decentralized, lower-cost autonomous AI-enabled warfare machines are driving rapid obsolescence of expensive, complicated large weapons platforms such as ships, long-range bombers, and advanced fixed and rotary-winged combat aircraft. The implications are deep and broad. To provide one example, the recently announced “Golden Dome” missile shield technology may already be obsolete and inadequate to address this clear and present danger.’
This will take some analysis over time. I checked out an ETF I used to recommend when I worked down in Australia, the iShares US Aerospace and Defense ETF (ITA). Only up a couple of points on the week. There will be no immediate pivot to building drone air forces and robot soldiers.
But it makes you wonder if part of the point of this big beautiful bill disaster is to quickly retool and pivot the US military to new kinds of threats it’s not currently prepared to defend against.
There’s a good argument that the whole Ukraine/Russia war has become something like the Spanish Civil War–a proxy war in which the Great Powers of the day test tactics and weapons to be used in the next Great War (in the Warfare State…financed by perpetual debt, encouraged by Congressmen who are funded by the firepower industry and the banks…there is ALWAYS a next war).
It’s too depressing to think that Ukraine is a dress rehearsal for something even worse. It’s awful enough as it is. But what happened last week mattered. If it’s a subject you’re interested in, check out Daniel Suarez’s book Kill Decision from 2013. Eerily prophetic. As this chart may be as well.