June 2, 2021
By Egon von Greyerz
“The scholar does not consider gold and jade to be precious treasures, but loyalty and good faith.” – Confucius
This article will discuss gold’s growing importance as the principal protector of wealth and also that the coming price evolution of gold will be dazzling as it reaches heights that no one can imagine.
SYSTEMIC & CURRENCY RISK
There are two principal risks that need our attention:
Systemic Risk and Currency Risk
These two risks are totally interrelated.
The systemic risk arises as a result of a 100+ year period (since the Fed was created in 1913) of deficit spending and debt explosion.
And since Nixon closed the gold window in 1971, things have got a lot worse. Debts and deficits have gone exponential and the fake GDP expansion could only be achieved with the creation of fake money fabricated by central and commercial banks.
All this money was created out of thin air. No one needed to work one hour for it and nobody needed to produce any goods or services against it. And today not even a printing press is needed. All that is required is pushing a button on a computer and trillions of dollars, euros etc just appear out of nothing.
HOCUS – POCUS
This is the biggest Hocus-Pocus scheme ever produced in history.
To further deceive the people, the so called experts have come up with the name MMT (Modern Monetary Theory).
When you need to deceive the people, you invent expressions which sound very fancy and creative like MMT or QE (Quantitative Easing). Both these two expressions mean forging money but that would clearly be too obvious. Much better to hide behind fancy words or a theory which no one understands, not even the inventors.
Is it possible that credit growth could be healthy for the economy?
Yes at certain times but not if you constantly need $3-5 of credit to create $1 of GDP.
And certainly not if you grow debt 31X and tax revenue only 6X which has been the case since Reagan became President in 1981.
And most definitively not if the Federal debt can only be financed at zero or negative interest rates. In the long term Investments must always equal Savings. But that fundamental law of nature and economics has been set aside by the MMT Wizards.
Remember that the Piper will always get his pay.
But the risk that the cost will be the survival of the whole financial system. MMT or money printing lasts until the world wakes up to the fact that there was no substance and no value in the money that inflated all the bubble assets of stocks, bonds property etc.
MONEY AND ASSETS MADE OF AIR
So if the money was created out of mainly Nitrogen and Oxygen or thin air, the value of the assets created must clearly be mainly air too.
The only thing that needs to trigger the coming collapse is the evaporation of confidence. And once confidence goes so will the system with it.
But governments and central banks will clearly not give up without a final stand. This will involve money printing into the hundreds of trillions and eventually quadrillions as the global derivatives bubble implodes. Remember that when counterparty fails, the gross derivatives of $1.5 to $2 quadrillion will remain gross. Hyperinflation will obviously be the consequence as the currency collapses.
RISK GREATER THAN ANY TIME IN HISTORY
No one can of course with certainty say that this scenario is guaranteed to take place. But what we can say is that the risk is greater than any time in history.
Because never before have so many countries been indebted to such a great extent with absolutely ZERO ability to repay the debt or to finance it at proper market rates.
Manufacturing of fake money and manipulation of interest rates break all rules of nature and creates a state of massive disequilibrium that cannot be sustained.
It is all really very simple. Extreme moves always return to the mean in normal times. But we haven’t had normal times in the last half century so the extreme swing of the pendulum to one side will result in a similar counter reaction.
IMPLOSION OF ASSETS
Thus after the massive creation of more fake money with zero economic benefit, all assets including paper money will implode with devastating effects on the world financial and economic situation. And that is how the world goes from a depressionary hyperinflation to deflationary implosion and depression.
So this is in my view a very likely scenario in the next 3-10 years and probably sooner rather than later.
Remember that we are talking about probabilities and definitely not certainties. I can clearly be wrong but more likely in the timing than in the eventual outcome.
Thus in my view the systemic risk is greater than any time in history. What actually will happen only historians can tell us with certainty. Because hindsight is the most exact of all sciences!
CURRENCY FAILURE IS GUARANTEED
As regards the currency risk, this is the obvious consequence of the systemic risk. And although many will reject the systemic risk, few can deny the currency risk.
Since 1971 all currencies have lost 97- 99% of their value in real terms. And since 2000, they have lost around 80%.
Thus it is absolutely guaranteed that all currencies will lose the remaining 1-3%. The only question is how long it will take. Again, I would be surprised if it takes as much as 10 years. Between 3 and 5 years seems more likely.