The Next Pearl Harbour? China's Gold-Backed Crypto Currency Will Blindside US Dollar

Indeed, this weekend marks the 78th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which opened the door for the United States to enter World War II. Turn on your TV and you will see military mavens rambling on, pontificating about ‘the defense of the realm’, all the while completely aloof and unaware of the American empire’s real Achilles heel.

Recent, financial pundit and TV host Max Keiser outlined such a scenario, and warned that the US will be blind-sided the day that China introduces its gold-backed crypto currency – an absolute game changer which would create a “catastrophic trapdoor opening underneath the US economy,” said Keiser.

Not surprisingly, very few mainstream financial pundits in the West are willing to admit that China possesses gold reserves in excess of 20,000 tons, and by introducing a gold-backed cryptocurrency, it has the ability to “kill the US dollar deader than a door nail …. a new Pearl Harbor-type event and it’s coming in the next six to nine months.”

Read the entire article

How Inflation, Prudence, And Fundamentals Are Setting Up Gold To Soar

International Man: Governments around the world, including the United States, are printing trillions of currency units. This will continue to significantly devalue these paper currencies and create inflation.

Doug Casey recently said:

With all the money that’s been created by governments and central banks, the chances are excellent we’re going to have a gigantic bull market. Maybe the last one, since I expect the world is going back to using gold as money—at which point we’ll have a stable gold price.

In the meantime, I think mining stocks could go absolutely insane. The prices will have no relation to fundamentals, because everybody will want to own them.

How do you think the situation is going to play out for gold and precious metals?

Dave Forest: Inflation is a given. I see it every day in commodities, although many mainstream investors don’t recognize it. Yet.

In the 2000s, investors were over the moon when gold broke above $1,000 per ounce and copper passed $1.50 per pound. During the previous commodities bear market, those levels were unthinkable.

But now, $1,000 gold is peanuts. Hardcore bullion investors were distraught in 2016 when gold “plunged” close to $1,000. That’s seen as a depressed and unsustainable price.

Same with copper. That sector’s been in the doldrums, because the price fell below $2.50 per pound. If you’d told a copper miner in 1999 they’d have $2.50 copper, they would have popped the champagne! Today, it’s seen as scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The thing is, back in the “old” days, you could mine and process an ounce of gold for $100. Today, production costs are more like $600 per ounce. Closer to $1,000 per ounce if you add in sustaining and expansion capital.

That’s the real reason metals, including gold, have to go higher. The gold price isn’t arbitrary. The price must exceed production costs—or mines will shut down and supply will run out.

Read the entire article

European Central Banks Are Slowly Preparing For Plan B: Gold

It was long believed in the gold space that Western central banks are against gold, but things have changed, for quite some years now. Instead of discouraging people from buying gold, or convincing them that gold is an irrelevant asset, many of these central banks are increasingly honest about the true properties of this monetary metal. Stating that gold is the ultimate store of value, that it preserves its purchasing power through time and is a global means of payment. Such statements, combined with actions that will be discussed below, reveal that more and more central banks are preparing for plan B.

The Bundesbank (the German central bank) published a book last year named Germany’s Gold. In the introduction, written by the President of the Bundesbank Jens Weidmann, the view of this bank leaves no room for interpretation. Weidmann writes (emphasis mine):

Ask anyone in Germany what they associate with gold and, more often than not, they will say that it is synonymous with enduring value and economic prosperity.

Ask us at the Bundesbank what our gold holdings mean for us and we will tell you that, first and foremost, they make up a very large share of Germany’s reserve assets ... [and they] are a major anchor underpinning confidence in the intrinsic value of the Bundesbank’s balance sheet.

The Bundesbank produced this publication to give a detailed account, the first of its kind, of how gold has grown in importance over the course of history, first as medium of payment, later as the bedrock of stability for the international monetary system.

Read the entire article

Bank Behind World's Largest Money Laundering Scandal Offered Russians Gold Bars To Hide Their Fortune

When we last looked at Danske Bank, the Danish lender was at the center of what has been dubbed the world's largest, $220 billion money-laundering scandal that allegedly involved Russians transferring funds offshore in violation of European regulations (it also involved the chronically criminal Deutsche Bank). Then, two months ago, the scandal took a lethal turn when the CEO of the bank's Estonia branch was found dead in a still-unexplained suicide. Now, we learn of yet another bizarre twist in what some have dubbed the biggest dirty money scandal of all time: the Danish lender was offering gold bars to wealthy clients to help them keep their fortunes hidden.

According to Bloomberg, the bank’s Estonian branch - whose CEO committed suicide - which was already wiring billions of client dollars to offshore accounts, told a select group of mostly Russian customers some time around 2012, that they could now also convert their money into gold bars and coins.

So for those asking the benefits of holding money in physical gold instead of fiat (or crypto), here is the answer: aside from offering a hedge against risk, Danske presented gold as a way for clients to achieve “anonymity,” according to the documents. More importantly, the bank said that using gold ensured "portability" of assets, according to an internal presentation dated June 2012.

As one would expect, the gold/money-laundering service did not come cheap: Danske charged a fee of 0.5% on larger orders, while smaller orders had a commission of as much as 4%.

This is the first time we learn that Danske offered such "services" - in the bank's own report on its non-resident unit, the bank listed the services it provided to clients. Aside from payments, these included setting up foreign-exchange lines, as well as bond and securities trading. The bank didn’t list the sale of gold bars.

While it’s not known how much gold Danske managed to sell while the now defunct Estonian unit was still running, an internal email seen by Bloomberg revealed that at least some clients used the service. Local private banking clients were also offered the service.

Furthermore, for gold bars weighing 250 grams or more, Danske clients could obtain the precious metal without a sealed pack or paper certificates. Bloomberg adds that anti-money laundering approval was needed before customers could collect the gold, but such approvals weren’t necessary if the gold was kept in long-term storage, according to the documents.

Read the entire article

Central Bank Issues Stunning Warning: "If The Entire System Collapses, Gold Will Be Needed To Start Over"

It's not just "tinfoil blogs" who (for the past 11 years) have been warning that a monetary reset is inevitable and the only viable fallback option once trust and faith in fiat is lost, is a gold standard (something which even Mark Carney hinted at recently): central banks are joining the doom parade now too.

An article published by the De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), or Dutch Central Bank, has shocked many with its claim that "if the system collapses, the gold stock can serve as a basis to build it up again. Gold bolsters confidence in the stability of the central bank's balance sheet and creates a sense of security."

While gloomy predictions of a monetary reset are hardly new, they have traditionally been relegated to the fringe of mainstream financial thought - after all, as Mario Draghi stated on several occasions in recent years, the mere contemplation of a "doomsday scenario" is enough to create the self-fulfilling prophecy which materializes it. As such, it is stunning to see a mainstream financial institution open up about the superior value of limited supply, non-fiat, sound money assets. It is also hypocritical given the diametrically opposed Keynesian practices regularly engaged in by central banks and official institutions worldwide: after all, just a few months back, the IMF published a paper bashing Germany's adoption of the gold standard in the 1870s as the catalyst for instability in the global monetary system.

Fast forward to today, when the Dutch Central Bank is admitting not only did gold not destabilize the monetary system, but it will be its only savior when everything crashes.

Read the entire article

"Paper Money Systems Have Always Wound-Up With Collapse And Chaos", Buffett Senior

Warren himself acquired a record-setting 128 million ounces of silver back in the late 1990s… which he later sold at a profit in the early 2000s.

But to listen to him talk about precious metals these days, he’s always negative.

Buffett often quips that if you took the world’s entire supply of gold and melted it together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet (~21 meters) per side and be worth around $9 trillion.

Reclusive Millionaire Urges Retirees: “Get Out Of Cash”

PhD Millionaire who called Dotcom crash, housing bust, and market's surge since '09 is now predicting a 'cash panic' in 2019. Here's how to prepare.

With that same $9 trillion, you could buy every share of Apple, Disney, Google, Microsoft, JP Morgan, Exxon Mobil, all the farmland in the United States, all the developable land in Manhattan, and still have more than a trillion dollars left over.

This is Buffett’s central argument: gold doesn’t produce anything. So it’s much better to invest in a productive asset like a business, farmland, etc.

Sure, I’d rather own a profitable, productive asset than a pile of metal.

But Buffett is completely wrong to compare gold to productive assets… they’re apples and oranges.

Gold isn’t an ‘investment’. It’s an insurance policy against paper currencies will lose value over time. So a MUCH better comparison for gold is CASH.

Read the entire article

Will The Drive To Devalue The Dollar Lead To A Plaza Accord 2.0?

The Lead-Up to the Plaza Accord

To understand the Plaza Accord, one has to look back to August 15, 1971. On this day Richard Nixon closed the gold window. This step de facto ended the Bretton Woods system, which had been created in 1944 in the New Hampshire town of the same name and was formally terminated in 1973. The era of gold-backed currency was well and truly over; the era of flexible exchange rates had begun. Without a gold anchor, the exchange rate of every currency pair was supposed to be driven exclusively by supply and demand. National central banks — and indirectly governments as well — were at liberty to make their own decisions, free of the tight restrictions imposed by a gold standard, but they had to bear the costs of their decisions in the form of the devaluation or appreciation of their currencies. While a gold-backed currency aims to impose discipline on nations, a system of flexible exchange rates enables national idiosyncrasies to be preserved, with the exchange rate serving as a balancing mechanism.

However, unlike any other currency system, the system of free-floating currencies invites governments and central banks to manipulate exchange rates practically at will. Without reciprocal agreements, which can provide planning security to export-oriented companies in particular, the danger of international chaos is very high, as the system of flexible exchange rates lacks an external anchor.

In order to prevent this chaos, a repetition of the traumatic devaluation spiral of the 1930s, and the resulting disintegration of the global economy, IMF member nations agreed in 1976 at a meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, that “the exchange rate should be economically justified. Countries should avoid manipulating exchange rates in order to avoid the need to regulate the balance of payments or gain an unfair competitive advantage." And in this multilateral spirit — albeit under an US initiative that was strongly tinged by self-interest — an agreement was struck nine years later that has entered the economic history books as the Plaza Accord.

Read the entire article

Rothschild Emerges From The Shadows For The Centenary Of The London Gold Fixing

This month in London marks the 100th anniversary of the first “London Gold Fixing”, the infamous daily meeting of a secretive cartel of bullion banks which has met since 1919 to set benchmark gold prices used throughout the international gold market, a meeting which continues to this day through its thinly disguised successor, the LBMA Gold Price auction.

London gold price benchmarks are critically important to the global gold market because they are used as a valuation source for everything from ISDA gold interest rate swap contracts to gold-backed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), and everything from OTC gold contracts to transaction reference prices used by physical bullion dealers when purchasing gold bars and gold coins from refineries and suppliers.

Since 2015, the London Gold Fixing has been known as the LBMA Gold Price following a rush by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) bullion banks to patch over the then scandalized  ‘Fixing’ in a smoke and mirrors and circle the wagons relaunch and renaming exercise. The collusive Gold Fixing first formally came into existence on 12 September 1919 when the Bank of England tapped its favorite bankers N.M. Rothschild & Sons to be the daily Fixing’s permanent chairman. Rothschild and the Bank of England had been joined at the hip since the early 1800s and would continue to be so in the Gold Fixing throughout the next century.

The 1919 launch of the Gold Fixing by the Bank of England and Rothschild succeeded a more informal version of a gold fixing that had existed up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, which consisted of a meeting of four London gold brokers Mocatta & Goldsmid, Samuel Montagu, Sharps & Wilkins, and Pixley & Abell who between them set a daily gold price at the offices of Sharps & Wilkins.

Read the entire article

Gold Hits Record Highs!

Gold hit record highs in a number of currencies this week as trade war worries, geopolitical uncertainty and expectations of a slowing economy drove investors to seek safe haven.

While the yellow metal has soared in USD terms in recent weeks, as global geopolitical tensions rise and the "policy-maker idiocy" proxy spikes ($15 trillion of negative-yielding debt)...

More trade war tension was a big driver in the gold rally, but the recent surge in gold prices isn’t an isolated event. The yellow metal has been rallying for months. The yellow metal is up 17% since last December when plunging stock markets drove the Fed to initiate the “Powell Pause.”

The trade war isn’t the only factor pushing gold higher. For instance, Brexit uncertainty is driving the yellow metal up in the United Kingdom. The gold price in British pounds has skyrocketed 25% since May.

Generally weak economic data is also driving investor worry. Despite assurances from Powell and US government officials that the American economy is strong, the data tells a different story. Even as Powell was assuring us the domestic economy is fine, and the Fed’s worries are all global, we got more gloomy economic numbers. Data showed the ISM manufacturing index dropped to 51.2% in July. That’s the lowest level since mid-2016. Construction spending also declined by 1.3% in June. Meanwhile, jobless claims climbed modestly by 8,000 to 215,000 at the end of July.

Philips Futures analyst Benjamin Lu told CNBC he thinks all of the uncertainty will lead to more Fed rate cuts.

Read the entire article

Is Bitcoin A Store Of Value? Experts Weigh In On 'Digital Gold'

It’s hard to tell who was the first to coin - pun intended - Bitcoin as “digital gold,” underlining the idea that Bitcoin is a good store of value. To understand the community leaders’ thoughts about digital gold nowadays, we asked Binance’s  Changpeng Zhao, award-winning technology leader Jonathan Reichental, the  United Nations’ Susan Oh, Singularity University’s David Obran and other outstanding experts. 

The phrase “digital gold” possibly came into more widespread use after The New York Times journalist Nathaniel Popper's book, "Digital Gold," was published in 2015. Google searches for the term “Bitcoin digital gold” peaked in December 2017, when the leading cryptocurrency’s price hit record highs around $20,000 per coin.

Well before Bitcoin was born, computer scientist Nick Szabo wrote a proposal for “bit gold,” laying out a concept for secure digital money that is often referred to as Bitcoin’s predecessor.

After 10 years of existence, the question of whether or not Bitcoin can in fact be considered “digital gold” continues to be debated in the industry. Yes, Bitcoin is designed to be scarce, but when discussing it as a potential store of value, many point to Bitcoin’s historical volatility as an argument against doing so. 

Read the entire article

By Not Renewing The CBGA, Central Banks In Europe Are Ready To Buy Gold

Last month, a BullionStar article titled “The Fifth Wave: A new Central Bank Gold Agreement?” brought your attention to the fact that the fourth and current round of the Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA) run by a cartel of heavyweight central banks in Europe was about to expire, and that these gold agreements, which have been running in rolling five year periods since September 1999, were not designed for the purposes they claimed to be.

That CBGA1 and CBGA2 from 1999 – 2008, were not intended to help the wider gold market by limiting central bank gold sales, but were really a cover by the central bank syndicate members to account for nearly 4000 tonnes of gold that had already been sold or leased in the 1990s. That CBGA3 was then used to distract the gold market about the secretive ‘gold sales’ that the IMF claimed to have undertaken in 2010, which were really another book squaring exercise for disposed IMF gold.

The heavyweight signatories to the central bank gold agreements (CBGAs) include Eurozone member banks such as the Bundesbank, the Banque de France, Banca Italia, De Nederlandsche Bank, National Bank of Belgium, the European Central Bank (ECB) itself, as well as the non-Eurozone Swedish Riksbank and the Swiss National Bank. In its composition, the consortium replicates the nexus of the 1960s London Gold Pool (Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium) and the nexus of the central banks which met at the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in 1979 and the early 1980s to plan a secretive new 1980s gold pool.

Read the entire article

The Workings Of The Gold Standard

A gold standard is a monetary regime where the monetary unit, the base money of the banking system — the outside money or the high-powered money — consists of a defined amount of gold. 

Gold standards can come in all manners and versions and with particular institutional and historical quirks that affect their operations. The key characteristic that unites them is that an economy’s underlying money is ultimately based on an amount of gold. 

Using the language and the classification in the first reading session of our Harwood Graduate Colloquium, commodity monies such as a gold standard consist of objects that have alternative nonmonetary uses (for instance in production or ornament) and are absolutely scarce. That is, their scarcity is a fundamental aspect of the good itself — as opposed to fiat money, which can be expanded at the discretion of a central bank. 

When money is gold, it can be increased only by extracting more gold from mines and minting it into monetary circulation. This process, expanding supply through the incentives provided by the price mechanism, subjects the supply of money to market forces rather than to discretionary policy making as is the case under our current monetary regime. That carries with it a few remarkable characteristics:

The opportunity for price inflation is — by present standards — very limited, as the total amount of money in the economy is limited by the amount of gold. This need not be strictly so, as monetary theories going back at least to Wicksell’s pure credit economy have bank credit (and money velocity) remedying the scarcity of a commodity money. Free banking under a fractional-reserve gold standard, can, in other words, mitigate this strict supply schedule somewhat. 

Read the entire article

Russian Central Bank Eyes Gold-Backed Crypto

First there was Tether; a controversial dollar-backed cryptocurrency by crypto exchange firm, Bitfinex. Then came Petro, the industry’s first oil-backed crypto issued by the Venezuelan government last year. And now we might be about to see the first gold-backed cryptocurrency—by a central bank, no less. According to Russian news agency, TASS, Russia’s central bank, the Bank of Russia will consider issuing gold-backed cryptocurrencies - a rather strange move considering how cryptocurrencies are generally anathema to central banks.

Shot in the arm

But before crypto bugs can start doing a round of high fives, the head of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, has revealed that the cryptocurrencies are not meant for retail use but rather for conducting big mutual settlements for entities with global jurisdictions.

In other words, only the heavyweights will get to lay their hands on them. Further, she says that she still believes that it’s better for countries to develop international settlement systems such as the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) framework that use their own national currencies noting the said framework has demonstrated good dynamics.

Finally, she admonishes that the latest twist should not be interpreted to mean that the bank supports a scenario where cryptocurrencies eventually replace fiat in the monetary system.

Read the entire article

Gold, Bitcoin, & The Gigantic Global Debt Bubble

Today’s the first day in a long time financial markets appear willing to at least consider the reality of the geopolitical situation on the ground for what it is, as opposed to what most people would like it to be. As I’ve noted for months, the “trade war” is just one battle in a much larger, increasingly unstable struggle between the U.S. and China for global power and leverage to shape the next paradigm of world history.

A failure to appreciate how big this really is explains why investors have been so willing to swallow unrealistic happy talk from both sides. The risk that needs to be discounted in the market isn’t a risk of higher tariffs, but the risk of WW3. The U.S. and China were never going to sign a trade deal and blissfully return to the ways things were. That world is over. We now find ourselves in the very early days of a historic struggle to influence the future.

The Global Debt Bubble

At the core of everything unsustainable and destabilizing about the “old world” we live in, lies the ever expanding global debt bubble. In early 2018, I wrote an opinion piece for The Hill titled, Bitcoin Isn’t the Bubble — the Global Financial System Is, in which I noted:

While we’re on the topic of bubbles, it seems the truly gigantic bubble in the world isn’t bitcoin, but rather the global debt market. This leviathan now stands at around $233 trillion, or 318 percent of global GDP. Even more troubling, an estimated $11 trillion of government debt now trades at negative yields. This means whoever is buying this paper is doing so despite the fact they are guaranteed to lose money on the “investment.” Much of this buying has been propelled by central banks which can print their own currency and buy debt indiscriminately. This is not characteristic of a healthy financial system (particularly so many years into a global recovery), but rather a zombie one that’s been artificially propped up since the financial crisis.

Read the entire article

Countries Around The World Are Bringing Gold Home

European Central Bank’s President Mario Draghi recently announced that the ECB would be required to approve any management of gold reserves within the euro zone countries. The statement was specifically directed at two Italian members.

Why was Italy singled out? According to the Wall Street Journal, Italian citizens are preparing to take control of Italy’s gold reserves. During the past few years, a multitude of small investors lost billions of dollars due to the failure of several Italian banks. The Bank of Italy is seen as an elitist, inefficient entity indifferent to the needs of ordinary people. Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio is leading the attack against Italy’s central bank, along with the “5 Star Movement” and the nationalist “League,” all of whom blame the countries financial woes on the incompetence of the central bank.

The 5 Star Movement is asking Italy’s Parliament to approve measures that would allow private banks to sell their share in The Bank of Italy at 1930’s prices. Taking it a step further, they are also demanding that ownership of the Bank of Italy’s 2,451.8 tons of gold be taken over by the country’s citizens and spent on populist policies. The current value of these gold reserves is $102 billion.

If these laws are passed, investors would be able to sell gold and greatly deplete the central bank’s reserves. As Giorgia Meloni of the Brothers of Italy states, “The gold belongs to the Italians, not the bankers.”

Italy’s lawmakers hold a different view and are warning against any action that will upend the sovereignty of the central bank’s policies. Such expropriation of government gold would not be tolerated.

Read the entire article

Gold Production On The Cusp Of Peaking

Gold is valuable because it is a finite resource. What happens when all available gold is mined and processed? There is still abundant gold deep within the earth, but it has not yet been found. Mining companies are unable, to dig deep enough. It is difficult for them to know where to locate this deep gold. All known locations have been depleting for years.

That is the reason mining gold has become more difficult and output is expected to begin decreasing steadily. The precious metal is becoming harder to find.

Most of the world’s gold was mined before the 1848 Gold Rush era. Since 1950, 125,000 tons of gold has been processed, which is approximately two-thirds of all gold ever mined. All of the gold that could be accessed easily has been mined.

Gold cannot be manufactured or created. It can only be mined from the earth’s crust. If we want more gold, companies, and investors will need to begin allocating more capital to exploration companies.

According Eugene King of Goldman Sachs, known mineable gold reserve may be gone in 20 years. The definitive word here is “known.” Gold mining companies are gearing up for a new era of exploration deeper below the surface than ever before. This means these companies will be incurring new costs at the same time their profits are decreasing. That is the reason why so few new mines are being excavated and few new projects are being started.

The earth’s easy-to-find gold has already been found and mined. There will not be another California Gold Rush. The search for new gold becomes increasingly challenging and expensive each year. Outdated equipment and technology need to be replaced.

Read the entire article

Petroyuan Is Only The Beginning, Pop Goes The Metals Market

When Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) bought the London Metals exchange in 2012 all the speculation was about the effects on gold trading.  The primary reason for buying the LME was to obtain its warehouses and ensure a free flow of metals to points east.

What it also did was give them control over what type and kind of futures contracts could be traded on their exchanges.  No longer would the west control this very important part of the precious and industrial metal supply chain.

Now we’re seeing the next evolution of the power of owning the exchange.   After successfully launching a yuan-denominated gold futures contract last year, the LME is now preparing to issue a range of yuan-denominated metals futures.

In other words... Boom.

First Rule: Do No Harm

When China bought the LME the usual suspects in the contrarian investing community talked about the coming apocalypse for the bullion banks.  It never happened. In fact, China was in a position to help them cap the price of gold and extend the gold bear market for the past six years while it and its strategic partners, namely Russia, accumulated vast quantities of the world’s most important metal.

The Chinese were smart. Take over the LME and, for a while, change nothing. Don’t upset the apple cart and allow markets to operate mostly normally.  Now their ownership of the LME is not an issue.

Until now.  First gold trading in Yuan. Now the rest of the metals.

Read the entire article

Venezuela's Gold Liquidation Accelerates; Will Be Out Of Gold In One Year

On Friday, Turkey unveiled its latest unorthodox financial surprise, when a local newspaper reported that Ankara will repatriate all of its gold held at the NY Fed. The stated reason: an attempt to circumvent the dollar. "Why do we make all loans in dollars? Let’s use another currency" said Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a speech at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Istanbul on April 16, according to Hurriyet. "I suggest that the loans should be made based on gold."

In what some saw an appeal for a gold standard by the Turkish president and a bid to sever ties with the US Dollar, Erdogan added that “with the dollar the world is always under exchange rate pressure. We should save states and nations from this exchange rate pressure. Gold has never been a tool of oppression throughout history."

While Erdogan may have had honest, and even noble, intentions (yes, one can smirk here) it is worth noting that Turkey is hardly the first country to demand its gold back from western nations, having been preceded in recent years by Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

But the most notable, and ominous for the people of Turkey, example of gold repatriation is also the first one in the post-crisis period, when Venezuela's then-leader Hugo Chavez demanded all Venezuela gold located in offshore central banks be returned to the motherland. At the time, Chavez said he did it for the people, and since he died shortly after, there was no way to gauge what his real intentions were.

The problem is what happened later.

Conveniently, last week Russ Dallen of Caracas Capital wrote inform his clients what Venezuela has been doing over the course of the past several years regarding is repatriated, and now swiftly dwindling gold reserves.

Read the entire article

The Dollar's 70-Year Dominance Slowly Coming To An End

Republican Congressman Alex Mooney is proposing that the US once again place value on the dollar by backing it with physical gold. The problem is, the Federal Reserve has been printing money with the abandon of a drunken copy machine, and the 147.3 million ounces of gold being held in Ft. Knox may not be enough to cover the out-of-control fiat currency currently in circulation.

According to Alex Mooney’s bill, the dollar has decreased 30 percent in purchasing power since 2000. It has lost 96 percent of its value since 1913. On an average, the US is devalued by 50 percent every generation.

If the gold standard were to be reinstated, control of the dollar would revert to free market forces instead of the whim of the Federal Reserve. It would mean that each dollar would have its equivalent in gold, as it did prior to 1913. At that time, the US economy grew at a robust annual rate of 4 percent compared to an average annual growth of 2 percent since 2000.

Officially, the US has 8,133.5 tons of gold in reserves, although the government won’t confirm that number. No one is permitted inside the various vaults to verify. Even the purity of the available gold bars is in question, as many may not conform to industry standards. As other countries contemplate the return to the gold standard, unless the US catches up, the dollar will lose its dominance as the world reserve currency.

Read the entire article

How Much Longer Can The American Empire Run On Fake Money?

Gold rocketed to nearly $1,365 on Wednesday in New York, which is well above the $1,350 that Michael Oliver suggests is when technical price watchers will finally start to head into the yellow metal and related investments like gold stocks. But alas the banking cartel had other ideas and exercised a 100-tonne “pretend gold” smackdown in the gold paper futures markets starting at about noon that day, just to make sure the greatest competition in the world to the dollar didn’t start to lead to a loss of confidence.

This of course is nothing new. The Gold Anti Trust Action Committee (GATA) has been documenting paper market manipulation of the gold markets now for decades. Isn’t it interesting that more virtual gold trades in one day on the LBMA than is mined in an entire year.

Whatever it takes, including endless wars to try to keep the petrodollar alive and trillions of dollars spent on blood and treasury. I truly believe Eisenhower’s fears of the endless power of the Military Industrial Complex are now playing out.

It should be eminently clear now that “the President is not really the President of the United States.”

That was established by the “Deep State” under Kennedy. If you have doubts about that, you might do well to read “Unlike Trump, Kennedy never bent a knee,” by Jacob G. Hornberger, the founder of The Future of Freedom Foundation and a former trial attorney in Texas.

Read the entire article