Blog

February 15, 2010 – As the debt crisis in Greece continued to unfold last week, the US dollar and US government debt instruments were being touted as a “safe haven” alternative to the euro as well as European sovereign debt.  These calls were made even though Moody’s sounded the alarm the week before by warningRead more

February 15, 2010 – An article yesterday by the Associated Press delivers a stark assessment on the crushing reality of the US government’s financial plight.  It reports: “Proposed belt-tightening steps by President Barack Obama, including a freeze on some nondefense, nonentitlement spending, would make only a small dent in the mountain of debt”, and thatRead more

February 12, 2010 – “There are rules, and these rules need to be adhered to.”  This quote could easily have been made by Sir Isaac Newton 300 hundred years ago explaining how financial discipline would be imposed by his then new invention, the classical Gold Standard.  But no, these are the words of German ChancellorRead more

Every once in a great while, the market offers a unique opportunity to buy precious metals ‘on the cheap’. I believe today is one of those moments.

February 4, 2010 – There is a popular point of view that the Reserve Bank of India put a ‘floor’ under the gold market around $1050, which approximates the price at which it bought 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF.  The thinking is that other central banks, and perhaps the Reserve Bank of IndiaRead more

January 20, 2010 – The Fear Index remains within its decade-long bullish uptrend, so we therefore know as a consequence that gold also remains within an uptrend.  But the Fear Index is also giving us another important message.  It is that gold remains undervalued. Gold’s valuation is indispensable information given its exceptional appreciation this decade. Read more

If the US government cannot attract enough savings to meet its borrowing needs, it has to ‘print’ the dollars it wants to spend, which is of course what quantitative easing is all about. But this printing comes with a cost, just like every episode of government currency creation throughout history. It is the cost of inflation, and eventually, hyperinflation.

January 9, 2010 – The total quantity of US dollars in circulation has declined over the past year.  As of December 31, 2009, M3 is $14.193 trillion compared to $14.317 trillion one year ago, based on preliminary estimates prepared by shadowstats.com. The nosedive in M3 annual growth rates from its peak of 17.4% in March 2008Read more

January 9, 2010 – Silver jumped out of the gate to begin 2010 with a flying start.  It climbed a remarkable 9.7% in this year’s first week of trading to end the week at $18.458.  From its $8.79 low barely fourteen months ago after the de-leveraging and mass liquidation of assets resulting from the LehmanRead more

January 2, 2010 – It is time to record my outlook for 2010, but before looking forward to the year ahead, I always like to first look back at what I was expecting for this past year.  My forecasts for 2009 were driven by my overall outlook for the economy, which is captured by theRead more