Maurice Jackson: Joining us for a conversation is Bob Moriarty, the founder of 321gold, and 321energy.com, and the author of two of my personal favorite books, "The Art of Peace," and "Nobody Knows Anything." Welcome to the show.
I recall when President Trump took office, you shared he will either be the best president or the worst president we've ever had. Now I don't know where he fits into that narrative for you so far, but I have to say that President Trump is not afraid of breaking paradigms. There are series of geopolitical events occurring right now, that have the world’s attention, and I'd like to get your thoughts regarding those. Beginning with the G7 Summit, which just concluded last week. And it got a little testy, if you will, between the United States and the other members, in particular Canada. Give us your thoughts on why these events unfolded, and what do you see being the likely outcome?
Bob Moriarty: The interesting thing, Maurice, is if you remember back, I said that he would either be the best and/or the worst president in U.S. history. And it really appears to be that he's trying to do both of them the same time. Now to the extent that some of the complaints are absolutely legitimate. Canada has duty on dairy products bearing between 270 and 298%. Trump is absolutely correct to say that's wrong, and you should change it.
The United States has given its manufacturing away over the last 20 years. Clinton did it, Bush did it, Obama did it. And Donald Trump said no more. But at the same time, when you sit down at the negotiating table and when you pull a pin on a hand grenade, that's not a real effective way of negotiation. So, he's correct to say that Canada needs to change their tariffs, especially on dairy.
But his name calling, the whole Twitter thing. I mean, somebody needs to bust the guy's twitter thumbs. It's embarrassing to have someone who believes you conduct business of any kind on an iPhone.
Maurice Jackson: I personally feel the same way. I think is very unprofessional, and it lacks class. I'm certainly in the camp with that on. Fitting into this narrative as well, are we officially in a trade war? And if yes, is this just the beginning? And how's it all going to play out?
Bob Moriarty: Here is where it's interesting. I think that in every economics course that I've ever heard of and I've ever taken, everyone agrees trade wars are all negative. We absolutely are in a trade war, and that's going to turn around and bite us on the ass. The world's financial system is much too unstable for anybody to go in and yank the rug right out from underneath it. And Trump varies from one extreme to the other. And trying to figure him out, and not just having to go negotiate, but how to deal with him. It's just especially difficult.
Now, the one thing that people need to realize is that the EU overall, the G6, is actually a bigger economy than the U.S. economy. So pretending that the U.S. could do anything it wants to because it's the world's biggest economy is fiction. And this whole thing with Iran is quite interesting, because if Germany and France and England had any sense they would go to Iran and say look. You made an agreement. You stuck to the agreement, and we're going to trade with you.
It is astonishing to me that a country as big as France is going to let billions of dollars in orders for the Airbus walk away because they're obeying their master in Washington. And that's nuts. I expect countries, individuals, to operate in their own self-interest. It's very easy to deal with people when you know that they're deeply in their own self-interest. And the interest of France, and the interest of Germany, and the interest of Italy, and the interest of England are different than the interests of the United States.
These countries should go to the United States and say take a hike. You made an agreement, you broke the agreement, they stuck to the agreement, we're going to trade with them. It's the end of the empire for the United States, and the rest of the world really understands that even if they don't speak it, the United States, of course, is totally clueless.
Maurice Jackson: The question is, will these allies of the United States have the resolve in fortitude to actually take that step and say "enough"?
Bob Moriarty: Well, the interesting thing is Trump is doing exactly what you would do if you wanted to force people into action. I mean, if he insults them long enough and hard enough and he breaks enough agreements with them, they're going to say, hey, we have to operate in our own self-interest. They shouldn't do it because it makes sense, but they'd been used to operating under the United States' nuclear umbrella for so long that they've forgotten that sovereign countries have their own.
Maurice Jackson: Slightly shifting gears here, what are your thoughts on this week's historic meeting between the U.S. and North Korea?
Bob Moriarty: I'm glad that they had the meeting, but to the degree that we know, mainstream media lies about everything. I think that it will be weeks or months before we really understand the ramifications of it. I absolutely would like to see the nuclear weapons in North Korea disposed of. I'd actually like to see North Korea and South Korea reunite. There's no reason for them to be separate countries. But that's up to North Korea and South Korea.
I will say, it certainly appears that North Korea has gotten the best side of the bargain so far. And one of the things that I'll remind you, under the Clinton administration, the United States made an agreement with North Korea in which North Korea would stop work on nuclear weapons, and the United States would supply them with a nuclear power station and give them access to the world economy. And under the Bush administration, the United States actually violated that agreement. So, I don't know. When you make an agreement with Donald Trump, I don't think it's very valid. It's valid until he changes his mind.
Maurice Jackson: For those that are opposed to Donald Trump right now, and see this as a bad move. What is the actual bad move? What is the narrative that they're trying to get out?
Bob Moriarty: Oh, they hate Trump. But that's the deep state that wants to stay in a state of perpetual war, and wants to dominate the rest of the world. And that's very dangerous.
Maurice Jackson: Switching gears before we close here, do you have time to discuss Novo Resources Corp. (NVO:TSX.V; NSRPF:OTCQX) and Bitcoin with us?
Bob Moriarty: Yes, indeed. Novo Resources came out with two more assays a few weeks ago and the reaction was negative again, because people don't really understand it. But the problem with Novo is that they're fighting on so many fronts. It's a very difficult gold to measure. When you have very nuggety gold, you can't measure it except by mining. And they've had five assays in a year, and investors are naturally bored silly. They don't know what's going on.
And it would be wonderful if there was some way to speed it up. They announced those assays, and then turned around and said it would be another month before there would be any more assays. And the assays they announced were assays that were due to be announced back in December. So, it would be wonderful if there was some way to speed it up, but there were a lot of issues over there.
They are seeing technical issues trying to measure the gold. There's the legal issue of trying to comply with JORC and with 43-101. There's a legal issue of coming up with agreements with the natives. So, it's not easy. One of the things that I wish is that we could go back 50 or 100 years. If we went back 100 years, Novo would have been in production 18 months ago. The deposit they have is not difficult. They've got a real good idea of where the gold is, they know how to extract it, and that's exactly what they should be doing.
Maurice Jackson: You hit the nail right on the head when you wrote your piece entitled the 43-101 is a Noose Around Novo's Neck. What is it really about that 43-101 that is preventing Novo from moving forward here?
Bob Moriarty: Where you got to go back and you look at 43-101. When they had all the fraud back in 1996, the Canadian government came out and said, okay, here is a very strict set of rules as to how you report a resource. So what you could say in press releases, what you can and can't do. And what everybody's forgotten is that doesn't actually create anymore gold or silver or zinc or platinum or diamonds. That's just a bunch of a bureaucratic reporting requirements.
And in some cases, it not only doesn't help, it actually hurts. Now what's happened is the banks and everybody else has said okay, we're going to strictly apply 43-101, and you've got to have a Reserve before we'll consider loaning money to you. And the strange thing is Novo has wildly economic gold at surface. Keith Baron, who absolutely agrees with me on treating this like it's a placer deposit instead of hardrock deposit, says that there's a good chance that the actual production cost per ounce would be under $100.
And between you and me, Keith and I talked offline. I mean nobody knows about this. Keith and I spent a lot of time talking about it and I said Keith, you're full of crap. It's not going to cost 100 bucks an ounce, it's going to cost 50 bucks an ounce. This will be the cheapest gold in the world. Now that doesn't mean to say the whole 10,000 square kilometers is going to be cheap gold. But that Novo has a lot of gold at surface they could mine that would be wildly profitable.
Now rather than go out and define a resource of 20 million ounces, I would rather have them go out and be producing 200,000 or 300,000 ounces a year. And if you're worried about how many ounces they've got, talk to the bookkeeper.
Maurice Jackson: Very well said. So short answer here, we actually have all the answers we really need for Novo.
Bob Moriarty: I'm not sure that we have all of them. The problem is the way that they're doing the measuring. We've got a good idea for what the horizontal scale is, because we know that there's identical gold 135 kilometers apart. And could conceivably there be gold in that entire 135 kilometers? Yes, conceivably. That's absolutely true. But how thick? What's the vertical dimension? Are we talking about one meter pay? Are we talking two, three? And these are answers that certainly have not been reported yet.
Maurice Jackson: All right. Bob, before we close here, I have to ask you about "Bitcon," as most people know it as Bitcoin, which has some interesting developments this week. Give us your thoughts.
Bob Moriarty: The interesting thing is that bitcon's one of those things like stocks and bonds and mainstream media. Ignore everything you're told. Back in December, we had what was probably the most clear cut top in a fraud-ridden investment that I've ever seen. And I went out and made multiple interviews and said this is a top, this is going to crash, and it's going to go down at least 90%.
There are two aspects people believe. One is that it's rare. And as of today, there was 1902 variations of cryptocurrencies. Now, if you've got 1902 variations, I don't give a damn how good any one of them is, that simply isn't going to work. You couldn't have 1902 kinds of food stores. You couldn't have 1902 kinds of theater. You couldn't have 1902 kind of pet stores. There's a limit to competition.
And, of course, the other theory is that if you want to buy dope or if you want to hide money from the government, here is a great way to do it. Every phone call, every email, the government monitors everything we do. If anybody thinks they're going to get away with that, it isn't going to happen. So, the only two reasons for owning it are total nonsense, and when you look at it and say, well if those are nonsense, why is it going to up?
The answer is FOMO—Fear Of Missing Out. But we had a top in January; it'll take two or three years for it to hit bottom. Most people are going to be talking all the way down, saying it's going to turn around, going to turn around, going to turn around. As of today, it is down 68%. It has crashed. And I got a real big kick because I go to chat boards sometimes to see what people are talking about. And everybody agrees: Moriarty is an old fart who doesn't understand cryptocurrencies. And the really funny thing is I'm of three guys in the world who actually called the top. I'd say I understand it very well.
Maurice Jackson: I would agree with you. You certainly have made the calls. So, if Bitcoin isn't an alternative for you in your portfolio, what is?
Bob Moriarty: Safety. I think that trying to invest today, well, traditional investing methods is simply not going to work. The very best that you can do it is to speculate, so what you have to do is say, what can I invest in that's safe?
And I believe that when the banks crash—and it's when the banks crash, not if the banks crash—when the banks crash, you're going to want to have something that has real value and historic value that you can hold in your hands. Everybody's going to get hurt, and the only question is how much you get hurt. But I think that if you're sitting on gold or silver or platinum or rhodium, you'll be doing okay.
Now to give you an idea, rhodium has tripled in the last year. If gold tripled, or silver tripled, or platinum tripled, everybody would be talking about it. Right underneath the radar, rhodium's tripled. And that will give you an idea of the potential. When it turns, and it will turn, it's going to be some exciting times. The resource shares are not as cheap as I've ever seen them. I've seen them cheaper in 2009 and 2001, but they're pretty darn cheap. And I think from a relative point of view, the gold shares are going to go up a lot more than gold does.
Maurice Jackson: Well, Bob, thank you for your insights here.
I referenced Bob Moriarty's two books, "The Art of Peace," and "Nobody Knows Anything." You can order your copy under our education tab. Proven and Probable that does not receive any financial consideration for selling or advertising, but we see these as must have books for your library. We have benefited financially from applying the axioms in the books. Bob, for someone listening who wants to get more information on your work, please share the websites.
Bob Moriarty: 321gold.com, and 321energy.com. And that books can be brought literally at any bookstore, or through Amazon.com.
Maurice Jackson: And last but not least, please visit our website www.provenandprobable.com where we interview the most respected names in the natural resource space. You may reach us at [email protected].
Bob Moriarty of 321gold.com and 321energy.com. Thank you for joining us today on Proven and Probable.
Maurice Jackson is the founder of Proven and Probable, a site that aims to enrich its subscribers through education in precious metals and junior mining companies that will enrich the world.
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Disclosure:
1) Bob Moriarty: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: Novo Resources. Novo Resources is an advertiser of 321 Gold.
2) Maurice Jackson: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: Novo Resources. I personally am, or members of my immediate household or family are, paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. My company has a financial relationship with the following companies mentioned in this article: Novo Resources is a sponsor of Proven and Probable. Proven and Probable disclosures are listed below.
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