Silver Dealers FURIOUS As New Law Takes Effect

[00:00:00]Really, the reality is that this is going to effect in July. That's just a few short weeks from the time of this recording. And as this ticking time bomb rolls out, other states are going to be watching this and they might be willing to follow this measure. So, this might not only take place in one state. That's the state of Florida. What this is doing is coin shops, the place where you get your silver, your gold, they're about to feel the chokeold of big government coming down on every ounce of silver and gold that you try to accumulate. Check this out. If you're interested in silver, click that link in the description. Money medals is sold in this contest. They're giving away 20 silver eagles. Every month they hold this contest. I put a link down below.

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[00:00:51]I'm Adam, your host here at Pound of Gold. And what's happening is that Florida is about to force local coin shops to register. Listen to this. They have to register as money transmitters.

[00:01:04]This is just shocking because we often look at Florida as really taking the lead on pushing big government off our backs. Well, this is the opposite because this means that small shops, they're going to end up spending more time dealing with paperwork, more time dealing with licensing, dealing with inspections. This is literally big government coming down on your local coin shop. In a minute, I'm going to show you an interview that I had with JP Cortez from the Sound Money Defense League. He's going to explain this much better than I can. Look, as silver stackers, one thing that has always drawn me, I'll talk about my personal belief for a minute. I was drawn to silver and gold because I like the idea of my wealth being off the grid. I like my the idea of my wealth being in my hands. And I know many of you, particularly you OG silverbacks and OG silver stackers. And if you are like me, if you're an OG silverback, please drop that in the comments. Just drop OG silverback. Let me know where you're from. I just love meeting you guys. This is often a solitary endeavor, this endeavor to stack silver. So, I I just love knowing that I'm not the only one out here for years and years doing this.

[00:02:10]Now, what's happening in Florida is really key because this bill, listen to this, talk about special interest. This bill is being pushed by these apps, these payment, these gold payment apps.

[00:02:23]These companies, they already operate legally and they don't need help from government. They don't. Meanwhile, traditional coin shops, they're the ones who are going to end up dealing with new costs, new regulations, while these app companies, they get the competitive advantage. That's exactly what this is doing. It's it's giving these special interests a competitive advantage. It's really frustrating. Instead of making it easier to buy and sell precious metals, this is actually going to create new hurdles for your local coin shop. Check out this conversation with JP Cortez. He really explains this much better. Hey JP, thanks for uh talking to me. Uh you are from the Sound Money Defense League and you're doing some great work that's uh an issue going on in Florida. This is regarding HB 1311. Can you tell me what is the simplest explanation of what this bill would do and why you are urging Governor DeSantis to veto this?

[00:03:21]>> Well, actually, uh Governor DeSantis already chose not to act and the bill unfortunately has gone into law. Um, but yeah, it's it's a horrible situation here where, like you mentioned, House Bill uh 1311, it's this damaging and very ill illconceived bill that invites the government into the business of precious metals dealers all over the state. It creates a bank-like signup process where if you're operating as a precious metals dealer with a brickandmortar store and you're exchanging or transacting gold in any way, which could very easily be read as buying and selling the way dealers often do, you're you now because of this new law may be required to apply for a new license to operate your business. You have to submit detailed business plans uh regarding what you uh plan to offer, how you plan to offer it, who you plan to offer it to, the means of which you will be offering it. Uh you have to put your retail customers through bank signuplike processes. You can be subject to government fines and reviews, reporting requirements. So ultimately, this was inviting the fox into the hen house. This was uh a bunch of people who did not have the background, should not have been writing policy like this, but they scrapped together a piece of policy and instead the result is that dealers now are going to be completely under the thumb of the state government.

[00:04:43]>> It is so shocking and the frightening part for me as a silver stacker is the thought that other states would follow this. Why do you think Florida is moving this direction when many states are actually reducing barriers for gold and silver ownership? I'm sad to say that Governor DeSantis was simply sold a bill of goods. Uh it was uh yeah, it was one or two groups who were connected to some of these transactional gold businesses and want to create a uh a nice relationship between their business and state governments. I mean the reality is no one wants to spend their gold. So businesses that are operating on a transactional spending model obviously are not uh are not being very successful right now. And so instead of having people spend their gold, because obviously no one wants to spend their gold, you know, to buy groceries or to buy a milkshake at the fast food restaurant, it doesn't make sense to use your gold this way. But anyway, these businesses exist and instead of competing, they're looking for special businesses and privileges from the state government. Fortunately, I'm happy to say, like you mentioned, states are moving in the opposite direction of this. Florida is a debacle and it's a disaster, but literally every other state in the country that considered legislation like this this year completely opposed them. I flew around the country flying across dozens of states testifying at committees. Every single one of these other states rejected these policies outright because you can see once you look under the hood, you can see that this is uh a self-interested vendor employ vendor ploy trying to get a business to co-opt uh market share with the help of a state government. And it sounds like in terms of self-interest, it sounds like some somebody's creating an app or created an app in which you would use this app to like you're saying uh take your precious metals and then buy things with the kind of like a an a goldbacked app or something. Is that what it's being marketed as?

[00:06:44]>> That's exactly what it is. It's a transactional app. you have a card and they're encouraging people to use their card to swipe for, you know, everyday necessities and such. The, you know, obviously this as a business model goes against Gresham's law and every single time you swipe this card, you're going to be hit with a capital gains tax at the federal level, capital gains tax at the state level in most cases, and then of course any vendor fees associated with using the service. So obviously there's not a ton of adoption because no one wants to spend their gold this way.

[00:07:16]And so now you have these these policy proposals and it's not just Florida policy proposals all over the country that are seeking to intertwine uh private public partnerships where this business is trying to cozy up to a government in order to maintain or enhance its business prospects.

[00:07:32]>> I wonder uh what would happen. I mean this is you know just thinking this through if a coin shop in Florida says no we're we're not we're not going this route. Well, the reality is that every single coin shop now as of enactment as of the enactment date of this legislation is out of compliance. No one is complying with these regulations in part because no one knows about it. And the reality is that precious metals dealers and investors and businesses are all privacy friendly. These are not people that are willingly or inviting the government to come in further and take information from them. That speaks to how these policies were not backed by sound money experts or by precious metals dealers or investors. This is very obviously just a connected group wanting to promote their business.

[00:08:21]Precious metals investors and dealers and businesses are not actively inviting the government into their space and having the government demand more information about their businesses and their customers.

[00:08:32]>> Yeah. When you when you say that uh other states are more going toward that route, what does that look like? What does a pro gold pro silver policy look like in in your view?

[00:08:42]>> Well, as the sound money defense league has worked on for more than a dozen years now, in our estimation, the biggest issue today with people not using you gold and silver as money is a function of taxes. Like I mentioned that the federal tax, every single time you spend your gold, you're going to get hit with a federal tax. In some states, when you buy gold, you're going to get hit with a sales tax. And in most states, you're going to get hit with a state capital gains tax as well. So if you can remove the friction in the form of taxes, you may find that people will be more willing and voluntarily using gold and silver. Uh another uh policy issue that we've been really uh working on with many states across the country is state gold reserves. States all over are looking at their balance sheets and saying, "Wait a second, our entire investment portfolio is made up of dollar denominated assets, many of which have real negative rates of return." And so people uh uh state financeers uh investors are looking at their their budgets and saying well gold is a great hedge against inflation. It's a great diversifier in a portfolio. Uh it reduces draw downs and volatility. And so states themselves are saying no we want this gold. We'll hold it in our backyard. We'll protect it ourselves and we will bolster our taxpayer reserves and our taxpayer funds with physical gold and silver the way is constitutionally mandated. Are are there any states uh in particular that are really leaning toward that?

[00:10:07]>> Absolutely. In Utah just earlier this year, they uh worked we worked with them to help enact a $180 million gold reserve. In Wyoming last year, we've also helped enact a multi-million dollar gold reserve. Uh Wyoming, the legislature has passed legislation on this. Currently in Arizona, uh there's a bill that sits on Governor Katie Hobbs's desk that would allow the state of Arizona to invest up to 10% of all state funds in physical gold and silver. So, and you know, this speaks to the larger global movement as well. Central banks, countries all over the world are stockpiling gold at breakneck paces that we haven't seen in decades. And states themselves are following in this ddollarization trend because they realize, you know, they're looking for a politically neutral asset that is a hedge against inflation that is not subject to the whims of politicians or heads of state and gold and silver meet those uh demands. They check all of those boxes. I wonder if those states had had had brought this up and it started even three years ago really could be argued even two years ago before gold really shot up they could be showing hey you keep your dollars look at what we did and but I wonder if the if the infrastructure is really in place for those states right don't they need uh serious vaults and don't they need to create all that >> so to your first point yeah there and and fortunately there were states that benefited from the massive uptick in the price of gold. For example, I mentioned uh Utah who bought their gold in trenches, but you know, they bought it back when gold was at $2,000 an ounce.

[00:11:44]So, the windfall, the the the gain made from this asset is tremendous in some cases, and states have been reaping these benefits. To your question though, you raised a really interesting point because last time you and I spoke, we tal about we talked about the silver act which uh would allow for state depository or excuse me, precious metals depositories all over the country rather than just consolidating all of them in the greater New York City area. You are correct that some of this infrastructure is still being built and in some cases it is an arbitrary rule that's in place that's keeping states from really adopting these policies. But one, some states are choosing to still move forward with it because they realize the benefits that come from gold and silver and you know they'll deal with any downfall or any uh any friction or impediments when the time comes to sell and at the same time the infrastructure is actively being built. Like I mentioned, um the Silver Act is well on its way and it's making great progress across Congress. Um and there are states, the western states particularly where a lot of mining and depository uh action actually takes place that are moving forward. They're building the depositories themselves. There's talk about, you know, Texas famously has built depositories. They're trying to build their own stock market, their own exchange. Uh there are other exchanges around the United States as well. So the this is growing and again it's mirroring the global trend where you have places like Singapore and Hong Kong that are building the infrastructure to become global gold hubs and we're seeing that play out at the state level as well.

[00:13:18]>> It it's really an an exciting time for for gold and silver. Uh silver stackers we we often are on our own uh little bubble thinking, oh, how can I accumulate these metals? But it's it's it's really moving up on uh like you're mentioning the start, you know, we as silver stackers on local level, but now we're looking at state levels. Uh it's it's really exciting. Well, thank you for all your work in the sound money defense league and we'll definitely be speaking soon.

[00:13:45]>> Pound of gold, one of my favorite channels. Great to be here. See you soon. Thanks a lot. text.