Politics

As the world economy desperately tries to navigate to a safe harbour, is it going be pulled down by the six-headed monster Scylla or the Charybdis whirlpool (Homer’s Odyssey). It seems likely that Scylla is now starting to swallow parts the world before Charybdis will finish it off. A world severely weakened by debt and mismanagement is unlikely to have the strength of Odysseus to pass both obstacles without disastrous consequences.

As the Irish playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw said: "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, to vote for gold”.

Why don’t Powell and Lagarde tell the people that central bank actions are destroying the economy and the value of the country’s money. The dollar has lost 86% in this century and the Euro 82%, measured in real money. Real money is of course gold since it represents constant purchasing power and is the only money which has survived in history.

Central banks have since then frenetically kept the party going by manufacturing worthless paper money. The music should have stopped in 2008 but the participants are still dancing on the grave of a system that is about to succumb.

By rolling over the debt of ailing banks (new loans to pay off old ones), the ECB is giving them a very bad habit, namely that of governments with perpetual deficits, which are thus exempting themselves from any budgetary effort. What is the point of cleaning up one's balance sheet if the ECB graciously provides the necessary liquidity? The intrinsic situation of the large European banks is therefore not going to improve, at the greatest risk to savers...

In the next few years, the world will learn that the printing of money can never create prosperity. That is the time when the masses will turn to gold and silver. At that point, there will be virtually no physical precious metals to buy at any price.

Despite the clear “suckers rally” in risk assets, Egon discusses the relative outperformance of gold vis-à-vis exchanges like the DOW while warning of the inevitable (hyper-) inflation to come, using none other than the “Big Mac Indicator” to make this reality all-too clear.

Why gold? That’s a question I’m asked frequently. It’s usually followed by a comment along the lines of, “I don’t get it. It’s just a shiny rock. People dig it out of the ground and then put it back in the ground. What’s the point?” I usually begin my reply by saying, “It’s not a rock, it’s a metal” and then go from there.

Richard Detente explains the huge mistake that the economists make when they talk about the value of gold. This value is indeed much more a matter of human psychology before being a matter of economists.

Will gold be confiscated? Yes, of course, it could be. Desperate governments will take desperate actions. And as the world economy is now slumping into a hyperinflationary depression, unlimited money printing will cause currencies to collapse, leading to a surge in the gold price measured in worthless paper money.