Eric Yeung - USA on course for a winning, grinding, pullback

0:00Welcome to the Contrarian Capitalist podcast and delighted to be joined today by returning guest Eric Young of King Kong 988 on ex Eric. Welcome back to the Contrarian Capitalist. Thank you so much for having me back on your show Robert. It's pleasure to have you here plenty to talk about. It is Monday the 9th of March 2026 and I'm date stamping that because we might talk a couple of prices during this recording and of course those prices might change significantly between when we say them and when you get round to listening to this. We'll talk geopolitics, we'll talk oil, we'll talk food and water in a bit but I want to start with gold and silver if I may and the reason I say that is that since relations between Israel and Iran and the US are really kicked off in the last eight or nine days, gold and silver are down. So my question is should people

1:03be surprised by this price action in gold and silver in reaction to what's been happening in the last eight or nine days? Robert, that's a very good question. I mean, people ask me this question all the time. As a matter of fact, I think 10 minutes before I got popped on the show with you, somebody asked me the same question. So I think for the long term, like mid to long term, nothing changed. As a matter of fact, this war in the Middle East probably accelerated the dollarization and countries diversifying, choosing my worst very careful to hear, right? Okay. Diversifying away from US Treasury bonds to physical gold. And silver is no brainer. It's a strategic metal. I mean, every time you see a missile being fired, that's, you know, 10, 20 ounces of silver, we've got somewhere in the sand. Okay. So silver being consumed is a strategic metal. So both China, US and all countries that

2:13you know, one high tech, one AI, one military high tech military weapons, they all want the own silver supply chain. So I think in the mid to long term, yes, silver, both silver and gold prices in US all the terms will go up. But obviously, that's not the question that your audience or my audience are asking and asking us, what the heck is going on right now? We've got to silver with the crazy volatility, right? So I'll answer that question. Basically, you know, I don't know if you watched the news, but I know that there's a lot of conflicting reporting order from both sides. And you notice on my China, I don't, you know, repose, oppose the mainstream news. I, I post, you know, reliable sources, videos and tweets from, from mainly from the Middle East, okay? Or in some cases, they're not

3:19from the Middle East, but these people in, you know, we're in mainstream media or they are very reliable. So I post that stuff. And, you know, we can conclude that in, in the short term, what's happening right now is that these traits of her moves, and I'm sure your audience heard of that term already, the straight off her moves, which is that narrow, you know, ocean passageway that 20% of the global oil supply got to go through, okay? So the consensus is that, and reality is that 99% of that is shut down right now, meaning like, you know, not necessarily shut down because people argue about that term as well, right? What is shut down? Well, you know, if the ships don't go through, I don't care if it's shut down, physically or if they're shooting at it, if 90% 99% of the tanker container ships, like, you know,

4:25full of oil are not going through or food or whatever, then it's mainly shut down, right? Okay, that's, that's my terminology for that. So, so, you know, the logic is this, if that's mainly shut down, that means 20% of global oil supplies offline or close to that, right? So, you have Japan, you have like, you know, China, you have India, Japan has 250 days of reserves, oil reserves, we don't know how much China has in terms of days, but they were buying like crazy in the last two years, like, you know, most of the US strategic oil reserve that was sold by Biden was bought up by China, okay? So, yes, they have reserves, we know that, but like, even with the reserves, these guys are going to fight for whatever marginal oil that is out there, denominated in US dollars. That doesn't make sense, right? So, 20% oil, global oil is offline,

5:31because the stirrup and moose is pretty much shut down, okay? We established that. That means whatever there's out there, you know, in terms of like free floating oil that is available, right? In US dollars. So, we're not talking about the Russian stuff. Russian stuff is out there, that's fine, right? The US dollar denominated oil, people are going to fight for that. So, what's going to happen? They're going to sell everything under the sun, including the bonds, including the US Treasury bonds. That's why you see the entire market was tanking on Friday, everything got sold to do what? They sell everything to get US dollars, okay? To buy the marginal oil that is out there, that is still available. And that's the logic. So, that's why, you know, everything got sold, including gold and silver. I mean, yes, it rebounded a bit today during

6:32Asian hours and UK hours, right? But I think the UK opened and you know, it was tanking again, kind of. I'm booking it in real time right now. So, you know, really for the short term, it really depends on, you know, the route that this war is going to take. Yeah, absolutely. And we'll go into a couple of scenarios that we were talking about offline, as well, but thank you for going through gold, silver and oil there. And it's a sentiment I would agree with that if you get to panic mode or panic stations, you might not necessarily want to sell or hedge funds, pension funds, however, they might not necessarily want to sell those positions, but in order to, you know, maintain that liquidity, that's what they do. And I think that on the onset of something like this happening, you know, we've seen it time and time again, there's normally a bit of early panic in the markets. And I've been saying in the last week that people,

7:34you know, if this thing drags on and we'll go through those scenarios, ultimately war is inflationary. It always has been, I think it always will be. I don't think that's going to change in this case. So I think that moving forwards, what I'd be interested to know is, how does this conflict play out? I think everyone wants to know that. But secondly, if the stock markets in this case were to continue to tank a little bit, does retail step in and buy the dip? But that's just something that I've sort of echoed across to contrarian capitalists over the weekend. That's to me a big question, but anyway, that's stock markets aside. So talking about scenarios in Eric and again, we were talking about this offline. You have said, I think, on X as well, there's three potential scenarios here about what could happen. What are they? Can you run through them please? Yes, Robert. So the first scenario is what Donald Trump said on TV, which is the US wins,

8:35really, in quotation marks, winning, meaning that the US already got rid of the old Iranian leadership, the old Itolla, et cetera. I said it on my ex-account, it's the guys who are 70 years old and above. If you look at the picture, they got rid of all those guys. So I also said that, hey, they actually gave giving handed the second in command, who are in the 50s, a chance to step up to the plate to take the leadership. Pretty maturely. These regimes, usually if you're the leader or you're the top general, you don't retire. You at that job and to you die. Like kind of like the Queen of England, like Prince Charles was once upon a time the oldest prince in history, because the Queen of England

9:38left for a long, long time. It's the same thing with these generals and spiritual leaders, they don't retire. So the US got rid of it. And in a way, I know people don't want to hear this, but in a way, they kind of revitalized the Iranian leadership, giving these positions to these younger men. So that's fine. You can interpret it positively or negatively for Iran, same thing for the US vice versa, but what I just said is the reality. My point being is that in the first scenario, so I got off tractor, I'm just going to get back on tractor. The first scenario is the US wins by regime change. Like that's Donald Trump said that, meaning that they not only get rid of the old guys, but they get rid of everybody. Everybody in the old regime,

10:42and replace the leadership of Iran with some sort of US puppets, like the like the son of the Shah, like the prince that got who never really, you know, set foot on Iran since he was a teenager, since he was kicked out of Iran, since the revolution. So I don't think that's happening. Like, I mean, just the reality is that this is not going to happen within a short period of time. So I think scenario one is already, you know, all of the question. So I'm not going to spend any more time on scenario one. scenario two is what's happening right now, Robert, which is everything is bogged down. And both sides are destroying each other's facilities. Okay, I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty details because people love to argue like who destroy more, who destroy

11:44what, etc. Right. So second situation is like a grind down and then it gets worse. The US end up sending ground troops, etc. Right. So it's like more of like a wall of attrition, which is we're seeing the beginnings of that. And then the third situation is it is a very uniquely Trump situation, which is they didn't do they are not doing anything more than what they already did initially, which is together of the old leadership. But then Trump claimed victory. And they just pick up and leave. Okay. So they didn't really achieve, you know, the initial objective that they said they they wanted to, which is the regime change, or like, you know, go in there and get rid of all uranium nuclear research. Okay. What, you know, whether or not it actually exists, I'm sure it exists, but like at what level and where? And they just walk out and claim victory.

12:51So these are the three scenarios. And I think if you ask me Roberts, I think right now it's more of like a, if you watch the news, like Donald Trump just claimed victory recently. I think it was like over the weekend. And then there are reports out there saying that they might actually stop the kinetic war. Whatever that means. So I think, you know, this might end up being a mix of two and three, which is, I know we talked offline and you laughed, but like really, you know, most likely scenario is that the US claim victory and they are still fighting sporadically in the Middle East and they're retreating. And everything is being like grinded at all at the same time. You see one thing. So it's a mix of scenario two and three. I think that's and we've seen that with the stock market and golden silver, right? Because if we have a straight,

13:54you know, scenario two of liquidity prices, you know, you see everything like, you know, golden silver wouldn't be a gold wouldn't be a 50 100 right now. It'll be dropping significantly more, right? So and also, I think, you know, oil, I mean, it went up. It's above, I'm looking at it is above 100 is 103 brands is 103.48 and crude is 101.6. But like, if if there's no alternative to the street of Hummus, okay, situation, I would, I would guess oil prices are much higher. But like, me and you were discussing this offline. I think they were repost out there. I think being left by Saudi Arabia, they're going to be releasing 400 million barrels, okay, of oil reserves. And we were discussing, you know, where that oil is because if it's all in the Middle East, how is that going to help? Right? Like, I mean, it's still about a good

14:59go through the street who is right? But if it's a sum of it is, you know, stalled offshore and they got some of it, you know, alternative routes being planned, et cetera, that might be why we're not seeing, you know, oil going straight up and golden silver not dropping more than where they are now. So that's where my mind is at right now. Yeah. I would do you think that, because I know that people like to cite, you know, 1D chess, 4D chess, 34D chess, and you know, bringing all these other pieces around the world. And what I mean by that is that if, if the objective isn't necessarily around in the Middle East, but it's to bring Russia back into the equation with regards to their oil reserves or which to destabilize, you know, the UK and the EU financially through, you know, increasing those

16:00commodity prices that can lead to stagflation, all of those sorts of things. Do you think there's an element of that involved as well? And it's basically right, we're in the Middle East, but actually the bigger picture and what we're really doing is behind the scenes. Do you agree with any of that whatsoever? You know, that's like, you know, what they call 50 degrees of separation, right? So like we listen, Robert, just me and you're talking about stuff that is, you know, there's two degrees of separation. We can be completely wrong. We might be right, you know, 60% there, right? But if you're talking about stuff that is that's five degrees of separation, I mean, I saw there's a lot of people, you know, the London, you know, London theory, like, you know, how there's some people who blame everything on London. Yes, everything. It's being masterminded by London, right? So like this thing that all this is so that the US can wrestle away the insurance business away from

17:05London. He's apparently like the majority of the underwriters for these shipping containers, for these like, you know, oil tankers, London-based, controlled by London, controlled by the city of London. So if there's like a crisis that is true of the moves and the, and the city of London doesn't want to, you know, cover the insurance for these shipping companies, the US, China, Russia is going to step in like these sovereign states and they're going to do their own insurance policies, right? So and some people are saying that, like, you know, that's the primary object of the war. I mean, like, okay, so that's the possibility, but just judging by, you know, the unintended consequences of what is happening right now. Because I think that Trump really wanted this thing

18:05in and out, go in there, kill a lot of people, you know, shock the current regime, maybe kidnapped a couple guys like what they did in Venezuela, right? And installed their own puppet. I think that's, that was the game plan. It really, it's hard for me to believe that the original intentions is to defeat the evil city of London for that. Like, you know, I don't want to, you know, demean anybody here, right? Because there are a lot of people who are the entire fury is based on that, okay? But like, I just don't think that's the primary objective. Rather, I think the primary objective is that Israel simply don't want Iran to, you know, potentially develop nuclear weapons. And Israel just wanted regime change in

19:09Iran and install some sort of a US puppet and turn Iran into Iraq, you know, like, like, stood it up into 16 different pieces and have them fight each other for the next 100 years. I think that's more likely in my opinion than the city of London and the insurance, you know, situation, fear rate. No, it's fair enough, Eric. I appreciate that. And as you mentioned earlier, there's so many different opinions and ideas out there. And of course, there's so much, you know, true information and false information. It's very difficult, I think, to decipher. So, yeah, that's the joy of doing this podcast is to, you know, ask opinions and try and put these pieces of the puzzle together. And in terms of regime change, then, just to, for those that aren't aware of what's been, what's been going on. So if hopefully I pronounce his name right, he's Mojtaba, Camini, or Camini, I think I pronounce that right. So it's basically, he's a son of the

20:13previous Iatola. He's 56 years old. We don't really know a lot about him. So we have, I think we have absolutely no idea whether he's going to be a continuation of his father. He's going to be completely different. And so can we argue that regime change has happened because there is a new Iatola in, or is this really going to be a case of wait and see and see what he's like and go from that. I don't think that's the definition of Donald Trump's, you know, regime change. He's talking about installing a US puppet as the, you know, Iranian leadership. This is the son of the previous Iatola. So I think these guys are even more like a lot younger and probably a lot more hotline than the, than the older generation, you know, the older generation. I've been looking at the Iranian situation for a while now. They seem to in the past, right? They seem to just want

21:15to be escalated every single time when, you know, Israel bomb or send missiles to Iran. Iran would have some sort of retaliation, but they would, they would also always tell Israel in advance. So it's kind of like a Mickey Mouse war, like the 12th day war. Remember that last year, right? They tell them they're like, we're going to send attachments to this airport now. Make sure you evacuate everybody. I mean, what kind of war is that, right? So I think in the past, it was, you know, like the old Iranian leadership wanted to de-escalate, but those guys are all gone now. And the guys that Donald Trump killed, a lot of them are the relatives, those, you know, relatives of the new leadership. So I rest somewhere on the eggs that they're saying, like, you know, you know, James Bond, right? That's, of course, MI6 from your country. Yeah.

22:17Thought to know, you know that, right? Like the first movie, Thought to Know, people say all the villains, villains, like, Thought to Know, they are all created by some sort of event that happened to them, right? And this is, this is what it's this, right? But you, you're essentially creating new enemies. So contrary to what you just said, which is, is this the regime change that the US is looking for? No, they just made it a lot worse. This, this is in no way the same as you ran, for example, you ran, what's the regime change? So they got rid of Saddam Hussein and they put a bunch of new people in there and, you know, there you have it. Yeah, I think that's certainly something interesting to watch, to see how that, that plays out on how people might, as you mentioned, spin it. So it looks like they've won when actually, you know, they might not have done. And going back to commodities though, you know, so you're spoken about gold silver and thank you

23:21for that. Or oil is going to chop and change, you know, all week, we could talk about that all week. We briefly mentioned gas as well. But two other things that I know that you've mentioned on X, and I think that people need to be aware of food and water. What, if I ask why they put on that, might sound really stupid. But in this instance, let's, let's focus on the impacts of a lack of food and a lack of water could have in that region, if this, if the straight and foremost, you know, in essence continues to be shut. What impacts is that going to have on the wider area? So, you know, I really think that we were talking offline. I really think that, you know, we human beings, we are, we won't just sit there and die, so to speak, right? Human beings are really resourceful. Okay, the human race is really resourceful. So I think if the, if the, if the waterway, if the street of Hamuz is going to be obstructed,

24:29indefinitely, okay, obstructed. I think that's a good word. Okay, not closed, obstructed. I think eventually they'll find other ways to transport this stuff. Of course, the cost is going to go up like a lot, right? So if you lift there in the middle east, your inflation is going to be horrendous going forward. But with the right amount of money, like some guys are going to drive a bunch of trucks, you know, delivering the stuff to you. I know people laugh at that, etc. But like, you know, there are millions of people living there. They're going to need this stuff. So one the way or another is going to happen. Or maybe even the Iranians may let them through, like collect a toll fee or something. I don't know, like this is all out there, right? So don't shoot me for saying that. I'm just saying what I'm saying is that something will come about that will alleviate the situation a bit. Okay, so it's definitely worse than before. But

25:39you know, it won't be like zero food in zero water. Okay, I just think the cost of living is going to shoot up at like, you know, at those places. And places like the buy where, you know, I heard it's nine million expats. And you believe that in the middle of the desert, the buy. So nine million people like me and you, Robert, living there, not low cost. Okay. Like, you know, of course, like a lot of laborers from India as well. I'm sure that nine million, a bunch of them are from Pakistan and in India, right? In China, you know, laborers, etc. But nine million foreigners expressed living in Dubai. And you have this situation. What is going to become the become of Dubai? I mean, the Dubai start market, I think it's free-forming. Even when other markets are stabilizing today, the Dubai start market is free-forming. I think that tells you something.

26:42Yeah, I've long said to people that, because of people that really know me and follow me, know that, of course, I'm from England, but I've relocated to Mexico. And I've also been focused on, you know, Paraguay for other purposes as well. And I've always said the same thing about Dubai. I've been there once. It was 2009. You know, it was the right place. Don't mind it. I've always said the same thing. Just look at a map of where it is. And if the proverbial hits the fan, which, you know, that has now come to, you know, truth, then that's not a place you're going to want to be. That's how I would put the aim in terms of people just on a simple map form. But that's a very good point you make. What will become of that? If, you know, a lot of these expats leave and it's not then brandished as this, you know, this luxury place because you've got all these missiles flying overhead. That's an interesting point. Yeah. So, you know, I think going forward, some people already said this, like the US border,

27:48I believe, is going to think a big hit. The US Treasury bonds as well because I don't know if you know, Robert, I wrote it on my ex up, you know, I don't have the exact figures, but up to 50%. Of, you know, the liquidity that normally goes into US equities. And I'm talking about the foreign components only. Okay. Foreign components. So don't, you know, you don't need to, people don't need to jump up and say, hey, he's wrong. Okay. So the foreign investment components. So into US equities or like, you know, and US Treasury bonds. Okay. So US debt, up to 50% of that, comes from the, came from the Gulf countries. Of course, because they made a lot of money, they made a lot of US dollars, right? They priced the oil in US dollars. So they take the, whatever money they make, they reinvest it into, into US tech companies, like AI, et cetera. And the rest,

28:53they pocket at, you know, in US Treasury bonds, collecting interest, which is, I mean, like, you know, very smart in the past and very normal, right? But like, with this situation going on, how much do you think that's going to continue? I mean, the US, you know, I heard reports that they, like, you know, didn't really even defend these Gulf ally countries. They were really concentrated on defending Israel. Okay. But like, if you look at these ally countries, they're getting just shot at everything. Like, me and you're talking right now, they're probably getting shot at right now by your earnings with the drones and the missiles. So I think after this is over, or if I'm right, it's going to be a grinding retreat or grinding win, whatever you call it, okay? Be some people don't like to use the word retreat when it comes to the Americans. They want, they want to say we're winning, we're winning, we're winning, we're winning, okay? So fine,

29:56like a grinding win. Okay. A grinding win pullback. Oh, that's not. Okay, pullback. So if they so if they manage to do the grinding win pullback, I just think I just think I don't think it's going to be the same after this. I think a lot of these Gulf countries are going to diversify and they're, you know, oil surplus, oil surplus, whatever currency that they sell it in the future, they might not even sell all of it in US dollars anymore because like, you know, Americans took their money and promised them security. And when, like you said, when the poop who hit the fan, the Americans just said, we got to take care of Israel. If you like to hang in a Gulf country, you'll be asking, what? What? I paid you for all these years to give you land for base.

30:57And now the poop who hit the fan and you tell me to take a hike because you got to help baby, you got to be kidding me, right? So I think going forward, like I just said, diversification is going to be the same. And the only thing that I see these countries massively diversifying into is probably physical gold. Because physical gold is not, you know, it's not, it's not like a counter-party risk. It's not somebody else's debt, right? If it's not like you're buying Chinese sovereign bonds or Russian sovereign bonds, right? And the Chinese and Russians can do the same thing to the Americans that they can just say one day, we don't want to pay you guys back. That's the risk, right? Nobody can do that with physical gold in your own hand, okay? So I think the primary beneficiary of this war at the end is going to be physical gold. And like I said, in the beginning

32:02of your program, most likely physical silver as well. I think that's a sentiment that most people listening to this would agree with that from a long-term point of view, all of those factors, and then if countries go back to firing up the printing presses, of course, you know, that's going to add fuel to the fire. I think the one keyword, just before we wrap up Eric, the one keyword I hear there is trust. Obviously, there's been a lot of issues between the US and Russia with regards being kicked out of the SWIFT system and the taking of assets and the seizing of assets. Yeah, that that destroys trust. And everything you've just said there that, you know, if you were the king of Bahrain or any other country here, and all of that happens as it has happened, that lack of trust means that you're not going to continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. I think that's Einstein's definition of insanity. So things after this dies down,

33:05if it dies down, which it should do, but we have no idea how long that will be, then we can see shifting dynamics thereafter, because that trust has also likely to be taken out of everything as well and that can lead to all sorts of disastrous consequences. I agree, Robert, definitely. One other point, and again, I have no, you know, sauce on this to say whether this is true or not, but obviously we mentioned the Strait of Hormuz and a lot of gold refining is actually done in Dubai as well. So with the Strait in effect being closed, then does that impact gold work, that will impact gold trade? Again, is that something that people really need to keep an eye on? Or is that just it's part of what's going on and focus on the bigger picture? What's your opinion on that? I think you're absolutely right. It's going to affect the gold trade, but you're going to remember, you know, in that area, the Middle East, they also

34:09have a lot of physical gold, like above ground physical gold reserves, right? So I don't think you know, in the in the short term, it's going to really affect the supply and demand dynamics. What I mean is, yes, they are buyers, and those buyers may not be able to get the gold from the refiners anymore, because that's been disrupted, right? But there are people who want to get out of Dubai, they want to sell the gold, right? So that like, you know, in the short term, that's going to fill the void. As a matter of fact, I think like in the Middle East right now, in certain cases, I think the buy was the was cited by Bloomberg. The this is a $30 US dollar discount, which is very little, right? $30, I think it's not even it's not even 1%, okay? It's a fraction of a percent, but like, nevertheless, there's a small discount. And, you know, so that worry for

35:11the short term, in terms of disrupted refining capacity for physical gold, I don't think it's a worry, okay? In the long term, I think the US want to, you know, have his own refining capacity for both gold and silver. So the dislocation that we saw in the past, where, you know, you have the refining centers, mainly in China and Switzerland and in Dubai, that may get distributed, okay? In the future, right? So like, meaning like the US may have more of that, maybe Singapore jumps in, you know, maybe Saudi Arabia, right? After this, all the dust settles. So in the long term, I also don't think that that's an issue, but like in the medium term, okay? Like, after the,

36:12you know, whoever wants to get off the buy, et cetera, sell all the gold. And then you have sovereigns who want to recycle more of the tracer plus into gold and you have this disrupted, you know, temporarily disrupted, or they've got to build more capacity than might, they might be some, you know, like more demand than supply, okay? They might be some of that, but like, that's yet to be seen, all right? The bottom line is just, you know, I think in the big picture, Robert, like I said, in your program several times now, I think in the big picture, more parties, I'm going to diversify away from US Treasury bonds as their primary reserve assets into physical gold. So that's what we should keep in mind. Well, that's a fantastic place to finish up, America, as per usual, massive thank you for your time. And if people do want to follow you,

37:13I highly hope that they do that. It's on X, King Kong, 9888. You can also do it over on Substack as well. Yeah, a lot going on. Watch this space. But again, I think the key thing to take away from all of this is just take a step back and have a look at the bigger picture with everything you've just summarized perfectly there. So if people are going to take one thing away, take that away from this episode. Eric, an absolute pleasure as always and look forward to catching up later on in, in the year. Thank you, Robert.