by Mike Gleason, Money Metals:

Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.

Coming up we’ve got a wonderful interview with Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Global Investors. Frank talks about some key developments in the gold community and why he believes a key merger in the gold mining industry could be a good indicator of a market bottom. He also shares his thoughts about Vanguard’s recent decision that leaves many gold investors hung out to dry. This is a must-hear interview with Frank Holmes, coming up after this week’s market update.

Precious metals markets struggled this week against the forces of rising bond yields and a stronger U.S. dollar. Where have we heard that before? Despite these headwinds, gold is holding up pretty well as it trades around the $1,200 level in a narrow range where it’s been locked in for the past month.

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As of this Friday recording, the yellow metal comes in at $1,202 an ounce, up 0.7% for the week. Silver is off 0.3% this week to trade at $14.67 per ounce. Platinum is little changed at $825 per ounce. And finally, the palladium market is taking a breather after posting huge gains last month. Prices for the catalytic metal look lower by a slight 0.5% this week to trade at $1,075.

As for the gold and silver markets, they appear to have based out and have the potential break out this fall. Spot silver prices started to generate some noticeable upside momentum last week but didn’t get any real follow through this week, however.

A pickup in buying is more apparent in the silver bullion market where sales of silver Eagles surged in September to a total of 2.9 million. The Silver Eagle market appears to be off to a strong start in October as well. The U.S. Mint reported 350,000 Silver Eagles sold on Monday, the first day of month. That’s almost as many of the coins as were purchased throughout the entire month of May, when bullion demand cratered and coin premiums dipped to near record lows.

Despite the recent pickup in buying, premiums on popular silver bullion products remain relatively low. And spot prices remain extremely low, making this truly a buyer’s market for the white metal.

Customers who are new to buying physical precious metals often wonder how they might actually pay for them. It’s not uncommon for a customer’s bullion order to run into the thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.

Credit cards are convenient for smaller purchases, but they present problems for both customers and bullion dealers when it comes to big purchases. Credit limits, merchant fees, fraud prevention measures, and privacy concerns all add up to credit cards not being a viable way to buy a stack of gold bars, for example.

Payment options vary from dealer to dealer. Here at Money Metals Exchange, we accept more payments types than the average dealer. We are an industry leader in accepting Bitcoin and certain other cryptocurrencies. But even in this digital age, an old fashioned check or money order is often the most efficient way for customers to buy bullion.

Unlike other businesses that deal in lower cost, higher-margin products, the bullion business operates with relatively tiny profit margins. The only way we can offer coins, rounds, and bars with such minimal mark ups over spot prices is by cutting out credit card companies and middle-man payment processors and their fees. Those customers who do want to use Visa, Mastercard, or PayPal can still do so within certain price limits, but unfortunately we must pass on a 4% processing fee. And on that note, while it may sound strange for a company to charge for using a credit card, when you’re buying gold and silver you should be very leery of anyone not passing on the merchant card fee. If they aren’t, you ought to be concerned about how much they’re making on you.

The entire credit card payment processing industry is controlled by just a few giant corporations that are pushing to create a cashless, checkless, all digital economy. Mastercard colludes with Google and Big Tech to compile comprehensive data on consumers’ behavior. And Big Tech now colludes with Stripe and PayPal to screen customers for their political opinions.

It sounds dystopian, like something out of a George Orwell novel. But that Orwellian future has arrived. People with unapproved political opinions – most often those on the dissident right – are being financially de-platformed by the likes of Mastercard and PayPal.

People like bombastic pro-Trump talk show host Alex Jones are being cut off from social media and from the dollar-based digital economy run by Silicon Valley overlords. Not because they have committed any illegality or any fraud. But because their political opinions are deemed to fall under the arbitrary category of “hate speech.”

This week Alex Jones announced he is suing PayPal over viewpoint discrimination against conservatives.

Alex Jones: Do I think my lawsuit against them was going to save the world? No. It’s meant to raise an alarm to you, to We The People and to the president who’s already taken action against big tech and their censorship.

This is really a dangerous Draconian system where this global cashless society that surveils everything we do begins to persecute people for their political views and deny them access to the marketplace.

It’s a David vs. Goliath battle – one that Goliath will be favored to win. Now that the multi-trillion dollar financial services and high-tech industries have set the precedent that they are in the business of taking punitive actions against right wingers, the intolerant left will push for corporate political repression to expand. One day, you might wake up to find your credit card or your PayPal account has been deactivated because you expressed a politically incorrect opinion on the internet.

For now, at least, it’s still possible for the digitally de-platformed to walk into a grocery store and buy food using paper cash. But once cash is banned, as bankers, central bankers, and tech titans ultimately want, dissidents may have no other payment options besides speculative cryptocurrencies and tangible barter items such as silver coins.

Well now, without further delay, let’s get right to this week’s exclusive interview.

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