Welcome to La Rebelión

Disclosure: I own some gold, for the same reason Ray Dalio does.

A couple of years ago, former IMF chief economist Dr. Raghuram G Rajan, head of the central bank of India, tried to get Indians to swap gold for inflation indexed bonds. Even with inflation passing 10% at times, the strategy was a failure, because Indians view gold as a safety net against currency disasters and corrupt government. Even investors allocating cash (instead of reallocating gold) shunned the new bonds and bought diversified mutual funds. You might say, Indians rebelled.

India has a new potential plan that, if successful, could drive down gold prices in the short run. India may ask its citizens to swap gold for interest-bearing gold index bonds. The hope is that gold in “circulation” will increase (or be available for purchase by the government, bu that isn’t mentioned as a reason). One might ask, however, if Indian’s didn’t sell gold to buy mutual funds of inflation-indexed bonds, will they trust these new bonds over gold? Short term traders take note.

For my Spanish-speaking readers, La Rebelión de los Jesuitas, the Spanish translation of my financial fiction novel, Archangels: Rise of the Jesuits, has just arrived on Amazon. Unlike the English edition, the Spanish edition is suitable for ages 13 and up.

You can download the eBook, and if you don’t have a Kindle, download the free Kindle app to read it on any device, computer, tablet, or mobile phone.

You can also buy La Rebelión de los Jesuitas in the trade paperback edition. Amazon ships directly in Spain and the USA, but for Mexico and LatAm, there is extra shipping.

When will the sequel, Vatican Gold, be available? Yes, I know it’s been three years. I’m shooting for Christmas, if priorities allow.

Note: The English edition took around thirty years to finish in my spare time. I do not speak (much) Spanish, so I did not have a hand in the translation. I had others do the job: translator, copyeditor and proofreader. I was told the result was so-so. Two good friends, one long-time friend from university days and a long-time friend who works with the Chilean sovereign wealth fund, scrubbed the manuscript; I mention the latter two in the acknowledgements. They spent months of their precious spare time, and I’m lucky to have such good friends.

Speaking of rebellions, Jane Wollman Rusoff, contributing editor to Research Magazine, interviewed me about Decisions: Life and Death on Wall Street. One can never know all the reasons someone takes his own life, but in at least three high profile incidents, to claim their decisions were unrelated to work pressures is not–in my opinion–plausible. Read “Sequel to Wall Street Horror Show is Coming.”