My long standing target for gold of $10,000 in today’s money and much, much higher in inflationary terms, is now more probable than ever.

There are a number of critical factors that will soon lead to the crossing of the Gold Maginot Line at $1,350.

There has been a lot of publicity about central banks having bought substantial amounts of gold in 2018, in total 651 tonnes which is the highest in 50 years. In relation to this gold story about central banks, it is not that they bought gold which is the real news. The important point is who bought the gold.

Will the average stock portfolio gain 1,900% to make up for the coming 95% fall? This is the unenviable task that investors will be facing in years to come.

Gold’s next move up is not far away. There is still a short time when gold and silver can be bought at reasonable prices. But we are already experiencing supply problems in silver. So there is not much time left to acquire proper wealth protection in physical precious metals.

One of the Fed’s three main objectives is to maintain stable prices. But they have never achieved that at least not since 1971. Again, the Fed did a volte face because they have a total inability to read the economy. The clueless Fed overslept and realised a few years too late that the US economy was overheating.

The astonishing Fed again proved the consistency of its inconsistency. Since its creation in 1913, and especially after WWII, the Fed has always been behind the curve. It is hard to believe that this is just incompetence. The recent change of policy hardly seems to be part of a plan but rather another reaction to events. Looking back at the Fed’s policy decisions, it is clear that virtually all are reactive rather than proactive.

It is virtually impossible to prepare for a potential extended downfall but what we can do is to prepare for the short term and protect our investment assets.

For anyone who doesn’t understand the necessity of owning gold, just go through the list of risks in the Time Bomb. And once you have gone through it, go through it again and again and again. The list includes 3 dozen reasons why you need to hold physical gold as protection or insurance against unprecedented global risk.

Since the bottom of the market in 2009, $14 trillion have been printed by the Fed, ECB (European Central Bank) and the BOJ (Bank of Japan). Alfred has never considered that this substantial liquidity might have been the reason why the market is up 4x since 2009.

History’s biggest bear market in fiat money and bull market in eternal money or gold is about to start. You will ignore it at your peril.

Once the Maginot Gold Line is broken, that creates the conditions for the Chinese Gold Line which means a panic to get hold of gold and permanent shortages. So the current complacency in the West that gold has lost its lustre and serves no purpose is extremely dangerous.

The Chinese government saw already 48 years ago that Nixon’s decision to end the gold backing of the dollar would be the end of the dollar and the Western monetary system. No one believed their prophecy at the time. But they are being proven right.

The lack of audits and the massive trading of paper gold, does point to the fact that there is something more sinister going on in the gold market. This is all likely to be revealed when the real pressure on the dollar starts and gold rises fast. At that time paper holders of gold will ask for delivery and China and Russia will call the US bluff.

Many people use goldbug scathingly as a pejorative as they have never bothered to understand the significance of gold. So why have I, and a few others, been advocating the ownership of gold for the last 17 years without being goldbugs?

Anyone who wants to protect their wealth should not be invested in any of the bubble asset markets. But to also avoid counterparty risk is a lot harder.

What makes gold the most obvious wealth preservation investment and insurance against a false financial system is its permanence. The proof of this is indisputable since gold is the only money that has survived for 5,000 years. Ephemeral financial systems and currencies come and go, so do empires. But gold survives them all. As JP Morgan stated: “Money is gold and nothing else”.

We are now at the end of an era which has created unreal wealth for a few and massive debt for most of the world. As all the bubble markets in stocks, bonds, property and other financial assets implode, together with the debt that has fuelled it all, 100s of trillions of dollars will just vanish and never return.

We are now in the very final stages of the most remarkable era of alchemy in the history of finance. This cycle started in 1913 with the creation of the Fed and had its death knell in 1971 when Nixon took away the gold backing of the dollar. It has been a long and slow 50 year death of the world economy and the patient has only been kept alive due to the creation of fake money, fake assets, fake (paper) gold, fake wealth, fake valuations, fake balance sheets, fake bankers, fake politicians all built on a colossal mountain of fake debt.

We have had a hundred years of excesses in the world and artificial wealth creation. Now, in the coming years, we will have a very long period of the opposite. Wealth will disappear. Gold will break free from LBMA Casino, leading to much higher gold price.