Do we hear, “higher interest rates will kill gold and silver”. Without going into a full writing on this, it simply is not true.
Interest rates did nothing but go higher during the 1970's when
by 1980 gold traded up to $850 and silver $50.
What killed gold and silver were 15-20% interest rates - competing with and popping the frothy bubbles.
America could “afford” these higher rates back then because - we were not already leveraged up. Corporations weren’t leveraged, neither were individuals.
The Treasury was not highly leveraged with well less than $2 trillion, and derivatives had barely been invented yet.
The U.S. simply cannot “afford” higher interest rates today.