Protection from Looting Government
The autumn of 2016 has for some time looked like a period when dark clouds will move in over the world economy. Therefore, it was not surprising to see the first sign of things to come in the next few months. In one day the Dow erased all the gains since early July with an almost 400 point fall. Since the beginning of the year the Dow is now up a pitiful 4%. Almost 8 years of ZERO interest rates have not managed to revive the US economy, nor the world economy. On a longer timeframe the Dow, together with many other markets, looks extremely vulnerable.
Central banks are leading ordinary people to the slaughter
In this century the Dow is up 57% which on the surface appears to be an excellent return over 16 years. But it must be remembered that we have seen an unprecedented period of money printing and credit creation in the last 16 years. In my article last week, I talked about the massive credit creation in the USA. We have seen the same pattern worldwide. China’s debt for example has gone from $1 trillion to $32 trillion in the last 16 years. And Japanese government debt is exploding and has reached 250% of GDP. Japan is now printing half of the government expenditure every month and buying all the bonds that they are issuing. Japan is clearly bankrupt and a default is inevitable. In Europe, the ECB is printing €80 billion every month. But that will of course not suffice to save a bankrupt European financial system. Whether we talk about Greek, Spanish, French, Italian or German banks, their balance sheets are all lumbered with billions of toxic assets with the only buyer being the ECB. This is why the current ECB printing programme will not end in March 2017 but instead accelerate. But as we all know, printed money can never save the financial system. All it will achieve is to increase the debt burden and create hyperinflation.
Current Prices on popular forms of Gold Bullion
Clueless investment managers are buying worthless bonds
Negative interest rates in many countries are having no beneficial effect on the world economy. For over $13 trillion of sovereign debt, investors now have to pay governments for the privilege of holding their worthless paper. These clueless investors are not only guaranteed to get less back than they invested due to the negative interest but they are also very unlikely to get the principal back since no government will repay their debt with real money.
As I have stated many times, government bonds is an investment that no one should own. But sadly most institutions and pension funds hold tens of trillions as custodians for the poor investors and pensioners who will see their savings totally evaporate. There has never been a time in history when savings and investments just disappear into a black hole never to return again. But the risk that this will happen in the next five years or so is now greater than any time. The consequences will be devastating.
Real returns in stocks are abysmal
Investors around the world are now facing massive risk in all asset markets be it stocks, bonds or property. The Dow’s rise of 57% since 2000 looks very different if it is compared to constant purchasing power rather than inflated dollars. In real terms, measured against gold, the Dow is down 70% in the last 16 years.
Stock markets worldwide have since the beginning of 2016 underperformed gold and silver substantially. The Dow is down 19% against gold in 2016 and 25% against silver. Silver has been one of the best performing asset classes this year.
But this is likely to be just the beginning of gold and silver’s rise against all other asset markets. Over the next five years I would expect most global stock markets to decline at least 90% against the precious metals.
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