Ron Paul On Buying Gold And Concerns Of Monetary Collapse

Former Rep. Ron Paul, (R-Texas), on investing in gold and concerns of a potential collapse of the monetary system.

The Fed Is Between The Biggest Rock And A Hard Place In Monetary History

Why Jim Grant Owns Gold

United States Mint Silver Bullion Sales Headed For New Record

American Eagle silver bullion coin sales are headed toward another year of record breaking sales.

2015 sales year-to-date have exceeded the same period in 2014. Sales through the third week in October are 38,986,000 ounces compared to last year’s 38,121,000 ounces. If this sales trend continues, the total number of ounces sold in 2015 will exceed last year’s record of 44,006,000.

Sales would have been even higher except that demand has been so high, it has wiped out the United States Mint’s inventories and outstripped its ability to produce fast enough to replenish those inventories. The coins have been on and off allocation for the past six months.

This number has been nothing short of astounding. Pre-Financial Crisis sales were 9,887,000 ounces in 1997. They doubled in 2008 to 19,583,500 ounces and they doubled again by 2011 to 39,868,500 ounces. Sales have increased and set new historical records every year except 2012.

What is behind this history making demand for U.S.-made silver bullion coins? While it is hard to say definitively, there are several likely reasons.

The weakening American economy has cast doubt on the efficacy of quantitative easing and low interest rates, which in turn impacts confidence in the dollar. However, currently the dollar is stronger than its peers and deflation is more of a fear than inflation. But in times of economic uncertainty, investors usually want to hedge their bets by diversifying their portfolios into tangible assets like silver.

Most individual investors do not have the same hedging alternatives that institutional investors do. Esoteric derivatives and even expensive gold are usually out of reach for most individual investors. Silver is cheaper and therefore more affordable than gold, which is appealing to smaller individual investors.

Silver has become a speculative investment because the silver-to-gold ratio is out of whack. The historical ratio in the modern economic era is 50 ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold. Today, it takes 74 ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold. Either gold is overpriced or silver is underpriced. Given that silver prices are at five year lows, speculative investors are betting on the higher probability that silver is underpriced.

It is a definitive fact is that the record breaking demand for American Eagle bullion coins cannot be met by all the 440,555,000 ounces minted and issued by the United States Mint since the program began in 1986.

This demand has required the Mint to break manufacturing records each year, only to continue to have supply fall short of demand. This trend is likely to continue until individual investors are convinced that the U.S. economy has fully recovered and is stable.

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There Has to be a Collapse Way Bigger Than 2008

Money manager Eric Sprott has not lost his faith in owning physical gold and silver. Sprott contends, “I don’t lose any sleep over the price of gold going down in the sense that I believe what I believe. I believe it’s been manipulated. It’s very much about currency and economics of the Keynesian scheme that we’re going to spend money, print money and it’s all going to work. It’s not working. I don’t want to wait and find out the day it falls apart because when it falls apart someday, then it will be too late. I want to be positioned beforehand. I can remember shorting stocks before March of 2000. It was a bit of a rough ride for three months, but my gosh, when it rolled over . . . you have to be a little bit early on things. I believe the last four years have been orderly and created to be difficult. I think gold would have gone up, but they could not stand for it to go up because they were printing money. If you are printing money and gold goes up, everybody figures it out. . . . I’ve been around for a while, and I have the patience to hang in there. I have been a buyer of gold stocks, and so I am hopeful this will end up being a very, very rewarding trade.”

Sprott predicts, “There has to be a collapse. It will be way bigger than 2008. We had a debt problem in ‘07 and ‘08 and the debt has exploded.”

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Eric Sprott, the Chairman of Sprott Inc.

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China Could Reprice Gold To $100,000 Per Ounce

Financial writer and gold expert Bill Holter contends China has enormous debt problems, but a very good plan B. Holter explains, “China used fiat debt to build real infrastructure, and when the system blows up, the fiat debt blows away and they are left with infrastructure. Do they have 20% bad loans? They very well could and probably do. If it is true that they are going to have a debt blow up, don’t forget China has been importing big tonnage of gold for years now. Over the last five years, they have imported 9,000 tons of gold. Their way out is the old way out. The old way out was to revalue gold higher. They could revalue gold and step up and say they will pay $50,000 or $100,000 per ounce for any and all ounces for sale. You can’t say there is not enough gold. What you can say is that it’s not priced correctly to support the system. If they have an implosion of debt which leaves their balance sheets impaired, the way to recapitalize the balance sheets is to revalue the price of gold higher. It creates capital, in other words.”

How about the U.S. debt problem? Holter says, “That does not and cannot work for the U.S. because we have offloaded our gold. Simple math tells you the gold that China received has to come from somewhere, and that only somewhere in the world is Western U.S. vaults.”

Could the U.S. still have its more than 8,000 tons of gold? Holter says, “That’s pure ‘hopium’ that the U.S. still has their gold. Common sense and logic tells you that the gold is gone.”

So, has the U.S. budget and debt ceiling deal fixed anything? Holter says, “If they didn’t raise the debt ceiling, there would have been an immediate implosion. You have to understand, Americans are the only people on earth that aren’t laughing at the debt ceiling. Foreigners are laughing at it. You are talking about $20 trillion. It can’t be paid. We are at 110% of GDP already, and we’re the reserve currency.”

Holter goes on to say, “It’s another bubble. It’s going to burst, and the banks are in worse condition now from a debt to equity standpoint. Nothing has changed–it’s just bigger.”

Holter worries about possible deals between Saudi Arabia and Russia that could impair the petro-dollar. Holter says, “The (dollar) dam is leaking, at this point, because there is less and less use of the dollars around the world. . . . If Saudi Arabia were to say we’ll accept euros, yuan or rubles for oil or if they said we won’t accept dollars anymore, that’s like pulling a center piece out of a dam. It will break, and it’s over for the dollar. They could do that, and they could get bombed back to the stone-age, but I am sure it’s been talked about.”

Holter says there is “no rule of law,” and criminal activity has suppressed the price of physical gold. Holter says, “We have been through a four year period of time where paper gold has been pounding the price of physical gold. You have people who were strong legged, hard money guys who are weak in the knees now, and they shouldn’t be. My hope is we can strengthen some weak knees, to not sell you only insurance in a financial Armageddon. It is mathematically coming. There is absolutely no possible exit with the system intact and the rule of law.”

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Stark Warnings On Global Trade

John Rubino and Gordon T Long discuss the September FOMC decision, Brazil, Japan in the context of the large number and size of recent international bank layoff announcements. They talk about what is really going on here that no one wants to talk about publicly.

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Inflationary Boom Distorts the Economy

"What is seldom realized is that Depressions, despite their evident hardship on so many, perform an important corrective function. They serve to eliminate the distortions introduced into the economy by an inflationary boom."

- Murray Rothbard from his article Reliving the Crash of '29

Fed Has Lost Control - All That's Left Is A Reset

Gold expert Bill Holter says, "All that's left is a reset," and the Fed is now helpless to stop the coming global financial calamity. This is not going to just be a financial problem, but a problem getting things you need to live. Holter says, “These big stores get stocked up every single night. . . . The average store only has food for about two or three days. So, this is not going to just be an issue about you paying your bills. It’s going to break down so badly it is going to be an issue about whether or not you can get food.”

On gold and silver, is this the bottom? Holter says, “To answer your question, yes, I think this is the bottom. Can they push the price down again? It’s possible, but like you say back in 2009, silver on the COMEX was trading just under $9, and to buy retail metal, you could not get anything under $15. . . . The physical market has hit a hard bottom.”

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Marc Faber: On QE-4 - Gold And Silver Is The Place To Be

PEAK DOLLAR, PEAK OIL, PEAK SILVER

China And Gold: The Real Global Power

Gerald Celente - Gold Is The Safe Haven For Coming Collapse

Gerald Celente, a top trends researcher, is "bullish on gold and contends, "Gold has been looked upon as when all else fails, there is gold. People will be looking for a safe haven commodity when this all begins to collapse. You are going to see riots in Brazil and more riots in Venezuela. I just got back from Italy. There are migrants everywhere. You got a war in Libya. You got a war in Syria. You got a war in Iraq. You got a war in Yemen. You got a war in Afghanistan. You have destabilization from Mali to the Congo, central Africa to Sudan to Somalia. These people are flooding out into Europe. There is no way of stopping this wave because besides the wars, you have crashing commodity prices. Commodities were holding these countries together as they were exporting it to China when China was manufacturing. This is when the Americans and Europeans were buying. What you are looking at are crises coming from many different levels. We are talking about economy, geo politics and civil wars to regional wars and social unrest.”

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Hugo Salinas Price - We’re Going to be Drowning in Worthless Paper

Gold update and a big problem is the huge amount of bond debt floating around in the world. The world central banks are trying to “stop a deluge of liquidations.” Mexican billionaire Hugo Salinas Price explains, “It means that the owners of the debt get wiped out. Somebody owns all that debt. It can’t be liquidated. It’s going to go into default, and that will mean a loss for all those holders of debt. . . . People think they have jillions of dollars or euros or whatever currency, and it’s all going to come to nothing, it can’t be liquidated. The debtors cannot pay. . . .Greece is the whole world. The whole world is in huge debt, which is unpayable. . . . So, this thing is like a cloud that is hanging up there, and then it begins to rain. The whole debt is going to come down like a cloud burst. We are going to be drowning in worthless paper. . . . I think the world is going to have an epileptic fit.”

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It Was the First Time the CIA Overthrew a Government…

By Nick Giambruno

62 years later, the aftermath is still troubling global politics.
Operation Ajax was a pivotal moment in US and world history. It was the first time the CIA overthrew a government.

Yet even today the US government would rather not talk about it. That’s why it remains an unknown story for many Americans.

The year was 1953. The objective was to oust Mohammad Mossadegh, the elected leader of the Majlis, Iran’s parliament.

Mossadegh was not a communist or a radical Islamist. He didn’t follow any objectionable ideology. Instead, he was a secular nationalist. But he was inconvenient.

Like many Iranians, he was proud of his Persian heritage. (Until 1935, Iran was still known as Persia.) Persia once was an imperial civilization, like Rome. Twentieth-century nationalists channeled that glorious past, and they were keen on independence.

So it’s no surprise Mossadegh was earnest about ridding the country’s politics of foreign influence.
At the time, Great Britain was the most active outside power in Iran.

For decades the British had enjoyed a sweetheart oil deal struck with a former, corrupt Iranian leader. It allowed them to control Iran’s petroleum industry and, by extension, the country’s entire economy.
To nationalists like Mossadegh, this was intolerable and infuriating. It would be like China getting a sweetheart deal from President Obama for control of the US auto industry. No red-blooded American would stand for such a thing.

It was the early 1950s. The smoke from World War II, a war that killed over 60 million people, still lingered. The horrors were fresh in everyone’s mind. Access to oil had been a decisive factor in that war. Had Hitler succeeded in securing his supply in 1942, the world might look very different today.
It was a concept not lost on the British. If any country wanted to win a big war, it needed oil. Lots of it. It was a matter of life and death.

Iran was a major source of oil for the British. Access to it was a strategic military asset of the highest order. One the British would not give up for any price.

Mossadegh understood this. He concluded that the only way to claw back the oil industry was to nationalize it. On May 1, 1951, he did just that. Shortly afterward, he stated:

Another important consideration is that by the elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence.

The British were not about to give up. They hatched a plot to regain their influence in Iran. But they couldn’t do it alone. They would need help from the US. But the US just wasn’t interested. So the British undertook a campaign to paint Mossadegh as a communist.

The Brits played America’s Cold-War fears like a piano. They convinced the US government that the commies were making inroads in Iran. Given that Iran was just south of the expanding Soviet Union, the story was plausible… but not true.

In the end, it worked. The Americans came on board. Operation Ajax was born. The objective: overthrow Mossadegh’s elected government and replace it with something more pliable.
MI6, the UK’s foreign spy agency, and the CIA would organize the coup. Kermit Roosevelt, a grandson of former US President Teddy Roosevelt, was the CIA officer in charge.
The goal was to return the monarchy of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (also known as “the Shah”) to power. (In Farsi, the Persian language, “shah” means “king.”)

The CIA and MI6 used classic methods of subterfuge. They paid Iranian goons to pose as communists and wreak havoc in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and vandalize its business district. The police couldn’t restrain them, and the violence grew.

The coup plotters knew such events would disgust ordinary Iranians, who were fearful of communism. It would cause them to demand action. That action would include the Iranian military stepping in. As part of the plot, the CIA and MI6 had corrupted key Iranian generals for just this moment.

As if on cue, the generals took charge and deposed Mossadegh’s government. The Iranian people didn’t resist. Instead, they cheered. They thought the military was saving them from a violent communist revolution.

Mossadegh’s government was out of the way. The coup’s operatives in the Iranian military had seized power. The path had been cleared for the Shah.

The Shah knew he owed his position to the US and UK. What they giveth, they could taketh away. The Shah was more than willing to do whatever the US and UK wanted him to do. Operation Ajax was a success… but it would not be an enduring one.

The Iranian people would eventually figure out what really happened. Many of them would come to despise the Shah as a puppet of a foreign power. To maintain his position, the Shah became more despotic… which only fed the opposition.

In 1979, 26 years after Operation Ajax, a popular uprising overthrew the Shah. A power struggle ensued, and Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamist forces prevailed. The Islamic Republic of Iran was born. This time, it was an anti-American government that came to power. Decades of animosity followed, and it continues to this day.

It’s unthinkable to most that the Islamic Republic of Iran could offer any sort of investment opportunity. Many find the mere mention of the country distasteful.

There’s another country that most would have considered unthinkable to invest in at one time. Many got hot under the collar just at the mention of its name too: the People’s Republic of China.
If you had followed their thinking, you would have missed out on one of recent history’s most powerful economic booms. That’s precisely why you should ditch the conventional wisdom when it comes to thinking about profiting from Iran. If you don’t, you could be letting a once-in-a-generation opportunity pass you by.

Recently, I discussed investing in Iran with legendary investor Jim Rogers. He told us:

I bought Iranian shares in 1993, and over the next few years, [they] went up something like 47 times, so it was an astonishing success.

That was then. Now, additional sanctions make investing directly in Iran off limits to Americans and most Europeans. But that could soon change.

The conclusion of the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program means the economic floodgates will open. Persia will once again be open for business. It would be a big deal: Iran’s $370 billion economy is by far the largest still excluded from the international financial system.

Iran has the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves (10% of the world’s total) and the second-largest proven natural gas reserves (17% of the world’s total). A tremendous amount of wealth is waiting to be developed.

Iran’s economy is not all about natural resources. The country is home to advanced nanotechnologies and the Middle East’s largest car manufacturer. Its young population of 78 million yearns for iPhones and other Western products, and there’s enormous built-up demand. That demand is getting ready to explode like Mt. St. Helens.

European and Asian companies have been scrambling to Tehran to line up business deals.
In short, the opening of Iran is a massive opportunity.

Even if the West doesn’t lift the sanctions, Iran will simply turn to the East to do business. Either way, the Iranian economy is on course to experience one of the greatest booms in recent history. It’s on a scale the world hasn’t seen since the opening of China. Opportunities like this don’t happen every day, every year, or even every decade.

But for the average American, Iran is at the bottom of the list of potential investment destinations. That’s what more than 30 years of hostility and charter membership in the “Axis of Evil” will do.
The sentiment couldn’t get any worse. As a contrarian, that’s just how I like it. But only if there is a solid reason to believe that the negative sentiment is misplaced. In the case of Iran, I am certain that it is.

In the not-so-distant past, I used to live in the United Arab Emirates… right across the Persian Gulf from Iran. Being there gave me the chance to see the country firsthand.

On the Ground in Iran

Hands down, Iran is the most fascinating country I’ve ever been to.
I’ve been to almost every country in the Middle East. Iran stands out for a number of reasons. Unlike most other states in the Middle East, Persia is not an artificial construct. By race, religion, and social history, it is a nation. And European bureaucrats didn’t dream up Iran by drawing zig-zags on a map. The map reflects the geographic reality of a country with natural, fortress-like, mountain borders.
For an American, getting there isn’t easy. But that’s part of the allure.

You can’t simply hop on a flight to Tehran from New York, like you would to Vancouver or London. You can’t enter the country unless the Iranian government has granted you permission in advance. And they take their careful time.

The US has no diplomatic relations with Iran. There is no Iranian embassy or consulate in the US at which to apply for a visa, but there is an Iranian interests section in the Pakistani embassy in Washington, DC, that can handle such requests. I was living near Dubai at the time, so it was easier for me to go to the Iranian consulate there.

But you can’t just drop in to the Iranian consulate and apply for a tourist visa. You have to work with an authorized service to assist you in the process, which is what I did. After I submitted my paperwork and waited a number of weeks, and then waited another couple of weeks, the Iranian government approved my application.

I immediately noticed that the Iranian visa in my passport was not the kind of cheap stamp you often get from Third-World countries. Instead it carried holograms and other anti-counterfeiting features. Things that are associated with documents from developed countries. It was a clue that Iran, a seemingly isolated and underdeveloped place, was more sophisticated than I had expected.
Sanctions have disconnected Iran from the international financial system. Your ATM and credit cards won’t work there. You need to bring cash (US dollars or euros work best) and exchange it for Iranian rials. Iranians also have increasingly returned to gold as a store of value and medium of exchange. This is no surprise. People in all corners of the globe have used gold this way for thousands of years.
As soon as my flight landed in Tehran, my Iranian “tour guide” greeted me. The Iranian government requires that minders accompany Americans at all times. It’s a result of the Iranian government’s not-necessarily unreasonable paranoia. They’d like to prevent Operation Ajax 2.0.

Having a mandatory tour guide wasn’t all bad. Mine was a dual American-Iranian citizen named Ali. Ali had spent a lot of time in California and spoke perfect American English. He took me everywhere I wanted to go. At the end of some days, Ali would let me go off on my own. This gave me the chance to explore Tehran’s affluent northern suburbs and legendary bazaar.

No matter where I went, everyone was genuinely kind and hospitable… even after figuring out I was American. Not what you would expect for a place known for its “Death to America” chants. It became obvious the average Iranian harbors no hatred for Americans. (For more on what life is really like in Iran, I’d suggest you watch travel writer Rick Steves’ video, Rick Steves’ Iran.)

The trip to Iran helped solidify my belief that the country is the ultimate contrarian opportunity. It revealed the reality hiding behind the frenzied sentiment of conventional thinking. It was just waiting for the right catalyst. And now that catalyst is at hand. The conclusion of the nuclear negotiations and the relaxation of sanctions will release all the massive, built-up economic potential.

The rationale for profiting from the opening of Iran is clear. Finding a practical way to do so is not. There is a way, however… and a good one. One that is easily accessible through any brokerage account to US investors and is completely legal for them. 

For all the details click here to check out the latest issue of Crisis Speculator.

The article was originally published at internationalman.com.

Here's What the Next Gold Bull Market Will Look Like

By Jeff Clark

We measured every bull cycle of gold stocks and found there have been eight distinct upcycles since 1975.

We also discovered something exciting: Only one was less than a double. (A second was 99.9%.)
Even more enticing is that the biggest one—a 601.5% advance in the early 2000s—occurred just after a prolonged bear market.

And our current bear market is longer than that one.
To get a sense for the potential upside, we applied the percentage gain from each of those upcycles to our recommended BIG GOLD picks.

We can’t show you our entire portfolio out of fairness to paying subscribers. But look what those gains would mean to GDX, the Gold Miners ETF (based on the June 1 price).

Gold ETF	Current Share Price	1976– 1980	1982– 1983	1986– 1987	1989– 1990	1993– 1994	2000– 2003	2005– 2008	2008– 2011
		554.2%	205.1%	141.8%	51.5%	99.9%	601.5%	206.4%	272.5%
GDX	$19.49	$127.51	$59.45	$47.14	$29.53	$38.96	$136.72	$59.72	$72.60

Keep two things in mind about this table:

1. The percentage gain from each past bull market is calculated using an index. The stronger companies will perform better than a static ETF.

2. It’s not unreasonable to think that the gains in the next bull market will be similar to some of the higher returns listed above. That’s because stocks will be rising from the depths of one of the more severe bear markets.

Here’s what the price for popular royalty company Royal Gold would look like if it matched past bull markets.

Royalty Company	Current Share Price	1976– 1980	1982– 1983	1986– 1987	1989– 1990	1993– 1994	2000– 2003	2005– 2008	2008– 2011
		554.2%	205.1%	141.8%	51.5%	99.9%	601.5%	206.4%	272.5%
Royal Gold	$64.23	$420.21	$195.93	$155.34	$97.30	$128.38	$450.56	$196.79	$239.26

You might think royalty stocks won’t show similar gains going forward. It’s true they’ve already performed well. However, it’s more likely they’ll be wildly popular than anything else. That’s partly because there are only a few of them in this industry.

Now take a look at the prices our top silver pick would hit.

Silver Producer	Current Share Price	1976– 1980	1982– 1983	1986– 1987	1989– 1990	1993– 1994	2000– 2003	2005– 2008	2008– 2011
		554.2%	205.1%	141.8%	51.5%	99.9%	601.5%	206.4%	272.5%
Top BIG GOLD Silver Pick	$3.71	$24.27	$11.32	$8.97	$5.62	$7.42	$26.02	$11.37	$13.82

If silver rises along with gold in the next bull market—something we think is extremely likely—this small niche market will absolutely soar.

No other sector is as depressed as the mining sector. A return to anything close to some of the stronger past bull markets will hand us tremendous gains.

The June issue of BIG GOLD focuses on the top silver pick listed in the table. I’m convinced it will at least triple from current levels in the next precious metals bull market.

We have two very specific reasons why it will do so. And these two factors are unmatched by almost any other mid-tier or major producer.

Get our analysis along with the name of this stock in the just-released BIG GOLD.
We also include a special offer on bullion that has numismatic potential. These coins sell at bullion prices, yet will likely return much greater profit than standard bullion. And they come at discounted prices you won’t find elsewhere.

It’s “The Two Best Silver Plays to Buy Today”—a highly actionable issue that tells you exactly what to buy and why. Get it now.

The Police State and Property Taxes… What You Can Do About It

By Nick Giambruno

A police officer pulled over Floyd Dent for a routine traffic stop.
A violent altercation followed.

The officer dragged Dent out of his car, appeared to put him in a chokehold, and punched him in the head. He then used his stun gun.

A disturbing but hardly unique encounter. These kinds of things happen all the time. It seems like there’s a new police abuse video uploaded to YouTube every day. In many cases, these incidents turn deadly. Dent is lucky the officer didn’t kill him on the spot.

But what’s really remarkable about this incident is that there was any kind of accountability at all. In many cases, the government and the fawning mainstream media sweep cases of police abuse under the rug. The State is extremely reluctant to hold its enforcers to account. But sometimes it’s forced to when overwhelming video evidence comes to light that sparks public outrage.

Once a video of the Dent incident became public, the officer lost his job. He’s now on trial, facing charges of mistreatment of a prisoner.

Dent also decided to sue the city of Inkster, Michigan, where the incident occurred. Surprisingly, he won. The city of Inkster settled for $1.4 million.

The problem is, Inkster doesn’t just have an extra $1.4 million laying around. So what did the local politicians do? They decided to squeeze a little extra juice out of the taxpayers, of course. They did this by raising property taxes.

A local media source estimates the new property tax will amount to about $179 on a home valued at about $55,400.

Now that doesn’t sound like a lot. But consider that the median income in Inkster is just $26,500 and that 40% of its people live below the poverty line. They simply don’t have an extra $179 to pay for a police abuse lawsuit which had nothing to do with them. The case has outraged people there, and rightly so.

There are a lot of things that are outrageous about this story. But there’s one that I find most instructive. And that’s the very concept of property tax. It’s an insidious perversion of property rights. How can you think you really own something that the government forces you to pay an insatiable and ever-increasing amount of tax on?

If you ask me, it’s impossible to truly own something that has a property tax attached to it. You would possess such an item, but you wouldn’t own it. It’s an important distinction. Stop paying your property taxes to find out who really owns your home. In actuality, you’re merely renting the home you thought you owned from the government.

Whenever politicians want to steal more money, they can simply increase property taxes and hope nobody notices. It’s like changing the dial on a thermostat. The Floyd Dent case showed this.
Turning to property taxes to quench a thirst for money is not unique to the politicians in Inkster, Michigan. It’s a universal feature built into the DNA of almost any politician in the world. Consider the bankrupt government of Greece. Here’s an excerpt from an article in The Guardian:

The joke now doing the rounds is: if you want to punish your child, you threaten to pass on property to them… Greeks traditionally have always regarded property as a secure investment. But now it has become a huge millstone, given that the tax burden has increased sevenfold in the past two years alone.

The sad reality is that there are few countries in the world that do not have a property tax. Fewer than 20 to be exact. We cover them in detail in Going Global. The only way to skip the annual property tax harvest is to own real estate in these countries.

It’s not just a matter of minimizing or eliminating property taxes, though. Yes, that’s extremely important. But foreign real estate offers a number of other tremendous benefits, too.
It’s a hard asset outside the immediate reach of your government. They cannot confiscate it without a literal act of war.

It opens the door for you to obtain an offshore bank account, residency, and maybe even citizenship, in another country.

It diversifies your portfolio and can bring income streams in a foreign currency if you rent it out.
These are but a few of the huge benefits foreign real estate can give you.

For a more detailed discussion, you may wish to check out Going Global 2015.

The article was originally published at internationalman.com.

The Economic Alamo

By Jeff Thomas

The world's tax havens are the economic Alamo—the last holdout against world economic domination.... 

Read more.

Capital Controls and a Bank Holiday in Greece… Here’s How You Can Profit

By Nick Giambruno

For the unprepared, it happens like a mugging…
When you hear a central banker or politician deny that something is going to happen to bank depositors, you can almost be certain that it will happen. And probably soon.

Coming from a government official, the real meaning of “No, of course not” is “Could be tomorrow.”
There’s a reason for the dishonesty. The government needs to take the public by surprise. Otherwise they won’t get the results they want from capital controls or a bank holiday.

The term bank holiday is a politician’s euphemism. When one happens, you won’t be celebrating. You won’t be able to access your bank account, and you’ll be worried.
How will you get by, and how long will the lockout last? And when it ends, will all your money still be there? Will any of it remain?

Calling the experience a bank holiday is like calling a street mugging a surprise party.
Once the banks are closed - or on “holiday,” as the government puts it - the politicians are free to help themselves to as much of the customer deposits (including yours) as they want. It’s like an all-you-can-steal buffet.

A bank holiday usually dovetails with capital controls, which are restrictions on the free flow of money out of the country. Capital controls make it hard for the country’s remaining wealth to dodge a future mugging.

Bank holidays and capital controls are all about the government maximizing the amount of money available for them to confiscate during a crisis. Pen up the sheep, and they’re easier to shear.
It’s a common pattern… 1) country in financial trouble, 2) government denials, 3) surprise bank holiday, 4) wealth confiscation, and 5) capital controls.

It’s a pattern we’ve seen repeated in many countries in economic crisis.
We saw it in Cyprus during their banking crisis of 2013. The trap slammed shut without warning on an otherwise ordinary Saturday morning. The government declared a surprise bank holiday. Capital controls and a bank deposit confiscation followed. It occurred despite repeated promises from the highest Cypriot politicians that bank deposits would be safe.

And now we are seeing the same pattern in Greece.
For the past month, Greece’s government has been denying that it intends to impose capital controls. Yesterday, Sunday morning, the Greek Finance Ministry repeated the denial yet again. Then on the same day - a few hours later - the Greek government declared a weeklong bank holiday. And they would impose capital controls after all.

But don’t worry. The Greek Prime Minister promised that bank deposits would be "completely safe.”
Rather than being “completely safe,” they are far more likely to be harvested by the Greek government, which is free to do as so many troubled governments have done… take the money and run.

Given Greece’s years of chronic financial weakness, none of this should come as a surprise.
There was ample time for any Greek citizen to protect himself from what the government is now doing. But now, with the bank holiday in place, it’s too late.

Moving money into something that Greek politicians can’t steal with a couple taps on a keyboard - like a Greek bank account - would have bought a large measure of protection.
A bank account in another EU country like Austria, a piece of real estate in South America, some physical gold in Singapore or a brokerage account in Hong Kong would have been just what the doctor ordered.

Most people understand that it’s foolish to keep all their eggs in one basket. Yet they fail to go far enough in applying the principle. Diversification isn’t just about investing in multiple stocks or in multiple asset classes. Real diversification - the kind that keeps you safe - means holding assets in multiple countries, so that you’re not overexposed to the economic and political risks that are present in every country.
The problem is, despite having options available to them, many Greeks had a “this can’t happen here” mentality. So they did nothing to prepare. The reality is, what happened in Greece can happen in any country, as it has happened throughout history.

But could it really happen in the US? According to Judge Andrew Napolitano, the troubling answer is YES. The judge is a legal expert. He knows all about bank holidays, capital controls, and other shenanigans politicians pull. The judge has said, “People who have more than $100,000 in the bank are targets for any government that’s looking for money to shore up its own inability to manage its finances.”

The whole ordeal in Greece is yet another example of why international diversification is so important. It’s a prudent strategy because it frees you from absolute dependence on any one country. Achieve that independence, and events or policies where you live can never dominate your life.
Wealthy families have been doing it for centuries. Today, with modern communications, international diversification is within everyone’s reach.

International Man’s mission is to help you protect your personal freedom and make the most of financial opportunity around the world. Global diversification is at the heart of it. Discovering the best investment opportunities around the world is another. And, ironically, the best opportunities often show up after a government has done its worst to a country. For example, in places like… Greece.

Investor sentiment in Greece is nearing the point of maximum pessimism… the point at which almost nobody wants to buy. Prices of Greek stocks have already crashed headfirst into the pavement, so we may be getting close to the best time to buy. As Baron Rothschild advised: Buy when the blood is in the streets.
That’s what crisis investing is all about, and it’s enormously profitable.
Seeking out home runs in crisis markets is exactly what Doug Casey and I do in each monthly issue of Crisis Speculator.

Back in 2013 there was another crisis in a Mediterranean country… Cyprus.
Doug and I put our boots to the ground in Cyprus to search the rubble for investment bargains that would be too good to resist. And we found them.

Despite all the ugly headlines, sound, productive, and well-run Cypriot businesses continued to produce earnings and pay dividends. Anyone with a little money and a cool head could have bought their stocks on the ultra-cheap.

One of the Cyprus companies we recommended has more than tripled as of this writing. Another has more than doubled. Two others have come close to a double. Our readers have loved the experience.
We expect that even bigger bargains are emerging nearby, in Greece.

The financial crisis in Greece is not going to destroy the solid companies operating there. But it is going to make their stocks extremely cheap. And that could mean huge profits for you.

For full coverage of this rich profit opportunity, be sure to check out Crisis Speculator by clicking here.

The article was originally published at internationalman.com.

In GOLD We TRUST

The gold price has stabilized in 2014, after its collapse in April and June of 2013. Investors' interest in the yellow metal is los. Hence, market sentiment vis-à-vis gold is standing at a multi-year low, maybe even a multi-decade low. History learns that extreme underperformance usually lasts for one year. If history is any guide, than there should be a recovery in the gold price in the foreseeable future. Even with the severe underperformance since 2013, gold is up approximately 9% per year since it started to trade freely in 1971. As seen on the next chart, depending on the currency in which it trades, the average yearly performance is excellent for investors with a long term horizon. In other words, gold does what is always has done throughout history: preserve value and purchasing power.

Preservation of wealth is the primary reason why one should hold gold nowadays. Monetary policies of central banks are extremely unusual. The U.S. Fed could be talking about “normalization,” but with 7 years at zero percent interest rates we are nowhere near “normal” conditions. The most extreme monetary conditions, today, are being seen in Japan. It is really no coincidence that the gold price in Yen is near its all time highs. The gold price in Yen is simply reacting on the extreme expansion of the monetary base by the Japanese central bank. As the next chart shows, the balance sheet of the Bank Of Japan (BOJ) is approximately 65% of the country's GDP. In other words, the assets that the BOJ is holding nears 2/3 of the total economic output of the country. When compared to other regions, it is clear that is a monstrous amount. It seems that Japan is near its endgame.

A correction in the stock market is certainly in the cards. Why? Because traditionally the gold/silver ratio is mostly negatively correlated with the S&P 500. In other words, as the gold/silver ratio goes down which means there is a disinflationary environment, stocks come down as well. Over the last 25 years, that correlation has held very well, but started to diverge strongly 3 years ago.

- Source

John Williams- Panic Decline and Selling of the US Dollar Will Take it to Historic Lows and More!

What does renowned economist John Williams make of the strength of the dollar in the last year? He thinks the markets were anticipating the Fed raising interest rates because of the so-called “recovery.” Of course, the economy is not improving, and Williams thinks when the Fed tries to pump the economy back up, the dollar will dive.

Williams explains, “I was looking for a hyperinflation in 2014. What I did not expect and what I have missed is the big rally in the dollar. . . . The economy was never improving. Now, it’s not only not improving, but it is begging to turn down again. That’s the importance of quarter to quarter contraction. When you get that, you get official recognition that the economy is falling, and it is not recovering. So, as the expectations wane on the Fed tightening, you will start to see dollar selling. I think you are going to see a panic decline in the dollar at some point, massive selling of the dollar, not only that, it will take it down to levels of a year ago, but to historic lows. As that happens, you will see a tremendous spike in oil prices which will start moving the consumer price index pick up. . . . You have an overhang in excesses of $12 trillion outside the United States.

A goodly portion of that will be repatriated to the United States into the US markets. People will be dumping the dollar to get out of the dollar and the Fed is going to have to be monetizing all sorts of things. . . . What’s out of whack right now against reality is the strength of the dollar. We don’t have a booming economy. We don’t have a Fed that is going to happily raise rates, although they would like to. As the realization sinks in, the exchange rate of the dollar will start falling. Then, you will actually have a panic, and once that has happened, you will see a sharp upturn in headline inflation, and that will evolve eventually into hyperinflation. . . . A dollar panic is reflective of the problems here.”

- Source

Dr. Lacy Hunt on the Six Characteristics of Over-Indebted Economies

Cris Sheridan welcomes Lacy Hunt PhD, an internationally known economist, and Executive Vice President of Hoisington Investment Management. Wondering why economic growth can’t seem to take off...

- Source

Silver Is Historically Undervalued

Richard Duncan - The Real Risk Of A Coming Multi-Decade Global Depression

Richard Duncan, author of The Dollar Crisis and The New Depression: The Breakdown Of The Paper Money Economy, isn't mincing words about the risks he sees ahead for the world economy.

Essentially, he sees the past 50 years of economic prosperity fueled by globalization and easy credit in serious danger of being unwound, as the doomed monetary policies currently being pursued by the word's central banks result in a massive multi-decade depression that spans the globe.

GATA'S Bill Murphy - The Man Banned From CNBC For Exposing The Truth About Gold And Silver

Bill 'Midas' Murphy monitors Precious Metals markets and has been bringing daily analysis and commentary to our subscribers here at LeMetropole Cafe for over 15 years.

- Source

Odds High Hyperinflation Begins In 2015

John Williams, of ShadowStats.com, says the Fed has given a false sense of security but did not fix the problems that led to the last meltdown. Williams warns, “People say everything is fine again—nonsense. You had a panic in 2008. . . . The system was on the brink of collapse. The Fed and the federal government did everything in their power to prevent it. They pushed things into the future, but they didn’t do anything of substance to address the underlying problems.” So, are we going to have another panic? Williams says, “Yes, and that is the type of thing that can break at any time, and you just don’t have the options you had in 2008 for buying time into the future.” Williams adds, “The odds are high you are going to see the beginnings of hyperinflation this year.”

- Source, USA Watchdog

David Stockman - The Global Economy Has Entered The Crack-Up Phase

We’re in the crack-up phase. I think there are four big characteristics of that which are going to shape the way the economy and the markets unfold as we go forward.

You’re going to see increasing desperation and extreme central bank financial repressionbecause they have gotten themselves painted so deep into the corner that they're lost and desperate. Almost week by week, we have another central bank – this week, it was Sweden – lowering their money market rates into negative territory. The Swiss Bank is already there, the Denmark Bank is there, the ECB is there on the deposit rate, the Bank of Japan’s there. All of the central banks of the world now are desperately driving interest rates into negative territory. I believe that they’re lost; they're in a race to the bottom whether they acknowledge it or not. The central bank of China can’t sit still much longer when the reminbi has appreciated something like 30% against the Japanese yet because of the massive bubble of monetary expansion that’s being created there. So that’s the first thing going on. Central banks out of control in a race to the bottom, sliding by the seat of their pants, making up really incoherent theories as they go.

The second thing is increasing market disorder and volatility. In the last three months, the stock market has behaved like a drunken sailor. But it’s really just a bunch of robots and day traders that have traded chart points until somebody can figure out what is happening directionally in the world. It has nothing to do with information or incoming data about the real world. We have today the 10-year German bond trading at 29.5 basis points. Well, the German economy’s been reasonably strong, fueling the Chinese boom. That export boom is over. The Chinese economy is faltering. Germany is going to have its own problems. But clearly, 29 basis points on a 10-year is irrational, even in the case of Germany, to say nothing of the 160 available today on the 10-year for Spain and Italy. Both of those countries are in deep, deep fiscal decline. There is no obvious way for them to dig out of the debt trap that they’re in. It’s going to get worse over time. There’s huge risk in those bonds, especially because there’s no guarantee that the EU will remain intact or the euro will survive. Why in the world would anybody in their right mind be owning Italian debt at 160 other than the fact that they’re front-running the massive purchases that Draghi has promised and the Germans have acquiesced to over the next year or two. But that only kicks the can down the road. One of these days, the central banks are going to falter and the market is going to reset violently to prices that reflect the true risk on all this sovereign debt and the pretty cloudy outlook that’s ahead for the world market.

We now have something like four trillion worth of sovereign debt spread over Japanese issues, the major European countries that are trading at negative yields. Obviously, that is one, irrational and second, completely unsustainable. And yet, it’s another characteristic of what I call these disorderly markets. Investment is now coming home to roost. It will be driving a huge deflation of commodity and industrial prices worldwide. You can see that in iron ore, now barely holding $60 from a peak of $200. Obviously, it’s seen in the whole oil patch. Look at the Baltic Dry Index. That is a measure, one, of faltering demand for shipments and, two, massive overbuilding of bulk carrier capacity as a result of this central bank driven boom that we’ve had in the last 10 to 20 years. So that is going to be ripping through the financial system, the global economy, in ways that we’ve never before experienced. And so therefore, in ways that are hard to predict what all, you know, the ramifications and cascading effects will be. But clearly, it’s something that we haven’t seen in modern times or ever before – the degree of over investment, excess capacity, and everything from iron ore mines to dry vault carriers, aluminum plants, steel mills, and on down the line.

And then, finally, clearly, demand has run smack up against peak debt -- I think that’s the right word for it. We had a tremendous study come out in the last week or so from McKinsey, who do a pretty good job of trying to calculate, track and total up the amount of credit outstanding, public and private, in the world. We’re now at the $200 Trillion threshold. That’s up from only about $140 Trillion at the time of the crisis. So we’ve had a $60 Trillion expansion worldwide of debt just since 2008. During that same period, though, the GDP of the world saw a little more than $15 trillion from $55 or mid-$50s, roughly, to $70 Trillion. So we’ve generated, because of central bank money printing and all of this unprecedented monetary stimulus, we’ve generated something like $60 Trillion of new debt in the world and have barely gotten $15-17 Trillion of new GDP for all of that effort. And I think that is a measure of why the fundamental era is changing. That the boom is over and the crackup is under way when you see that kind of minimal yield from the vast amount of new debt that has been generated.

Now I’d only wrap this up by calling attention to the fact that within that global total of $200 Trillion, the numbers from China are even more startling. At the time of the crisis, let’s go back to 2000, China had $2 Trillion of credit outstanding. It’s now $28 Trillion. So we’ve had just massive 14X growth in 14 years. There’s nothing like that in recorded history, nor is there any plausible reason to believe that an economy, which is basically under a command-and-control system that is run from the top down to the party cadres, could possibly create $26 Trillion in new debt in that period of time without massive inefficiencies in waste and mistakes everywhere within the systems, especially since they have no markets. They have no feedback mechanisms. It all comes cascading down from the top and everybody lies to the next party above them. And I think the system is irrationally out of control.

In any event, my point was that at the time of the 2008 crisis, China had allegedly – if you believe their numbers, which no one really should – but as reported, they had $5 Trillion worth of GDP. It’s now $10. So they’ve gained $5 Trillion of GDP. Their debt at the time of the crisis was $7 Trillion, now it’s $28. So the debt is up more than $20 Trillion while the GDP is up just $5 Trillion. These are extreme unsustainable deformations, if I can use that word, that just scream out, “Danger ahead. Mayhem has happened.” And the unwinding of this and the resolution of this is not going to be pretty.

- Source, Peak Prosperity

Lever up or down, global debt still rises

The world is more indebted than in the financial crisis. Richard Dobbs, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, talks to Ralph Atkins, capital markets editor at the Financial Times, about the risks this raises and the creative responses being tested.

- Source, FT

‘Less chocolate in a bar, price stays the same: Pure deflation?’

Afshin Rattansi goes underground on the impact of inflation in international relations. Pippa Malmgren, former U.S. Presidential policy advisor, warns that the UK and US are using inflation to default on their debts, and their principal creditors, Russia and China, are making grabs for assets in the face of that uncertainty and risk. Kevin Courtney, Deputy General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, warns academies are failing to increase school standards and let vested interests into the system. With further talks on TTIP this week, we look further into what damage could be wreaked on the NHS if the free trade agreement goes through. And Iain Duncan Smith plans yet more cuts to benefits – as research shows that even with greater austerity, Tory welfare spending will be no lower than when they came into power.

- Source, Russia Today

Dr. Marc Faber - Employment Numbers Are BS

John Manfreda and Jason Burack of Wall St for Main St had on returning guest Editor and Publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report http://www.gloomboomdoom.com/, Dr. Marc Faber.

Jason and John ask Dr. Faber about interest rates, financial repression, ECB QE, Swiss depegging, Greece leaving the Euro, the fake employment numbers, Asia, China, Gold and Gold Mining.

- Source, Wall Street for Main Street

David Morgan - Silver Manifesto Updated

David Morgan Discusses Silver in Depth and about his new book.

The Cancer Which Started In The US Financial System Has Spread Globally

"The US Dollar payment system is essentially a system for looting. This, Globalization and Neo-liberal economics are tools of American economic imperialism. Countries are beginning to realize this. The looting of countries by American imperialism has now reached the point where it is turning on itself - Greece for example."

- Source, Gold Silver

The Key Currency Will Be Gold - Peter Spina

If There Ever Was A Time To Hold Gold This Is It

Axel Merk - Why Asset Prices Must Return To Lower Levels

Saying it's been a busy week and half of the central bank front is perhaps a sizeable understatement.

First, the Swiss National Bank stunned the world (and its brethren central banks) by removing its peg to the Euro. This was quickly followed by Mario Draghi finally making good on his longtime threat of firing QE bazooka, announcing that the ECB will pursue a 60 billion Euro per month easing program for the next 16 months. And amidst all the smoke, the Canadian central bank snuck in a surprise rate cut to its interest rate.

To make sense of both the "Why?" behind these extreme moves, as well as the "What?" in terms of their implications, Axel Merk, founder and Chief Investment Officer of Merk Funds joins us this week.

In his opinion, recent events are exactly the kind the symptoms he's been expecting as the prime strategy pursued by central banks since 2008 -- to force capital into speculative assets -- approaches its natural and inevitable denouement. Indeed, he projects the surprises in store for us and the systemic instability we're beginning to see are just getting started.

- Source, Peak Prosperity

Michael Pento - Flocking Back Into Hard Money, Gold

Financial analyst Michael Pento says, “Gold is going up in all currencies because investors are coming to this realization, or epiphany, that you cannot trust central banks. In 2008, we had the Great Recession. We had the bursting of asset bubbles. We had the bursting of the housing bubble. We had the bursting of the stock bubble. The Federal Reserve came in, and it was not only the Fed, we had central banks from across the world increase debt by 40%. 40% since 2008 on a global basis, and they took interest rates, which were already low, down to 0% and negative % and left them there for going on almost seven years. People had the audacity to believe that this was going to be a success story. They are slowly learning we have solved nothing. We have just made all the problems associated with the great recession much, much worse. As that realization unfolds, people will be flocking back into hard money, and that means gold.”

What will trigger the next financial meltdown? Pento says keep your eye on the land of the rising sun, heavily leveraged Japan. Pento predicts, “I think the Japanese central bank is absolutely going to destroy that currency. . . . When that unwinds, you are going to see a massive wipeout of equity prices. That just metastasizes across the globe.”

- Source, USA Watchdog

Gold Price Will Reset Over Night - Bill Murphy, GATA

Boomers, Millennials & Stunning 74% Collapse In Stocks

In the popular perception of economics, some things are taken to be self-evident. Like the truism that investors should just buy and hold stocks for the long term. Or that prosperity is attainable through hard work, saving and home ownership. Or that a college education is the path to personal empowerment.

But the truth is, our history is limited. The Baby Boomer generation — the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 — was the first to really live a full lifecycle in the economy as currently structured. Members of the Greatest Generation were paying their mortgages when the value of the U.S. dollar was still tied to gold. Before that, folks remembered what it was like when there was no Federal Reserve — or federal income taxes, for that matter.

- Source, King World News, Read more here.

Bad News Is Bad News, Stocks & Bond Yields Tumble After Data Triple Whammy

Well this is not supposed to happen. 2015 appears to have started with the "bad news is bad news" meme engaged as the standard USDJPY-driven opening ramp has collapsed on the back of a triple whammy of terrible data (US PMI, Construction Spending, and ISM). The Santa Rally (theoretically due to finish at the close on Monday) is in danger of not being a no-brainer... Treasury yields are plunging (10Y -6.5bps at 2.10%) Stocks only hope now is a 120.00 bounce in USDJPY....

- Source, Zero Hedge, read more here.

These 19 States Just Hiked The Minimum Wage: Here Come The "Unintended Consequences"

Starting on January 1, 2015, a one year-delayed component of Obamacare kicks in: according to the health care law, businesses that employ at least 100 full-time workers — or full-time equivalents, including part-time workers — must offer health benefits to at least 70% of those working at least 30 hours a week by Thursday, or pay a penalty. This will expand to by next year, when companies will have to provide insurance to 95% of their workers, and firms with 50 to 99 employees must offer coverage as well. As a result, and as even the USA Today reports, "many businesses in low-wage industries have hired more part-time workers and cut the hours of full-timers recently to soften the impact of new health law requirements that take effect Thursday."

- Source, Zero Hedge, read more here.

Do Rich People Deserve To Be Rich? Russell Brand The Trews

Russell Brand The Trews (E223).
I'm joined by writer and activist George Monbiot as we discuss whether wealth really is the inevitable result of hard work.

Get REAL . . . COPPER

Jan Skoyles discusses copper with Simon Hunt of Simon Hunt Strategic Services about the industrial metal known as 'Dr. Copper' for its ability to predict the economic forecast. Due to monopolies and various price fixing schemes, Mr. Hunt reckons that other metals are now better at forecasting the future. He also makes his own predictions for where the future price may take us in the copper market in 2015.

- Source, Keiser Report