Economic Collapse

Dear readers,

Why is gold ascending in price? Why does it cost you more to go out for lunch today than one year ago? If you understand that gold is money that cannot be printed at will by Central Banks and you look at this chart, then you will be able to answer the questions above.

Source: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE

Note also that according to the Fed, we are not in a recession. But then again, according to Ben Bernanke, gold is not money. Now after you watch that clip, read this:

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. …This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.
- Alan Greenspan

Ben Bernanke is on the other hand doing exactly what Greenspan told the world in 1997:

[…] A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. A fiat money system, like the ones we have today, can produce such claims without limit.
[…] Thus, central banks are led to provide what essentially amounts to catastrophic financial insurance coverage. […] If the owners or managers of private financial institutions were to anticipate being propped up frequently by government support, it would only encourage reckless and irresponsible practices.
[…] On the other hand, if central banks effectively insulate private institutions from the largest potential losses, however incurred, increased laxity could threaten a major drain on taxpayers or produce inflationary instability as a consequence of excess money creation.

Listen here to an interview Eric King of KingWorldNews.com did with Jim Sinclair in 2009 discussing this quote. Key words: excess catastrophic money creation without limit.

I advice you to watch what the Fed is doing, and listen with critical ears to what they are saying. The Fed is not only managing monetary aggregates, they are managing the perspective on economics (what Jim Sinclair calls “MOPE”). In essence they are saying one thing, doing another and at the same time understanding the third: Gold is money. Has always been. And will continue to be until we come up with a system without money.

We are at a point of critical systemic risk, as James G. Rickards told the GATA audience in London earlier in August. You should still be in wealth protection mode, and not in trading mode, now more so than ever.

Best Regards /Johnny

Modern paper or digital money is created through a mechanism know as “fractional reserve banking”. In short, this means that new paper money is created when a private bank issues a loan. This means that virtually all money that circulates in the world has been created through debt. All paper money is debt and all debt has interest payments attached to it. To keep the Ponzi scheme afloat bankers need to constantly increase the amount of money in circulation. This is why they fear deflation (a decrease in the amount of money in circulation) and love inflation (the opposite). However, they need to control inflation at a level that they see fit. If inflation is cut loose the dragon is free to destroy the debt the bankers created.

In deflation, saving money in the mattress is no problem since deflation makes the purchasing power of money greater tomorrow compared to today, rendering your need for bankers none. The opposite is true in inflation. So, in deflation, people don’t need bankers. In inflation, saving money is penalized and speculation and consumption is rewarded since the purchasing power is lower tomorrow compared to today. Bankers make their money on speculation with deposited money (your money) and lending out newly created money as credit earning interest. Speculation leads to higher risk taking and money flows to all kinds of areas both productive and non-productive. Eventually this leads to asset bubbles.

In Sweden, where I live, a normal deposit account at a bank will give you about 1,75% interest today. At the same time, official statistics on consumer prices says prices rose by about 2,5% last year (2010). This means that the bankers steal the difference from your deposit account. This is an example on why savers are penalized in an inflationary environment. However, real inflation, that is to say the expansion of the amount of money in circulation in Sweden, rose by about 10% in 2010. And I can tell you going out for lunch today is about 10% more expensive than it was one year ago. This means that having my savings deposited at a bank makes me lose about 8,25% in purchasing power per year. This is just 1,75 percentage points better than the mattress!

So, bankers create money out of nothing by issuing credit. Credit is spent in the economy as money. Attached to the money are interest payments that flow from the borrowers to the bankers. To keep the ever expanding credit bubble from popping, the bankers need to constantly increase the amount of money in circulation, otherwise interest payments on outstanding debt cannot be paid, credit defaults and the balance sheet and the stock price of the banks go down.

I believe in Love. If you can learn to love thy enemy, you will be greatly rewarded. I love bankers! Why? Because I keep all my savings in physical gold and silver. The more fake credit-based-fiat-paper-so-called-money the bankers create out of thin air, the more they expand the money supply and the higher the price of my gold and silver will be. Gold and silver in physical possession makes me totally immune to the theft of bankers. Yesterday, the banker of bankers Ben Bernanke, kept interest rates at all time lows. A few minutes after his announcement gold and silver prices headed higher. Gold at all time highs and silver approaching its (in nominal terms).

So go on, Ben! Print! Print! Print! Sure, you’ll totally destroy this Ponzi scheme we call “the financial system” while you’re at it only making the inevitable happen sooner rather than later: the world will return to fair sound money based on gold and silver.

I love you Ben!
Yours truly /Johnny

“This time around, you are not going to sell it, you’re going to spend it. Gold is going to reassert itself as currency. When it does you will know it is at its maximum value. That’s probably three to five years down the road (2014-2016). Weather it’s 8,000 or 4,000 or 20,000, you can’t forecast it because you don’t know what the central banks are going to do in terms of how badly they are going to debase the US Dollar”.
- James Turk, founder of GoldMoney.com

On the 27th of January 2011, I attended Cheviot’s Sound Money Conference (9 videos available). I flew in to The City, the belly of the beast, to listen to some of my favorite economists like James Turk of GoldMoney.com, Chris Powell of GATA.org, Hugo Salinas-Price of The Mexican Civic Association for Silver and David Morgan of Silver-investor.com. Also attending and participating during the last hour of panel debate were Max Keiser of the Keiser Report and Ben Davies of Hinde Capital. This was a Rivendel type gathering of both wise men seeing the future and men and dwarves debating over issues only wizards and elves can see beyond.

There is a lot to say about the content of the day in London, but you can see all of it for your selves and make your own conclusions. But to some it all up: The followers of Sound Money know what is going on. Very few have any clue what so ever – even those with degrees in economics since most of them are caught in a Keynsian perspective. What we have been saying now for years are slowly becoming main stream. If you do not own physical gold and silver, you own no liquidity that will stand the test of time.

I highly recommend David Morgans analysis of the silver market, as well as Hugo Salinas-Price excellent presentation on how to practically apply and re-instate silver as currency from a state level. We have much to learn here when we reorganize our local economies along side a collapsing fiat system.

A question I often get from people is “when do I sell my gold”? The question really expresses a state of mind embedded in the fiat system of paper. If you understand that the fiat system is dying and fading away like a withering weed for flowers to grow in its place, you become to understand that you will not sell your gold and silver this time: you will spend it. Fiat paper will one day buy you nothing. That is how James Turk summarized that debate in one sentence during the panel debate (26min into the debate), also quoted above.

In 2011 I see silver at at least 50 USD/Oz and gold approaching 1800 USD/Oz. Probably this is too low. Friends and I have discussed that what we see happening is transpiring much slower than we both anticipated, however I do feel 2011 will be the year when gold and silver becomes mainstream. If I am correct the above fiat price targets will be proven wrong on the low side. The silver market is extremely tight, now also in backwardation. This is huge. Physical metal is selling out all throughout the world driven by Chinese massive buying. A friend of mine trying to take advantage of lower VAT on silver told me that one German online silver dealer sold out one year of exporting quotas to Sweden in less than two weeks! If you don’t have any physical silver, get it now. More on the tightness of the market of silver here from Eric Sprott and daughter.

I haven’t written anything here in a long time, but really there is nothing to say except repeat what we already know. Accumulate as much metal as you can during the coming weeks and months. This time, before the Spring Equinox, I feel it will be the last time we see gold below 1400 USD/Oz and silver below 31 USD/Oz. If you have fiat money you can afford to lose, I can certainly give you recommendations in the Casino Matrix of Stocks and Derivatives. However, that is not recommended if you value good sleep. Contact me if you need advice and consulting on how to manage your portfolio for 2011. James Turk makes an excellent point in his presentation on how to look at gold and silver in your portfolio.

Today in the news:

World currency war has begun, Brazil’s finance minister says
http://gata.org/node/9085

“An ‘international currency war’ has broken out, according to Guido Mantega, Brazil’s finance minister, as governments around the globe compete to lower their exchange rates to boost competitiveness.”

The World Monetary Earthquake, The Dash From Cash - Ben Davies
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2010/9/28_Ben_Davies_-_The_World_Monetary_Earthquake.html

“Within a single week 25 nations have deliberately slashed the values of their currencies. Nothing quite comparable with this has ever happened before in the history of the world. This world monetary earthquake will carry many lessons.”

Meanwhile in Germany:

Remember, it is only too late to boy gold when there is no gold left for sale.

Just came back from the pre-premiere of a Swedish-made movie called “Overdose - The Next Financial Crisis“. It’s narrated by Cato Institute affiliate and free-lance writer Johan Norberg and the movie is also based on one of his books. I must say the movie portrays the dire mess we are in, in a manner that’s very easily grasped. This makes it a very good movie to share with your friends if you find it difficult to get people close to you to listen to boring financial lingo. Highly recommended! The film features trend forecaster Gerald Celente, investor Peter Schiff and many others.

For everyone in Washington D.C., the Cato Institute is screening the film on the 17:th of May 2010.
Facebook group is also available.

This is a great article by Alar Tamming, Tavex, Estonia and Dr. Krassimir Petrov, Ahlia University, Bahrain on the situation we are in right now minus all the mass-media propaganda. Their cannot be a “jobless recovery”, you can’t print your way out of this mess. Keynesianism is wrong at the core, no matter what bureaucrats, politicians, journalist or bankers tell you. The printing of money of Central Banks around the world has gone parabolical and the paper will return to its intrinsic value of zero. Read the rest of this entry »

As I posted a two days ago, Peter Schiff does not agree with Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman about China and what would happen if the chinese stopped buying US debt. As he said in the video he would write an in-debth article on the same subject. That article is now available, entitled “Paul Krugman Versus Reality“. Here are a few quotes:

In his latest weekly New York Times column, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman put forward arguments that were so nonsensical that the award committee should ask for its medal back…

According to Krugman, our secret weapon of economic invincibility is the Fed’s ability to print dollars endlessly. If China were to foolishly decide to attack us by selling our debt, the Fed could simply step in and buy the excess with newly printed greenbacks. (In other words, Krugman sees no difference between funding the debt and monetizing it. See my latest video blog on the subject.). For Krugman, China would gain little from such an attack, but would lose the ability to export to its best customer and suffer severe losses in the value of its dollar holdings. Krugman’s worldview is reassuring - but it has absolutely nothing to do with reality…

There is a huge difference between selling your debt to another and “selling” it to yourself. When China buys our debt, it uses its own savings. In order to purchase a trillion dollars of U.S. Treasuries, the Fed would have to expand our money supply by a corresponding amount. Even Krugman acknowledges that this would cause the dollar to lose value; however, he feels that a weaker dollar is good for America and bad for China…

Krugman does not believe that a tanking dollar will translate into higher interest rates or higher consumer prices at home. No matter how many dollars the Fed creates, or how much value those dollars lose relative to other currencies, he is confident that as long as unemployment remains high, rates will stay low and inflation will remain under control. This is absurd…

To construct a policy around Krugman’s ridiculous assumption that we benefit China more than they benefit us is to invite catastrophe on an unimaginable scale.

- Jim Sinclair, March 7th 2010:

What is the difference between the State of California and the State of Greece? The State of California is a bigger bankruptcy… The financial industry is at war with Greece. The CDS-attack (Credit Default Swaps, an off-the-counter derivative) is a nuclear financial attack on Greece.

Very interesting two-part interview with the legendary Jim Sinclair of JSMineSet.com by King World News. Listen to this amazing interview: part 1 and part 2.

In part 2, Jim Sinclair talks about Quantitative Easing, hyperinflation and the coming One World Currency of the IMF and a de facto financial One World Government.

The interview ends with Jim Sinclair concluding:

“Be prepared! This is a great civilization change. The most positive thing you can do is to recognize what is out there. The greatest contribution you can make to your family is to be prepared. So when all of this happens, you already have things in place: plans as of what you can do.
…We are not trying to scare anybody or trying to sell anything. We are simply saying, this is the hand writing on the wall. This is what’s most likely going to happen. In order to prepare you have to look at your financial and physical situation. You have to se weather or not this is a really great and significant shift in world history.
…The entire purpose of all this is preparation, because the truth will set us free.”

That last statement is at the core of why I have this blog. The world is changing. If you want to protect the purchasing power of your savings from the devaluation of the printing press - buy gold. If you want to stimulate your mind and stay a head of the game, keep reading, listening and watching. Stay tuned…

I got a question from a friend today and I thought I’d share it with you here on my blog:

Question: The value of the dollar has gone up recently and it seems to be holding steady. Why is that so?

My short answer is this:

1. First, the derivatives and equities markets are highly leveraged. This means that fund managers borrow cash, with stock or other assets as collateral, to buy even more stock.
2. The more they borrow the worse their credit rating gets and the more interest they have to pay on their loans, their “leverage”. How do they get a better credit rating? They call AIG and purchase a “credit default swap”, insurance from defaulting on loans, and they borrow even more…
3. Now, when the value of the stock invested fall, they get a “margin call” from the bank or institution that provided the borrowed cash. This means that the fund manager by contract is forced to sell.
4. The loan for the cash is taken in USD, but the stock bought with the cash is often purchased on a stock exchange outside the US in the currency of that market. When the stock is sold, due to the margin call, this sale is also done in the local currency. But since the loan is denominated in USD the fund manager first have to sell the local currency and buy back USD to pay back the loan to the issuing institution (paying back the loan is called “deleveraging”). This creates a temporary demand for USD which causes it to go up compared to the local currency.

Also, the second point to be made is that US government bonds are considered to be a “safe haven” in times of turmoil. This is because the USD is still the preferred reserve currency of central banks. This is about to change as inflation kicks in due to the expansion in the money supply and the mega borrowing from the Fed. When the deleveraging is over, and the central banks around the world realize that the USD is no longer a safe haven, the USD will drop like a stone – game over. The other currencies will then shortly after collapse as well. Only gold and silver will preserve your purchasing power at that point.

In late 2009/2010 the USD has been rising again. This is caused by the massive short on the Euro in connection to the crisis in Greece. The financial industry will hammer the Euro, Sterling and eventually the USD again. Remember, all fiat paper will go down to its true value Zero. It’s not how high gold will go, it’s how low paper will fall.

Powerful article on sovereign debt and gold. Here’s a quote:

Wherever we look at the world economy today, we see a wall of risk…and potential financial catastrophe. We see a large number of virtually bankrupt major sovereign states (US, UK, Spain, Italy, Greece, Japan and many more) teetering atop a financial system that is bankrupt, but is temporarily kept alive with phony valuations and unlimited money printing. Increasingly, therefore, investors will want to exchange this funny money for gold.