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.
What will be the trigger for the coming biggest financial crisis in
history? There are so many time bombs around the globe that it really doesn’t
matter where and how it starts. Because when it starts, there will be a chain
reaction that will lead to the most spectacular economic fireworks in
history.
FAKE GROWTH BASED ON FAKE MONEY
Central banks around the world have already set the coming fall in motion.
What has kept the world going for so long, in spite of being bankrupt, is the
massive liquidity that all central banks have added to the system. The world
economy can only grow, albeit artificially, by a constant injection of
liquidity. Without that the patient would die quickly. This has
created an illusion of growth but all that has grown is debt. In real terms
the world economy is hardly growing and how could it just based on fake
money.
But central banks are now creating the perfect situation for the coming
collapse. They are taking away the punch bowl that has fed all the asset
and debt bubbles in recent years. It is not just the US where
liquidity growth has reversed abruptly by the quantitative tapering. Also in
the Eurozone, Japan, and China liquidity growth is slowing down
significantly. This is all that is needed to create the perfect setup for the
coming collapse. The bubbles will implode if they are not constantly
expanding.
MONEY PRINTING WILL RETURN BUT TO NO AVAIL
Yes, there will be a point when stock and bond markets collapse and
central banks will start wild money printing again. But since they are always
behind the curve, it will all be too late and what the world economy
will experience is a hyperinflationary depression that eventually leads to a
deflationary implosion of the system.
So what will be the initial specific events that starts the coming fall of
the world economy? Will it be Japan’s economy sinking into the pacific, or
the Chinese debt dragon catching fire or maybe some little boy who will
proclaim that Uncle Sam has no clothes. The Brussels elite is certainly doing
a superb job in destroying Europe both economically and socially. They will
clearly cause the fall of the Rome Empire. Not that Italy is much of an
empire these days. But just like all empires collapse under its own debt, so
will Italy.
With Italian debt to GDP the second highest (after Greece) in the Eurozone
of 130% with Target 2 loans (Italian loans financed by Bundesbank via ECB) at
Euro 500 billion, plus, plus plus, Italy will have no chance to even service
its debt. The Eurozone QE has grown to Eur 2.5 trillion since 2015 and the
ECB has virtually been the lone buyer of Italian debt. Yield on the
debt has surged and many European banks are heavily exposed, especially the
French ones.
Germany has long been the milk cow of the Eurozone but even Germany is now
coming under pressure. The manufacturing sector has been hit with a weakening
of some German export markets like China, Turkey and Italy. The PMI
(purchasing managers) survey for Europe has just dropped to a four year low.
NOT THE FIRST TIME ROME WILL BURN
In a bunch of sick economies, it is always difficult to determine who
should get the prize for the sickest. Italy certainly has a good chance to
win that obscure prize. That they can never repay the debt is a certainty and
this will soon lead to Rome burning and the rest of the EU also catching
fire.
EUREXIT NEXT
The Brexit saga is a symptom of how desperate Brussels is to hold the EU
together. The EU elite has pushed Theresa May to accept an exit deal which is
totally unacceptable to the British people as well as to the British
parliament. Brussels is extremely frightened that the UK leaving the EU on
good terms will not only open the flood gates for other countries to do the
same. It will also lead to the failure of the Brussels’s attempt to create a
European Superstate, led by an unelected and unaccountable elite. So
Eurexit or the breakup of the EU is coming, that is certain. It is not going
to happen overnight, but the bursting of market bubbles combined with
weakening economies across the board will most likely precipitate the
collapse.
History tells us that when you reach the end of a global economic cycle,
the whole world is super bullish. Virtually no one can, or wants to see, the
coming collapse. We know that from peaks like 1929 or 1973 when all market
observers were certain that the golden era they were in will go on forever –
“Because it is different today”.
“IT’S DIFFERENT TODAY”
I certainly concur that it is different today. But not from a positive
point of view. Sadly the world economy is living a lie and will soon have the
most horrendous awakening. The laws of nature always win in the long run. The
manipulation of the world economy in the last 100 years is now coming to an
end and nature will open the flood gates to flush out all this falsity,
dishonesty and hypocrisy. This cleansing process will create a lot
of suffering for quite a long time, but is the only way for the world to get
back to a sound system with sound real growth that is not based on money
printing and debt.
GOLD BACKED ECONOMIES EVENTUALLY FAIL
The basis of a sound system is sound money. Throughout history the
monetary system has always functioned better when gold has been backing the
currency? So why has every currency system in history then failed and why
have all currencies always gone to their intrinsic value of zero?
The explanation is simple. Soundly based economies with budget and
trade surpluses carry the seeds of their own destruction. Once the economic
cycle has peaked, the country continuous to spend money it doesn’t have and
deficits are created. This becomes a vicious circle, more deficits lead to
more money printing which in its turn increases the deficits. At that point
the country abandons the gold backing of the currency in order to print more
money and this eventually leads to the collapse of the country’s economy.
This cycle has happened throughout history and we are seeing the perfect
example of this cycle since 1971. Both US and global credit have grown
exponentially since then and only since the beginning of this century, global
debt has tripled to a staggering $250 trillion.
THE US DOESN’T HAVE THE GOLD BUT CHINA DOES
So once the current cycle has run its course and bottomed, are we likely
to have a new gold backed reserve currency? Well, it won’t be the dollar,
that is certain. Because the dollar will disappear into the Atlantic and
Pacific as the US economy collapses. Yes, the US will try to resurrect the
dollar like a Phoenix but that would soon fail. Also, the US would then need
to prove that they have the 8,000 tonnes of gold that they claim to have. But
they are unlikely to have even half of that. The rest has been sold covertly
or leased to the market and is now in China or India and will thus never come
back. China on the other hand has officially 1,800 tonnes but the real figure
could be substantially higher. Some market observers estimate that China has
up to 20,000 tonnes but no one really knows what the true figure is. China
will only reveal their gold position when they call the US bluff of 8,000
tonnes.
Personally I am not in favour of a gold backed reserve currency. Because
eventually, the country will mismanage its economy and live above its means.
This will necessitate the abandonment of the gold backing and the start of
money printing and currency debasement.
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Better to let fiat money be a medium of exchange that finds its own value
based on the (mis)-management of the economy and also money used for credit.
Gold should only be a store of value as it has been for
5,000 years. This is what makes physical gold the best instrument for wealth
preservation based on the principles that our company has created.
There are a few conditions that need to be fulfilled for gold to be an
effective store of value. The principle of Freegold best
defines what this means. The website FOFOA (friend of a friend of another)
and its predecessors have been pioneers in defining what Freegold is, as
follows:
FREEGOLD
These are the basic principles:
ALL PHYSICAL GOLD MUST BE:
- FREE from official money systems
- Owned FREE of all other claims
- FREELY traded
If all the above conditions are met, there would be no gold backed
currencies, no ability to exchange currency for gold at central banks for a
fixed parity and most importantly THERE WOULD BE NO PAPER GOLD OR OTHER GOLD
DERIVATIVES.
Gold would neither be lent nor leveraged.
THE GOLD PRICE IS SET IN A GIANT CASINO
Many of us are familiar with the false gold market today based on paper
gold traded in the trillions. According to the World Gold Council, estimated
notional gross daily trading of the London LBMA banks is as
high as $2 trillion per day. That would mean $43 trillion per month or $500
trillion per year. Total gold ever produced in history is around $7 trillion.
This means that the monthly gross trading is up to 6x all the existing gold
in the world and annual trading 70x the total gold stock! If we relate the
LBMA gold trading to mine production, the daily gross trading of gold
is 16x annual production.
No wonder that the paper gold market is a casino that has nothing
to do with the real price of gold or FREEGOLD. It certainly does not fulfil
any of the criteria of Freegold set above.
So how can we ever get to the point of honest gold or Freegold? Well, what
is absolutely certain is that no government, central bank, the LBMA or the
BIS (Bank of International Settlement) will make any attempt to create an
honest gold market. This can only happen after a partial or total collapse of
the current false financial system.
Whether we like it or not, this collapse is likely to take place in the
next few years and for the first time, the price of gold will be determined
by real supply and demand in the physical market with no link to any paper
market.
At that point, the gold price is likely to be multiples of the current
price.
Anyone interested in long term wealth preservation should own physical
gold today and some silver and not worry about price fluctuations. Precious
metals should form the foundation of the wealth pyramid and be left there.
This is what the Chinese are doing 
and
China bought another 179 tonnes in November taking the total purchases since
2008 to 17,000 tonnes. Thus China is continuously buying a major part of
annual mine production.
2019 – A TURBULENT YEAR
Looking at the shorter term, 2019 is going to be the year when
most markets will change direction. Stock markets are likely to go down
substantially and probably crash. The dollar will continue its long term fall
to ZERO and gold and silver will resume their uptrend to new highs.
Egon von Greyerz
Founder and Managing Partner
Matterhorn Asset Management
Zurich, Switzerland
Phone: +41 44 213 62 45
Matterhorn Asset Management’s global client base strategically stores an
important part of their wealth in Switzerland in physical gold and silver
outside the banking system. Matterhorn Asset Management is pleased to deliver
a unique and exceptional service to our highly esteemed wealth preservation
clientele in over 55 countries.
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