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There may be readers who weren’t even born when the U.S. still had a gold-backed dollar. Since the gold standard was abolished in 1971, the value of the dollar has decreased annually by 3.96 percent. You would need over $600 today to purchase the same goods you purchased for $100 in 1973. Still, a dollar is a dollar, right? No, it is not. It is just a piece of paper.

Is there a chance the U.S. could return to the gold standard and provide real value to the U.S. currency? Judy Shelton and Christopher Waller are President Trump’s pick for Federal Reserve governors. As it happens, Ms. Shelton is a believer in the gold standard and a critic of current Federal Reserve policies. She believes that the Fed has become unnecessarily involved in trade policies instead of adhering to its function of regulating the monetary system. Returning to the gold standard is not a popular idea these days when economists support the limitless printing for currency, high debt, and inflation.

Ms. Shelton would have been considered mainstream 35 years ago. Today, she is thought of as unorthodox. In 2018, she wrote in an article published by the conservative thinktank, Cato Institute, “If the appeal of cryptocurrencies is their capacity to provide a common currency, and to maintain a uniform value for every issued unit, we need only consult historical experience to ascertain that these same qualities were achieved through the classical international gold standard.”

She also authored a book, Fixing the Dollar Now. In it, she advocates for linking the dollar to a benchmark of value, preferably gold. More than four decades ago, the currency of all major countries, such a Britain, Japan, France, Russia, and others were linked to gold. In 1933, the dollar was linked to $35 worth of gold. In 2019, the value of the dollar is less than one-thirtieth of that.

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Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero

September 5, 2018

Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero

In socialist Venezuela, the price of a cup of coffee has doubled every few weeks. The annual inflation rate could hit 1,000,000 percent by years end. People can no longer afford food, but that’s okay because there isn’t any food to be found. South America’s once wealthy nation has spiraled from secure and stable into an unimaginable state of hyperinflation. Venezuela is experiencing the results of government mismanagement, corruption, and socialist ideology. President Maduro’s solution to the problem is to proudly lob three zeros off the hyperinflated Bolivar and call it a “miracle solution.”

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Venezuela

Before hyperinflation vs NOW!

1:51 PM – Sep 2, 2018

At one time, Venezuela had the largest oil reserves in the world, which provided steady revenues for the country and a good living for its citizens. Oil accounted for most of Venezuela’s exports. Life in Venezuela was excellent. Then, in 1998, came President Hugo Chavez. Chavez used the abundant income stream to go on a spending spree as he instituted a large number of entitlement programs using the oil revenues. A strike in 2003 interrupted Chavez’s plans and caused the GDP to crash by 27 percent in just four months. Chavez began nationalizing industries and instituting price controls, which was the beginning on Venezuela’s inflationary spiral as Venezuelans developed a reliance on their government for products and services.

The price of crude oil plummeted in 2014, and the economy shrank by 30 percent. Oil revenues, in the form of U.S. dollars, were dwindling, and Venezuela was unable to continue importing necessary goods. These days, in 2018, stores are empty as people attempt to survive on dealing through the black market.

Venezuela is printing currency at the speed of a copy machine. The more money that is injected into circulation, the more it becomes devalued.

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Hyperinflation Has Destroyed Venezuela

August 16, 2018

Hyperinflation Has Destroyed Venezuela

Has coffee become an unattainable luxury? It is if you live in Venezuela’s capital of Caracas. In July, the price of a cup of coffee was 2 million bolivars. In a country where the minimum wage has been raised to 3 million bolivars, coffee has become as unaffordable as food, housing, clothing, and medicine.

Venezuela is in crisis mode. Ninety percent of citizens live in poverty conditions. Most of them have lost up to 25 pounds due to lack of food. Call it the Maduro Quick Weight-Loss Plan. President Maduro, who has blamed everything but his own socialist policies for the economic disaster, points out that he has raised the minimum wage to 3 million bolivars. For Venezuelans, this is utterly meaningless when prices are doubling every 18 days. Economists predict that hyperinflation will hit an unprecedented 1,000,000 percent by the end of the year. The Bolivar can be officially considered without value.

It is easy to forget that just a few decades ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries in South America. It had the world’s largest oil reserves and plenty of gold. Along came President Chavez and his populist policies and schemes to retribute the wealth. Following years of overspending and inflation, his successor, President Maduro, has continued those policies, except there is no more wealth left to distribute. In a recent election many consider rife with fraud, Maduro’s win has ensured six more years of hellish disaster for Venezuela. He has announced that he intends to fight hyperinflation by removing five zeroes from the bolivar. His announcement did not include an explanation of how devaluating the valueless Bolivar, even more, will help the country.

Venezuela has gone beyond an economic disaster and is now in a humanitarian crisis. Without food or medicine, the country won’t be able to survive. At this time, it is being propped up by Russian and Chinese aid.

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The Dark Cloud of Global Debt… The Perfect Storm Looms

July 6, 2018

The Dark Cloud of Global Debt… The Perfect Storm Looms

While everyone is debating the effects of possible trade sanctions on the global economy, few are paying attention to a far more serious issue. Enormous global debt, combined with low-interest rates, have set the stage for a global recession that has the potential for economic chaos.

The combination of enormous debt and artificially low-interest rates were at the center of the 2008 credit bubble. One would expect central banks to be aware of this and show more concern. However, the overall silence has been astonishing.

An exception to this is the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which has been making loud noises about the toxic level of global debt and the anticipated bubble. It recently reported that the global debt of 2008 was $60 trillion, small when compared to the current debt of $170 trillion. To make matters worse, today’s global debt is 40 percent higher in relation to GDP than it was in 2008, just prior to the Lehman Bros. downfall. To add to the current headache are the rising debt levels of emerging markets and corporate debts. According to McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm, two-thirds of U.S. corporate debt are from corporations that pose a high default risk.

Countries such as Brazil, India, and China have been busy issuing questionable credit. This dubious credit being issued in many emerging markets has come with extremely low-interest rates. If the borrowers’ default, the lenders won’t be looking at enough compensation to recoup their loses. Low-interest rates have become an overall global problem, including the rates in the U.S. high-yield bond market. Central banks around the world have been keeping interest rates artificially low while printing money with abandon. The current global debt is the direct result of this policy.

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Canada has NO Gold but a Mountain of Debt… Things Will End Badly

April 26, 2018

Canada has NO Gold but a Mountain of Debt… Things Will End Badly

While other central banks have been busy increasing their gold reserves, Canada sold off all its gold reserves in 2016. The Bank of Canada ranks last globally out of 100 major central banks.

There is precedence in a central bank selling off its gold, and it didn’t work out very well. In 1999, when the price of gold was low at $282.40 an ounce, the United Kingdom sold half of its gold reserves, worth approximately $6.5 billion. The sale raised $3.5 billion. By 2007, the price of gold had risen to $675.00 an ounce, and the UK had lost more than £2 billion. This financial disaster, known as Brown’s Bottom, did not work out well. And Canada appears to be following in its footsteps.

With many uncertainties globally, Canada’s gold sale could have serious consequences.

Fed signaling interest rate hikes =
Fed shrinking balance sheet =
National debt rising rapidly =
Household debt rising =
Weak growth =
Rising inflation =
Geopolitical risks =

But hey, things are going to be fine…

6:49 PM – Apr 24, 2018

In this age of fiat currency, many people forget that gold is actually money, and has never stopped from functioning as a reliable store of value. Gold is a relatively liquid currency and one of the most highly traded.

According to Canada’s senior Finance Department economist Morneau, the reason for the gold sale was the cost involved in storing the gold and the fact that gold offers a poor return. That seems like strange logic since gold has outperformed the S&P 500 since 2000. The price of gold went from $35.00 an ounce in 1967 to over $1,300 today.

As former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has said:

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Oh Canada! Canadians Starting To Feel The Pain of Debt.

April 23, 2018

Oh Canada! Canadians Starting To Feel The Pain of Debt.

Many Canadians are facing the consequences of spiraling debt. The Bank of Canada has increased its key interest rate three times since last summer, prompting some of Canada’s larger banks to raise their prime lending rates. Forty-seven percent of Canadians are feeling the pinch, indicating they will not be able to meet ordinary living expenses without incurring more debt. More than half say that high-interest rates will make it increasingly difficult to repay existing debts, with 33 percent fear that rising interest rates will force them into bankruptcy.

Easy credit has provided Canadians with a false sense of security and enticed many into the housing market. With household debt already at an unprecedented level, many homeowners will not be able to refinance their current mortgage debt.

Canadians have succumbed to the lure of easy credit. Consumer household credit totaled $2.13 trillion, with residential mortgages making up 72% of that.

Easy credit and rising home prices have created a debt trap for many Canadians, and many face an uncertain future. With little savings to cushion a financial blow, Canadians have good reason to be concerned.

Canada’s household debt has exceeded its GDP for the first time, and most Canadians are living on a precarious edge. Faced with mortgage payments they find difficult to repay, 4 out of 10 Canadian homeowners are without the necessary funds to meet normal living expenses.

One of the problems is that income has failed to keep pace with rising debt. Those with debts beyond their ability to repay will be the most adversely affected.

So far, home prices have continued to increase, masking the overall debt problem. Any economic downturn, combined with little savings, could cause people to lose their homes. Homes can be difficult to sell in a tight market, causing delinquencies to rise.

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The Dollar’s 70-Year Dominance Slowly Coming To An End

April 20, 2018

The Dollar’s 70-Year Dominance Slowly Coming To An End

The US dollar hasn’t been backed by gold since 1971, but that might change soon. Republican Congressman Alex Mooney is proposing that the US once again place value on the dollar by backing it with physical gold. The problem is, the Federal Reserve has been printing money with the abandon of a drunken copy machine, and the 147.3 million ounces of gold being held in Ft. Knox may not be enough to cover the out-of-control fiat currency currently in circulation.

According to Alex Mooney’s bill, the dollar has decreased 30 percent in purchasing power since 2000. It has lost 96 percent of its value since 1913. On an average, the US is devalued by 50 percent every generation.

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The Federal Reserve – silently robbing you of your purchasing power ever since 1913…

RETWEET if you agree.

10:52 AM – Mar 29, 2018

If the gold standard were to be reinstated, control of the dollar would revert to free market forces instead of the whim of the Federal Reserve. It would mean that each dollar would have its equivalent in gold, as it did prior to 1913. At that time, the US economy grew at a robust annual rate of 4 percent compared to an average annual growth of 2 percent since 2000.

Officially, the US has 8,133.5 tons of gold in reserves, although the government won’t confirm that number. No one is permitted inside the various vaults to verify. Even the purity of the available gold bars is in question, as many may not conform to industry standards. As other countries contemplate the return to the gold standard, unless the US catches up, the dollar will lose its dominance as the world reserve currency.

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The Central Bank Bubble: It Will Be Ugly

March 21, 2018

The Central Bank Bubble: It Will Be Ugly

21
Mar

The global economy has been living through a period of central bank insanity, thanks to a little-understood expansion strategy known as quantitative easing, which has destroyed main-street and benefitted wall street.

Central Banks over the last decade simply created credit out of thin air. Snap a finger, and credit magically appears. Only central banks can perform this type of credit magic. It’s called printing money and they have gone on the record saying they are magic people.

Increasing the money supply lowers interest rates, which makes it easier for banks to offer loans. Easy loans allow businesses to expand and provides consumers with more credit to buy goods and increase their debt. As a country’s debt increases, its currency eventually debases, and the world is currently at historic global debt levels.

Simply put, the world’s central banks are playing a game of monopoly.

With securities being bought by a currency that is backed by debt rather than actual value, we have recently seen $9.7 trillion in bonds with a negative yield. At maturity, the bond holders will actually lose money, thanks to the global central banks’ strategies. The Federal Reserve has already hinted that negative interest rates will be coming in the next recession.

These massive bond purchases have kept volatility relatively stable, but that can change quickly. High inflation is becoming a real possibility. China, which is planning to dethrone the dollar by backing the Yuan with gold, may survive the coming central banking bubble. Many other countries will be left scrambling. Some central banks are attempting to turn the current expansion policies around. Both the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, and the Bank of England have plans to hike interest rates. The European Central Bank is planning to reduce its purchases of bonds. Is this too little, too late?

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Peak Gold Has Arrived

March 15, 2018

Peak Gold Has Arrived

Following the recent market crash, investors lost $5.2 trillion worldwide before the market managed to recover most of the losses. There are hints that certain bubbles are ready to burst as the worlds biggest hedge fund positions accordingly.

In addition to the stock market, the global gold supply is weakening, leaving investors anticipating higher prices. In 2017, the gold supply plummeted the most since any year since 2008. If the supply of gold is really plateauing, experts are predicting a “peak gold” period.

China, the world larger miner of gold, produced 453 tons of the metal in 2016. In 2017, China’s production fell by 9 percent. If production of gold continues to fall, a rise in global demand is a certainty. The demand will come from investors and centrals banks unwilling to rely on the dubious strength of the US dollar.

Chinese is enjoying a boon economy, and the newly rich who can afford it are looking to buy physical gold in an effort to protect their wealth. China supplies its gold only domestically and does not export the metal. If China’s domestic gold supply is depleting, it will certain seek to buy gold elsewhere. Part of Chinese economic plan is to potentially reduce the global dominance of the dollar with the yuan.

The US dollar has dominated the global currency market for over 40 years. China, and Russia are actively increasing their gold reserves, which could lead to both economic and political uncertainties as more countries begin to dump US Treasuries. Both Russia and China are planning to use gold-backed currency as payment when trading with each other. This makes gold a critical commodity for both countries.

China might import gold to meet its own demand. But the available supply of gold is finite. During the past 15 years, global gold deposits have become depleted, and replacement deposits are becoming rarer each year.

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The $233 Trillion Dollar Dark Cloud of Global Debt

March 11, 2018

The $233 Trillion Dollar Dark Cloud of Global Debt

Global debt has reached record heights without any signs of relief. While central bankers try to explain away the phenomenon of these out-of-control numbers, it’s not much of a mystery. Immediate consumption with the promise of repayment sometime in the future has consequences. Global debt is staggering to the point most of it will never be repaid. Certainly not in our generation. Perhaps by our grandchildren, but as global debt keeps mounting, the picture is doubtful.

The per capita global debt is $30,000. Who, exactly, will be making repayments?

Economists insist that the 2007 financial crisis could not have been predicted. Yet, all the signs of out-of-control credit where there. Today, economists are repeating the same mantra, despite the spiraling world debt. The question is not if the next bubble will strike. It’s a matter of when.

The math is fairly simple. The more a country increases its debt to simply stay afloat, the more like the increasing debt will cause a tightening of credit. The next step in the equation is a burst bubble and economic crisis. This is what happened in 1929, happened again in 2007, and it’s happening now. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.

Out-of-control credit will undoubtedly slow down the US’s current economic growth. It probably won’t cause an outright crisis. Other countries may not be as fortunate.

Countries such as China, Belgium, South Korea, Australia, and Canada are experiencing an unprecedented credit bubble, with few systems in place to control it. The resulted inflation or simply write-offs of debts could result in a global financial disaster we have not seen before. The current economic upswing is unlikely to continue.

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Debt on Track to Destroy The American Middle Class

February 23, 2018

Debt on Track to Destroy The American Middle Class

Economists report the household debt to be at its highest in decades. Yet, at the same time, we are being told that the economy is doing great. Does anyone see a serious contradiction?

In fact, the current economy only favors the wealthy owing to their flourishing financial assets such as stocks and bonds. Owing to the lack of real assets such as property and commodities, the middle and lower classes are becoming overwhelmed due to the serious consequences of the spending/debt cycle.

American consumers have a collective outstanding household debt of about $13.15 trillion of which nearly $1 trillion is the credit card debt alone, households are truly on a debt binge. These figures should be a wake-up call to all the Americans. The convulsive household debt has surpassed the bubble of 2008 and is still escalating. The economy may not be doing so great, after all.

Compared to 2008, the automobile credit balances have increased to $367 billion whereas the outstanding student loans are around $671 billion. Moreover, 67 percent of household debts belong to consumer mortgages. In 2016, twenty-five percent of all the Americans purchased a new or used vehicle and two-thirds of them are repaying through high-interest, long-term loans.

In fact, the consumer debt has exceeded their income for majority of the Americans.

Consumers have become accustomed using easy credit to maintain a lifestyle unaffordable for them otherwise. If this trend continues, and facts indicate that it will, we will be facing a monumental credit crisis in the near future.

A huge portion of credit card debt is the interest. Credit cards are a convenience and consumers readily pay for the privilege. However, it is necessary for consumers to know how credit card interest actually works.

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