Physical Gold Demand up 36%

Uncle Scam

by David Galland, Partner, Casey Research

The latest data on global gold trends, Q2 2010, just popped into my email box from the World Gold Council. 

The bad news is that the higher nominal price of gold has caused a 5% decrease in jewelry sales over the prior year.

If you’re thinking “Hey, that’s not that bad!”, you’d be right. On this date last year, gold closed at $950… which is $286 below where it trades as I write. In other words, a 30% rise in price has resulted in a decrease of just 5% in jewelry sales.

And even that number is skewed, because the currency value of the gold purchased is up – way up. For example, India – the 800-pound gorilla in the global gold jewelry market – saw total gold jewelry sales fall only by 2%, but in local currency terms, there was a 20% increase in the nominal value of the gold trading hands. China, which only relatively recently reauthorized private gold purchases, saw a 5% increase in jewelry demand, but that translated into a 35% increase in local currency terms.

So, that’s the bad news.

The good news – at least for fiat money skeptics – is that total physical gold demand in Q2 rose by a whopping 36%. More tellingly, the increase was 77% when you take into account the dollar value of the ounces purchased.

As you’ve already figured out, the bulk of the physical demand is coming from investment – with the amount of gold held by ETFs growing 414% over the previous year.

Too far, too fast? I don’t think so.

In my opinion, as the fiat money monsters are brought to bay, the price of gold can really only go higher. Overly confident? I don’t think so.

That’s because when people lose faith in a currency, as they will before this crisis is over, they unfailingly rush to exchange the unbacked paper money for something more tangible. While pretty much anything with an intrinsic value will do – real estate, antique cars, old masters – for all the reasons that Aristotle enunciated, gold is viewed in a class of its own, and so has an unblemished history as a universally accepted store of value. And, thanks to its portability, divisibility, durability, and consistency, it has also always been looked upon as a convenient form of money.

The most pressing macro-observation I’d like to make – an observation that’s critical for investors to understand (though most don’t or won’t) – is that the tectonic monetary shift now underway is truly global in nature. And it’s not going to be over until a new and markedly different monetary regime has been implemented.

It’s like this: Throughout history governments have experimented with fiat money. They have done so because the benefits to the government and the insiders that invariably latch on to power are just so damn attractive. The Romans did it by debasing their coinage, but the modern version goes one better by completely disconnecting a currency from any value whatsoever, and then wantonly printing as politically motivated needs or wants arise.

The latest fiat system kicked off in earnest in 1944 when Uncle Scam, in Bretton Woods, NH, got the leaders of the world’s war-weary countries to agree to accept the U.S. dollar as their reserve currency. In return, the U.S. agreed that the currency notes it would subsequently issue would be convertible into a corresponding amount of gold. Then Tricky Nixon came along in 1971 and canceled the right of the bearer to swap the notes for gold. Overnight, the link between the currency and anything tangible was lost. 

That, of course, opened the door to all subsequent politicians to engage in the whole print, print, print thing. The keystone asset of the former system – gold – soon became a distant memory for the new crop of central bankers and, remarkably, to the bearers of the notes.

For any number of reasons, most of which related to the illusion of increasing prosperity, people simply stopped paying attention to what Uncle Scam was up to. Of course, that illusion was largely based on the increase in nominal wealth: if one year you’re worth $100,000 and three years later you are worth $150,000, the tendency is to feel richer even if your actual purchasing power has gone up by far less or even has declined due to a debasement of the currency.

Today’s dollar is worth just 18 cents in 1971 terms.

But all scams must, in time, come to an end. And that’s what’s going on now. It ends here. Before this is over, the current iteration of the U.S. dollar – the vaporous construct with no actual value – will lose its value as money.

Which brings me to an important nuance in this discussion.

Most failed fiat money experiments involve a single currency. The most convenient recent example is provided by Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Rather than actually supporting the creation of marketable goods and services in what he sees as his private fiefdom, he took the low road of energetically abusing his fiat currency to the vanishing point.

In a situation such as that, the local citizenry suffers – as well as anyone foolish enough to be holding bonds denominated in the debased currency. But that’s about it.

In the current scenario, the keystone of the entire global monetary system is the U.S. dollar. Which means that the primary reserve holdings of virtually all the world’s significant central banks are at risk of going up in smoke.

And it’s even worse than that, because the dollar is also the number one trade currency – which means corporations around the world are sitting on huge holdings or are dependent on commercial contracts denominated in dollars. 

And even that’s not the end of it. Because Uncle Scam has long served as a role model to other world leaders, those leaders have enthusiastically followed suit and universally launched fiat monetary systems of their own. It’s bad enough that the world’s reserve currency is a fiction – but the situation becomes really dire when you accept as fact that all the world’s currencies are a fiction.

Man, we’re in a lot of trouble.

If you have so far resisted our constant urgings to make gold – which is to say, real money – a core portfolio holding, it’s not too late. Just start buying on the inevitable dips. I can assure you that as the fiat monetary structures continue to crumble – and they will – more and more people will be turning to gold. The latest World Gold Council data is just a straw in the wind.   

In fact, thanks to the convenience of the gold ETFs (which you should make an effort to understand before blindly investing in them – there are important differences between them), once the show really gets underway, the relative trickle of investment funds moving into gold today will quickly become a torrent, completely outrunning available gold supplies and sending prices much, much higher – and in a hurry.

While no one can say when the big spike in gold will occur, one can say accurately that, given the systematic frailty, it could literally happen on any given day. That’s what happens when scams are unveiled. Remember Bernie Madoff? How many people do you think tried to give him money the day after he was arrested, versus desperately scrambled to get their money out of his sticky web? The answers are “No one” and “Everyone” – that’s what happens when people lose faith in a currency.

Of course, gold bullion, and gold bullion proxies, aren’t the only asset classes that will do well in the coming currency collapse. The chart below shows what looks to be a trend change in the gold stocks. In previous recent stock market corrections, people thought of gold stocks more in terms of being stocks and overlooked their direct connection to gold. That appears to be changing, with a divergence between gold stocks and the broader markets. The leverage in gold stocks to gold bullion could make them especially attractive.

 

 

Regardless of what you do, do something – because to stumble on as if this crisis will end with a whimper would be a dire mistake.

Gold and large-cap gold stocks can save your wealth when most other assets decline in value. Even in the Great Depression, investors who held both ended up with gains, while others lost everything they had. Read more about how gold and gold producers can shield you from the worst – click here.

You’ll Buy Gold Now and Like It!

Just how much gold is enough?  It’s a question we often hear and is difficult to answer in general terms, but Jeff Clark of Casey Research offers some decent guidance as a starting point below.  He also provides some gold price projections that might help if you are trying to decide whether to buy now or wait for a further pullback.  As subscribers ourselves to Casey Research we can say they have been on the money in calling the progression of the financial crisis so far.  As vindication of this and further proof of their ongoing success, they have just been named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America.  To celebrate they are offering a 50% discount to their flagship newsletter The Casey Report until August 31.  To learn more about this special one time offer click here.

By Jeff Clark, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report

I get this question a lot: “Should I buy gold now, or wait for a pullback?” 

It’s a valid question. For nearly two years, gold hasn’t had a serious decline. There have been pullbacks, of course, but nothing assumption-challenging. In fact, since October 2008, gold’s largest price drop is 10.6% (based on London PM fix prices), and yet the average of all declines since 2001 is 13% (of those greater than 5%). The biggest pullback we’ve seen this summer is 8.2%. Technically the summer’s not over, but I’ll admit I’m surprised we haven’t had a better buying opportunity. 

So, is now the time to buy? It depends on your honest answer to another question: “Do you own enough gold?” By “enough” I mean an amount that lends meaningful protection on your assets. By ”meaningful” I mean that no matter what happens next – another financial blow-up, accelerating inflation, crushing deflation, war, a plummeting dollar, more reckless government spending – you won’t worry about your investments.

Whether you should buy now is almost irrelevant if you don’t already own a meaningful amount of gold. If you earn $50,000 a year, how is one gold Eagle coin going to protect you if the dollar plummets and sends inflation soaring? If your investable assets total $100,000, is your nest egg sufficiently protected owning two gold Maple Leafs? This is all akin to buying a $50,000 insurance policy for a $500,000 home.

Today we face the prospect of prolonged economic stagnation, and most governments are administering grossly abusive monetary policy as a remedy. While some of the consequences are already being felt, the full ramifications have not hit your wallet yet. But they will.

If you don’t have at least 10% of your investable assets in physical gold, or at least two months of living expenses, you have your answer: Buy. Don’t use leverage, don’t borrow money, and don’t buy with reckless abandon, but yes, get your asset insurance policy and tuck it away. And then start working toward 20% (we recommend a third of assets be in various forms of gold in Casey’s Gold & Resource Report).

Back to the original question: should we buy now, or wait for a pullback?

The answer comes when you look at the big picture. If you pull up a 9-year chart of gold, what sticks out is that the price is near its all-time nominal high. One could be forgiven for thinking it looks toppy or at least ripe for a pullback. But I assert that the highs for gold have yet to be charted.

What will a gold chart look like after adding five years to it?

When projecting gold’s potential price peak, there are many ways to measure it. Conservatively, gold reaching its inflation-adjusted 1980 high would have it topping around $2,400 an ounce. More radically, if the U.S. tried to cover its cumulative foreign trade deficit with its current gold holdings, gold would need to hit about $32,000/oz.

Let’s take something more middle of the road, and apply the same trough-to-peak percentage advance gold underwent in the 1970s. (I think there’s a greater than 50/50 chance it does more than that, given the precarious nature of the U.S. dollar.) Gold rose from $35 in 1970 to $850 in 1980, a factor of 24.28. Our price bottomed in 2001 at $255.95; multiply that by 24.28 and you get a gold price of $6,214 per ounce.

Sound too high? Well, would it feel high if you had to pay $12.50 for a Big Mac? At $3.39 today at my local McDonald’s, that’s about what it would cost ten years from now if we get the same rate of inflation we had in the late 1970s.

So if gold hits $6,214, what might it look like on a chart if you bought today around $1,200?

$1,200 doesn’t seem so pricey, does it?

I’m not saying there won’t be pullbacks or that you shouldn’t try to buy at lower prices. Just keep a big-picture perspective. Let’s say gold falls to $1,100 and you’re kicking yourself for having bought at $1,200… if gold reaches $6,200 an ounce, the profit difference between buying at $1,200 and buying at $1,100 is only 1.6%. If gold gets whacked to $1,000 (at which point I’ll be buying with both hands) the difference is still only 3.2%.

Heck, even if gold peaks at $2,400, you still get a double from current levels. (But unless government monetary policies immediately reverse course, gold isn’t stopping at $2,400.)

So there’s my answer. Yes, you have to accept my projection of gold’s ultimate price plateau. And you have to sell at some point to realize the profit. But if the final chapter of this bull market looks anything like the chart above, I don’t think you’ll be too upset having bought at $1,200.

Carpe gold.

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As high as we think gold could go, it’s gold producers that will gain three and four times more, bringing us potentially life-changing profits. Check out the new issue of Casey’s Gold & Resource Report, where we’ve identified the easiest and cheapest way to buy gold stocks, even for smaller wallets. It’s only $39 per year – try it risk-free here.

The Best Gold Interview of 2010

This week we feature an interesting interview with a well connected insider in the U.S. precious metals community and some surprising revelations on just how few people are selling gold and silver and what he thinks supply will look like down the road…

Jeff Clark, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report

Much of what passes for “insider” information these days is often conspiracy-edged or largely conjecture. True inside information is actually hard to come by. So what follows is the refreshingly candid and uncut version of my talk with a first-hand participant in the murky and little-understood world of gold bullion, mints, and bullion dealers.

Customarily, when considering a company for a potential recommendation, I hold a series of discussions with management. It was during one of these vetting procedures that I spoke with Andy Schectman of Miles Franklin – and heard some disturbing reports about supply that every investor should know. Andy is a bullion seller, so you’re welcome to take his comments with a grain of salt. On the other hand, what he sees week after week and what he hears from his high-level industry contacts might just make you pull back on that salt shaker and re-inventory the number of ounces you own…

Jeff Clark: Andy, tell us about the kinds of contacts you have in the industry and where you get your information.

Andy: I’m associated with two of the six primary mint distributors in the United States. There are only six primary precious metal distributors here because the qualifications are very difficult to meet. Aside from having $100 million in annual sales, you have to extend a $50 million line of credit to the U.S. Mint, and very few companies can do that. So in working with these companies, I’m privy to information that many others aren’t.

Jeff: So, what have you been hearing from them about supply for physical gold and silver?

Andy: I think in order to properly characterize what’s happening in the industry, it’s important to start from a big-picture perspective, which is that by and large the masses in this country are not involved in precious metals. In my experience, the move we’ve seen in gold over the last decade has primarily been from international investment – sovereign wealth funds in the Orient, petrodollars in the Middle East, India buying from the IMF, Russia and Japan accumulating, etc.

Most U.S. investors have lived through nothing but prosperity and good times, where they perhaps didn’t think they needed to own gold – but I think the rest of the world isn’t as optimistic about the future. So when you talk about supply, it’s important to acknowledge that most people in this country don’t own any gold and silver. To me, that’s what should really alarm people. 

Jeff:  Tell us how you would characterize supply right now.

Andy: Fragile. Availability of product changes almost weekly.

But it’s worse than that. When the market plunged 1,000 points in one day last month, two German banks bought about 35,000 or 40,000 one-ounce coins and cleaned out the Royal Canadian Mint overnight. Think about that: two banks cleaned out one of the world’s preeminent mints in one day.

Then you have the Austrian Mint recently announcing they were running into supply issues. And the U.S. Mint has been the model of inefficiency for the last several years. They have been either reluctant or unable to meet demand when it comes to Gold Buffalos, Platinum Eagles, and fractional Gold Eagles. They issue dribs and drabs of them, but certainly not enough to meet demand. 

Jeff:  And they frequently run out.

Andy:  They frequently run out, they frequently have delivery delays, and it’s a situation where very quickly we could see major disruption in the supply chain.

Jeff: We saw supply constraint in 2008, where dealers were running out of product. Do you think we’re headed there again?

Andy: I do. In 2008, when gold dropped from $1,000 to $700 very quickly, all product worldwide disappeared. Within weeks the U.S. Mint was shut down. The Canadian, Austrian, and Australian Mints were all eight to 12 weeks back-ordered or shut down. The Australian Mint stopped taking any new orders in July or August for the rest of the year. The Rand Mint, for the first time ever, sold out of all its product. One wealthy Swiss businessman flew his own 747 there and cleaned them out. 

So product was impossible to get, but not just from the primary mints; even the refiners that made 100-ounce silver bars couldn’t get them. No one could get anything, and it was a very scary time if you owned a gold company. There were many days I sat at my desk wondering how I was going to get product tomorrow, and there were times we couldn’t take orders whatsoever. And that comes from a company that’s done over $100 million in sales, is a member of the certified exchange, and that has contacts that run very deep in the industry – and I couldn’t get anything.

A friend of mine who owns a very prominent gold and silver company in Colorado has a store front, and back then he told me, “I want to put a sign on my window that says, ‘All we do is buy, we don’t sell,’ because one person will come in there and clean me out and there’s nothing to be had.”

So what I think is ahead comes from that experience. If you factor in that very, very few people in this country have even held a gold coin – let alone own any gold, or understand the reasons to own it, or will even accept the arguments for owning it – I think the primary distinguishing characteristic of this market will be that people won’t be able to get product when they want it. The rising price in and of itself will not be the main hurdle. For the most part, people will overcome price, because they’ll want to own it. The real issue will be getting product in a timely fashion, and that will become difficult for the average American. 

Jeff: What about supply from those selling coins and bars who bought at lower levels? Doesn’t that increase the available supply?

Andy: This is what I believe is a distinguishing feature of this market: there is a total absence of a secondary market. There isn’t one. Period. In years past, we used to do a lot of business with people wanting to sell. Today, virtually no one is selling their coins back to us. In fact, for every 100 transactions we have, maybe one is a seller – the other 99 are buyers. Our largest supplier, who provides over 60% of all bullion to the U.S. market, told me earlier this month they have days without one single buy back. And this is from the largest supplier in the U.S.

Jeff: Why do you think no one’s selling?

Andy: People are afraid. They’re afraid of what’s happening geopolitically, economically, fiscally, and want to hold on to their gold. As they should, because this is exactly the kind of circumstance gold is for.

So I would argue that as gold and silver creep higher, there will be more and more buying and less and less selling. And less selling means less product for buyers.

When you look at the fact that there is no secondary market, and then you throw into the mix that the mints are already running into production problems, and then add the troubles in Europe, which could easily spread, I think it’s easy to see how demand could outstrip supply. I assure you, there’s an awful lot of gold acquisition going on in other countries – the Swiss and Germans, for example, see the handwriting on the wall. They were buying everything up when the European crisis broke. It was bedlam for awhile.

And if all of a sudden people here wake up and feel they really need to own gold but can’t get it, we’ll be right back where we were in 2008.

But to your point, yes, nobody is selling anything right now and almost anything you buy will be dated 2010. That’s because there are no backdatedcoins to be had virtually anywhere. Maybe 20 here or 50 there, but nothing on a meaningful basis.

Jeff:  It sounds like regardless of what’s going on in America, global supply could be in jeopardy if this trend continues.

Andy: Absolutely, especially with the fact that there is no secondary market. Really, the people who enter the game late are going to be at the mercy of the mints. And if the mints run out of supply, or just stopped selling for whatever reason, it’s “game over” for those who want to accumulate. Right now there’s as good a supply as I’ve seen in a couple years, and that’s at a time when we’ve already witnessed the Royal Canadian Mint running out of gold for a week or so, the Austrian Mint also running out of product, and the U.S. Mint rationing Silver Eagles for a short time.

Jeff: And you’re calling this a good supply market?

Andy: Yes. It’s as good as we’ve seen in a couple years. 

Jeff: That’s scary.

Andy: I don’t think you’re exaggerating by saying that. And the message is, “Buy now while it’s still available.” I know it may sound like I’m trying to sensationalize it, but I’m really not. Based on what I know, it’s my opinion that if 5% of this country put 5% of their money into gold, there would be nothing left tomorrow morning. Supply is that small compared to the tremendous amount of money that’s out there.

Here’s another example. I had a meeting with a money management company here in Minneapolis that manages some of the oldest money in the entire country, literally billions of dollars. And when I spoke with them, I discovered the principals of the firm had never held a gold coin. They asked me questions that were as rudimentary as what I would get from a complete novice. By the end of the conversation, they said they would start with a $5 million order. I later learned this was a small order for just one of their clients. It was just dipping a toe in the water for these people.

Well, it won’t take too many of these kinds of people waking up to gold to drain the supply chain. Most of the wealth in this country is driven through money managers, and at some point these people will tell their managers, “I don’t care what the price or premium is, get me gold.” When they come knocking in large numbers like that, the supply chain will dry up overnight. I know this to be true. If we see an event that drives money managers to buy physical gold, the supply will be gone.

Jeff: Some of that money is already going into the ETFs.

Andy: Yes, but not when you consider the total capital that’s available. And keep in mind that the prospectus for GLD and SLV state that, more or less, you can’t take possession of the metal. So, do you “own” gold if you have shares in GLD or SLV, or any ETF, for that matter? If you can’t put the coin or bar in the palm of your hand, the answer is no.

Jeff: Are you seeing any difference between gold and silver? Is one more difficult to come by than the other?

Andy: We’ve seen a lot of demand for silver, probably more so than gold, and the U.S. Mint has already rationed Silver Eagles once this year. Junk silver bags are becoming much harder to get. And I think the higher gold goes, the faster silver will disappear. At some point the American public will realize they should have some gold and silver, and we could see a situation where the gold price could get out of reach for some investors. Those people will turn to silver and, as a result, it will probably be tougher to get than gold.

Jeff: If supply gets scarce, do you expect premiums to shoot up?

Andy: Absolutely. In 2008 the premiums were astronomical. Silver Eagles were $5.50 to $6 over spot. Gold Eagles were $100 to $150 over spot. The premiums went parabolic. That could easily happen again.

Jeff: And that was due to constrained supply.

Andy: Yes. When the price fell off the table, everything disappeared quickly. That’s counterintuitive, I know, because logic would dictate that as the price of something falls, demand is waning. But as the price fell, I think it became more attractive to large interests around the world, and everything got gobbled up fast.

Looking ahead, I can tell you that the only way you’ll see premiums stay where they are is if the mints are able to keep up with demand, and based on what I see I would argue there is no way they can. They can’t even keep up now. On top of that, as I stated, people aren’t going to sell their gold this time unless they absolutely have to, so there won’t be any supply coming from sales.

Jeff: So your message to someone who owns little or no physical metal now is what?

Andy: Acquire as many gold and silver ounces as you can. In the end it’s not about price paid, it’s about number of ounces. View the supply issue as critically as you would the price, because I believe that more than anything else, the lack of available supply will mark this industry.

Jeff: Excellent advice, Andy. Thanks for your input.

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If Deflation Wins, What Will Gold Stocks Do?

Jeff Clark of Casey Research takes a look at the Great Depression to see what this might tell us about how gold and gold stocks or shares may perform in a deflationary environment….

By Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report

The talk of a possible double dip is now common banter on TV investment programs. And indeed, deflationary forces seem to have the stronger grip right now than inflationary ones. So if deflation is the next reality we have to face, what happens to our favorite stock investments?

There’s lots of data about what gold does during periods of high inflation, but less so with deflation, partly because we don’t see a true deflation all that often. But of course we’ve got the biggie we can look at, and the seriousness of the Great Depression can give us a big clue as to how gold stocks behave in a true deflationary environment.

First, we know what happened to the stock market in 1929, and in that initial shock, gold stocks crashed too. A rally ensued in most equities until the following April, including gold stocks. Then the Dow took a one-way elevator ride down for the next two and a half years.

What did gold stocks do?

From 1929 until January 1933, the stock of Homestake Mining, the largest gold producer in the U.S., rose 474%. Dome Mines, the largest Canadian producer, advanced 558%. In spite of the gold price being fixed at the time, gold stocks rose dramatically.

At the same time, the DJIA lost 73% of its value.

And the chart doesn’t show that you could have bought both stocks at half their 1929 price five years earlier, which would have led to gains of around 1,000%. That’s not all: both companies paid healthy and rising dividends as the depression wore on; Homestake’s dividend went from $7 to $15 per share, and Dome’s from $1 to $1.80.

Yes, volatility was high in the gold stocks throughout the depression, with occasional wild price swings. But after the 1929 crash, much of the volatility was to the upside.

The bottom line is that the two largest gold producers – during a time of soup lines and falling standards of living – handed investors five and six times their money in four years.

What about gold itself? On April 5, 1933, President Roosevelt issued an executive order forcing delivery (i.e., confiscation) of gold owned by private citizens to the government in exchange for compensation at the fixed price of $20.67/oz (you can read the original order here). And less than nine months later, he raised the gold price to $35, effectively diluting every dollar 41% overnight and swindling everyone who had turned in his gold.

We don’t know exactly what an untethered gold price would have done during the depression, but given its distinction in history as a store of value, we believe it would retain its purchasing power in a deflationary setting regardless of its nominal price. In other words, while the price of gold might not rise, or could even fall, your best protection is still gold.

But with all this said, the overriding concern isn’t deflation. Yes, economic growth will likely be flat for years, and many Americans will see some hard times ahead. But deflation won’t win; in a fiat money system, any deflation will be met with an inflationary overreaction (as we’ve seen). And the worse the deflation, the more extreme the overreaction will be.

In fact, I think there’s another round of money printing before this year is over. And sooner or later, that extra money is going to dilute every dollar you own, giving us an inflationary hit as bad as the deflationary one we got during the Great Depression.

It’s for this reason that I continue to urge you to own physical gold, in your possession and under your control, given its reliability as a store of value in both inflationary and deflationary environments. If you don’t have a meaningful portion of your investments in physical gold, I think you’re playing with fire. And those who play with fire eventually get burnt.

Want an easy way to start buying physical gold? I arranged for some seriously discounted bullion in the current issue of Casey’s Gold & Resource Report, which you can check out risk-free here…

Gold Meltdown or Mania - Batten Down the Hatches

We’ve had a few questions lately about investing in gold and silver mining shares.  Louis James of Casey Research shares his thoughts on what the possible impact of another downdraft in world financial markets will have on not only gold and silver but also on precious metals shares…

by Louis James, Senior Editor, Casey’s International Speculator

As Doug Casey said recently, we expect things to come unglued soon. With the ongoing madness in Europe, it seems to me that things are starting to look visibly less well glued already.

In contemplating the possibility of another stock market meltdown, it seems important to me that in spite of the exuberance with which investors rushed back into the market over the last year, the memory of 2008 remains vivid, tempering enthusiasm with caution. For example, the market still has relatively little appetite for early-stage, grassroots exploration projects; by our latest estimates, Mr. Market is willing to pay on the order of ten times more for Proven & Probable ounces in the ground than for less certain resource categories. With this evidence of caution in mind, and the great unwinding of the broader credit markets well underway, it seems likely that our sector is less leveraged than it was before the crash of 2008.

If a panic in the broader markets put liquidity-crunch-induced pressure on the gold price, the meltdown should be less severe than in 2008 and the eventual rebound could be dramatic, possibly triggering the mania we’ve been calling for. Remember: the market crash drove gold almost down to $700 in October ’08, but the same fear drove it almost back to $1,000 by February ’09. Silver topped that with a 60% rebound over the same period.

As the debt-glue holding everything together continues to lose its grip, the ride will only get rougher. As bad as 2008 was, if the Crisis Creature appears to be coming back when everyone on Main Street thought it was dead, the fear should be much worse – and that should drive gold way, way north. It’s possible the fear, coupled with the lack of any safer alternatives, could prevent gold from melting down at all, sending it instead straight through the roof into the clear blue Mania Phase sky.

With its industrial metal aspect, however, another big economic meltdown could hit silver harder than gold, and it might take longer to recover, especially if base metals don’t rebound the way they did in 2009. That said, silver has always tracked gold, so when gold heads for the moon, we expect silver will as well. It could reach even higher, if supply is cut by reduced base metal demand, as most silver production is as a by-product of base metal mines.

Either way, I don’t care if gold drops in the weeks and months ahead; the overall trend is for widespread economic fear and uncertainty to continue, holding gold prices up and eventually driving them higher. That makes the current retreat look like a great buying opportunity. In fact, putting my money where my mouth is, I picked up some more gold buffaloes just yesterday, when gold dropped to $1158. As I type, it has rebounded to $1181. I plan to buy more every time I see a sharp drop like this over the summer.
So, in addition to our multiple recent calls to take profits and go to cash, I want to reiterate that gold is cash. And it’s a whole lot more attractive than the dollar, the euro, or any paper money at present – not just as a speculation but for security as well.

What about the stocks?

Unfortunately, the stampede to safety that drives investors to gold is not likely to drive them immediately to junior exploration stocks. “The most volatile stocks on earth” is not what fearful people will be looking for – not until the panic sufficiently recedes and greed joins fear in equal measure in the marketplace…or in greater measure, come the Mania Phase.

If I’m right about fear being the driving force in the markets in 2010, whereas greed drove them in 2009, gold will have to deliver a serious wake-up call – perhaps holding over $1,500 – to really get the show on the road again for the gold stocks. If that happens while fear of a global economic slowdown continues to push oil prices lower, gold producers should be able to report extraordinary profit increases, even as other industries are tanking, and finally penetrate deeply into the awareness of broader pools of investors.

Cashed-up majors won’t have to wait for that to benefit; they may seize the opportunity created by market weakness to buy successful explorers, with significant discoveries in hand, while they are on sale. Well, some of the more nimble ones, like Kinross or Agnico-Eagle, might. The bigger companies, like Newmont and Barrick, didn’t lift a finger to pick up any bargains after the crash of 2008 and may be too cautious to act the next time around as well.

Be that as it may, acquisitions will increase the demand for quality exploration projects – the pipeline from exploration to development must be kept full – and good prospectors should at last get their day in the sun.

Punctuating this sequence will be the occasional big win on a new discovery. There haven’t been that many this cycle – not enough to replace all the gold the majors are depleting every year – but there have been some, and the market always loves a discovery.

After the first quarter of ‘09, greed outpaced fear and great development stories did phenomenally well; we saw better gains on large and growing gold stories than we did on the big producers. If fear retakes predominance in 2010, it’s profitable production that should do best, and I’d expect the biggest winners overall to be new, emerging, and highly profitable precious metals production stories. Spectacular discoveries should also do spectacularly well, but those are harder to predict. New and rapidly expanding production should be the sweet spots.

Generally, I think we’ll see our markets trading largely sideways over the next few months, with great volatility, until the debt-fueled “growth” in the global economy is exposed for the sugar high that it is. We’ve been forecasting that scenario for long enough here at Casey Research.

I expect this to play out by the end of this year, or 2011 at the latest, depending on how fast fear returns to the broader markets.

What to do

If I’m right about this, the strategy called for is a more cash-focused version of our “Buy only the Best of the Best” program. Buy nothing new unless you’re offered a great bargain in a solid company that can deliver significant new or expanding production. Nothing less than 50,000 ounces gold-equivalent per year in production will get much notice, and anything less than 100,000 ounces per year AuEq will have to struggle for respect. A solid company, of course, has great people, lots of cash, and the goods in hand.

If you want to speculate on a discovery, make sure you have very good reason to believe the project has much better than average odds of delivering a discovery – and it has to have world-class potential. That’s not hundreds of thousands of ounces but millions of ounces of gold, or equivalent.

If things do come truly unglued this year, we may well see 2008-style bargains on great companies with the staying power to recover and go on to new highs. Watch for it. Prepare for it.

Buy Low, Sell High – it’s a formula that requires patience but is the only way to go.

-=-=-=-

Louis James has been guiding his subscribers through the ups and downs of the market with a steady hand. It’s no coincidence that every single one of his 2009 picks was a winner. Learn more about Louis’ hands-on approach and the profit opportunities Casey’s International Speculator offers – details here.

Hedging chaos with gold

…what if history is not cyclical and slow-moving but arhythmic, at times almost stationary, but also capable of accelerating suddenly, like a sports car? What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night… dramas lie ahead as the nasty fiscal arithmetic of imperial decline drives yet another great power over the edge of chaos.
     Niall Ferguson, July 28, 2010

The nasty fiscal arithmetic of imperial decline that Harvard professor Niall Ferguson refers to is America’s unsustainable debt. Growing levels of debt according to Ferguson are now about to drive the US, like other great powers before it, over the edge of chaos; an event Ferguson believes will come sooner rather than later.

  

…most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises…empires behave like all complex adaptive systems. They function in apparent equilibrium for some unknowable period. And then, quite abruptly, they collapse.

IN 2010 THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IS EXPECTED TO ISSUE ALMOST AS MUCH NEW DEBT AS ALL OTHER GOVERNMENTS, AROUND THE WORLD, COMBINED

The resemblance between the above chart and the following is obvious—except, of course, to those in denial.

The US borrows 45 % of all moneys borrowed by all governments and spends virtually that same percentage of global military spending. Beginning in 1980, President Reagan started the US on the road to financial collapse, borrowing heavily in order to fund the US military buildup, an act of fiscal irresponsibility that would later prove fatal. In his two terms, Reagan increased the US national debt by 258 %, the cost of which would be the loss of America’s economic power-base.

 

After WWII, both the USSR and the US spent vast amounts of their respective GDPs on military expenditures. Bankrupted, the USSR collapsed in 1992. Three decades later, the US now faces the same fate.

America’s pending bankruptcy reflects America’s shift from the world’s creditor to its largest debtor. Prior to Reagan’s military buildup, the US did not need to borrow to support the global deployment of its military; instead, in order to do so the US spent its entire hoard of gold—21,775 tons.

The only gold the US now possesses is there because in 1971 the US refused to convert its remaining gold for dollars as required under Bretton-Woods; and by the time Reagan was elected, the US could pay for its global military force only by indebting itself to others

When Reagan took office, total US debt was $980 billion. Today, the budget deficit for this fiscal year alone is projected to be $1.4 trillion. After the Reagan presidency, the US accelerated its spending until sovereign default or currency debasement are its only options.

SOVEREIGN DEBT SOVEREIGN DEFAULT SOVEREIGN DENIAL
The Emperor has no clothes, i.e. the empire has no money

The publication of Rogoff and Reinhart’s seminal work on sovereign debt in 2008 predated the sovereign debt crisis by two years; and if Rogoff and Reinhart were not surprised, they would be surprised that it would be industrialized nations that would find themselves under the scrutiny of global debt collectors.

In 2010, sovereign default concerns unexpectedly shifted from developing nations, i.e. Rogoff and Reinhart’s sovereign rite of passage, to industrialized nations—Greece, Spain, Italy, the UK, the US, and Japan etc.

The shift in sovereign debt concerns was accompanied by another extraordinary shift. Between 2000 and 2010, China became America’s creditor as well as its sweatshop; and China knows that the US owes so much money that only by borrowing more can it pay what it owes, a condition economist Hyman Minsky called ponzi-financing, the last stage prior to debtor default.

In truth, the US is not the default virgin described in Rogoff and Reinhart’s study. The US default on its gold obligations was perhaps the most important monetary default in history, plunging the entire world into a regimen of fiat money against its will

Sovereign default, however, is not the only strategy available to the US regarding its unpayable debt. The US could alternatively pay down its massive obligations by debasing its currency, a strategy wherein the US would pay its creditors with increasingly worthless US dollars—to the US, a far more convenient solution.

This is why China is worried—and the rest of the world (including Americans) should be worried too.

BORROW BORROW BORROW SPEND SPEND SPEND

No one will be surprised when the US again tries to borrow its way back to economic growth. This has been the default strategy of the US ever since Ronald Reagan’s Treasury Secretary, Donald Regan said, “Deficits don’t matter”, a financial heresy that would eventually undermine the American economy.

Capitalism is an uneasy balance between credit and debt. However, in the 1980s, far more credit was created and far more debt resulted. Combined with the removal of gold as a constraint on monetary growth, it would be only a matter of time until capitalism’s accrued debt would overwhelm the capacity of credit to contain and service it. That time has now arrived.

Bankers have unleashed a beast they cannot contain. The beast is of their own making although they are careful to deny their patrimony. The bankers’ deflationary black hole of defaulting debt is now destroying capital faster than bankers can create it.

This is why Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is contemplating flooding the US economy with even more printed dollars, the so-called helicopter drop of money (Milton Friedman’s term), the proscribed solution of Milton Friedman to the Great Depression.

Because Friedman observed that the money supply had contracted during the Great Depression, Friedman erroneously believed sufficient monetary expansion would prevent another depression in the future. This is why Bernanke flooded the US with money and credit in 2009 hoping Friedman was right.

But Friedman was wrong. Bernanke’s palliative was temporary, producing only a short boost instead of a sustained recovery. Despite trillions of dollars spent and interest rates lowered to zero, the US money supply is still contracting—and the US economy is again slowing.

 
http://sirchartsalot.com/article.php?id=139

Despite Friedman’s failed theory, Bernanke still believes more injections of credit and debt can do what previous injections didn’t. This is akin to an alcoholic believing more alcohol will dispel the hangover that previous drinks did not. Friedman and Bernanke’s helicopters are coming. Get ready.

 

Can you hear the helicopters coming
Sounds of choppers fill the sky
Whirling birds of destruction
This is how currencies die

Printing money is easy
The problem is the debt
Money’s source is credit
You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet

Bernanke’s dream is our nightmare
His solution is our demise
Helicopters filled with money
Dropping from the skies

THE GOLDEN HEDGE AGAINST CHAOS

 

In The Critical Path (St Martin’s Press 1981) Buckminster Fuller predicted the world’s power structures would fall, plunging the world into an unprecedented crisis. Communism collapsed in 1992. Now, capitalism is about to do the same. Bucky’s predicted crisis comes next.

In The Great Wave (Oxford University Press 1996), Professor David Hackett Fisher observed we are at the end of a great wave—a phenomena that separates historical epochs, a phenomena which always end in the complete economic collapse of the existing order. Great Waves last 80 to120 years. The current wave is 114 years old.

At the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival last month, Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson warned the collapse of the American empire could be imminent.

      I think this is a problem that is going to go live really soon,” Ferguson said. “In
that sense, I mean within the next two years. Because the whole thing, fiscally and
other ways, is very near the edge of chaos..

When America’s empire does collapse and, like all empires, it will, chaos will reign. Today, the US is the world’s super power, its dollar is the world’s reserve currency. The collapse of the US will change all this and more.

This is why the price of gold has quintupled in only ten years. America’s failing grasp on power has been mirrored by gold’s rise during that same time. In 2000, America’s credit-driven prosperity began to falter with the collapse of the dot.com bubble. Ten years later, America has still not recovered. Indeed, as Niall Ferguson predicts, its demise is imminent.

Since the 1980s, the US has conspired with others to suppress the price of gold as it is an indicator of the failings of the fiat financial system upon which its power is based. This is akin to doctors icing the thermometer to convince others that the patient is not in danger; and while they have been successful in so doing, the patient is now about to expire.

When the US empire implodes, the global geopolitical matrix will collapse as will much of the world’s financial underpinnings. It will be a time of chaos; and gold—history’s hedge against chaos—will again perform its time-honored role.

RESPONSIBILITY AND RENEWAL

In an extraordinary mea culpa published July 31st in the New York Times, President Reagan’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, David Stockman, a Republican, blamed his own party for four critical errors that contributed to America’s decline: 

The errors are as follows:

The first of these started when the Nixon administration defaulted on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world. It is.. an outcome that Milton Friedman said could never happen when, in 1971, he persuaded President Nixon to unleash on the world paper dollars no longer redeemable in gold or other fixed monetary reserves. Just let the free market set currency exchange rates, he said, and trade deficits will self-correct. [But] relieved of the discipline of defending a fixed value for their currencies, politicians the world over were free to cheapen their money and disregard their neighbors…

The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt…This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts…

The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector…the trillion-dollar conglomerates that inhabit this new financial world are not free enterprises. They are rather wards of the state, extracting billions from the economy with a lot of pointless speculation in stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. They could never have survived, much less thrived, if their deposits had not been government-guaranteed and if they hadn’t been able to obtain virtually free money from the Fed’s discount window to cover their bad bets.

The fourth destructive change has been the hollowing out of the larger American economy…It is not surprising, then, that during the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1 percent of Americans — paid mainly from the Wall Street casino — received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90 percent — mainly dependent on Main Street’s shrinking economy — got only 12 percent. This growing wealth gap is not the market’s fault. It’s the decaying fruit of bad economic policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=opinion

Stockman’s mea culpa is an unexpected admission of political responsibility especially at a time when Americans are searching for someone to blame. But there’s no one to blame except America itself. The Russians aren’t responsible, the Muslims aren’t responsible and guess what, illegal immigrants aren’t responsible either—America, and America alone, is responsible for its own demise.

America was born out of the desire for freedom and a better life for all (apologies, however, are due to the Native Americans and the African slaves who suffered in the process). But, along the way, America chose to instead pursue power, not freedom; and, today, the considerable bill for America’s fatal choice is coming due—and more paper money won’t pay it.

God save America from itself.

Buy gold, buy silver, have faith.

Darryl Robert Schoon
www.survivethecrisis.com
www.drschoon.com
Blog www.posdev.net/pdn/index.php?option=com_myblog&blogger=drs&Itemid=81

Is Now a Good Time to Buy Gold?

While the stats below from Casey Research are based upon the US Dollar price of gold, a glance at the 3 year gold chart in NZ dollars also show that the New Zealand winter has also been the preferable time to buy in recent times, so their thoughts are still worth considering for a New Zealander.  And if you have an interest in precious metals stocks then it’s especially worth a read….

Is Now a Good Time to Buy Gold?

By Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report

While we’re convinced gold and gold stocks are destined for much higher levels, buying when prices are low can mean the difference between a double or triple and a ten-bagger… a week in Malibu vs. a week in Milan.

There’s no secret formula to buying low, and we aren’t holding the right hand of Midas, but there are periods when prices tend to be lower than others. And if those tendencies play out, it can give us the opportunity to snag a high-quality asset at a bargain price.

So, how do you get a bargain price? You cheat.

I think the secret to getting a low-cost basis on all your gold and gold stocks is this: only buy on significant price pullbacks.

And this can be done without trading or using technical analysis.

I think there’s a good chance we can cheat this summer. For example, here are the average monthly increases in gold since our bull market began in 2001.

In our current 9-year bull market, June and August have seen the lowest average return for gold, representing one of the best times to buy.

You’ll see that in the bull market of the 1970s, summer was also a good time to buy gold.

What about gold stocks? Since 2001, June and July have been among the weakest months and thus one of the best times to buy.

Obviously, these are price tendencies and not certainties. There were Junes when gold was up, and some Julys when gold stocks were up. Meaning, we’d avoid using these charts for trading purposes or in anticipation of an immediate gain. Instead, use these “trendencies” to look for possible price weakness. And if it arrives, use the opportunity to add to your holdings and position yourself for the next leg up in the bull market.

What are the odds of a correction in gold and gold stocks this summer?

►Since 2001, almost every precious metal stock, in every summer, has moved lower from its May high. This includes gold and silver. There’s no guarantee this won’t be the summer of galloping unicorn herds, but the record is hard to argue with.

Here are the buy zones I identified for gold and silver, based on a tally of how far they’ve corrected from their May high to their summer low, in each year of the current bull market.

You’ll see that the average price of all pullbacks in gold, from the May highs to the summer lows, is 8.9%, and would take the price to $1,126.98. That’s not to say this price will be hit, but it tips you off that a fall to that level would not be out of the ordinary – and would also be an invitation to buy. You can also see the smallest summer decline, which we’ve already exceeded. We wouldn’t wait for the largest drop to materialize; there’s a good chance you’d be left empty-handed and chasing the stock higher.

Silver is naturally more volatile, allowing us perhaps a better opportunity to buy low. The average summer decline for silver is 16.6%, which would take the price to $16.39. However, the furthest its fallen so far this summer is $17.36, meaning strictly on a historical price basis, a 10% correction from current levels would be perfectly normal. And again, an invitation to buy.

Whatever price (or prices) you select, I’d only use the charts to add to current positions, not for trading. The currency crisis Casey Research believes is inevitable could strike suddenly again and will eventually hit the U.S. dollar, and the last thing you want is to be left standing on the sidelines if gold and gold stocks surge higher. In our opinion, being completely out of precious metals in the middle of a once-in-a-generation bull market would be a mistake. Instead, keep adding to your savings every month and buy when it feels like you’re cheating.

See you in Milan?

—-

Want to see the buy zones for all our recommended gold and silver stocks? Our Summer Buying Guide is an invaluable resource for buying low. And check out our just-released July issue, where a respected bullion seller tells you why in the near future you may not be able to buy gold, at ANY price. Try a risk-free subscription for only $39 per year. Details here.

Darryl Schoon: The Real Bubble is Government Debt, Not Gold

A simple graphic and a not quite so simple chart show why it is government debt that is the bubble rather than gold itself…

THE END-GAME AND
THE ILLUSORY GOLD BUBBLE

When the end-game began, gold was $35 per ounce. Today, gold is $1200. When the end-game is over, gold will be far higher.

Midway through 2010 we are approaching the end of the end-game, the resolution of the monetary imbalances that began in 1971. For more than 2500 years, gold was money: but, in 1971 that changed. After 1971, money was no longer connected to gold. For the first time in history, money had no intrinsic value

After the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1945 until 1971, the world’s currencies were anchored to the US dollar which was convertible to gold. Thus, directly or indirectly, all currencies could be exchanged for gold; but on August 15, 1971 the US cut the ties between the US dollar and gold; and all currencies became fiat.

It was as if someone removed a pin from the axle of international commerce when the US dollar was no longer convertible to gold. Previously, the US dollar was linked to gold, and other currencies were linked to the dollar. Everything was stable. It is no longer so. Once the pin connecting gold and paper money was removed, everything changed. The axle of international commerce began to vibrate and lately it’s been getting much worse. The fear is that the wheels are now about to come off.
Page 9, How to Survive the Crisis and Prosper in the Process

THE BEGINNING OF THE END-GAME

The cutting of ties between money and gold set in motion the extreme monetary instability that was to characterize the 1970s. In 1960, the US prime rate was 5 %. At the end of the decade, the rate was 6.75 %. But when money became fiat in 1971, US rates became extremely volatile, vacillating between 4.50 % and 21.50 % during the next ten years.

In my article America at the Crossroads and the War on Gold, I pointed out the role of former Fed chairman Paul Volker in destabilizing the monetary system. Believed by most to be a “hard-money hero”, Volker was, in fact, the very opposite.

Volker, as under-secretary of the Treasury in 1971, played a critical—and largely unknown role—in the removal of gold from the international monetary system and is therefore responsible for much of the monetary chaos which has since ensued:

From 1969 to 1974 Mr. Volcker served as under-secretary of the Treasury for international monetary affairs. He played an important role in the decisions leading to the U.S. suspension of gold convertibility in 1971, which resulted in the collapse of the Bretton Woods system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Volcker

Appointed as Chairman of the Federal Reserve by President Carter in 1979, Volker was at the helm when inflationary forces he had earlier unleashed almost destroyed the US economy in 1979-1981.

Volker’s draconian raising of interests rates in 1980 was necessary to quell the inflationary fires he had lit in 1971; and although successful, Volker’s role is not dissimilar from others who put out fires they themselves start.

THE END-GAME ACCELERATES

While it was Paul Volker who set the end-game in motion, it was Alan Greenspan, his successor at the Fed, who would greatly accelerate the process by putting US financial markets beyond the reach of government regulators.

Volker was replaced by Greenspan as Fed Chairman because Volker wouldn’t dismantle existing financial regulations as desired by the Reagan White House and Wall Street investment banks. As Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz later explained:

Paul Volcker, the previous Fed Chairman known for keeping inflation under control, was fired because the Reagan administration didn’t believe he was an adequate de-regulator.

In Alan Greenspan, Wall Street got the Fed chairman they wanted, someone who would provide them with an unending flow of central bank credit and who would turn a blind eye as to what they would do with it. Alan Greenspan was Wall Street’s wet dream come true.

During his 19 year tenure as Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan ushered in an era of loose credit producing massive profits for Wall Street along with two of the largest bubbles in history, the US dot.com and US real estate bubbles.

Greenspan with consummate political timing resigned as Fed Chairman just before his extraordinary credit bubble collapsed. However, a third, even larger bubble which Greenspan nurtured, still has yet to burst. This is the government bond bubble, by far now the largest bubble in history

The enormous government bond bubble was “Fed” by the excessive issuance of credit made possible by the removal of gold from the monetary system, thereby allowing governments to freely borrow what they had just printed.

Once Volker controlled the fires of runaway inflation in 1980/1981, the issuance of government credit and debt exploded upwards under Greenspan’s tenured aegis at the Federal Reserve.

This soon-to-be fatal rise in US debt would not have been possible had the US dollar been tied to gold. This is why both bankers and governments who profit and live by debt oppose a return to the gold standard or any attempt to again tie their currencies to gold.

…a gold standard and a redeemable currency…enables a people to keep the government and banks in check. It prevents currency expansion from getting ever farther out of bounds until it becomes worthless…
Professor Walter E. Spahr, Chairman of the Department of Economics, NYU, 1927-1956

Banker John Exter, present when Volker cut the ties between the US dollar and gold, later commented on the consequences of Volker’s historic decision: The final link between the dollar and gold was broken. The dollar became nothing more than a fiat currency and the Fed [and especially the banks] were then free to continue monetary expansion at will. The result..was a massive explosion of debt

Today, the debt is due and owing and repayment is increasingly in doubt. Economics isn’t rocket science. It’s cause and effect and since the introduction of debt-based money, the primary cause of economic expansion has been credit.

The consequence of credit is its deadly effluvia, debt; and when the issuance of credit can no longer service or roll-over constantly compounding debt, parcus nex, economic death, otherwise known as the end game, ensues.

The enormous amount of government debt—total sovereign debt now totals $34 trillion dollars—can never be repaid. The end of the end-game will come when investors collectively realize this is so. That realization has not yet happened. When it does, for most it will be too late.

THE ILLUSORY GOLD BUBBLE

Some believe gold is a bubble. It is not. The price of gold, however, tracks a bubble and that is why it is mistaken for one.

WHICH ONE’S THE BUBBLE?
THE RULER OR THE BUBBLE?

The real bubble is government debt, not gold. Government debt is a bubble that hasn’t yet burst; one that has grown even more rapidly in the last two years as almost all nations went far deeper into debt after the 2007/2008 global collapse.

..sovereign debts grew by almost 30% in just two years. Sovereigns became the majority of worldwide debt. Several countries doubled their debts from 2007 to 2009 (BIS data)
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/07/how-large-is-outstanding-value-of.html

This recent meteoric rise in government debt has been matched by a corresponding rise in the price of gold. When government borrowing rose after 2007, the price of gold also rose, from $700 to $1200 per ounce, almost precisely tracking the rise in government debt.

…the ballooning size of the US Treasury’s debt, which hit a record $12.8-trillion last month, has been a steady linchpin supporting the historic rally in the gold market over the past decade. As a general rule of thumb, every $1- trillion of fresh debt issued by the Treasury equates with a $125 /ounce increase in the price of gold. As long as the Fed and G-20 central banks continue to peg ultra-low interest rates, - and G-20 governments continue to flood the debt markets with huge quantities of IOU’s, - it translates into monetization, and the trajectory for the gold market would stay bullish. http://www.sirchartsalot.com/

When the government debt bubble bursts—and it will—gold will not collapse as will bonds and other paper IOUs. When it happens, the collateral damage to the US dollar and fiat currencies may well be fatal and the price of gold—the only safe haven in such times—will explode upwards.

The recently revealed Bank of International Settlement 382 ton gold swap is evidence of gold’s value in such times. Hinted at by Julian D.W. Phillips in his insightful article, Gold Is Back As Money, Michael J. Kosares connected the dots in his post, BIS Swap Signifies A Threat To Europe, Not To Gold, by pointing out that the swap was probably conducted with Portugal..

Portugal, whose gold reserves equal ( or rather equaled) 382 tons, badly needs to refinance its debt and when investors no longer trust sovereign bonds, gold is far more preferable as collateral than a government’s promise to repay.

Note: In the swap, the BIS most likely used commercial banks as intermediaries in order to disguise central bank use of gold as financial collateral.

The European debt crisis marks the beginning of the end of the government debt bubble. Only a false sense of confidence is now supporting sovereign bond markets. In the spring of 2010 that confidence was shaken; and, someday, it will disappear entirely.

We live in interesting times. We are in the end-game.

Buy gold, buy silver, have faith.

Darryl Robert Schoon
www.survivethecrisis.com
www.drschoon.com
Blog www.posdev.net/pdn/index.php?option=com_myblog&blogger=drs&Itemid=81

Time to Board the Gold Stocks Train?

Casey Research’s Jeff Clark indicates that gold shares may well have separated from the broader US stock market.  Before we get to his thoughts, we’ve quickly plotted for an NZ comparison the largest gold stock on the New Zealand share market, Oceania Gold, versus the NZX50 index for the last 2 years.

Oceania Gold versus the NZX50 - 2 Year Chart

As we don’t have a gold stocks index it’s not a direct comparison to the US since Oceania Gold is just one company.  And especially as Oceania has made some significant improvements to it’s operations in the past year or so and so it’s share price reflects this.  However Oceania did track the broader NZ stock-market from March 2009 (when global markets bottomed and started to perform), through to the end of 2009 and since then it has out performed the NZX50 in a major way.

Interestingly this rise also was in line with when the NZ$ gold price started to rise in November 2009.

Nonetheless an interesting chart to consider and keep in mind for a New Zealander as you read Jeff Clark’s perspective on gold shares versus the broad US stock market below…

Time to Board the Gold Stocks Train?

By Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report
One of the big hints that gold stocks will be ready for take-off is when they stop following the broader markets and strictly track gold, particularly if the market falls and gold stocks don’t. We now have data showing this has just occurred.

From April 2009 to April 2010, gold stocks mirrored the S&P. The two markets held hands as often as high school sweethearts; there was very little separation between them. While it wasn’t always a daily connection, any weekly and especially monthly chart showed them moving in tandem.

Until now.

For the quarterly period of April through June, gold stocks advanced 11%, tracking gold’s gain of 10.7%. The S&P, however, lost 14.1%.

We haven’t seen this level of separation between gold stocks and the general stock market since the first quarter of 2009. This demonstrates obvious strength in our sector, and is precisely the kind of action that can signal we’re getting closer to our precious metals investments starting a major leg up.

In the big picture, this data should be considered a short-term indicator. However, it’s a refreshing reminder that at some point, it won’t matter what the broader markets are doing. In the precious metals bull market of the 1970s, the Barron’s Gold Mining Index soared 652%, while the S&P gained only 22% for the entire decade. This means that if you’re bearish on the economy, you don’t have to be bearish on gold stocks.

Whether this is the beginning of permanent separation or not, the following chart tells us the stock market, in relation to gold, is going one direction.

At gold’s bottom in April 2001, the Dow/Gold ratio (DJIA divided by gold price) was 41.2. It now stands at 7.9 (as of July 2).

When gold peaked in January 1980, the Dow/Gold ratio reached “one,” meaning they were both selling for about the same price. To hit that same ratio today, gold will have to go higher and the Dow simultaneously lower. The fundamental reasons gold will rise are far from over, and a second leg down in the broader markets seems almost locked in at this point.

In this context, Doug Casey’s call for a $5,000 gold price doesn’t seem so farfetched. It also coincides with his call for a Greater Depression, an environment not exactly suited for higher stock prices. $5,000 gold = 5,000 Dow.

Where do you think they’ll meet – three? Eight?

This has obvious implications for your investments. If you’re investing for the big picture, you first want to think twice about any conventional stock investment. You might even consider a short position on one of the indices, something without a time limit, such as an inverse ETF.

Second, you should plan on higher gold prices. While pullbacks are inevitable, it does mean that even if you don’t own gold yet, it’s not too late. In fact, any excuse you have now for not buying gold will seem shallow and meaningless when the dollar begins cratering and so does your standard of living.

Third, don’t shy away from gold stocks. Yes, they’re still stocks and thus vulnerable, and we’re not sure the separation is here to stay, but selling your core holdings would be, in my opinion, a mistake. One of these days gold stocks won’t wait around for you to jump back in. And you could find yourself chasing them, a tactical error for the investor looking to maximize profit from what we believe will be a once-in-a-generation bull market.

In fact, if you had followed only this strategy since the precious metals bull market began in April 2001, you’d be up 375% in your gold holdings and up 707% in your gold stocks. An investment in the S&P, meanwhile, would’ve returned you exactly zero.

It’s our opinion this trend will continue. Gold stocks could very well get cheaper in the short term, handing us an excellent buying opportunity. But in the big picture, they’re destined for much higher levels.

My advice is to make sure you’re on the right side of this trend.

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What’s a good price on gold, silver, and precious metals stocks? We’ve charted every summer pullback in prices since the bull market began in 2001, giving us target zones for every asset in our portfolio. Our Summer Buying Guide is an invaluable resource for identifying a good bargain in our industry. And you can access it right now, for $39 per year, with a risk-free 3-month trial. Click here for more.

Fractional Gold and Silver Accounts

Darryl Schoon discusses how the explosive credit growth from 1982 to 2008 resulted in a “crack up boom” and then the flight into real values - i.e. gold -  began in 2001.  He warns of the eventual complete breakdown of the monetary system, however he also warns of the likely existence of fractional gold and silver accounts…

FRACTIONAL GOLD AND SILVER ACCOUNTS
Deceit becomes fraud only when you can’t deliver

Many of those interested in Austrian economics have been waiting for what Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises called the crack up boom. My advice: Don’t wait. The crack-up boom may already have happened. Get ready for what’s next.

From Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 1949:
The credit expansion boom is built on the sands of banknotes and deposits. It must collapse. If the credit expansion is not stopped in time, the boom turns into the crack-up boom [bold, mine]; the flight into real values begins, and the whole monetary system founders. Continuous inflation (credit expansion) must finally end in the crack-up boom and the complete breakdown of the currency system.

The period from 1982-2000/2008 was capitalism’s longest sustained expansion. It was an expansion, however, driven by ever–increasing amounts of credit emanating from Wall Street and central banks. Capitalism’s longest and greatest expansion was, in fact, a credit bubble in disguise.

  

The historic and extraordinary credit expansion boom faltered in March 2000 when the US dot.com bubble collapsed. More cheap credit from Greenspan’s Fed then reflated the bubble, driving markets to new highs only to again collapse in 2008, a cataclysmic rendering resulting in global losses exceeding $10 trillion.

The explosive growth of credit from 1982 to 2008 was credit-based capitalism’s final blow-off, the late-stage credit expansion predicted by von Mises in 1949; the resultant and parabolic rise in equities from 1997-2000 a sign that von Mises’ crack-up boom was underway.

That the crack-up boom has already happened is further evidenced by von Mises’ flight into real values which began in 2001, a consequence of the crack up boom. The flight into real values started after the dot.com bubble collapsed and investors began moving to the safety of gold (the price of gold has since quintupled); and, when markets collapsed again in 2008, the flight to real values, i.e. gold, accelerated.

The Financial Times reported in September 2008:
Investors in gold are demanding “unprecedented” amounts of bullion bars and coins and moving them into their own vaults as fears about the health of the global financial system deepen..Industry executives and bankers at the London Bullion Market Association annual meeting said the extent of the move into physical gold was unseen and driven by the very rich.

Regarding the consequences of the crack up boom, von Mises wrote:
…As in every case of the understanding of future developments, it is possible that the speculators may err, that the inflationary or deflationary movement will be stopped or slowed down, and that prices will differ from what they expected.

Speculative uncertainties caused by previously latent but now unleashed inflationary and deflationary forces are now clearly evident. A deflationary collapse in demand is again in motion which monetary authorities may attempt to offset by a hyperinflationary deluge of printed money.

The belief that the trillions borrowed and spent in 2009 reversed the 2008 economic collapse is belied by the fact that demand is again falling. Much to central bankers’ collective dismay, the global economy is contracting.

The ECRI leading indicator produced by the Economic Cycle Research Institute plummeted yet again last week to -6.9, pointing to contraction in the US by the end of the year. It is dropping faster that at any time in the post-War era…The latest data from the CPB Netherlands Bureau shows that world trade slid 1.7pc in May, with the biggest fall in Asia. The Baltic Dry Index measuring freight rates on bulk goods has dropped 40pc in a month.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7857595/RBS-tells-clients-to-prepare-for-monster-money-printing-by-the-Federal-Reserve.html

Faced with a potential deflationary collapse, RBS credit chief Andrew Roberts is predicting that central banks will attempt to prevent this possibility by a massive round of money printing: The next shock and awe will be in the form of large scale QME (Quantitative Monetary Easing).

Sufficient, i.e. excessive, money printing is Milton Friedman’s ineffectual solution to reversing monetary contractions. Printing more money leads, in fact, to von Mises’ predicted end-game. Von Mises crack up boom ends in the complete breakdown of the currency system, a progression that Friedman’s flawed theory has accelerated.

GOLD & THE COMPLETE BREAKDOWN OF THE CURRENCY SYSTEM

Predictions are circulating that the euro, only ten years old, may not survive the current crisis. The euro, however, like all fiat currencies was doomed from its beginning. No fiat currency has ever lasted as the advantages of fiat currencies are only temporary. In the long run, there are none.

In the not too distant future, paper currencies, e.g. the US dollar, the pound, the euro, the yuan, et. al. will go the way of all fiat money, into history’s dustbin, surviving only as monetary artifacts, evidence once again of man’s continual attempts to substitute fiat paper money with no intrinsic value for that which does.

Ralph T. Foster’s book, FIAT PAPER MONEY, The History and Evolution of our Currency, is a compendium of humanity’s repeated attempts to achieve and maintain the impossible. Since the invention of ink and paper in the East and now in the West, Foster’s book chronicles man’s constant attempts to pass off paper coupons as money, see http://home.pacbell.net/tfdf/.

FIAT PAPER MONEY is a disquieting read. It is a collection of facts that leaves an impression difficult to forget. Therein lies the value of the book. My interview with Ralph T. Foster about FIAT PAPER MONEY can be viewed below:

Von Mises’ complete breakdown of the currency system leaves gold and silver among the few safe havens remaining. Erste Bank’s excellent report, In Gold We Trust (June 2010) by analyst Ronald Stoferle, is perhaps the best summary to date of the reasons for gold’s 10 year rise—a rise that Stoferle predicts will continue. Note: Stoferle adds an Austrian economic perspective to his analysis of gold’s future prospects, see this link.   

THE SAFETY OF GOLD VERSUS THE ALLEGED SAFETY OF BULLION BANKS

On June 25, 2010, an article in the Wall Street Journal noted: Individual investors are increasingly demanding to take possession of their gold holdings, rather than just owning shares in a mining company or a gold-related fund.

What the Wall Street Journal failed to report is the possibility that many gold investors may not, in fact, actually have the gold or silver they purchased and believe to be safely stored in a bank vault.
Gold and silver investors are discovering that banks possess only a small fraction of the gold and silver allegedly bought by banks for customers.

Banks, unknown to their customers, use a fractional reserve system for their accounting of gold and silver inventories. Only a small percentage of gold and silver bought by customers is actually held and stored by banks.

Banks for years have been charging their customers for precious metal purchases without actually buying the metals, booking the precious metal “purchases” as bank liabilities, not as the custodial accounts customers assumed, see http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1228014520070612 .
 
The following interview with investors who believed their bank was storing silver on their account is revealing as it is disturbing. Although charged by the bank for the purchase of silver bullion in addition to storage and insurance fees, the bank did not actually have the silver as the investors discovered, see http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/4/7_Andrew_Maguire_%26_Adrian_Douglas.html

Their discovery is no different than the facts uncovered when Morgan Stanley was successfully sued in a class action suit  brought by Selwyn Silberblatt in 2007, on behalf of himself and others who bought precious metals — gold, silver, platinum and palladium in bullion bar or coins — from Morgan Stanley DW Inc. and its predecessors and paid fees for their storage. The suit covered investors who did so between Feb. 19, 1986, and Jan. 10, 2007, see http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1228014520070612 .

Question: Do you know where your gold or silver is?

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.

You’ve been warned.

Buy gold, buy silver, have faith.

Darryl Robert Schoon
www.survivethecrisis.com
www.drschoon.com
Blog www.posdev.net/pdn/index.php?option=com_myblog&blogger=drs&Itemid=81

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