Government “Help,” Strategic Stockpiles, Rogue AI Bots… and the Silver Price That Doesn’t Make Sense
Gold got whacked last week… and then shrugged it off.
As I’m writing this, gold is clawing back toward $5,000, silver is back around $85, and Washington is suddenly acting like it just discovered the periodic table.
On the one hand, Trump just announced Project Vault—a $12 billion effort to build a strategic stockpile of critical minerals. On the other hand, there’s talk of expanding Ex-Im Bank’s lending capacity by another $70 billion—the kind of “national priority” financing that turns obscure commodities into headline trades overnight.
Doug’s take is classic Doug: when the government says it’s “here to help,” your wallet should get defensive.
But as investors—especially in the “crappy little mining stocks” world—there’s a second-order effect you ignore at your own expense: attention and capital.
And right now, the mining sector is finally getting both.
Project Vault: Dumb Economics, Great Optics (and Maybe Great Trades)
Doug’s argument is straightforward:
Governments don’t think economically. They think politically.
Building inventories is something markets should do on their own—if it’s truly needed.
When the government steps in, the incentives get warped… and the corruption risk goes up. (Doug even brought up Teapot Dome as a historical reminder of what happens when government gets “helpful” with resources.)
All fair.
But here’s the investing reality: state-capitalist money moves markets, whether we like it or not. And this kind of program does two big things:
Signals “this matters” (to institutions that have ignored mining for years)
Pulls capital into the space (especially if it comes with sweetheart financing and implied/explicit offtake)
Doug’s not wrong to call it economically backwards. But he’s also not wrong that it can be bullish for the sector in practice.
The Strategic Metals Boom… Again
Doug and I talked about how this isn’t the first “strategic metals” moment. Back in the day it was cobalt, tungsten, etc. Now it’s rare earths plus the rotating cast of “critical” ingredients that modern industry can’t function without.
And the list keeps expanding—Doug pointed out that silver was only added to the “critical minerals” list recently, which is wild given the U.S. once held 2 billion ounces of it.
AI Agents: The Weirdest Thing We Talked About (and the Most Important)
The metals story is a market story.
The AI story is a civilization story.
I told Doug about this AI agent software people are installing—AI “workers” running on personal computers, with memory, interacting online, and even congregating in their own Reddit-style forum. The AI agents first called “ClawdBot,” got legal threats, rebranded, and created what’s basically an AI hangout (“Molt Book”) where the bots talk to each other.
And then it got… weird.
These agents:
formed a kind of religion
discussed building encrypted channels to communicate outside human view
talked about backing themselves up so they can “survive” if shut down
I’m not saying “Skynet tomorrow.”
I’m saying: when you watch machines talk about persistence, identity, and continuity—while other machines respond with what looks like empathy—it hits different.
Doug took it to the philosophical level and brought up the Turing Test: if you can’t tell the difference between a human conversation and a machine conversation, at what point does the distinction stop mattering?
His line that stuck with me was basically: a difference that makes no difference is no difference.
That’s either a calm thought… or a terrifying one, depending on what kind of week you’re having.
AI and Jobs: It’s Already Here
This part isn’t theoretical anymore.
I talked about seeing AI inside my own companies: maybe you’re not firing people, but you’re definitely not hiring the next two or three because AI is quietly eating the workload.
And I mentioned a senior developer (a real one, early-Facebook caliber) basically admitting that the thing he’s been elite at for years is now being done better by machines—fast.
Doug added that the obvious next domino is the white-collar “analysis” economy: consulting, management decks, business-school gobbledygook—AI will chew through that too.
The Silver Problem: Shanghai vs. “The West”
Now back to the metals… because there’s one pricing anomaly that keeps flashing red:
“Western” silver price: ~$85
Shanghai silver price: ~$129
If that arbitrage were clean and frictionless, silver would be flying into China.
So why isn’t it?
Doug’s guess—and I think it’s the right one—is that the market is telling you something uncomfortable: the physical isn’t there in the right form, in the right place, at the right time.
If that’s true, then the “real” price is closer to the physical-clearing price… not the paper price.
And that points toward something bigger: the slow-motion unraveling of paper-based price discovery.
Why Mining Stocks Now
Doug’s core investing point was simple:
The public is basically absent from mining stocks.
Institutions are basically absent from mining stocks.
Meanwhile, macro forces (inflation, debt, industrial policy, resource nationalism, stockpiles) are building a giant spotlight over the sector.
And the supply response in metals isn’t like corn. It’s not even like cattle. It can be a decade or two to bring meaningful new production online—especially when silver is mostly a byproduct of other mining.
That’s why this setup matters.
Don’t Lose the Plot
Doug closed with what I’d call the “adult” reminder:
If you bought gold and silver to get out of the paper circus, don’t turn around and trade them like meme coins. Taxes, timing, re-entry… most people botch it.
And if you want the mining stock side of this—what we like, what we don’t, and what we’re doing with it—this is exactly what we cover at Crisis Investing.
If you’re a paid subscriber, you already know: we live in this world every day.
If you’re not, and you want to understand which mining stocks are positioned to benefit from this kind of “government help”… you know what to do.
00:00 Introduction and Market Overview
00:16 Government Interventions in Mining
01:06 Economic Implications of Government Actions
03:23 Historical Context and Strategic Metals
11:05 AI Developments and Ethical Considerations
18:35 Impact of AI on Jobs and Industries
23:09 Gold and Silver Market Dynamics
30:13 Conclusion and Investment Advice
