Precious metals expert Rick Rule shares ‘gold nuggets of wisdom’

Rick Rule: Sure. And actually I’ll take a little further than that with your permission. Most people have heard of the 80/20 principle, which suggests that in any sort of major field of human endeavor, 20% of the people engaged in that activity generate 80% of the utility. In other words, 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

This turns out to be, broadly speaking, true. And it was pointed out in social sciences by an Italian social scientist at the turn of the last century named Pareto. Hence it’s called Pareto’s law.

It’s appropriate to junior mining speculation because among other things, the performance dispersion curves—that is, the performance of relative management teams—aligns well, meaning that 20% of the management teams in junior mining generate 80% of the money made.

What’s important for readers to understand is that if you take that successful population, the 20%, and you run them through the same performance dispersion curve, they conformably align. Meaning that 20% of the 20 do 80% of the 80. Or 4% of the population base generates about 65% of the positive utility in the sector.

And I think it works for at least one more standard deviation, which would suggest that 20% of the 20% of the 20%, or eight-tenths of 1% generate about 40% of the total utility generated in the sector. Which is to say that one of the most important things that you can do as a speculator is identify and align yourself very patiently with the serially successful operators in the sector. And that is probably the most important work that you can do as a speculator.

In exploration, money is made employing new ideas in old places—that is, new technology—or old ideas in new places.

That isn’t to say that identifying a Robert Friedland, or a Ross Beaty, or a Lukas Lundin, or a Bob Quartermain, is the only work you need to do. The truth is that when you buy stocks that are headed by those people, you are still subjected to risk. You’re still subjected to volatility. You’re still subjected to the vagaries of exploration.

But your most important task is to identify the serially successful people—particularly identify the serially successful people in bad markets where you don’t have to pay a huge premium to be associated with them. And then hang on for dear life and let them work their magic over time.

Maurice Jackson: We brought you on today to share some of your golden nuggets of wisdom for those of us that ascribe to join you with the serially successful. Now you’re famous for stating you must have courage and conviction, which is a critical distinction you’ve mastered. Expand for us the psychology of courage, because this is a key attribute that you have.

Rick Rule: Well, it turns out it does take courage, Maurice. We were looking back over the exploration capital partnerships series, which is a series of investments managed by myself going back to 1998. And we found, interestingly, that first of all, the vast majority of the money that was made was made in a relatively small number of stocks—ones that increased in price 1,000% or more. Particularly where, of course, those investments were accompanied by warrants.

What was interesting was that despite the fact that we all want immediate gratification, the average holding period for a ten-bagger or 1,000% gain was almost five years. So one needs to be patient.

The courage comes in because almost every stock that we enjoyed 1,000% gain in, we experienced a 50% share price decline in at some point in time or another during our holding period for the stock.

The most dramatic example was the most successful stock that we speculated in during that period, which was Paladin Uranium. That stock was a bellwether in my career. We participated in a $0.10 financing, and I think it was probably 1999, when nobody cared about uranium. And we were rewarded for our contrarian genius by seeing the stock go from $0.10 to $0.01. That is, we experienced a 90% loss in the stock. When you experience a 90% loss, Maurice, there’s no such thing as a hold. It’s either a buy, or a sell.

Mercifully, we had the courage to reexamine our precept and determined that we were right, and the market was wrong. We did buy some more stock. And amazingly, over the next five years, that stock went from $0.01 to $10. Two times after the initial 90% decline, that stock fell by 50% or more.

So you had in the course of an almost fictionally good gain depending on how you count the start, $0.01 or $0.10 to $10. The initial test of courage came with a 90% loss, and there were two future losses in excess of 50%.

Similarly, Lumina copper backed by the serially successful Ross Beaty: We did the first financing, if my memory serves me well, at $0.50. And that stock ended up being liquidated in this series of seven transactions. I forget what the total was, but somewhere in the $140 range.

But either two or three times during the seven years that we held that stock, the stock declined by 50% or more. So it’s important that you understand that while price is interesting, price is only relevant to the extent that it varies appreciably from value, which means that you have to have an opinion as to value and an opinion as to the ability of a management team to continue to add value. Following price alone, if you experience a 50% decline and you assume as a consequence of that decline that there’s something wrong with the company, almost always you will be shaken out of circumstances that can give you a big gain.

And let me give you one further illustration, Maurice, that I think will amuse readers. We aren’t just talking about speculation in this context. Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, points out that four times during his stewardship of Berkshire Hathaway, arguably the most successful investment company in the history of American investing—four times during his tenure, the stock has fallen by 50% or more.

Now interestingly, if you examine a price chart of Berkshire Hathaway going back to 1968, from 1968 until present, those 50% declines relative to the share price escalation can’t even be seen on the stock chart. They’re invisible because the stock has moved so much over 40 years. But if you experienced those 50% declines at the point in time when you experienced them, they still caused you trouble. So I think that’s where the courage comes in.

Maurice Jackson: And before we leave courage, does the thesis, or is the scenario, very similar with uranium and copper today?

Rick Rule: Well, I think it is. If I’m understanding the question correctly, the courage associated with commodity markets is that the real money is made by buying industries that are, in effect, in liquidation. And that does take special courage. Certainly, if you looked at the uranium business today, the industry suggests that the incentive price to produce uranium, including prior year write-downs, which the industry never likes to talk about, and cost of capital, is about $60 a pound. So you make the stuff for 60 bucks a pound and you sell it for 27. You lose 33 bucks a pound, a 100 million times a year. And that takes some courage. Buying companies that have no probability of making money at the current commodity price requires courage. Some would say it requires insanity.

The difference, I think, between courage and insanity is simple arithmetic. Uranium, even in the United States, a wealthy economy that allegedly can afford alternatives, generates about 15% of our base load power. So it seems to me that the equation around uranium is that in the next six or seven years, either the price goes up to the point where the industry stays in business, or the lights go out. Those are your two choices. There is no way to replace 15% of base load electricity supply with any form of electricity in the next six or seven years.

So the courage comes into play and displaces allegations of insanity, I think, when you recognize that if you have the courage to speculate in an event that has to happen, but where you’re just not sure when it’s going to happen, it’s still a rational activity.

Maurice Jackson: And how about copper as well?

Rick Rule: Copper’s more interesting. There are plenty of companies that make cash at $2.75 per pound ($2.75/lb) copper, but the incentive price for opening new copper mines is more like US$3.50/lb. And US$3.50/lb, because it’s a capital-intensive business, assumes the artificially low interest rate environment that we’re living in today. If you had market interest rates—that is, if the prime interest rate was at 5%, or 6%, or 7%—the incentive price to produce copper would be up in the four or four and a quarter range.

My supposition is that even in an economic decline, demand for copper will be surprisingly resilient because of its utility—and particularly, its utility to the poorest 20% of the people on Earth.

Now if the world economy doesn’t soften substantially, and I don’t know if it will or it won’t, the copper price will go higher, because on a global basis, we are living off of copper deposits that were discovered 30 and 40 years ago and put into production, in most cases, 20 to 30 years ago. Deposits are very long of tooth. The great deposits in the world, like Bingham Canyon, have been operating for 100 years, Chuquicamata 100 years, Freeport-McMoRan Inc.’s (FCX:NYSE) Grasberg deposit, 40 years, Escondida 30 years. These are very, very, very long of tooth. And we aren’t developing new copper deposits because we’re not at incentive price.

So supply is going to be constrained in the copper business. The fly in the ointment here, Maurice, is if the economy does slow down, and I’m not saying it will. I don’t know. It could be that demand for copper declines a little bit too. I’m willing to take that bet, because my suspicion is that the ascent of man continues—that is, the billion and a half people at the bottom of the demographic pyramid continue to get richer, and continue to urbanize. And the consequence of urbanization is intensive use of electrical power, which requires lots of copper.

So my supposition is that even in an economic decline, that demand for copper will be surprisingly resilient because of its utility—and particularly, its utility to the poorest 20% of the people on Earth.

Maurice Jackson: How does the application of conviction fit into this narrative?

Rick Rule: Well, first of all, one needs to become educated enough that one can have conviction. The suggestion that I’ve made on your show so often is that one must be a contrarian or one will be a victim. That bear markets are the authors of bull markets.

My conviction with regards to that, Maurice, was born simply of experience. I’ve been in this business almost 45 years, and I’ve been through, depending on how you count, five cycles. And I understand the capital intention, the cyclical nature of the mining business. And I know very well by now that bear markets are the authors of bull markets. One of the things that gives me conviction that this market will turn is that that is simply the nature of markets for things like commodities, which are essential to mankind.

Other examples of conviction have to do with the intelligent application of science. If you have been around geologists and geology for a very long time, you begin to understand, first of all, what a good geologist is relative just to a geologist. And you understand what good geology is. And good geology overcomes a lot of sins. Market sins, management sins, all types of sins.

So I think that conviction is the conjunction of experience and education, which, while they’re related, are not the same thing. Having the education to understand the value of various inputs, and having the experience to have, in your past, seen outcomes associated previously with the same type of experiences that you’re having today, gives one conviction.

I guess, in my case, the third factor in conviction is having experience with people and teams. I have a high degree of confidence that if I go into a business with a Robert Friedland, or Bob Quartermain, or Ross Beaty, or Lukas Lundin, as a consequence of their past performance, I have a lot of conviction that, if I support them and stick with them—if I’m patient—that I’ll have a happy outcome. And that’s really born of experience.

Maurice Jackson: You touched on science, but how about philosophy? How does that factor into your decision-making process?

Von Mises also points out that our expectation of the future is set by your experience in the immediate rather than the distant past, which is why bull markets go on longer than they should and why bear markets go on longer than they should.

Rick Rule: Well, I try not to let it enter in too much, to be honest with you. I try to be mathematically and empirically based. The truth is, in terms of philosophy, my own political philosophy is very much libertarian and free market oriented, which means that I’m always a sucker for the gold bug pitch. The consequence of that is that I try not to listen to my philosophical side as often.

Now, related to a libertarian philosophy is an acceptance of the precepts of Austrian economics and, in particular, the predictions with regards to the activities of markets and groups of people that was evidenced by Ludwig von Mises in “Human Action.” I would say, in that sense—the understanding of economic cycles and the understanding of the impact of cycles on human action—that that part of my investing philosophy has been absolutely instrumental to my success.

Von Mises points out that although all of us believe ourselves to be rational fact-gatherers, that’s not what we are. We have a view of ourselves as impartial observers that gather information, hither and yon, and process it in a rational fashion. But that’s not what we do, in fact. We gather information that is convenient to our prejudices and our paradigms, and we use the information that we gather to support those same prejudices and paradigms.

Von Mises also points out that our expectation of the future is set by your experience in the immediate rather than the distant past, which is why bull markets go on longer than they should and why bear markets go on longer than they should. If you have done lots of work around an investment or speculation and you’re attracted to it, but your experience in the last five years has been that you get spanked for all your hard work, you tend to be cautious and conservative in bear markets—which is precisely when the markets are cheap—because your most recent experiences have been bad rather than good.

Conversely, in bull markets where stocks are doubling and tripling for no reason, you do two things. You confuse a bull market with brains. That is, you assume that your good performance is in some way, shape or form due to your own efforts. And you also become less cautious. Your expectation for the future being set in the immediate past means that you’re irrationally bullish. Even in a market that’s up 400% or 500%, which is, as you know by now, Maurice, something that’s not an uncommon phenomenon in our sector. Yeah, I’ll leave it there.

Maurice Jackson: Well, Rick, this is great information. Here’s one that really I find attractive with your thought process here, because most people shy away from this. And it sticks with courage and conviction. You’re not afraid to put capital into companies that are in challenging jurisdictions, either through civil unrest or through a silent partner known as our benevolent government wishing to do some profit-sharing with your capital. Why is that?

Rick Rule: I’ll tell you why, Maurice. It’s not like I think Congo, or Russia, or Sudan, or Bolivia are the greatest countries on the face of the earth. I’m certainly cognizant of political risk. The truth is, however, that I’ve experienced lots of political risk in places that are alleged to be good. My worst personal experience with political risk was here in the People’s Republic of California. But I’ve also had money stolen from me by legislatures in places like British Columbia.

The truth is that investors who look like me, old and Caucasian, tend for some reason to believe that money that’s stolen from us in English, according to the rule of law, is somehow less gone. So I’m not afraid of bad jurisdictions, it’s just I’m also afraid of so-called good jurisdictions. And what I’ve learned is that in jurisdictions where capital feels comfortable, a lot more exploration has taken place, which means that the probability that I’m going to find a high-quality deposit in a jurisdiction that I’m also comfortable in is very low. The probability is that I’ll find the type of deposit that will give me the returns I’m looking for—1,000% plus—are much more likely to occur in jurisdictions that have not been looked at as thoroughly.

Perhaps my most important mentor in the 1970s told me that in exploration, money is made employing new ideas in old places—that is, new technology—or old ideas in new places. But if you’re using old ideas and old places, you’re assuming that you’re smarter than everyone that came before you, which is usually an incorrect assumption.

So, as an example, investments around the application of new technologies like three-dimensional seismic measurement while drilling, and new fracturing and recovery techniques, have revolutionized the old oil fields of West Texas. That’s a new idea in an old place. But old-fashioned exploration technology—that is, projection of existing trends, things like that—work well in places like Congo and Kazakhstan, places that haven’t been explored thoroughly for 40, or 50, or 60 years, as a consequence of challenging social, economic, and political circumstances. So I would say that while I’m certainly cognizant of political risk, I define political risk much differently than many of my competitors.

Maurice Jackson: May I ask, was that Mr. Lundin that you were referring to there?

Rick Rule: Although Adolf Lundin would have said exactly the same thing, the guy I was referring to was a man named Jack Brown, of a private oil and gas company called Wagner & Brown.

Maurice Jackson: Before we leave speculation, we have a subscriber that wanted me to ask you if you would share three junior exploration stocks in the gold sector that you like best.

Rick Rule: I’m not allowed to do that. I’m U.S.-securities licensed. And the consequence is that I can’t make anything that smacks of a recommendation to people whom I don’t know. I can repeat the offer that I’ve made on your show so many times, which is to evaluate people’s portfolio, rank people’s portfolio for them, if they e-mail it to me. But a general set of things that can be construed as recommendations is something that I can’t do. Is the person who’s talking particularly about precious metals?

Maurice Jackson: Junior mining stocks. Junior explorations stocks for gold companies.

Rick Rule: OK. If they’re for gold companies, I can tell you that I have been buying two recently. This doesn’t suggest that your subscribers should buy them. This isn’t a recommendation. This is simply a disclosure about two companies I’ve been buying. One is Pan American Silver Corp. (PAAS:TSX; PAAS:NASDAQ), run by Ross Beaty, which is down really substantially in price as a consequence of, I think, the market misunderstanding the acquisition of Tahoe Resources. And the other would be Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. (SBB:TSX; RXC:FSE; SGSVF:OTCPK), which is a very large project in northern Canada, which is access constrained, meaning that access to it is by a winter ice road. It’s a very large deposit that people are afraid of because they don’t understand when it’s going to come in production. But we see it as both a large and high-grade deposit that is highly likely to come into production.

It’s important that your listeners note that these are not recommendations. These are not suggestions. These are not tips. These are merely two companies that I have been buying.

Maurice Jackson: Well, Rick, thank you for sharing that. And Rick, speaking of gold, you’re a strong advocate for owning physical precious metals. But not in the context that we usually hear from those who advocate having physical precious metals. Why does Rick Rule own precious metals?

Rick Rule: Fear. I regard precious metals as insurance. And insurance, in particular, against political interference with living standards. I believe the most important determinant—certainly not the only determinant, but the most important determinant—of the gold price is faith, or lack of faith, in the U.S. dollar as expressed by the U.S. 10-year Treasury, which is the world’s benchmark security. The dollar is very, very strong, despite historically low interest rates.

I think that’s partly about strong equities markets. I also think it’s about the relative weakness of competitors to the U.S. dollar. While I consider the U.S. dollar to be a flawed instrument, it is certainly a less-flawed instrument than the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, the euro, the Canadian dollar— all of those. Doug Casey famously says that the U.S. dollar is the prettiest mayor at the slaughterhouse. That might be a bit extreme.

But I need to say that I’m less sanguine about the U.S. economy. I’m less sanguine about our balance sheet; $22 trillion in on-balance sheet liabilities and $100 trillion in off-balance sheet liabilities. And our ability to service those debts, given the fact that we’re running a federal deficit at a trillion and a half dollars a year. I have less faith in the U.S. dollar than many of my global counterparts.

And my suspicion is if you saw a circumstance where faith in the U.S. dollar began to roll over, as it did in 2001, the price response that you’d see in gold would be one where, even if you had a substantial holding of U.S. dollars in your portfolio, the money that you would make on your insurance policy, which is gold, could offset the money that you would lose in your U.S. dollar-based accounts. I see gold, myself, as a medium of exchange that’s simultaneously a store of value. And the consequence of that is that I own gold for insurance purposes.

The very recent strength in the gold price is a function of investors’ realization that the United States is unlikely to let the market dictate the interest rate

Maurice Jackson: You’re also famous for saying that it is payment in full. Can you elaborate on that for us?

Rick Rule: I think that’s very important. The U.S. dollar is a promise to pay. It supposes that people will continue to accept it. Almost every fiat currency in history has always retreated to its intrinsic value, which is, of course, zero. If, as an example, rather than having U.S. dollars in your jeans, you had Venezuelan bolivars, you would understand the promise for what it was. Something that could be broken.

Gold is very different. It doesn’t rely on faith. Gold isn’t a promise to pay. It is, in and of itself, payment. It is an asset that isn’t simultaneously somebody else’s liability. And I think that’s very, very important. I don’t think, as an example, that you’re seeing the Chinese government, the Chinese Central Bank, buying gold because they like the chart. I think that you’re seeing them buy gold because they’re afraid that the U.S. government will use U.S. financial markets and U.S. dollars as a weapon in foreign exchange transactions.

And so the Chinese are looking—and I just point out the Chinese, others are looking the same way—to a medium of exchange that isn’t under anybody’s control and isn’t a promise to pay, but rather constitutes payment in and of itself.

It’s interesting to note, Maurice, that over the last couple of days in the news, you will see that Venezuela exported seven tons of gold to Uganda, and then apparently onto either Dubai or Turkey. A pariah state that can’t necessarily trade in U.S. 10-year Treasuries can trade, can buy and sell gold. But even more interestingly, apparently those gold bars date from the 1940s, and they were payment from the United States to Venezuela for oil that was sold in World War II, when the Venezuelans had some doubt as to the outcome of the war, and weren’t willing to take U.S. dollars for their oil. They were willing to take gold.

So even a creditor as strong as the United States has periods of time, has circumstances, where their promise, which is what their currency is, isn’t acceptable. But there hasn’t been a time in recorded history when gold wasn’t acceptable.

Maurice Jackson: Well, I tell you what, I’m loving the insights that you’re sharing with us. What do the current metal prices suggest to you right now?

Rick Rule: A mixed message, really. I think the very recent strength in the gold price—by very recent I mean the last 10 days—is a function of investors’ realization that the United States is unlikely to let the market dictate the interest rate. That is, society in the United States has decided that spenders should prevail over savers, and that the interest yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury should be artificially lowered.

When the U.S. Fed does [this], it’s called quantitative easing. If you and I did it, it would be called counterfeiting. I think there’s a realization in the market that the United States government is at the very least considering another round of counterfeiting.

Now, in terms of counterfeiting, although the United States is a very competitive economy, we don’t lead in counterfeiting. In the Euro Zone, there are many countries that are already paying a negative interest rate yield. Euro Zone counterfeiting is much more pronounced, as is Japanese counterfeiting, then American counterfeiting. But, as you know, Maurice, we’re in an extremely competitive society, and we want to finish first at everything, even including the debasement of our currency. And the consequence of that, I think, is the very recent strength that you’ve seen in gold.

Maurice Jackson: And may I ask you this as well? We all have our favorites, but right now, what is your favorite? Gold, silver, platinum or palladium?

Rick Rule: For me, because I’m buying out of cowardice, it’s gold. I don’t necessarily think that has the most price upside. A speculator might look at silver, gold’s so-called ugly stepchild. The silver price moves after the gold price moves, but if past is prologue, moves further when it does move. So a fear buyer would be in the gold trade. A greed buyer might be in the silver trade. The silver trade is something I probably would have done in my twenties. The gold trade is something that I do in my sixties.

The contrarian, of course, would be in the platinum space. About 60% of world platinum production is uneconomic at present. Most of it is coming out of South Africa, a place that has its very own social and political challenges, which could disrupt supply. Note that I said could, not will.

So I think, as important as the attributes ascribed to each individual metal are, what’s more important is the investors’ needs and perceptions. Why he or she is doing what they’re doing? I have other ways to make money, which is to say, speculate in equities or participate in debt markets. For me, the principal utility in precious metals is for insurance, in effect, allowing me to sleep nights and stay calm.

Maurice Jackson: Rick, thank you for sharing your golden nuggets of wisdom. Let’s switch gears here. On the 29th of July through the 2nd of August, the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium will be held at the historic Fairmont Hotel in beautiful downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. Rick, introduce us to this world-class event and who will be some of the featured speakers at the symposium?

Rick Rule: Well, it’s going to be, in all humility, a spectacular event. Nomi Prins will be speaking, you know. She’s a veteran financial commentator, a veteran banker, an investment banker. Danielle DiMartino Booth, formally from the Dallas Fed, will be speaking. We’re bringing back, of course, Jim Rickards, Doug Casey, Steve Sjuggerud, Alexander Green; many of the gurus that have traditionally been so well received in the mining space.

But the part of the conference that I actually like the most is we’ll have a lot of speakers from the industry—in particular, speakers who have passed the Pareto’s law test. Speakers who have built multibillion-dollar mining businesses from scratch. People whose experience building businesses has allowed them to become successful speculators too. And hearing from a business builder what he or she thinks are the important characteristics of success in the mining business is invaluable. Hearing Robert Friedland, who is the most successful exploration speculator of my generation, talk about the process of making money in exploration. Hearing Ross Beaty, who has built 14 successful mining companies, talk about how you build a successful mining company. That’s really where the rubber meets the road.

Another thing we’re doing this year, since all the guys I’ve talked about before are of my vintage approaching or past their sell-by date, is we’re bringing in some people in their thirties and forties who have already exhibited success, and who we suspect will be the mining titans of the future, so that investors can get to know the people who will make them as successful over the next 20 or 30 years, as I’ve been in the past 20 or 30 years. A lot of the success, Maurice, to people ascribed to me is really a consequence of my having identified and hung onto the Lundins, the Ross Beatys, the Robert Friedlands, the Bob Quartermains, the Clive Johnsons of the world.

It’s important that speculators and investors your age and younger find that next generation of superstar entrepreneurs. And we’ve tried to do the dirty work for people by assembling as many of the high-quality youngsters as we can in one place.

The other thing that’s really useful, I think, Maurice, is that you’re going to have 600 high net worth investors in one location. The idea that all of the knowledge in the room emanates from the dias is ridiculous. There are a lot of experienced investors there, including many mining industry professionals. And interacting with your peers, listening to the questions that they ask in workshops, watching the way that they react to presentations, is useful.

Finally, an important difference between our conference and every other conference that we know of, is that our attendees have told us that the exhibitors at our conference aren’t advertisers, which is how they’re regarded at most conferences—that they are in fact investment opportunities or content.

The consequence is that if you are a public company exhibitor at the Sprott conference, you need to be owned in a Sprott-managed account. In other words, they have been vetted by us. That doesn’t, unfortunately, guarantee that every stock goes up. But it does say that we know enough about every exhibitor that we have our own capital at risk in them, which I think is really important criterion.

And finally, Maurice, if I can continue this commercial, it is possible to have fun in Vancouver. You’ve been there, you can attest to this. Vancouver is a beautiful city. The weather in late July, early August is sublime. Any investor who comes up there and doesn’t go on the attendee boat cruise with us needs his or her head examined. The hotel itself is within walking distance of 200 restaurants. And Vancouver’s an amazingly scenic city, with mountains rising above 6,000 feet from sea level right in front of you, and an embarcadero—a walkway along the water—where you will hear six, or seven, or 10 different languages spoken. It’s truly a spectacular place. And I think it’s going to be difficult this year not to make money as a consequence of attending the conference.

Maurice Jackson: Ladies and gentlemen, this is truly a world-class event, as Rick just shared. To purchase admission to the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium, visit our home page and simply click on the icon, and you’ll be forwarded directly to the registration tab.

We touched on philosophy earlier. A day after the symposium, you’ll be speaking at Capitalism and Morality, founded by a mutual friend of ours, Jayant Bhandari. I love the timing of the events. Rick, for someone new to Capitalism and Morality, what would you like to share?

Rick Rule: Well, it’s more philosophically oriented. Capitalism and Morality is a lot of fun. The Adrian Days, and the Doug Caseys, and the Maurice Jacksons, and the Rick Rules of the world, talking about issues that are mostly unrelated to money. I’m going to be very amused this year to be involved in public debate with my friend Jayant Bhandari, who is, you know, of Indian descent, and who is, of course, a viciously anti-Indian racist.

A white guy accusing a brown guy of racism at a public forum is only something that could occur in a libertarian or anarcho-capitalist event. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. Not merely for that, but for people who have a philosophical or political interest, Capitalism and Morality is wonderful value.

Maurice Jackson: To register for Capitalism and Morality, simply visit our home page and right below the Sprott Symposium you’ll be directed to the registration tab. Sir, before we close, you referenced earlier a free grading of one’s natural resource [portfolio]. Fill us in on the details on that, please.

Rick Rule: Sure. That’s pretty simple. Your listeners who are interested in my opinion about their natural resource-related equity investments need only e-mail me, [email protected], with the names and symbols of their resource holdings in the e-mail text, not as an attachment. Remember, I’m 66 years old, and not always good at opening attachments. I will rank their holdings on a 1-to-10 basis and return those via e-mail. It’s something I frankly enjoy doing. I learn a lot by researching companies that I haven’t known as well as I should. So I look forward to conversing with your listeners, Maurice, and attempting to assist them with at least my analysis of their holdings

Maurice Jackson: And to assist in streamlining these e-mails, please make sure that you put in the subject line Proven and Probable. Last question, sir. What did I forget to ask?

Rick Rule: I don’t think much. I think we’re doing a reasonably good job—you in particular, Maurice, picking up bite-sized topics to talk about. I enjoy talking about people. I remember we did that once before, two or three years ago. And I enjoyed the process and I enjoyed the product. So I don’t think we’ve missed very much. I also think we’ve probably worn out the audience, should we decide to prolong it at any rate.

Maurice Jackson: I don’t believe so, sir. For additional inquiries about Sprott USA and all their products and services, please visit sprottusa.com or call (800) 477-7853.

And as a reminder, we discussed physical precious metals. I’m a licensed broker for Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments, where we provide unlimited options to expand your precious metals portfolio, from physical deliver, offshore depositories, precious metals IRAs, and private blockchain-distributed ledger technology. Call me directly at (855) 505-1900 or you may e-mail [email protected].

Finally, we invite you to visit ProvenandProbable.com, where we deliver Mining Insights and Bullion Sales.

Rick Rule of Sprott USA, 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.