To hear mainstream financial news organizations and analysts tell it, gold and silver have been flying because of:

• The decline of the U.S. dollar.
• International disorder sparked by the war between Russia and Ukraine, or the West’s war against Russia through its Ukrainian proxy.
• The seizure by the U.S. government and Western European governments of Russian foreign exchange assets.
• Heavy buying of gold by central banks seeking some independence from the dollar and U.S. foreign policy.
• The unstoppable increase in U.S. government and Western European government debt.
• Strong industrial demand for silver.

Of course there is something to all those things. But the mainstream carefully overlooks what is likely the biggest cause of the stunning revival of the monetary metals: the long-overdue calling of the short derivatives positions in both metals that has been operated for decades by the U.S. government, its closest allies, and their bullion bank agents.

Delivery of real metal now is being demanded against paper claims on metal, claims that were issued by bullion banks that never had to deliver it, thereby allowing gold and silver supplies to be oversubscribed by as much as 90 or 100 to 1.

Only a short squeeze can plausibly explain the violent price action in silver today, when the metal rose in price by as much as $7 or 10%. One-day action like that in the metals has not been seen for decades.

The squeeze is evident in the huge discrepancy between prices in Shanghai, India, London, and New York. Prices in Shanghai and India are far higher, creating an arbitrage opportunity that has been draining metal out of the West, metal that in many cases has multiple owners and isn’t readily available.

Examining this angle — the creation of vast imaginary supplies of the monetary metals in order to protect the dollar as the world reserve currency, maintain faith in U.S. government debt, and impoverish the rest of the world — might explode what’s left of the world’s political order, an unjust, imperialistic order that should be exploded.

Examining this angle also might fatally discredit the mainstream news organizations and analysts who aren’t capable of honesty in a matter so important.

Mainstream news organizations and market analysts will never touch it. Acknowledgment of it would implicate them too.