Economic Collapse

Great interview with Marc Faber. FT.com really lets Faber talk in this 4-part interview giving him the chance to go into more depth than he is usually allowed to in F-TV interviews.
Video on FT.com

Gold has reached a new high in terms of Euros. Or, to put it more correctly: The Euros purchasing power falls to a new record low in terms of gold. Remember, gold is not rising, fiat paper currencies are falling.

James Turk puts it this way:

Here’s my point. We live in a world of floating currencies that bob up-and-down against each other as a consequence of what central banks in each country might be doing at any given time. But all national currencies are sinking against gold.

Read his commentary on this event here.

Duck Tales explains the dangers of loose monetary policy and hyperinflation. Very close to whats going on now in the world today.

Great interview with John Embry. He really makes the case for gold. As he puts it the question isn’t how high gold can go but how low fiat paper can fall:
http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/2/6_John_Embry.html

- “You should be in wealth-protection mode, not in trading mode”
John Williams

Very good audio interview with John Williams of Shadowstats.com released today. Listen carefully:
http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/2/6_John_Williams.html

Here is a good summery of the financial collapse. This TED-talk is held in Tallinn, Estonia, by Alar Tamming. He is the Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Tavid/Tavex, a gold bullion dealer operating in Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Sweden. He is also an Estonian and he should know a thing or two about what happens when fractional reserve banking runs amok. The crisis in Estonia, caused by wreck-less lending by Swedish banks, is far worse than in many other countries in Europe. Personally, as my readers know, I keep as little of my money as I can in fiat paper and on deposit at the bank, and as much as I can in real money - gold. As a customer at Tavid/Tavex I can recommend them for all your gold bullion needs.

TEDxTallinn: Alar Tamming / English subtitles from Tedsterid on Vimeo.

Disclosure: I receive no income of any kind recommending Tavid/Tavex.

As many of you know Peter Schiff is now running for Senator in the State of Connecticut. Schiff is an American economist of the Austrian School, author, commentator and popular video blogger who regularly appears in the role of a bearish pundit on numerous financial news networks. He predicted the Dotcom crash of 2000 and the Housing crisis of 2007/2008 and like the author of this blog he belives that the US Dollar is heading for hyperinflation. He is a licensed stock broker, the president of Euro Pacific Capital with a 100 employees who successfully protect their clients wealth by moving out of the US dollar and into real money such as gold etc.

If you want a crash course in the problems with the US economy, watch this. A good hour well spent with a lot of information and humor. Enjoy.

Disclosure: I have no vested interest in Euro Pacific Capital nor do I receive any payment for writing this.

Here is a great intervew with the legendary Marc Faber on interest rates, T-bills and currencies.

Since the Commercial Real Estate Mortgage bubble has begun to pop with the bankruptcy of Capmark that I wrote about yesterday I thought I’d give you some background to the events unfolding before our very eyes beginning now. These mortgages are given by lenders to companies building and operating commercial buildings such as malls, offices, hotels etc. With a declining economy these companies find it increasingly difficult to pay interest on their loans as income from rents keep falling. Consider these statistics from this month of October 2009 reported by facilitiesnet.com:

U.S. Office Vacancy Rates Continue Climb, But Are Slowing
“The office vacancy rate increased, by 60 basis points (bps), to 16.1 percent, at the end of the third quarter. Although this was the eighth consecutive quarter of rising vacancy rates, it was lower than the 80-bps increase in 2Q 2009 and was the slowest pace of increase since 4Q 2008.
The national industrial availability rate increased 50 bps to 13.5 percent in 3Q 2009. This result marks the 8th consecutive quarter of rising availability. The vast majority of industrial markets experienced rising availability, with 56 out of 61 major markets showing increases from the previous quarter.”

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Paul Tustain, founder & CEO of BullionVault.com just put out this talk in writing. He has been touring Asia talking to investment professionals in Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong. It’s a very well written talk and gives you a comprehensive overview of what might be coming our way. Download the 12 page PDF here. He talks about US consumers and what an increase in interest rates would entail for the tax burden:

The cost of a $20 trillion national debt costing 5% per annum in interest rates would
be $1 trillion, or $10,000 per annum in taxes per year for every American family, just to
pay the interest, i.e. before a single government service was delivered. That is the cost of
maintaining a $200,000 per family national debt.
The unavoidable conclusion is that, on-plan, the US cannot react appropriately to a
developing inflation problem. The G20 pronouncement that interest rates would stay
low for the foreseeable future was true. There is no alternative to permanently low
interest rates on these budget figures.

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