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Historically, gold has proven to be a very safe investment – could it remain so in times of a massive global debt bubble, Brexit, trade wars and an uncertain world economy?

“You have to choose between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the government. And, with due respect for these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold.”

The words of the witty Irish playwright and philosopher George Bernard Shaw, will resonate with investors in Ireland , the UK and internationally today given the UK government’s handling of Brexit and the rise of Trump and other radical politicians on the left and right.

Populist politicians are creating increasing political, economic and financial risks for us all. This is clearly seen in the complete mess that is Brexit – for Ireland, the UK and indeed the EU.

Shaw was a keen student of history and saw the economic problems that monarchies and governments have created over the years. Only the most foolhardy investor would claim that the coming years will be any different than our past.

Gold’s safe-haven historical status

A massive global debt bubble, Brexit, the risk of Italy leaving the EU, an increasingly fractured EU, aggressive Trump foreign and economic policies and an increasingly polarised and uncertain world cast shadows over our economies and financial markets.

There are very real risks posed by the gigantic global debt bubble – the world is nearing $250 trillion in debt and the global debt to GDP ratio has risen to 320%.

Shaw was also alluding to gold’s safe-haven status throughout history. Paper currency devaluations and indeed stock, bond and property market crashes are much more common throughout history than many people realise.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Davos: David Attenborough Warns We Are Damaging The World ‘Beyond Repair’

January 24, 2019

Davos: David Attenborough Warns We Are Damaging The World ‘Beyond Repair’

– David Attenborough warns Davos summit – ‘The Garden of Eden is no more’
– “If we wreck the natural world, we wreck ourselves” warns Attenborough
– If we destroy our environment, it will badly impact our economies and markets
– We must put the environment at the heart of our financial and monetary systems
– “Future proof” our economies, our currencies, our finances & our pensions with gold
– Hope for the best but be prepared and insure against the worst

The world faces some very serious ecological challenges due to the pollution, destruction and over consumption of our natural resources. Climate change is just one of the challenges facing us, but tends to be focused on almost exclusively alas – to the detriment of many other serious environmental risks.

There is much cognitive dissonance between the increasingly alarming warnings that we are damaging the world ‘beyond repair’ and the complete complacency of investors and market participants.

There is a complete failure to ‘join the dots’ between environmental challenges of today and how they may impact our economies, markets and indeed our investments and already vulnerable pensions.

The markets and our economies are completely dependent on our planet’s ecology. If the environment is destroyed so to will be our societies and economies and companies and governments as we know them today will also be impacted and many will disappear with obvious ramifications for the outlook for stock and bond markets.

The notion that our global economy and financial markets including frothy risk assets such as stock and bond markets would not be impacted by these serious environmental risks is irrational and complacent in the extreme. Our economies and markets are obviously dependent on our planet.

It seems increasingly likely that the severe environmental challenges of today will badly impact our economies and indeed financial markets.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Real” Inflation Expected to Rise – Hedge Your Bets With Gold

January 19, 2019

“Real” Inflation Expected to Rise – Hedge Your Bets With Gold

hedge against real inflation with gold

Some are under the impression that gold’s performance in the U.S. is not as good as it should be, considering we had a rather uncertain year last year.

In the U.S., even economists who favor the dollar gold price might be blind to an upcoming rise in the financial power of the precious metal.

That, and real inflation may become a better gauge to see just how well this measuring stick is doing. Though revealing it at the federal level may send the market into a panic.

The “Dollar as Yardstick” Problem

According to Ross Norman at Sharps Pixley, using the dollar’s strength to measure net worth in the U.S. could give you the impression that we have a “strong dollar.” But that yardstick shrinks as inflation eats into it. This means using the dollar as a “yardstick” for measurement isn’t consistent.

Using inflation as a gauge for shrinkage can give you a decent picture of how “strong” or “weak” the dollar’s measure is, assuming you’re using an accurate gauge.

As Norman explains (emphasis ours):

Measuring our net worth in local currencies, we might be rather pleased with ourselves – smug even. However we chose to ignore the fact that the yardstick is not a constant … it is shrinking and sometimes really quite fast. It’s the natural corrosive effect of inflation. Knowing this, governments give us a gauge for yardstick shrinkage to use such as RPI or CPI, to reassure you that the shrinkage is minimal… and then lie about it.

For those who don’t know some of the terms Norman uses, the CPI is the Consumer Price Index, which is compiled by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) and used by agencies like the Fed. The Retail Price Index (RPI) is essentially the same thing, but based in the UK.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will Globalists Sacrifice The Dollar To Get Their ‘New World Order’?

January 19, 2019

Will Globalists Sacrifice The Dollar To Get Their ‘New World Order’?

Trade is a fundamental element of human survival. No one person can produce every single product or service necessary for a comfortable life, no matter how Spartan their attitude. Unless your goal is to desperately scratch an existence from your local terrain with no chance of progress in the future, you are going to need a network of other producers. For most of the history of human civilization, production was the basis for economy. All other elements were secondary.

At some point, as trade grows and thrives, a society is going to start looking for a store of value; something that represents the man-hours and effort and ingenuity a person put into their day. Something that is universally accepted within barter networks, something highly prized, that is tangible, that can be held in our hands and is impossible to replicate artificially. Enter precious metals.

Thus, the concept of “money” was born, and for the most part it functioned quite well for thousands of years. Unfortunately, there are people in our world that see economy as a tool for control rather than a vital process that should be left alone to develop naturally.

The idea of “fiat money”, money which has no tangibility and that can be created on a whim by a central source or authority, is rather new in the grand scheme of things. It is a bastardization of the original and much more stable money system that existed before that was anchored in hard commodities. While it claims to offer a more “liquid” store of value, the truth is that it is no store of value at all.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

DEBT is the Achilles Heel of the globalist establishment… and pulling your money out of the banking system is the way to deal a DEATH BLOW to tyranny

January 17, 2019

DEBT is the Achilles Heel of the globalist establishment… and pulling your money out of the banking system is the way to deal a DEATH BLOW to tyranny

Image: DEBT is the Achilles Heel of the globalist establishment… and pulling your money out of the banking system is the way to deal a DEATH BLOW to tyranny

(Natural News) After U.S. markets peaked in September nearly two years after Donald Trump’s victory came with the promise (and delivery) of pro-growth policies, investors got a scare in December when several factors combined with interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve to drive down indexes.

The Dow Jones, Nasdaq, and the S&P 500 all finished the year lower than they were in September. Worse, there are predictions that 2019 could hit markets harder.

Bank of America just polled 234 panelists who manage more than $645 billion in investments where they think global growth is heading over the next 12 months, and 60 percent said it will be negative.

On top of this potential nightmare scenario is the fact that governments around the world comprising the largest economies have nearly all become debtor nations that are one economic calamity away from global collapse.

As noted by Robert Gore at The Burning Platform blog, France’s Yellow Vest protesters may have inadvertently hit upon a way to bring about the collapse of the fiat money and debt system that is sustaining the very governments which increasingly suppress the people they are supposed to serve.

Gore notes that in recent days the French protesters — whom, you recall, took to the streets in response to a massive gasoline tax pushed by President Emmanuel Macron to fund France’s contributions to combat “global warming” agreed to at the Paris Accords in 2015 — have advocated a run on the country’s banks. Such a run, if it occurs, could actually start a chain reaction that would spread to other ostensibly wealthy countries including the United States.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Apex Predator That Will Take Down Wall Street (And K Street)

January 14, 2019

The Apex Predator That Will Take Down Wall Street (And K Street)

Grant Williams grabbed our vote for the top Alt-Finance presentation of 2017 for A World of Pure Imagination , which highlighted global stock, bond and real estate bubbles that are now showing signs of imploding.

The co-founder of RealVision TV excelled again during 2018 for Cry Wolf, an encomium for a gold-backed currency, which Williams argues would act as an “apex predator” to check government policies that have enticed Americans to borrow themselves into near-bankruptcy.

“In gold’s absence, bankers have multiplied precipitously, creating new variations on the same theme: credit,” says Williams, who likens the process to the proliferation of deer in Yellowstone National Park following extermination of wolves in the 1930s. “They have grazed the financial landscape to virtually nothing.”

Williams’ arguments are well-understood in the precious metals community, where he has taken on a growing role as a Yoda of sorts—a lonely voice arguing cogently for financial sanity.

However, Williams’ ideas are essentially unknown to ordinary investors and the general public, in part because (ironically, for what many describe as a capitalist economy) free market thinkers are essentially banned from governments, universities, and the mainstream media.

Hence the importance of Cry Wolf, which dramatically illustrates the role of what Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction,” whose effects Williams likens to the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone in 1995.

Destructive preservation: rewarding the inefficient

Right now, the U.S. economy is (in many ways) the opposite of a free market.

Much of this is directly tied to the gradual banning of gold-backed currencies, which has enabled governments to print money and distribute it to favored interest groups, often in secret, without taxpayer approval.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Yet another MAJOR reason to buy gold

January 14, 2019

Yet another MAJOR reason to buy gold

For almost a year now, I’ve been advising you that gold production is plunging…

By itself, declining gold production isn’t a huge deal.

It takes hundreds of millions of years for minerals to form deep in the earth’s crust… but humans only need a few decades to extract it.

That’s why mining companies need to constantly explore for new deposits.

And that’s where the problem comes in… mining companies haven’t been exploring.

Large mining companies have been cutting their exploration budgets for years. By the end of 2016, exploration budgets hit an 11-year low.

Part of the reason for the decline in exploration has been the stagnant gold price and general, investor disinterest toward the gold mining sector.

If you look at a chart of the Gold Miners ETF (GDX), the price hasn’t gone anywhere for five years.

And gold prices have likewise languished; today’s price of $1,290 per ounce is down 30% from the 2011.

To fight the tough times, miners slashed their exploration budgets.

That means, when the demand for gold picks up again (which I think we’re starting to see now), there won’t be enough gold supply.

You don’t have to just take my word for it…

Pierre Lassonde, the billionaire founder of gold royalty giant Franco-Nevada and former head of Newmont Mining –

If you look back to the 70s, 80s and 90s, in every one of those decades, the industry found at least one 50+ million-ounce gold deposit, at least ten 30+ million ounce deposits, and countless 5 to 10 million ounce deposits.

But if you look at the last 15 years, we found no 50-million-ounce deposit, no 30 million ounce deposit and only very few 15 million ounce deposits.

So where are those great big deposits we found in the past? How are they going to be replaced? We don’t know.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Separating truth from fiction in China’s golden game of Poker

January 12, 2019

Separating truth from fiction in China’s golden game of Poker

This month the Chinese central bank reported that in December 2018, its gold reserve holdings increased by 10 tonnes, the first claimed increase in Chinese monetary gold holdings since October 2016.

Based on previous patterns reporting patterns, a two year hiatus in reporting gold holdings is not unprecedented for the Chinese central bank and its reporting agency SAFE. What is strange, however, is that after an extended absence of reporting, the Chinese are coming back to the table with not a lot to show for it.

It is extremely difficult to believe that the Chinese central bank has not been accumulating gold throughout the last two years. Having said that, the claimed 10 tonne gold addition in December is worthy of analysis in regards to its timing and what it may signal. However, it is also important to keep in mind that there is huge and justified skepticism about the true size of the Chinese State’s monetary gold holdings held through the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), and to this we can probably now add skepticism about the real accumulation pattern of PBoC gold.

A 10 tonne teaser

News of December’s central bank gold purchase was initially published on the web site of China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) in it’s December 2018 ‘Official Reserve Assets’ report. Note that SAFE reserve asset updates don’t actually state the quantity of gold the PBoC holds but instead report a US dollar figure valued at the corresponding month-end US dollar gold price.

So for example, the PBoC’s gold holdings were valued at US$ 72.122 billion at the end of November, which at a month-end November gold price of US$ 1217.55 was 1842.5 tonnes, while the stated gold valuation at the end of December was US$ 76.331 billion, which at an end of December LBMA gold price of US$ 1281.65 was 1852.5 tonnes, i.e. a 10 tonne increase.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Sign of Things to Come: China Adds 1,853 Metric Tonnes to “Official” Gold Reserves

January 11, 2019

A Sign of Things to Come: China Adds 1,853 Metric Tonnes to “Official” Gold Reserves

While Western governments continue to ravage each other viciously, seemingly unable to come to terms on even the simplest of agendas, the East, led predominately by the financial juggernaut that is China, continues to chug along, slowly but surely carrying through on their long term plans.

While we look inward and fight among one another, becoming increasingly polarized and isolated into our various political “camps”, ceasing any form of communication with each other, our economic rivals are racing past us, forming partnerships and making plans.

Russia and China are two such countries that I have often talked about in past articles, highlighting how the West has forced these two countries into a partnership that threatens to overtake the West as the economic powerhouse of the world.

While our financial “gurus” continue to shuffle pieces of paper back and forth between each other, trading digital numbers in ever increasingly quantities, as if they had any real, true intrinsic value.

Russia and China are happily making moves around the world, acquiring physical, tangible assets that will play key roles in the coming economic conflict that the world will inevitably face at some point in our not too distant future.

Although their demand for oil, rare earths and various other forms of assets is seemingly insatiable, there is one asset class above all others that I am particularly interested in, precious metals.

Both countries have made it blatantly obvious that they are not happy with the current “status quo” and would love to see an eventual change. That change being a toppling of the US Dollar as the reserve currency of the world.

This has led to a rapid accumulation in precious metals by Russia, who have forecast their purchases on an almost monthly basis.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Record Global Debt & Chaos in 2019 – John Rubino

January 9, 2019

Record Global Debt & Chaos in 2019 – John Rubino

Financial writer John Rubino says no matter what country, the global debt has exploded to record highs, and it’s going to go even higher in the coming years. Rubino contends, “Government debt is going to soar going forward no matter what. Whether we have three more years of growth or a recession next year, we are going to see massive new deficits and massive increases in government debt all over the world. This is coming at a time when we have already hit record levels of debt and blown right through previous record levels. The last crisis, that almost ended the global financial system, was debt driven. The next one is going to be that much, much more serious because we basically doubled the amount of debt that’s out there since 2005 and 2006.”

On the political front, Rubino says, “The idea that things get more extreme from here is not that out of the ordinary and not that hard to believe. We are not just going to see gridlock here in the U.S., we are going to see chaos. That means of the things that should be gotten done, very few of them will be. . . . Political chaos is good for precious metals . . . both metals are way undervalued.”

Few would disagree, that at some point, the financial system is going to explode. Rubino says, “Let’s look at what happens when this finally blows up. The pressure is going to be on currencies when the financial system starts to spin out of control next time. In other words, people are going to see the amount of debt we are taking on, see the amount of currency we are creating to service all this debt, and will wonder what that does to the value of the currencies that are being aggressively created. They will lose faith in those currencies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Financial Advice In 2019: Own Gold To Hedge $250 Trillion Global Debt Bubble

January 8, 2019

Financial Advice In 2019: Own Gold To Hedge $250 Trillion Global Debt Bubble

– Financial advice needed in 2019? Let six experts guide you

– Save regularly, switch your mortgage, check up on tax reliefs & hedge risks in 2019 by diversifying into gold

– “There are also very real risks posed by the global debt bubble as the world nears $250 trillion in debt and the global debt-to-GDP ratio has risen to nearly 320 per cent” say GoldCore

Excerpt from Irish Times today (subscriber only)

My resolution:
One financial resolution is to read and watch less financial news. I stay up to date with financial markets, including breaking financial news, as I have to write a market update every day and frequently provide comment to media.

However, in the age of Trump and Brexit, it can be hard to keep up with it all.

I am going to unsubscribe from many of the alerts I get and become more selective and focused in my news consumption. This will help filter out much of the daily and weekly market noise and help me get more valuable long-term signal.

We believe that diversification and owning gold as a hedge and safe haven asset will again be important in 2019.

My recommendation:
We live in an increasingly polarised and uncertain world which casts shadows over our economies and the investment outlook.

This is clearly seen with Brexit, the risk of “Italexit”, an increasingly fractured EU and Trump’s aggressive foreign and economic policies, including trade wars.

There are also very real risks posed by the global debt bubble as the world nears $250 trillion in debt and the global debt-to-GDP ratio has risen to nearly 320 per cent.

We believe that diversification and owning gold as a hedge and safe haven asset will again be important in 2019 and in the coming years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Story of a Gold Coin

December 28, 2018

Story of a Gold Coin

Here’s a true story of one gold coin, a 50 Pesos gold coin like that pictured above.

Earlier this month, my friend Hugo Salinas Price emailed an interesting story about a single gold coin that that he still holds dearly.

Story of a Gold Coin by Hugo Salinas Price

As I was shuffling papers in some old files, I came across a slip of paper on which I had written down the price I had paid for a Mexican $50 gold peso coin: 717 Mexican pesos.

Judging from the price, I figure that the purchase was made sometime in 1972, when the price of a Troy ounce of gold was $46 dollars. The Mexican $50 gold peso coin contains 37.5 grams of pure gold, and 37.5/31.1 grams per Troy ounce, is 1.206: so there is 1.206 times more gold in a Mexican $50 gold peso piece, that in a Troy ounce of gold.

Thus, $46 dollars per ounce x 1.206 = $55.48 dollars as the value of the gold in the $50 gold peso coin, in 1972.

The rate of exchange Dollar/Peso in 1972 was 12.50 Mexican pesos per dollar, so $55.48 US x $12.50 = 693.50 pesos. I paid 717 pesos, because gold coins are always sold for a small percentage more than the price of bullion gold; in this case, the surcharge was for 3.4%.

The international price of an ounce of gold, as of November 30 was $1,222.10 dollars. The rate of exchange was at 20.40 Mexican pesos per dollar. So today’s price of the Mexican $50 gold peso coin should be close to $1,222.10 x 20.40 x 1.206 = 30,067 pesos. The quote this morning is: 30,890 pesos.

So my investment of 717 pesos, made 46 years ago, has turned into an investment worth 30,890 pesos today. Looks like a good investment.

But there’s a lot more! Because back in 1993, our President Salinas de Gortari chopped three zeroes off the rate of exchange. So actually, the 717 pesos I invested turned into 30,890,000 of the old pesos!

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

SANTA CLAUS RALLY TURNS INTO MARKET CARNAGE: Precious Metals Push Higher In A Sea Of Red

December 25, 2018

SANTA CLAUS RALLY TURNS INTO MARKET CARNAGE: Precious Metals Push Higher In A Sea Of Red

The much awaited and hoped for Santa Claus Rally turned into a complete rout today as the broader markets continued to sell-off to new lows this month. The Dow Jones plunged a stunning 653 points today, the worst in the in the 122-year-old history of the index. Furthermore, the Dow is on track for its biggest December loss since the Great Depression.

The Dow Jones was trading at nearly 26,000 at the beginning of December and just closed at 21,792. That is a 16% decline so far this month. As I mentioned in my last video, GOLD INVESTING: What Really Drives The Market Price, I posted a chart showing that the Dow Index had a critical support level of 24,000. I stated that the Dow reached a high of 26,000 at the beginning of 2018 and has been trading up and down off the 24,000 support level for the entire year. The Index actually hit another record high of nearly 27,000 at the beginning of October.

When the Dow finally closes below the 24,000 on a monthly basis, it can get very ugly. We still have three full trading days and a half day on New Year’s Eve for the Plunge Protection Team to do their magic and push the Dow back above the 24,000 level, but I doubt they will be able to do so. If the Index was down 500-1,000 points from the 24,000 level, then it might be possible. However, the Dow is down 2,200 points from that level.

Here is my updated Dow Jones Index with the Monthly support and resistance levels:

You will notice that the present Dow (monthly) candlestick is the biggest decline ever.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Once and Future Unit of Finance – Precious Metals Supply and Demand

December 20, 2018

The Once and Future Unit of Finance – Precious Metals Supply and Demand

Sally Forth and Speculate on my Behalf!

Last week, the price of gold was down ten bucks and silver four cents. Someone on Twitter demanded if we didn’t find it odd that the biggest sovereign debt bubble has managed to inflate a bubble in virtually every asset price except for gold.

Snapshot from a recent Goldbugs Anonymous meeting. Why, oh why have you failed to bubble my asset, dear fellow speculators? [PT]

Given that he went on to assert there is a bubble in paper gold claims, he is trying to say that gold has to besuppressed. Otherwise its price would be much higher. We won’t reiterate here the proof that this conspiracy theory is false.

Instead, we want to address two points. One, the term bubble is used quite flexibly. Does it mean the price of something is too high? For example, the S&P Index at nearly 3000. Or does it mean there is too much quantity of something, e.g. debt.

Or that something is being done to unhealthy degree, e.g. sending non-students off to university to get degrees that will not increase their employability? One should use each word with care and precision. Otherwise ambiguity permits one to migrate freely between different concepts.

Clearly, this guy is jealous that the prices of other assets have gone up, making other speculators rich. But the price of gold has not, thus not making him rich. Instead of admitting he was wrong to believe the gold-to-$10,000 story, he blames the world. Also, he is wrong about something else. The price of oil has not exactly gone up; or real estate in many non-trendy locations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trend is Clear – Rapid Decline of World Economy – Egon von Greyerz

December 12, 2018

Trend is Clear – Rapid Decline of World Economy – Egon von Greyerz

Financial and precious metals expert Egon von Greyerz (EvG) says don’t expect the global financial situation to get better anytime soon. EvG says, “You know what the politicians are doing now? Theresa May is my best example. These politicians are just running around posing and acting, but they are not achieving anything, and they are not achieving anything because the world is in a mess. What we are seeing the beginning of is the decline of the western world economy, which means the whole world economy. . . . There is no use in putting a time period on it, that it’s going to happen this year or next year. The trend is clear. We know that the world economy is in a mess. It’s going to decline, and in my view, it’s going to be a rapid decline.. . . Gold will reflect all of this, and currencies will be totally debased. . . . You don’t need a lot, you might only need another few snowflakes to trigger this avalanche. It could come in a month or in three months time because the system is a fake system. . . . I count $2 quadrillion in money. If you add debt, unfunded liabilities and the risk of derivatives, you come up to $2 quadrillion of debt and liabilities. The global GDP is $70 trillion. . . . So, you are talking about 30 times global GDP.”

What could go wrong? EvG says, “You don’t need much to go wrong. It will happen. They have no remedy anymore. 2007 to 2009, I have said many times that was a rehearsal. The real thing is coming now or in the next few years, and no money printing will ever stop it. They will try, but they will fail. This is why you will get the depressionary hyperinflation, and when that fails you get the implosion of the system.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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