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Phillip Patrick, Precious Metals Specialist

Phillip Patrick, Precious Metals Specialist

Phillip Patrick is Birch Gold Group's primary spokesman and educator. He was born in London and earned a politics and international relations degree at the prestigious University of Redding in Berkshire, England. Growing up in London, he saw the risks of government overreach and socialist policies first-hand.

He spent years as a private wealth manager at Citigroup on Lombard Street (the Wall Street of London). He joined Birch Gold Group as a Precious Metals Specialist in 2012. He's been with us ever since. In 2021, Phillip became an American citizen (congratulations!).

Phil spends much of his time leading Birch Gold's team of Precious Metals Specialists, working with them to understand the current state of the global economy and how macroeconomic factors change the lives of everyday Americans. He excels at explaining exactly how abstract numbers like the Producer Price Index or Baltic Dry Index influence street-level economic reality. Precious metals are just one of his passions.

Because of his far-reaching expertise and his skill at making dry economics relatable, he's in great demand as a guest commentator at a number of media outlets.

Phillip Patrick in the media

Recently, Phil joined Ben Shapiro from The Daily Wire to discuss the dollar's status as global reserve currency. Click to watch:

BGG - Transcript

Video Transcript

Meanwhile, amidst all of this economic uncertainty, one consistent winner has been gold. I’ve talked about this before. Obviously, Birchgold is one of our big sponsors here at the Ben Shapiro Show.

I, full disclosure, personally invest with Birchgold. Philip Patrick is a precious metals specialist and spokesman for Birchgold Group. He joins us right now to discuss the status of the American dollar and where we are.

Philip, thanks for taking the time. Thanks for having me, Ben. So let’s talk about the status of the dollar right now.

There’s been a significant amount of de-dollarization over the course of the last couple of months, but it’s been going on for years at a time. First of all, why don’t we talk about what that means? Why is the global reserve status for American currency important? Yeah, look, it’s very important. It gives the U.S. what’s called exorbitant privilege, right? It’s allowed cheap borrowing, thanks to huge global demand for our dollars, massive control over global financial flows.

In essence, the U.S. has the veto power over any nation’s ability to engage in international trade. It’s allowed the federal government, of course, to run massive deficits without facing immediate collapse. So ultimately, I think it’s made American capital markets dominate the globe and ultimately made us the wealthiest nation in history.

So I think it’s hard to overstate how important global reserve currency status is. It underpins our economic, diplomatic, and I think military power worldwide. Okay, so let’s talk about the status of the dollar, given the fact that there’s a lot of economic uncertainty.

We’ve been hearing rumors about an upcoming meeting of the so-called BRICS nations. That’d be Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. They’re meeting in Rio de Janeiro this summer.

What is the goal? Look, I think officially it’s another working session between bureaucrats talking about economic cooperation. Unofficially, though, the BRICS leadership are expected to announce major advancements, essentially in a shadow financial system, a 21st century alternative to the existing dollar-denominated system. Inside sources are hinting now at a coordinated push to link the various systems that they’ve created over the last decade, things like Enbridge and BRICS Pay and commodity settled trade, with the goal of making dollar-free international transactions possible at scale.

Ultimately, I think it’s a culmination of their ongoing project to reduce the dollar’s monopoly as global reserve currency. So given the fact that there are all these nations aligning against the American dollar, that obviously means that you would expect that gold will be more in demand. I mean, there’s an attempt by all these nations to find some sort of new global reserve.

The Russian currency is not strong enough to withstand that, neither is the Chinese currency. All these are subject to manipulation. And so you’re seeing people rush for various safe havens, gold, obviously, historically, has been one of the big safe havens, maybe the key safe haven.

It’s exactly correct. And we’re seeing it. So U.S. dollar holdings by central banks are at 30-year lows.

Gold buying by central banks hit records year on year on year for the last three years. And actually last year, officially gold overtook the euro as the number two global reserve asset. And it’s for the exact reason that you mentioned, right? Russia, China, countries like this, they want to de-dollarize, they wanna take that non-kinetic weapon away from us, but they don’t have a viable alternative.

So they’re using gold as a means to de-dollarize. The longer that happens, the more that gathers steam, ultimately the weaker the dollar becomes. So it’s becoming problematic for sure.

All right, well, that is Philip Patrick, Precious Metal Specialist and Spokesman for Birch Gold Group. As you say, they’re a sponsor on the show. If you wish to check them out and get involved, then you should actually check out the Birch Gold Group and text my name, Ben, to 989898 to get started today.

Philip, thanks so much for the time. Thank you.

Phil has appeared on a number of radio, TV and streaming media shows over the last few years. Most recently, he's been featured on:

Bannon's War Room with Steve Bannon
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ron Paul Liberty Report
Graham Allen's Dear America
The Hugh Hewitt Show
The John Fredericks Show
Newsmax Magazine and Newsmax TV
Ringside Politics with Jeff Crouere

Somehow, Phillip's able to find time in his busy schedule to accommodate regular feature segments on all these shows. See the latest on the official Birch Gold Group Rumble channel.

Economics for everyday folks: Phillip Patrick quotes

Recently, Phillip became alarmed that the combination of massive government spending combined with unprecedented quantitative easing and soaring inflation might actually be deliberate. He explained his theory of "stealth default" in a number of appearances. Some highlights:

Trying to use high inflation to burn up your debt, it can work, but it’s kind like using a flamethrower to cook a hamburger. It’s hard to control, it’s unpredictable, and you may end up burning your house down. It’s a very dangerous policy.

- John Fredericks Radio Show

Phillip Patrick: Milton Friedman famously said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” Any time there’s more money without an equivalent rise in goods or services, prices go up. It’s basic economics.

We’re already seeing 5.3% consumer price inflation. That’s the Federal Reserve’s preferred metric, the one Wolf Richter calls “the lowest of lowball” inflation measures. That’s a 30-year high. Most of us weren’t making our own financial decisions 30 years ago, we just have no comprehension of how this will affect our finances. Remember, that’s the Fed’s preferred measuring stick. Lowest of lowball because it gives the least frightening results. If you measure inflation the same way the Federal Reserve did back in 1990, like John Williams at Shadowstats does, we’d be looking at a 9% annual inflation rate.

Because the Fed is keeping interest rates artificially low, while continuing to pump money into the economy, there’s almost nothing offering a positive after-inflation yield.

And people are absolutely desperate for some kind of safe haven for their money. So they’re piling into riskier and riskier investments. Housing prices have gone up 20% in the last year. The last year! Treasury bonds are trading about 3x their historic average. So people go absolutely crazy, and spend millions of dollars on non-fungible tokens on the blockchain, pictures of rocks and images of bored gorillas.

Ben Shapiro: So if we’re worried about inflation, 9% inflation like you said, we should buy pictures of gorillas on the blockchain?

Phillip Patrick: Well, Ben, a properly diversified portfolio might include pictures of rocks as well as gorillas.

Seriously, though, that’s not an approach I’d be looking at. To paraphrase John Maynard Keynes, the market can remain crazy longer than you can remain solvent.

- The Ben Shapiro Show

Phillip Patrick behind the scenes

When he isn't educating Americans on the benefits of wealth diversification with physical precious metals, Phillip enjoys studying the history of the Federal Reserve (his favorite economist is Allan H. Meltzer), mountain biking and playing fetch with his two dogs. Within his precious metals collection, he owns "an unspecified number" of Valcambi 1 oz gold bars.

Phillip Patrick, Precious Metals Specialist

Phillip Patrick in the media

Economics for everyday folks: Phillip Patrick quotes

Phillip Patrick behind the scenes

Recent posts by Phillip Patrick

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