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There are seven characteristics I can think of that define a sociopath, although I’m sure the list could be extended:

Sociopaths completely lack a conscience or any capacity for real regret about hurting people. Although they pretend the opposite.

Sociopaths put their own desires and wants on a totally different level from those of other people. Their wants are incommensurate. They truly believe their ends justify their means. Although they pretend the opposite.

Sociopaths consider themselves superior to everyone else, because they aren’t burdened by the emotions and ethics others have – they’re above all that. They’re arrogant. Although they pretend the opposite.

Sociopaths never accept the slightest responsibility for anything that goes wrong, even though they’re responsible for almost everything that goes wrong. You’ll never hear a sincere apology from them.

Sociopaths have a lopsided notion of property rights. What’s theirs is theirs, and what’s yours is theirs too. They therefore defend currency inflation and taxation as good things.

Sociopaths usually pick the wrong target to attack. If they lose their wallet, they kick the dog. If 16 Saudis fly planes into buildings, they attack Afghanistan.

Sociopaths traffic in disturbing news, they love to pass on destructive rumors, and they’ll falsify information to damage others.

The fact that they’re chronic, extremely convincing, and even enthusiastic liars, who often believe their own lies, means they aren’t easy to spot, because normal people naturally assume another person is telling the truth. They rarely have handlebar mustaches or chortle like Snidely Whiplash. Instead, they cultivate a social veneer or a mask of sanity that diverts suspicion. You can rely on them to be “politically correct” in public. How could a congressman or senator who avidly supports charities possibly be a bad guy?

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Ron Paul Says to Watch the Petrodollar

January 14, 2016

Ron Paul Says to Watch the Petrodollar

The chaos that one day will ensue from our 35-year experiment with worldwide fiat money will require a return to money of real value. We will know that day is approaching when oil-producing countries demand gold, or its equivalent, for their oil rather than dollars or euros. The sooner the better. – Ron Paul

Ron Paul is calling for the end of the petrodollar system. This system is one of the main reasons the U.S. dollar is the world’s premier reserve currency.

Essentially, Paul is saying that understanding the petrodollar system and the forces affecting it is the best way to predict when the U.S. dollar will collapse.

Paul and I discussed this extensively at one of the Casey Research Summits. He told me he stands by his assessment.

Nick Giambruno and Ron Paul

This is critically important. When the dollar loses its coveted status as the world’s reserve currency, the window of opportunity for Americans to protect their wealth from the U.S. government will definitively shut.

At that point, the U.S. government will implement the same destructive measures other desperate governments have used throughout history: overt capital controls, wealth confiscation, people controls, price and wage controls, pension nationalizations, etc.

The dollar’s demise will wipe out the wealth of a lot of people. But it will also trigger political and social consequences likely to be far more damaging than the financial fallout.

The two key takeaways are:

The U.S. dollar’s status as the premier reserve currency is tied to the petrodollar system.

The sustainability of the petrodollar system relies on volatile geopolitics in the Middle East (where I lived and worked for several years).

From Bretton Woods to the Petrodollar

The Bretton Woods international monetary system, which the Allied powers created in 1944, turned the dollar into the world’s premier reserve currency.

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The International War on Cash

January 12, 2016

The International War on Cash

Back in 2008, I began warning of increasing capital controls that we would see in the future, as a component in the decline of Western economies (Western in the broad sense, including Japan, Australia, etc.)

Along the way, it occurred to me that, at some point, governments might collectively attempt to eliminate paper currency in favour of an electronic currency – transferred from party to party solely through licensed banks. Sound farfetched? Well, maybe, but what if the U.S. and EU agreed on an overall plan, then suggested it to other governments? On the face of it, this smacks of conspiracy theory, yet certainly, all governments would benefit from this control and would be likely to get on board. In fact, it might prove to be the only way out of their present economic problems.

So, how would it play out? Here’s roughly how I saw Phase I:

Link the free movement of cash to terrorism (Create a consciousness that any movement of large sums suggests criminal activity.);
Establish upper limits on the amount of money that can be moved without reporting to some government investigatory agency;
Periodically lower those limits;
Accustom people to making all purchases, however small or large, through a bank card;
Create a consciousness that the mere possession of cash is suspect, since it’s no longer “necessary”.

When I first wrote on the subject, there was considerable criticism as to the possibility that such a programme would ever be attempted, let alone succeed. And, granted, it was so Orwellian that it was understandably seen as a crackpot idea. But since that time, the programme has been developing extremely rapidly. In the last six months alone, it has become so visible that it has even garnered a name – “the War on Cash”.

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

Are Governments Running Out of Candy?

January 4, 2016

Are Governments Running Out of Candy?

By now, many readers will have seen the popular American YouTube video by Mark Dice in which he stands on a city sidewalk and offers passers-by a free gift.They may choose between a 10-ounce silver bar or a large Hershey’s candy bar.

Each taker chooses the candy – most of them with no deliberation. The only taker who seems to hesitate at all soon decides on the candy, as “I don’t have any way to do anything with the silver.” (Behind them is a coin shop. Mister Dice offers to take the silver bar inside if she wishes, but she’s uninterested and takes the candy.)

A 10-ounce silver bar is presently valued at about $140, the Hershey’s bar at about $2.

Mister Dice doesn’t comment in the video as to what lesson might be learned from this, but an obvious one would be that Americans (or at least those who reside in his home town of San Diego, California) are prone to prefer instant gratification over something of substantially greater, but delayed value.

If this is his intent, he’s succeeded well in his light-hearted, but instructive video.

Since the 1950’s, much of the world has perceived Americans as being on “Easy Street,” and in recent decades, the U.S. government has fuelled American complacency through a consciousness of easy money and entitlement.

And so, Americans are often perceived by those outside the U.S. as being somewhat insulated, spoiled, naïve, and short-sighted. But, if this is true, Americans certainly aren’t alone. Much the same exists in Europe, Canada, and quite a few other countries that have, over recent decades, followed the American socio-economic model.

Trouble is, all that easy money and entitlement exists only as long as a source for the “freebies” exists. Unfortunately, the idea that freebies are free is inaccurate. Freebies of any description must be paid for by someone.

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

Debunking Anti-Gold Propaganda

December 25, 2015

Debunking Anti-Gold Propaganda

A meme is now circulating that gold is the investment equivalent of a pet rock, and that the smart investor should sell gold, and buy stocks. That’s a ridiculous notion. In fact, if you believe in buying low and selling high, this is the time to buy gold, and sell stocks.

It pays to remain as objective as you can be when analyzing any investment. People have a tendency to fall in love with an asset class, usually because it’s treated them so well. We saw that happen most recently with Internet stocks in the late ’90s and with houses up to 2007. Investment bubbles are driven primarily by emotion, although there’s always some rationale for the emotion to latch on to. Perversely, when it comes to investing, reason is recruited mainly to provide cover for passion and preconception.

In the same way, people tend to hate certain investments unreasonably, usually at the bottom of a bear market, after they’ve lost a lot of money; even thinking about the asset means reliving the pain and loss. Love-and-hate cycles occur for all investment classes.

But there’s only one investment I can think of that many people either love or hate reflexively, almost without regard to market performance: gold. And, to a lesser degree, silver. It’s strange that these two metals provoke such powerful psychological reactions – especially among people who dislike them. Nobody has an instinctive hatred of iron, copper, aluminum, or cobalt. The reason, of course, is that the main use of gold has always been as money. And people have strong feelings about money. Let’s spend a moment looking at how gold’s fundamentals fit in with the psychology of the current market.

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

Weimar Greece – The Effects of a Currency Collapse

December 8, 2015

Weimar Greece – The Effects of a Currency Collapse

Cash is a scarce commodity in Greece.

In June, Greek banks declared a surprise limitation on how much could be withdrawn from an account. At present, the government still limits the cash withdrawals of Greeks.

And, of course, this is just the most recent in a series of events that make up the cash squeeze. In response, Greeks have done what all people do when they cannot get enough currency – they improvise.

Several alternate systems for payment of goods and services have cropped up in Greece since 2010. One is TEM, which allows people to gain monetary credit on an internet site, which may then be used to pay others. Another system is the Athens Time Bank, which logs time units, allowing individuals to pay each other with their time. The services provided can be anything from language lessons to medical consultation. Other systems are popping up, as Greeks seek out any method of payment other than the euro, since they’re closed off from their own savings at the banks. As can be expected, barter is becoming more commonplace.

Greece is right where Weimar Germany was in late 1922. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles required Germany to pay reparations for WWI. At the time, Germany, having lost the war, was already on the ropes economically. The conditions of the treaty amounted to an unpayable level of debt. As it became apparent that it was impossible to pay, the allies squeezed harder. Economic conditions in Germany worsened dramatically, not unlike Greece today, and for the same reason.

Germans did their best to sidestep the economic squeeze. As the cost of goods and services was rapidly rising (on a daily basis), Germans learned that it was best to spend Reichsmarks as quickly as possible on virtually anything that was holding its value better than banknotes.

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

Winning, but Losing, at the Penny-Pitch: A Look at the Coming Collapse of the European Union

November 26, 2015

Winning, but Losing, at the Penny-Pitch: A Look at the Coming Collapse of the European Union

When I was a boy, a carnival would come through town annually, with a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round and, of course, a midway: rows of makeshift stalls where fairgoers might win a prize by throwing a ball at weighted milk bottles, shooting a rifle at metal ducks, or pitching pennies at small glass bowls.

If you were to succeed in any of the above, the standard prize was a small stuffed bear (Although many large bears were displayed, generally, the few actual penny-pitch winners only succeeded in winning one of the smaller bears). Still, to a child’s mind, even this was cause for celebration, as you went home a winner.

I was one of the lucky ones. I actually did take home a prize on one occasion. I had been going to the fair faithfully every year and would save up my pennies for weeks in advance, so I’d have plenty to invest in bear futures on the midway.

It was only a day or two after I brought home my prize that I realised that I had spent several dollars in pennies winning a stuffed bear that probably (back then, in the 1950’s) only cost fifty cents to produce and, after I possessed it, actually had zero value to me…I had no use for a cheap stuffed bear.

So, here’s the penny-pitch progression:

Promise of significant benefits for what seems a minimal initial investment.

Excitement builds with continued investment.

Elation when a prize is actually won.

Realisation that the prize is of less actual value than anticipated.

Realisation that the aggregate cost of the prize was so high that the money would have been better spent on something else.

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

Money As the Greater Depression Deepens

November 14, 2015

Money As the Greater Depression Deepens

We talk a lot in these pages about what to do with one’s money, but I question whether most subscribers (forget about the public at large) have an adequate grasp of the basics. Without it, much of what we say may seem capricious or outlandish, crazy ideas readers tolerate only because we’ve been so right about the big trends. But the basics in speculating and investing are like the basics in martial arts: Just remembering them isn’t enough; they need to be second nature. That means reviewing and practicing over and over.

It’s not an accident that we usually make good investment calls; the selections arise from a constant awareness of the basics. So I want to briefly review those fundamentals. Let’s start with gold. We’re very gold-oriented around here.

You undoubtedly have a good position in gold. Many of your friends are aware that you’re a gold bug, and more than a few of them question your wisdom. Are you able to give them a succinct and cogent explanation not just for why gold is cyclically a good speculation, but why it’s money? I’ll wager the answer in many cases is, “No.”

I say that because when I give a speech, I often offer a prize to the audience member who can tell me the five classical reasons gold is the best money. Quickly now; what are they? Can’t recall them? Read on, and this time, burn them into your memory.

Money

If you can’t define a word precisely, clearly, and quickly, that’s proof you don’t understand what you’re talking about as well as you might. Here, we talk a lot about money, so it only makes sense to know the subject completely. So, what is money? The proper definition of money is: Something that functions as 1) a medium of exchange and 2) a store of value.

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

Schadenfreude – How the US Is Helping China Create a New Financial Order

October 26, 2015

Schadenfreude – How the US Is Helping China Create a New Financial Order

Schadenfreude - How the US Is Helping China Create a New Financial Order

Here we have an image of a Chinese banknote, featuring Chairman Mao, followed by a seemingly incongruous German word – schadenfreude. Is there an error here?

Happily, no. We’ll begin with the word, schadenfreude, which means “harm-joy.” It’s used to express an occurrence that’s destructive, yet brings about happiness.

This would seem to be a conflict in terms, but, looked at a bit more deeply, it could be said that the killing of an enemy may mean that peace will soon prevail – and so the event brings happiness. Or, another analogy: the bulldozing of an old structure may mean that a new one – a better one – will soon be under construction.

And that’s the case here. The world’s most powerful (and most oppressive) political/economic power structure has begun to go under the bulldozer. Its replacement will hopefully be a better one.

The Brussels SWIFT system is currently the largest economic settlement system in the world. Almost all financial transfers are made possible through this system. As such, those who control SWIFT have the power to threaten financial institutions and sovereign nations that, if they don’t do as they’re told, can be denied access to the system.

The controllers of SWIFT have been far from fair in making these judgements. Much of their agenda has been provided by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a cabal made up of many of the world’s most powerful nations, but primarily Europe and the US. The US is the heavy here and they’ve used their power to create FATCA, a means of applying draconian economic pressures on their own citizens. In doing so, they’ve also succeeded in creating a global shakedown racket aimed at financial institutions. If a bank anywhere in the world is found to have a US citizen as a client and the bank fails to regulate that client sufficiently, the bank itself is “held up” – the US imposes a massive fine on the bank.

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

Leaving the Eye of the Hurricane

October 12, 2015

Leaving the Eye of the Hurricane

In the early 2000’s, there were those economists and investors who believed that the U.S. was headed for an economic fall – that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 would allow the financial institutions to enter into widespread reckless loan practices that would lead to a housing crash. And that that crash would lead to a stock market crash that would herald in The Great Unravelling – The Greater Depression.

Most of us who made these predictions hypothesized that the initial collapse would be significant, but not severe – that the governments of the world would come to the rescue with bailout programmes that would stave off the symptoms of the problem, but would do nothing to cure the disease itself – that of massive debt.

We suggested that there would be a false recovery, resulting in the easing of symptoms. There would be repeated claims by both governments and the media that “recovery is nigh.” However, underneath all the folderol, the disease would worsen considerably, eventually reaching the point at which the patient (the economy) could not be saved. At some point, public confidence in the leaders’ abilities to resuscitate the body would fade. This would be triggered by some event or events, such as a crash in the stock or bond market, a dumping of debt back into the U.S. by creditor nations, debt default by Greece or some other nation, commodity price spikes, backlash from sanctioned nations, the imposition of protective tariffs – any one of a dozen possible triggers would do the trick. From that point on, each of the other triggers would eventually occur, as toppling dominoes, fulfilling the prediction of Depression.

Only in this latter period would the dreaded “D-word” be acknowledged by the governments and media.

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

The Deep State

October 10, 2015

The Deep State

I’d like to address some aspects of the Greater Depression in this essay.

I’m here to tell you that the inevitable became reality in 2008. We’ve had an interlude over the last few years financed by trillions of new currency units.

However, the economic clock on the wall is reading the same time as it was in 2007, and the Black Horsemen of your worst financial nightmares are about to again crash through the doors and end the party. And this time, they won’t be riding children’s ponies, but armored Percherons.

To refresh your memory, let me recount what a depression is.

The best general definition is: A period of time when most people’s standard of living drops significantly. By that definition, the Greater Depression started in 2008, although historians may someday say it began in 1971, when real wages started falling.

It’s also a period of time when distortions and misallocations of capital are liquidated, and when the business cycle, which is caused exclusively by currency debasement, also known as inflation, climaxes. That results in high unemployment, business failures, uncompleted construction, bond defaults, stock market crashes, and the like.

Fortunately, for those who benefit from the status quo, and members of something called the Deep State, the trillions of new currency units delayed the liquidation. But they also ensured it will now happen on a much grander scale.

The Deep State is an extremely powerful network that controls nearly everything around you. You won’t read about it in the news because it controls the news. Politicians won’t talk about it publicly. That would be like a mobster discussing murder and robbery on the 6 o’clock news. You could say the Deep State is hidden, but it’s only hidden in plain sight.

The Deep State is the source of every negative thing that’s happening right now. To survive the coming rough times, it’s essential for you to know what it’s all about.

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

How the Chinese Will Establish a New Financial Order

October 6, 2015

How the Chinese Will Establish a New Financial Order

For many years now, it’s been clear that China would soon be pulling the strings in the U.S. financial system.

In 2015, the American people owe the Chinese government nearly $1.5 trillion.

I know big numbers don’t mean much to most people, but keep in mind… this tab is now hundreds of billions of dollars more than what the U.S. government collects in ALL income taxes (both corporate and individual) each year. It’s basically a sum we can never, ever hope to repay – at least, not by normal means.

Of course, the Chinese aren’t stupid. They realize we are both trapped.

We are stuck with an enormous debt we can never realistically repay… And the Chinese are trapped with an outstanding loan they can neither get rid of, nor hope to collect. So the Chinese government is now taking a secret and somewhat radical approach.

China has recently put into place a covert plan to get back as much of its money as possible – by extracting colossal sums from both the United States government and ordinary citizens, like you and me.

The Chinese “State Administration of Foreign Exchange” (SAFE) is now engaged in a full-fledged currency war with the United States. The ultimate goal – as the Chinese have publicly stated – is to create a new dominant world currency, dislodge the U.S. dollar from its current reserve role, and recover as much of the $1.5 trillion the U.S. government has borrowed as possible.

Lucky for us, we know what’s going to happen. And we even have a pretty good idea of how it will all unfold. How do we know so much? Well, this isn’t the first time the U.S. has tried to stiff its foreign creditors.

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

Three Reasons Why the U.S. Government Should Default on Its Debt Today

September 19, 2015

Three Reasons Why the U.S. Government Should Default on Its Debt Today

The overleveraging of the U.S. federal, state, and local governments, some corporations, and consumers is well known.

This has long been the case, and most people are bored by the topic. If debt is a problem, it has been manageable for so long that it no longer seems like a problem. U.S. government debt has become an abstraction; it has no more meaning to the average investor than the prospect of a comet smacking into the earth in the next hundred millennia.

Many financial commentators believe that debt doesn’t matter. We still hear ridiculous sound bites, like “We owe it to ourselves,” that trivialize the topic. Actually, some people owe it to other people. There will be big transfers of wealth depending on what happens. More exactly, since Americans don’t save anymore, that dishonest phrase about how we owe it to ourselves isn’t even true in a manner of speaking; we owe most of it to the Chinese and Japanese.

Another chestnut is “We’ll grow out of it.” That’s impossible unless real growth is greater than the interest on the debt, which is questionable. And at this point, government deficits are likely to balloon, not contract. Even with artificially low interest rates.

One way of putting an annual deficit of, say, $700 billion into perspective is to compare it to the value of all publicly traded stocks in the U.S., which are worth roughly $20 trillion. The current U.S. government debt of $18 trillion is rapidly approaching the stock value of all public corporations — and that’s true even with stocks at bubble-like highs. If the annual deficit continues at the $700 billion rate — in fact it is likely to accelerate — the government will borrow the equivalent of the entire equity capital base of the country, which has taken more than 200 years to accumulate, in only 29 years.

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

Where Do I Store My Wealth?

August 17, 2015

Where Do I Store My Wealth?

International diversification of wealth (no matter how large or small) can save your economic freedom. Although most of our readers thoroughly understand this concept, one of the most oft-heard concerns is that, by offshoring assets, one may not be able to get to them as easily as they now can. Here’s the response to that, and some practical advice on what you can do to protect yourself.

Let’s say you presently regard yourself as being economically diversified. You own stocks and bonds, you have some cash, you have a retirement fund and you have a bit of gold stuffed away at home. On the surface, it would seem that you’re covered.

Trouble is, you have all your wealth in one jurisdiction, and should that jurisdiction find itself in an economic crisis, all that “diversification” will be seriously at risk.

Of course, it’s human nature for us to want to keep our wealth close at hand. Itfeels more secure than having it miles away from us. We tend to follow this concept even though we’re well aware that to have our wealth really close (i.e., on our person) we would be asking to have someone with a gun take it away.

Although we understand this, we somehow manage to convince ourselves that our own government, should they decide that they wish to get their hands on our wealth, is less of a threat to us than some thief. If we’re being really truthful with ourselves, governments pose a greater threat than the average thief, as they can steal legally.

Confiscations and Bubbles

In recent years, the governments of the US (in 2010), Canada (in 2013) and the EU (in 2014) have passed bail-in legislation, allowing the confiscation of deposits in bank accounts. When confiscation does occur, I believe it will happen without warning, as it did in Cyprus. One day, you wake up and your money is gone. What can you do? Nothing. It’s legal.

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

The New World Order—A Faustian Bargain

June 9, 2015

The New World Order—A Faustian Bargain

Faustian bargain: An agreement in which a person abandons his or her spiritual values or moral principles in order to obtain wealth or other benefits. A deal with the devil.

The argument over the existence of an Elite, who plan to control the entire world under a New World Order like some great yo-yo, has been around for a long time. Not surprisingly, events created by world leaders of all stripes in recent years give rise to an increasing belief in the likelihood of the existence of such an effort.

There are two great dangers in attempting to describe this perceived secret endeavour, and they are at opposite ends of the spectrum: a) being so naive as to assume that no collusion exists amongst various groups of leaders to further their respective ends, and b) over-simplifying such alliances to suggest that there is an Elite Master Plan that all members implicitly agree upon and follow in every respect.

Assumption A

In any country, the citizenry are accustomed to such acts of collusion as all the petrol suppliers raising the price by the same amount, overnight. Few individuals would doubt that the two companies get together well in advance to agree on the price hike.

The same sort of collusion can be expected between banks and governments, etc. However, most people in any given country seem to believe that the political parties that rule them do not collude in their own collective interest and against the best interests of their respective constituents.

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

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