Alan's Finance Blog

US Dollar VS Gold: Epic Money Battle

By: Jim Willie CB, GoldenJackass.com

The so-called Global Financial Crisis is a term so widely used that it has earned its own acronym of GFC. When first seen, it seemed like girl friend club or some such, since many friends use GF loosely to refer to sweethearts. The GFC is falsely named, since it is more accurately described as a global monetary war with the USGovt vigorously defending its franchise in the USDollar for crude oil and trade settlement, and for bank reserves management. Take either away, and the other departs quickly, leaving the United States vulnerable to a quick ticket to the Third World marred by price inflation and supply shortage, even isolation in ring fences. On its own devices, the US is in as bad shape as the worst of the PIGS nations. The USGovt debt is above 100% of GDP finally. The annual deficit of $1.5 trillion could not be financed in normal methods. So the USFed is the adopted buyer of last resort, purchasing over 80% of new and recycled US debt issuance. The Interest Rate Swap tool acts like a hydraulic howitzer, in pushing down the long-term interest rates by creating false artificial demand. Without the IRSwap contract, a Morgan Stanley specialty, the US interest rates would be 6% to 7% just like Spain and Italy. The USTreasury Bond is not a safe haven, but rather a place where Weimar printing press operations persist, where decisions like SWIFT code rules are enforced like a illicit weapon, where billboards are painted to attract embattled investors of impaired toxic sovereign bonds from Southern Europe to retreat to the supposed safe haven of USTBonds.

WEAPON FOR INFLICTION

The USDollar has become the Weapon of Mass Self-Destruction. Three years ago, the Jackass made a statement frequently, that the first nations to depart from usage of the USDollar for exclusive trade and reserve bank operations will be the leaders in the next chapter. That list of insurgent nations is being defined right here and now. Those who remain committed to the US$ in trade and banking will put themselves at risk of systemic collapse and on a direct path on a slippery slope to the Third World. As the pace of capital destruction continues from the US$ conduit, lifting the cost structure as the debt monetization continues, the global economy will continue to falter. In the West witness the economic recession. As the USGovt raises the pressure on rebels on the world stage that refuse to comply with the USDollar Club, supported by the USMilitary that seems never to question the wisdom of directives from on high, the stress level to the entire global financial and monetary system is shaken severely. In the East witness the stall from the Western drag. The biggest blind spot among economists, whom the Jackass has unabashed bold disdain toward, has been that the ultra-low near 0% official rate has been the steady persistent cause of capital destruction and a guarantee for recession.

How tragic that economists cannot comprehend either capital formation or capital destruction under their arrogant noses! They talk of tax tweaks, of currency manipulation charges, of stimulus packages that lack effective elements, of focus on the wrong sides like consumption and retail spending. They focus on soft fluff such as inflation expectations, when the Treasury Investment Protection Securities are actually monetized by fresh money output in QE sidebar programs. No protection there! They focus on a CPI distorted to the extreme, as though it contained a shred or legitimacy. The frequent calls for more USFed bond purchases is heard, as if it is the core cure for financial market stupor. The QE bond purchases are the cancer in the body financial. The US economists are a lost bunch. The USEconomy is not the site of capitalism and economic development. It is the site of the Fascist Business Model put to practice, where preservation of large corrupted insolvent banks is given a national priority, where liquidation of insolvent broken systems such as certain financial markets and big banks is avoided at all costs. The US is the site of chronic asset collateralization and credit extension in order to support consumption to the point of systemic breakdown. Home equity raids were followed by home foreclosures, a shock to the clueless economist crew. Economists have litlte comprehension of economics, as seen by the clown hack Paul Krugman receiving a Nobel Prize. He is the absurd foppish captain of a doomed ship, elevated before its sinking. The USGovt debt, like most US State debt, like most big US bank balance sheets, like Fannie Mae debt, like AIG debt, is unsustainable, broken, in a process of collapse, all supported by the constant and high volume output of the monetary press managed by the US Federal Reserve.

Gold is becoming the Device of Financial Self-Determination, since it is free from debt and counter-party risk. The value and role of Gold has become well recognized in the last few years, especially since the financial crisis broke wide open in the summer 2007. It seems strangely obvious that Gold is money and the USDollar is not. As money flees for safety in Europe, England, and the United States, the story not told is that the monetary system is crumbling. The process has been underway since Greece broke down in December 2009, following the Dubai World debt bust. For two years, the Hat Trick Letter has been warning that Greece was simply the much smaller opening act. The real climax events in Europe would be Italy and Spain, whose government bonds are also captive wards of the Euro Central Bank state. The EuroCB acts more and more like an elite independent state, even with occasional defiance to the Germans and their Bundesbank stellar central bank, chock full of integrity, expertise, and tradition. Unfortunately, the Bundesbank signed on with the European Monetary Union as the Clydesdale horse without a side horse partner of equal strength and durability to pull the Euro stagecoach. Therefore, the ill-designed team in front steered left into the ravine. Next comes the abyss without the horse of Teutonic breed at all.

WORLDWIDE OBJECTION

The major players of the world have three major complaints on USDollar management:

1)    unilateral decisions to conduct debt monetization by the USFed (debased)

2)    bond fraud centered on mortgage securities, exported globally (cancer)

3)    endless war with ulterior motives too numerous to specify (aggression).

The USFed never consults with victims of its monetary policy. They are scolded by them instead, after reading of the next Quantitative Easing initiative. In the real world, QE never ended. It became Global QE, appeared as Operation Twist deviously, and lately in my opinion is basically QE to Infinity. When the Dollar Swap Facility unleashed $3 trillion in loans to rescue the many broken big European banks, the impact on Chinese reserves or Brazilian reserves or Russian reserves or Korean reserves seemed very secondary and unimportant in the large scheme to preserve the USDollar Franchise system. It is breaking apart. The USFed unleashed another $2.5 trillion onto the domestic banking system, mostly to Wall Street. The debasement effect has been staggering and deeply damaging.

When obvious bond fraud in the multiple $trillions occurred, some expected justice. Not the Jackass, who noted that all prosecutions were outside Manhattan, and that within Wall Street only patsies were selected for prosecution to make an example and to establish a facade for taking firm action. The credibility of legal remedy is absent. The greater hope has centered upon the many investor lawsuits against the Wall Street banks. They will continue forever. No justice will come to the US bankers for their unprecedented white collar crime that has contributed to the systemic failure of the nation. Only with tribunals after the default.

The war front is hardly defensive in nature. It is more offensive with hidden motives. This is a delicate topic. All too often a motive has to do with preserving the USDollar usage or to obtain gold in large volume. The Libyan liberation seemed to put Qaddafi away, but the national treasury in 144 tons of gold bullion still resides in London. The conditions for its return to Libya in my view will never be met. Call my cynical, when my preference is pragmatic realist. The Iran sanctions and saber rattling are 95% about protecting the USDollar, and 5% about their nuclear refinement development. A much bigger risk was the missing former Soviet warheads, but the USGovt made no rumblings about it on the global stage 10 to 15 years ago.

GRAND BACKFIRE

The Global QE (aka QE to Infinity) put into first gear the backfire against the US. Nations around the world resented higher food, commodity, and industry input costs. On June 28th, the SWIFT bank code law goes into force to obstruct transactions. The abuse of SWIFT codes against enemies and allies alike has taken the backfire into second gear. Big strategic mistakes are being made. The G20 nations have a brain trust in the BRICS core, which has decided to pursue an alternative method of trade settlement. They describe a method to satisfy trade obligations and payments. They describe a departure from exclusive US$ settlement. They actually are working on a rival SWIFT code system from Asia, without the name. It will soon match the Western SWIFT system stride for stride in rivalry. Bigger bank centers in Asia will arise, including perhaps maritime insurance, as crippled Lloyds pulls out. Soon expect to see an Eastern SWIFT system, that China hints might be gold-backed. The main body of trade to test the new system will be on crude oil sales. The entire trade settlement system on bank payments is on the verge of a major schism, a split away from the US-dominated methods.

The several bilateral Iranian oil deals pushed the movement toward a more organization system in a backfire against the United States. The USGovt has effectively accelerated the global response to replace the USDollar in trade settlement. The misguided SWIFT weapon usage encouraged several US allies to entertain the new Eastern alternative, so that at a later date it will be embraced and used more widely. The poor chess move by the USGovt on the table sacrifices the queen. It is unclear what the next move will be to put the USDollar in checkmate. It could be a Saudi announcement to accept non-US$ for oil payments, but alongside the continued US$ usage. After all, the sand empire sitting on crude oil has new protectors in China & Russia, rendering the US a marginalized bully. The end of the Petro-Dollar will be the coup de grace for the USDollar exclusivity. The writing is more clearly written on the container vessel walls crossing the oceans than ever in the last four decades.

SHOCK & AWE INSIDE CENTRAL EUROPE

HAT TRICK LETTER NEWS FLASH: a German banker contact informs that as a result of a high level meeting in Germany (not in the news), a decision has been made for France to exit the Euro currency first. They are ordered out. Regardless of whether Hollande displaces Sarkozy for the president post, the French have been instructed as to how business will be conducted. No other information, like whether France will revert to the Franc currency and not risk a severe Latin Euro devaluation after Germany and Netherlands depart. My impression is that Germany will launch a new currency very soon. Perhaps they wished for France to take some of the attention and to begin the chaotic process. The contact has consistently stated that France would not be included from the new Nordic Euro, an exlusive core group of Central European nations that qualify by having a current account surplus. French debt is too great, and likely to soon expand much worse. He said France would become a ward of the German state, with dictated policy and direction. Bear in mind that Germany owns of 90% of the French Govt debt. It remains to be seen whether France will assume the lead position among the PIGS, whose nations will all go adrift. Rumors of a Latin Euro Central Bank located in Marseilles were once spun.

Sorry, Bob Chapman. This is not simply from one of your subscribers. The subscriber took it from an unique sole news flash in the April Hat Trick Letter, taken and reported without attribution. It seems to be a common research and editor tool for the International Forecaster, and the main reason why we do not share newsletters anymore. This example is not the first, not the second, not the third, not the fourth, not the fifth time of occurrence. We analysts in the gold camp share, stick together, and form a team. Some are not team members when they consistently engage in the sleazy practice of intentionally avoiding attribution where due. The Jackass has been guilty of minor infractions like snagging a great graph and writing over a copyright or website URL address. But the Prudent Squirrel and others forgive me. When it comes to an analytic point of importance, never does the Jackass take it, claim it, or avoid attribution. Citations abound in my reports. Oftentimes, analytic points are shared as they come to the surface, and attribution is not required. It is a difficult task, a frequent challenge for the Jackass as editor, to give attribution and credit where due.

A major reliable long-standing source of information on Central Europe and gold trades has provided me with information on France. One is left with conjecture, speculative analysis, and deep challenge. My belief is that France has been offered something important, like financial support in return for leading the broken chaotic Southern European nations. France might start a Latin Euro Central Bank soon with some measure of German support. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard mentioned this concept a year ago. Its credible merit will be revealed soon. France resembles the nations of Italy and Spain far more than Germany. With the socialist Hollande taking over the reins of power, expect much larger deficit spending, higher bond yields, more strains on their economy, even the flight of capital, possibly bank runs. Then it will be obvious that France is the King of the PIGS. Germany might also have wanted to put France in the spotlight, while the German industrial leaders and bank leaders forge their next big accord and create an alliance more formally with Russia and China. An eastern-based barter system is in the works. The G20 non-US$ payment system will establish much of its manifested workings, with wiring and linkage to be made known as the months pass.

SHOCK WAVES IN FOREX

Enormous shock waves are coming to the Euro. More questions are raised than answers, many dealt with in the Hat Trick Letter. Will Spain and Italy revert to the Peseta and Lira former currencies, or stick together during assaults? Will Greece revert to the Drachma and defy the bankers who woud lose bigtime? Will the Germans unleash their bank bailout and invite the separation from the South, sure to topple numerous big European banks? What timing will come for the new Euro Mark currency to be launched by Germany? Will the new Euro Mark (or Nordic Euro) currency be a primary vehicle to settle trade with Russia? Will the Euro Mark have a gold component? How long before the Chinese Yuan is made fully convertible? Will the convertible Yuan be an advertised precursor for a gold-backed Yuan, used in G20 trade settlement? Will it be the basis of the new Eastern SWIFT bank system? Will the Yuan be the new basis for Eastern trade settlement? Will the Russians take advantage of the controlled storm surge and announce their own backed Ruble currency, perhaps backed by gold, silver, oil, and natural gas? Will the Arabs exploit the timing and announce their long desired Gold Dinar?

To be sure, a group of simultaneous new strong currency alternatives for trade settlement will ensure their survival and successful launch. They would benefit from critical mass and absent isolation. They do not wish to become victims of their own success, with rising exchange rates and consequent damage to export trade. The US relies upon renegade nations not going it alone, suffering the harmful effect of a better currency. If done together, the new launches would act like a strong broad well fortified craft and not a floating raft. The outsiders looking in will be the United States and England. Expect Australia to sign on with China, a major trade partner and owner of port infrastructure Down Under. Since heavy importers and exporters of toxic bonds, the US & UK will struggle to bid up the new Euro Mark, the new Chinese Yuan, and possibly the new Russian Ruble and new Gold Dinar. The certain death knell for the USDollar will be the acceptance on non-US$ payment for Saudi crude oil.

REBIRTH OF EURASIA

Germany has decided to look Eastward, and to cut some ties with the US & Anglo platforms that are unmistakenly breaking down. The Eastern Alliance has been cited in the Hat Trick Letter scribbles several times. The German engineering expertise, financial acumen, and organization skills have been put to work behind the curtains, free from US/British sabotage. They are working to create an alliance that brings to bear the profound Russian commodity, mineral, and energy resource wealth together with the vast Chinese wealth and factory persence. Many projects are in the works, but train lines from Russia to Germany. The oil pipelines are nearing completion, for energy delivery to Central Europe. The three nations will serve as the core to the alliance, which has been given assurance by the Persian Gulf nations to hitch their wagon at the appropriate moment. Recall the April 2000 conference where the Arab billionaires signed on to have Russia & China their regional protectors. It is all coming together. The USGovt sanctions against Iran have pushed the pace of the process. With the Eastern SWIFT payment system among banks, the foundation has become more concrete suddenly. As it slams into place on the global financial landscape, the shock waves should deliver tremor episodes to the USDollar and its corrupted custodians. Witness the early birth pangs of Eurasia, which has not been a cohesive force since the Ottoman Empire. History is coming full circle.

GOLD CONSOLIDATION ENDING AGAIN

Like a tired saw, the gold price is consolidating after several weeks of price firming, having adjusted to yet more shocks of naked short ambushes. The after effects of MFGlobal linger, rendering great harm to the integrity and function of the COMEX. Many firms are legally prohibited from participating in risk hedge management at the COMEX, since accounts were stolen by JPMorgan and no hint of either prosecution or remedy is apparent or likely. The after effects of the huge February 29th naked short ambush also linger. Over 630 million ounces of paper silver were dumped on the COMEX in a single hour on that day, which will go down in history, under COMEX corruption as a chapter. The volume of silver exceeds global mine output in a full year. So a message to those hare brained analysts who claim (earth to Bob Moriarty at 321GOLD) that the precious metals market can never be corrupted or manipulated or intervened to the point of chronic distortion, the message is to wake the hell up.

The new paradigm shift is very much at work in the gold market, silver too. The gold cartel pushes down the PM prices with naked short ambushes, no collateral posted, grossly out of proportion with economic need or mining firm hedge practices, enough to engineer a 8% to 12% price decline. Limits are enforced of 1% gains but 10% swoons. But the Eastern Coalition, not to be confused with the Eastern Alliance, continues to push down the gold price in order to execute some important very high volume purchases. The coalition is comprised of a handful of extraordinarily wealthy Eastern families with heavy motive to disrupt the balance of banking power dominated by the New York and London crowd to the point of chronic hegemony and abuse. They had a $50 billion infusion last November to move the bullion metal out of cartel banks methodically. The coalition pushes down the gold price in order to conduct raids on the gold cartel member banks, exploiting their vulnerability with respect to margin calls on sovereign bond positions and currency positions. The UBS example several months ago was a textbook raid that has been repeated. My open guess is that the next victims are Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup. Keep in mind that UBS is not a minor player, but one of the two giant Swiss banks which sold out to the Wall Street and London banksters long ago. The Swiss banking system is far weaker than is widely known, the object of major lawsuits.

Unique retaliatory treatment is reserved for Citigroup, as a result of special thefts committed against a certain family behind the coalition. This story will develop over time. Information sources are less generous on details, an indication of the gravity of the situation and imminent important events to come. The gold wars are central to the global financial war in progress, with a great many sides and numerous arenas. Stratajema, you can crawl back into your hole, or else share your rich sources.

Gold & Silver are each in a long-term consolidation. The gold pennant pattern is more intermediate. The silver pennant pattern is more long-term. Great metal shortage, huge investment demand, and pursuit of safe haven will drive prices much higher. The epic battle between paper gold and physical gold never results in paper victory in the final battles. This chapter of history will be no exception. Resolution will be an upward move in price. Remember the primary engine for the Gold Bull market is the negative real interest rates. The true inflation adjusted rate of interest (whether FedFunds or USTB 10-year yield) are running in the minus 8% to minus 11% range, since price inflation is in the 9% to 11% range and the USEconomy is stuck in a recession of minus 2% to minus 4% steadily, like in quicksand. It foretells of tremendous price gains for gold. The mainstream financial press is desperate to sell a wrong-footed story, for the sixth year in a row.

The USDollar appears to be topped out. As it falls, the global cost structure will be lifted again. Most commodities are priced on a US$ basis. Big challenges are in force against the global reserve currency. Aggravating the effect is the chronic high oil price. The Iran effect is felt, not going away, only to grow worse as the backfire backlash develops into new platform systems. See the Hat Trick Letter in the April edition for much greater details on all these critical matters as history is being made. Sadly, the history is the final chapter of the USDollar and its written epitaph. Americans appear to be the least informed on current events and risk levels. Many will see their life savings, their pension plans, and other valued assets suffer great loss since they have not put in place protection from the imploding beleaguered USDollar. The lost value of their homes is but the beginning of their great loss. That warning has not been heeded effectively by the majority of the masses, who qualify as sheep. Steps are difficult to make, but they must be made. Gold & Silver offer the best such protection in the form of bars and coins, kept outside the US and UK, the axis of fascism.

Making Your Investments Work for You

Investing isn’t just a luxury of the rich anymore, but a necessity of the working class. The financial buffers that are there for our parents may not be there for us and investing money is the only way to naturally create a steady increase in existing money over time.

Stocks

When most people think of investing, they think about the stock market. You purchase shares and stock in various companies and as the company grows, the value of your stocks and shares grow as well. It can also decrease in value if the company doesn’t perform well.

The good news is that stocks and shares ISAs are individual savings accounts that allow you to put money into stocks and shares and any interest made is tax-free.

Stocks and shares provide for the greatest opportunity of growth and loss over time. Investment opportunities include unit trusts, open-ended investment companies (OEICs), exchange traded funds, investment trusts and individual shares and bonds. This is why a diverse portfolio is a necessity. It helps shore up your finances as certain stocks go up and others decrease.

There are two primary types of stocks. Common stocks are simply equity in the ownership of a company. Your return comes from dividend income and capital gains. Common bonds provide the best long-term return potential.

Preferred stocks are not a debt, but have characteristics of common stocks and bonds. They also carry the biggest risk. Types of preferred stock include blue chip, penny, income, growth and value stocks. Dividends are generally a fixed percentage of the face value and can be affected by interest rates changes. Also, dividends are not a contractual obligation and can be skipped if earnings are low.

Cash ISAs

Risk is negligible in a cash individual savings account compared to stocks and shares ISAs, but it also has a comparatively low interest rate. These act just like standard savings accounts, but the interest accrued is tax-free. There is a limit to the amount of money you can put into a cash ISA. You can only open one account per tax year.

There are two keys to making a cash ISA work for you. The first is you need to research the various banks to see which ones have the best interest rates. The other key is to start making payments into the accounts as soon as possible. The earlier you begin making regular payments into the savings account, the more time the interest has to accrue.

Bonds

A bond is a form of debt where you are providing a portion of the loan. There are many different types of bonds including business, municipal, state and federal, but their purpose is the same.

The agency taking out the bond agrees to pay you, the investor, the money back plus a set interest. The likelihood of a city, state or federal agency defaulting on a bond is negligible. A private company may end up going bankrupt or be unable to make its payments and is a greater risk. The caveat is that the bigger the risk, the bigger the return.

Once again, diversification is the best way to make sure your bond investments work for you. A good mix of stable bonds and more risky bonds help to guarantee a steadier stream of regular income. When it comes to bonds versus stocks, short-term investors will probably see a greater return on the bonds, but if you plan on investing for 15 years or more, stocks tend to provide the better return.

Secure your Retirement Life with Lifetime Annuities

What is keeping you so worried these days? Are you afraid that the savings you have accumulated after years of hard work would go in vain if you step in for a wrong pension plan? With lifetime annuity plans at your disposal there is little to worry. The pension schemes have arrived to justify all your efforts and help stabilize your financial flow. However, in most cases individuals find it quite challenging to secure a pension plan that would reap them a handsome pay annually or periodically. Mostly, the thought of outliving savings scare people looking forward to securing a post-retirement life. If you are thinking the same, then there is a way to combat financial fear just by picking a lifetime annuity plan.

Lifetime annuity schemes offer you an easy proposal where you begin with investing a lump sum in exchange of which you will be entitled to receive annual or a series of guaranteed payouts. If you are already married then you can choose to schedule the payments in joint way. It can also be reduced as per the anticipations made by the annuitant who is worried about his finances in the future.

As an annuitant if you are concerned about estate planning and want to transfer a percentage of it to your heirs then, you have the right to craft the annuity agreement in such a way that your offspring is benefited. The variations mostly in such cases mostly include returns on lifetime annuity based on the following:

• Returns derived from the original investment amount
• Returns derived from a certain percentage of the invested amount
• Returns derived from (subtraction of payouts from the original) amount invested

If you are looking forward to purchasing an annuity plan then you can look for the guidelines given below:

• It is important that you choose an annuity expert who will be able to inform you about the best plans available in the market. He will even inform you on single as well partnership policies. There are plans which provide both schemes. On the contrary a single policy offers you better amounts than a joint policy which offers lesser amounts.
• A lifetime annuity plan protects your finances from being affected by inflation. An inflation protected annuity plan offers you lesser amounts in the beginning; payment amount increases with each passing year. You can look for the best lifetime annuity plan over the internet.
• Looking for annuities offering cash refund facilities is good enough for your heirs who are entitled to receive interest for amounts you have invested but have failed to collect interest on the same.
• A licensed insurance expert should be consulted while you fill up the formalities involved in purchasing a lifetime annuity plan.

Author’s Bio: The author Jonathan James, having complete knowledge on financial schemes offers an insight to pension schemes like lifetime annuity plans for readers who are benefited from it. Her articles are informative and interesting.

Call This Financial Repression? Really?

By: Adrian Ash, BullionVault

Financial repression this ain’t. Not unless you like playing victim…

ALL OF a sudden, everyone’s talking about financial repression – the capture and torture of domestic savers with below-inflation rates of interest, so that banking and government debt shrinks in real terms.

“Such policies,” explains economic historian and author Carmen Reinhart for Bloomberg, “usually involve a strong connection between the government, the central bank and the financial sector.” Check.

Given the post-war size of our debts, she goes on, “financial repression…with its dual aims of keeping interest rates low and creating or maintaining captive domestic audiences… will likely be with us for a long time.” Check.

“[It's] equivalent to a tax on bondholders and, more generally, savers.” Check.

Now if, like me, you already gave, then you might want to look for the exits – and you really don’t need to look very far. Yet to date, this sudden burst of comment on financial repression can only counsel despair, despite the greatest liberty of capital movement in 100 years. More oddly still, the classic escape-route of buying gold – an escape-route blocked worldwide when governments wore down their 20th century wartime debts – has scarcely been mentioned.

Take the Financial Times; it’s published 15 stories on financial repression in the last month alone, yet only two mention gold. Google News counts 103 stories in English from the last 2 weeks globally, yet barely 1-in-4 dares mention gold, and half of those only because they mention the high classical Gold Standard ending 1914. Before then bondholders also got very low (but not negative) real rates of interest. They also got the full return of principal value on maturity.

“In [our] age of free capital movement, financial repression is still possible,” reckons another historian (and a member of GMO’s asset allocation team) Edward Chancellor in the FT, “because it is being simultaneously practised in the world’s leading financial centres. Negative real interest rates are to be found not only in the US, but also in China, Europe, Canada and the UK.”

But so what? No one’s yet forcing US citizens to keep their money inside the States, and no one’s forcing them to choose a Euro, Canadian or Sterling savings account if they go elsewhere either. Which is lucky, with rates at 1%, 2% and 3% below inflation respectively. Yes, the finance industry is paying the price of getting bailed out, with the world’s $30 trillion in pension funds forced to hold ever-greater quantities of sub-zero-yielding debt. But outside the still-repressed East, private savings today enjoy unheard of freedom to go where they wish and do as they please. And even there, in India and China most notably, the freedom to buy gold – the universal financial escape – is similarly at a 100-year peak.

Witness the British experience with investment gold, for instance. Suspending the Gold Standard when war broke out in 1914, London banned domestic gold trading by private individuals throughout both world wars, pretty much all the time inbetween, and for more than three decades after Hitler put a hole in his head.

The cost to cash savers and gilt-holders? One hundred pounds lent to the British state in 1945 was worth £91 in real terms by 1980. Whereas £100 held in gold would have become £304 of inflation-adjusted real value. But unlike today, gold wouldn’t have done you much good in the meantime, because it was nailed to currency values (not vice versa) by the false peg known as the Dollar Exchange Standard. And also unlike today, you would have been breaking the law for much of that time, simply by owning coins or gold bars.

A brief window opened in 1971, but it was closed four years later because savers used it too freely, sparking a foreign currency drain that brought down the shutters on foreign inflows of metal again. It took another four years for the UK’s gold controls to be lifted entirely. By which point gold had already begun its big move. Real rates turned strongly positive 12 months later, and the urgency of buying gold to escape repression was gone.

Financial repression this ain’t, in short, but nor would it be new if it was. Our current freedom to buy gold is very new, in contrast, along with the wealth of alternatives – both domestic and foreign – open to anyone daring to take control of their money instead of lending it to government or paying a pension-fund manager to do the same.

Take note: Nothing is certain to repair the losses you suffer on other, captive investments today. US citizens, for example, suffering real interest rates 4.6% below inflation in Jan. 1975 were allowed to buy gold for the first time in three decades. Bullion promptly dropped half its Dollar price, shaking out all but the most pig-headed investors over the next 18 months before rising 8-fold by the start of 1980.

“In [our] mildly reflating world” however, advises Bill Gross of Pimco, “unless you want to earn an inflation-adjusted return of minus 2%-3% as offered by Treasury bills, then you must take risk in some form.” And buying gold is just such a risk – a uniquely simple and obvious one, offering a stateless escape to a borderless market. But make no mistake: Swapping the credit and inflation risk of cash and bonds for physical gold means exposing yourself to price risk.

Volatility is certain as retained wealth worldwide thrashes free from the imaginary manacles of the financial press, and the traps laid for the unwary by the packaged financial industry.

Adrian Ash

Adrian Ash is head of research at BullionVault – the secure, low-cost gold and silver market for private investors online, where you can buy physical gold today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.

(c) BullionVault 2012

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.

Explaining Central Banking to the Publicly Educated

By Jeff Berwick, The Dollar Vigilante

Don’t understand economics? And the thought of even trying makes your eyes cross?

That’s what they want. Government, which is an artificial, unnecessary construct has made a concerted effort to make economics sound as difficult as possible for decades. The reason? They can use your programmed ignorance as the publicly “educated” to confuse you about how they manipulate the economy for their benefit.

Economics is simple. Nearly the full extent of it can be taught in a near pamphlet, as has been done in Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson“. That is the full extent that any individual needs and should know about economics.

Those four to eight years in college to get a bachelor or PhD in Economics? Pure mental masturbation – at best.

ECONOMICS ON AN ISLAND

Most everything can be broken down to its most basic components in order to simplify things. When faced with a large question always try to break it down. Let’s do that with economics to show how simple it is and why central banking is a central tenet of communism and is an abomination that makes no sense in a free market.

Let’s say that you and four other people live on an island. As far as you can tell there are no other humans on Earth. Each of the people on the island do things which help the collective although they have selfish reasons for doing so (ie. they want something in return).

Perhaps you fish. Another gathers coconuts. And another is good at building and repairing thatch huts and collecting rainwater for drinking. Amongst yourselves you trade. You offer some fish for coconuts, water and a nice maintained hut. The others offer their services in trade for your fish.

In comes the fourth person – a bearded man with no particular skills who thinks he is better than everyone else. He produces nothing but tells you that he has come up with a better system using “money” where you don’t have to wait until the man who gets coconuts wants fish before you can get coconuts. Instead you can trade money… perhaps a piece of paper that the fourth person has inscribed with pictures and denominations on it.

So far it doesn’t sound too bad. But here is where he becomes a “central banker”. First, he pulls out a spear and tells you that you must, under all circumstances use his money and no other money. Then, during times when the fishing is poor or there is a drought he tells you that he can help everyone out by “stimulating” the economy of the island by drawing up more money.

If things got really tough he could double or triple the amount of money on the island. At first, everyone thinks they are richer, so they buy more fish or water or housing than they otherwise could afford. This ends up using up more resources than would otherwise be prudent. Soon the money has circulated and now coconuts just cost twice or three times more than before in currency units. The same for fish… the same for water and housing.

How has this central banking scheme “helped”? It hasn’t. It actually ended up destroying scarce resources as it fooled the participants in the economy for a period of time into thinking they were more wealthy than they really were.

That is all there is to central banking. Of course, what then happens is the entire island gets corrupted and people begin to look to get favors from the central banker to get the newly created money first. And, then, if the printing of money begins to get out of control and the central banker stops printing money in order to salvage the “value” of the money before hyperinflating it into worthlessness, because of the fact he uses violence to enforce its use, all of a sudden there will not be enough money in the system to transact basic transactions and people will not be able to survive. There will be either war (over the resources) or starvation as the denizens of the island find themselves unable to acquire the currency they are forced to use to survive. Either that or the banker will take control of your future productivity in exchange for some easily printed cash today effectively putting you into slavery just to survive.

The only thing missing on the island at this point is someone to start a fascist media conglomerate who, in cahoots with the central bank, put out the following magazine cover showing the one non-productive member of the island as being the hero:

THE HERO?

“Ben Bernanke saved the economy, so why does everybody hate him?”

First of all, not enough people know enough about him to hate him. If they did, however, a public sodomization and lynching like Hillary did unto Khadaffi would be in order.

Here is the man who destroys economies. The man who funds and makes all wars possible. The man who puts senior citizens on treadmills and makes them run just to be able to eat cat food. And he does it all with a smug look on his face reminiscent of the last time this kind of nonsense was attempted:

Remember that one? Three of the smuggest looking conmen in the world posed as saviors just months before the collapse of the global economy – which they all brought about. That Slime cover story came out on February 15, 1999 proclaiming that the money changers had saved us all from the global economic meltdown.

How’d that all work out for everyone?

Are they pulling the same tricks again now to try to salvage a few more months of the fantasy economy? Probably.

The beautiful thing, however, is that all those anachronistic media organizations such as mainstream television and newspapers are dying a rapid death. I sat in the office of the President of USA Today, Tom Curley (now CEO of Associated Press), in 2000 and told him that inside of ten years he’d be irrelevant.

I declared victory when in 2008 Gannett (the parent of USA Today) hit $1 after being $60 in 2000… despite the dead cat bounce it has done since.

Today, The Dollar Vigilante and it’s parent company, TDV Media, is one of the fastest growing media organizations on the planet.

Why? Because we spread truth and help awaken the brainwashed. A revolution is going on whether you realize it or not. The internet has exposed the cockroaches. Government, nor central banks, have any right to exist. Only propaganda and subterfuge has enabled them to survive this long.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

If you understand what central banking is really about then you are preparing now for the final stages of the collapse of the western monetary system. This means investments in hard assets such as gold and silver bullion and speculative bets in a final inflationary bubble into precious metals stocks. If you understand central banking and the governments that are subjugated to them then you know by now to get a significant portion of your assets outside of the control of the government that purports to own and control you. You understand that getting a second or a third passport is now as common sense as saving a significant percentage of your income in the past. Or, if you want to stay and fight in the coming years, you understand the importance of becoming self sufficient in terms of food and energy and preparing to protect yourself via armaments.

And if you understand all of this then you have broken out of the brainwashing of your public education and are thinking for yourself. You are now enemy number one of governments in the western world. We’re happy you joined us.

Jeff Berwick, The Dollar Vigilante

http://www.dollarvigilante.com/

How to Profit as Global Debt Soars

by JR Crooks

It’s no secret that the world’s central bankers and governments are cranking out money at lightning speed to stave off a global depression.

Let’s assume for a moment, that they’re right.

I of course would say much of the stimulus was simply to save the old order, i.e. the welfare state in Europe, which Mr. Obama seems desperate to emulate on this side of the pond. After all, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen massive buildups of debt to save Europe.

Here is an excerpt from the magazine Sphere of July, 1935, summarizing public statements by Adolph Miller, a member of the Reserve Board at that time:

“Mr. Miller, of the Federal Reserve Board, states that the easy credit policy of 1927, which was father and mother to the subsequent 1929 collapse, was originated by Governor Strong, of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and that it did not represent a policy either developed or imposed by the Board on the Reserve Banks against their will.

“The policy was the result of a visit to this country of the Governors of foreign central banks, who unequivocally stated in New York that unless the United States did adopt it there would be an economic collapse in Europe. It was a European policy, adopted by the United States.”

And even someone who supports this stimulus must be worried when they look at the numbers. If they aren’t afraid, they should be.

I’m not predicting a depression. I do believe, though, that all the elements are in place for one to develop if policy makers don’t act to reduce global debt and institute growth policies.

Since 2008, global GDP has grown 4.7 percent or $2.9 trillion. Yet global debt has grown 14 percent or $25.7 trillion!

And look what David Rosenberg, of Gluskin Sheff, said recently in a research note:

“Maybe the economy seems to be doing better because we have all adjusted our expectations so radically after being disappointed for so long — I mean — take 2011 as an example. A year that would normally see 5 percent real GDP growth for this stage of the cycle came in at a woeful 1.7 percent.

“This, despite a $3 trillion Fed balance sheet (triple its normal size), zero percent policy rates now for three years and now going on year number four of $1 trillion-plus fiscal deficits. Based on all this stimulus, if this were a normal post-recession recovery, GDP growth would be 8 percent right now, not sub-2!!”

Based on the chart below, on a global basis, $0.89 cents for every $1 of “stimulus” is disappearing down the rabbit hole instead of going into the economy.

A few more numbers to view in sheer horror showing Industrialized Countries Debt/GDP adding private indebtedness to the equation:

• United States — 350 percent
• Japan — 490 percent
• Euro-currency countries — 443 percent
• United Kingdom — 459 percent

And in case you missed Monday’s front page of the Financial Times, it said China is being forced to extend out the time for repayment on debts to local governments, in the $1.7 trillion range, because they can’t be repaid now.

Many mistakenly believe, I think, that China’s Debt/GDP is perfectly manageable, and believe the official numbers suggesting it is in the 30 percent range. But more savvy estimates peg the debt closer to 90 percent.

No problem you say when compared with the industrialized countries. Maybe you should rethink that.

Why? Because emerging economies have a much lower threshold for debt. According to Rogoff and Reinheart, economists extraordinaire and authors of This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly:

“[For emerging economies] When total external debt reaches 60 percent of GDP, annual growth declines about 2 percent; for higher levels, growth rates are roughly cut in half. [IMF recently warned a euro crisis would likely cut China's growth rate in half.]“

Not many investors seem worried now, though. The chart below shows how faith in central banks and governments springs eternal despite the lessons of history.

Dow Jones Industrial Average versus the Fear Index (VIX)

To sum it up:

Debt above the 90 percent threshold for the industrialized world means slow growth …

Debt above the 60 percent threshold for the emerging market world means slow growth …

Thus those currencies geared to growth, such as the Australian dollar, could get hit the hardest. And of course, the debt crisis is bound to sink the euro.

There are several ways you can play this, including ETFs and options. Sorry, I can’t give you the specifics. That wouldn’t be fair to my World Currency Trader members.

But I can tell you this … the simple truth is that right now things seem to be shaping up for a break in risk appetite. The public’s perception of this global debt crisis will spark sustained risk aversion once it makes it into the spotlight. And the approaching Greek default could be the catalyst as it would offer a much-needed dose of reality.

Best wishes,

JR

Keynesians Jump the Gun on Inflation

Advocates of government stimulus are running victory laps on recent developments that appear to vindicate their strategy. In particular, Paul Krugman compares the sluggish growth in Europe to the somewhat-less-sluggish growth in the US to prove that stimulus was more effective than austerity. Other economists are using government inflation measures to defend Fed Chairman Bernanke’s easy-money policy. The only problem is, they’re calling the race before the finish line is even in sight.

As usual, Paul Krugman overlooks basic economics (which, despite his Nobel Prize, is a science about which Mr. Krugman really knows very little). The reason stimulus is so politically popular is that it appears to work in the short-term. However, appearances can often be deceiving, as they are right now in the US. Stimulus merely numbs the pain of economic contraction, as the underlying trauma gets worse. Austerity might slow an economy down, but at least the wounds are able to heal. America has chosen the former and Europe the latter, albeit not quite as large a dose as needed. The fact that in the short-run Europe is suffering more than the US does not vindicate Washington’s approach. On the contrary, this is exactly what is to be expected.

What we’re seeing is like a race where each runner has a broken ankle. One has a coach who tells him to pace himself and not worry so much about winning this one, while the other coach gives his runner a shot of painkillers and tells him to give it all he’s got. Of course, early in the race, the doped-up runner is going to be flying down the track like nothing’s wrong, while the other runner might be limping at half his normal speed. However, when the drugs wear off, the sprinter is liable to collapse from pain, leaving the better-coached runner to limp across the finish line.

The true test is not the immediate effects of stimulus or austerity, but the long-term results. For that reason, Krugman’s conclusions are meaningless. The apparent success of stimulus simply results from spending more borrowed money on government programs and consumption. But don’t we all agree now that this is exactly what caused the financial crisis in the first place?

As far as inflation is concerned, a vindication of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is equally premature. First of all, it’s not that Quantitative Easing will lead to inflation; it’s that QE is inflation. Secondly, there is a lag between QE and rising consumer prices, so the jury is still out as to how high consumer prices will ultimately rise as a result of current and past Fed policy mistakes.

But even more fundamentally, it is absurd to look solely at government price measures, which are built to understate inflation, and conclude that QE has not already produced an elevated cost-of-living. For example, the 2.4% rise in the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) Index in 2011 is more of an indictment of the accuracy of the index than a vindication of Bernanke. In fact, of all the ways the government purports to measure inflation, the PCE is perhaps the most meaningless, as it relies on built-in mechanisms like goods substitution to hide a lower standard of living. As an example of how this works, imagine you are used to eating farm-fresh butter but have to switch to cheaper but also less-healthy margarine from a factory; the PCE would say you are no worse off. That’s exactly why the Fed chooses to use this uncommon metric.

Mark Gertler, an economics professor at New York University, argues that even the Consumer Price Index, which rose at a more vigorous 3.2% in 2011, proves Bernanke’s critics wrong. According to Gertler, the CPI has risen at an average annual rate of 2.4% thus far under Bernanke’s tenure, significantly less than the 3.1% average under Alan Greenspan, and the 6.3% under Paul Volcker.  However, Gertler overlooks two key points. First, the methodology used to calculate the CPI was much different during the Volcker era. If we still calculated the CPI the way we did then, the numbers would be much higher for both Greenspan and Bernanke. Second, given the huge economic contraction that has taken place under Bernanke, consumer prices should have fallen – significantly. The fact that they rose anyway indicates tremendous inflation.

Of course, the Fed’s ability to stimulate the economy with inflation only works as long as bondholders remain ignorant of its plan. For now, the seemingly hopeful news reports are giving the Fed cover to keep stimulating. As long as the market remains convinced there is no inflation, the Fed can continue to create it. However, once the effects are so pronounced that even the PCE can no longer hide them, the Fed will be in a real bind.

Think of our two runners again. Even after the race is over, the fellow who chose to dope up likely injured himself even further. He might have even ended his career. So, the early dash and the cheer of the crowd in that one race was clearly not worth the many years of misery he would incur in the future.

Regardless of what the triumphant Keynesians would have you believe, my analysis continues to be that the current combination of monetary and fiscal stimulus is driving us toward disaster. Instead of a real recovery, the US will experience an inflationary depression. Europe, on the other hand, will suffer much less, precisely because it was not seduced by the short-term appeal of stimulus.

What Does the Bank of England Think It’s Doing?

Quantitative easing has not worked as advertised so far. Why push ahead with more…?

“YOU’VE lost control – Bank of England takes over,” says the Bank of England’s cute little game for school-kids if you let the hot-air balloon you control crash into the ground, rather than happily floating it around the 2.0% annual inflation target.

But if the Bank loses control in the real world? Are there grown-ups ready to take over? And what if the Bank purposefully drives its balloon up into the clouds, so far above its 2.0% inflation target – its primary mandate, set by Parliament, and over-riding the secondary aim of “support[ing] the Government’s objectives for growth and employment” – that wage-earners, savers and consumers alike start hurling themselves out of the basket?

We shall never know what would have happened without near-zero interest rates and the first £273.5 billion of quantitative easing. But as the Bank sticks at 0.5% for the 36th month in succession – and starts creating a further £50 billion in new money – we can say what has happened with them:

• For every £1 the Bank of England created from nowhere since March 2009, the total UK money supply grew by only 35p;
• For every £1 million the Bank has created, more than two people have become unemployed;
• Finance-sector salaries outpaced the average wage (rising 8.8% vs. 5.0%), but still lagged the cost of living (up more than 11% on the Consumer Price Index);
• The average house price rose almost 10%, while the FTSE All-Share index rose by nearly two-thirds. Both were beaten by gold (up 70%) and silver (130%).

Was this really the aim? Let’s ask the Old Lady herself.

“The purpose of the purchases [according to the Bank of England's own information] was to inject money directly into the economy in order to boost nominal demand.”

Two ideas there then – injecting money into the economy, and boosting demand. Neither are part of the Bank’s primary mandate, remember, but both ideas have stuck, albeit in the popular imagination more than reality. “Bank injects £50bn into economy,” announced the BBC last week, “to give a further boost to the UK.”

But while the Bank has already created and spent more than £273 billion on buying government bonds in the last three years, the UK money supply (using the broadest measure, known as M4, and covering all the money in banking deposits) has risen by only £97 billion. Gross domestic product has scarcely budged either, rising by only 1.7% (to the end of September) despite the 4.9% actual growth in M4 money.

So for all the good it has done, where did the Bank stick this injection?

Well, “The asset purchase programme is not about giving money to banks,” stresses the Bank in its version of Quantitative Easing Explained. “Rather, the policy is designed to circumvent the banking system.”

Not that the programme does side-step the banks. Instead, as the Bank of England admits elsewhere, it sees the Old Lady “electronically create new money” and then use it to buy UK government bonds directly from the banks, whether held on their own account or on behalf of their clients such as investment funds and insurance companies. Still, handed this new cash in return for the gilts that they sell, “These investors typically do not want to hold on to this money, because it yields a low return,” says the Bank. “So they tend to use it to purchase other assets, such as corporate bonds and shares. That lowers longer-term borrowing costs and encourages the issuance of new equities and bonds.”

Simple, right? The Old Lady wants to cut interest rates and boost the level of capital raised by businesses – private non-financial corporations as the Bank calls them, those companies outside finance and banking which everyone’s so sure had nothing to do with the bubble or bust. Indeed, “the objective of QE is to work around an impaired banking system by stimulating activity in the capital markets,” according to Charlie Bean, the Bank’s deputy governor for monetary policy. And yet PNFCs have shared little in the flood of money issued by the Old Lady’s computer-key strokes.

Since March 2009, total capital issuance by private non-financial firms has totaled £44.5bn – greater than the £34.0bn they raised over the preceding three years, but that was a time of boom, not bust, so the Bank’s stated purpose still begs the question. And the total raised is still nothing compared with the total £275bn “injection”.

Once again, then, where did the Bank’s “injection” go – and was that its aim?

“Money is not growing quickly enough to keep inflation close to the 2% target,” says the Bank of England in an educational briefing for schoolchildren. “The Bank is injecting money into the economy to boost spending to meet the inflation target.”

Okay, so here’s an outcome the Bank should happily claim for its own. But whether boosting inflation is a good thing or not, inflation has in fact been well above the Bank’s official 2.0% target since 2009. So far above, that governor Mervyn King keeps having to write open letters to the government – as he must under the policy framework established when the Bank gained full control of interest rates in 1997 – explaining why he’s repeatedly let inflation breach the upper 3.0% limit for the last 24 months in succession.

The risk of under-shooting inflation looks awfully thin, and the perils of under-shooting might seem academic as well. Because incomes have failed to keep up with inflation – the very opposite of those “second-round effects” so feared by the Bank under Sir Mervyn when it failed to raise interest rates in the face of the banking bubble that started a decade ago. Today, even indebted households have failed to benefit from the drop in what money will buy. Because inflation only eats into debt when a rising income lets you pay it back faster.

Maybe the Old Lady knows what she’s doing. Or maybe she thinks “two” now means “three-point-eight”. Or maybe she’s just losing sight of her 2.0% inflation target, fast becoming a speck in the distance from her hot air balloon. Or maybe – just maybe – now that the Bank holds so many billions of pounds in government debt, it daren’t let the total start falling, for fear of a train-wreck in the gilt market. Once you pop, you just can’t stop, and it did after all switch to buying fewer long-term gilts and more medium-term debt at this month’s £50bn announcement. Which would fit with fretting about a pile-up of maturing debt in the “medium term”, rather than trying to suppress interest rates on 30-year gilts.

Either way, quantitative easing has failed to work as advertised to date. Reviewing the evidence so far, we’re genuinely none-the-wiser about why in the hell the Bank is now pushing ahead with more.

Adrian Ash

Adrian Ash is head of research at BullionVault – the secure, low-cost gold and silver market for private investors online, where you can buy physical gold today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.

(c) BullionVault 2012

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.

Credit Crisis: Are We Set Up for The Perfect Storm?

Robert Prechter discusses what’s backing your dollars
January 26, 2012

By Elliott Wave International

In this video clip, taken from Robert Prechter’s interview with The Mind of Money, Prechter and host Douglass Lodmell discuss “real” money vs the FIAT money system, and what is backing your dollars under our current system. Enjoy this 4-minute clip and then watch Prechter’s full 45-minute interview here >>

Watch the full 45-minute interview FREE Get even more valuable insights as Mind of Money host Douglass Lodmell interviews Elliott Wave International’s President, Robert Prechter, about how to keep your money safe, the deflation versus inflation debate, and many more topics that are critical to your financial future. Start watching the free 45-minute interview now >>

Wall Street’s Best Bet for Crisis-Beating Returns

By: Adrian Ash, BullionVault

So how did the top US mutual funds stack up vs. the gold price since 2007…?

PAST PERFORMANCE is no guide to the future. But if you don’t study history, just what will you track instead?

December 2011 marked the fifth anniversary of the end of Ownit Mortgage Solutions – a small lender in the big scheme, but “maybe the canary in the coalmine,” according to one mortgage-backed security manager back at the end of 2006.

Let’s hope he found a new career in short order. Because come March 2007, tittle-tattle claimed that distress was spreading from the subprime collapse to US and Eurozone hedge funds. In July, news leaked and then broke of the collapse of two hedge funds at Bear Stearns, and the permanent emergency had begun.

What fun lay ahead! With the gold price at just $650 per ounce too! Silver was knocking around $13 the ounce. Together, that’s made for quite the track record since…

The Top US Fund Managers: Annualized Returns in Per Cent

1. US Dollar precious metals prices from the LBMA, periods ending 30/12/2011.

2. Fund count by BullionVault, using Lipper data via WSJ Online.

3. Single-best fund, best return & average return of all mutual funds taken from MorningStar.

USAA Precious Metals & Minerals you probably know. Co-manager Mark Johnson stepped down last month, leaving Dan Denbow to continue running the single-best performing US mutual of the last 10 years. Other big precious-metal miner funds pack the list of 11 mutuals to outperform silver and the gold price.

GVPIX you might expect to know too, what with it delivering 44% returns in calendar-year 2011. ProFunds US Government Plus led a bunch of long Treasury-bond portfolios. The old Lehman’s TLT tracker returned 34% – who needed active management, let alone risk, last year?

But the stand-out fund over both the last 3 and the last 5 years? The only mutual to beat gold for US investors since the eve of this crisis is Oceanstone. Don’t feel hard cheated if you’ve never heard of it. Apparently it’s got less than $15 million in assets, even though the minimum investment is $3,000. Its stellar 5- and 3-year records include a ridiculous 264% made in 2009, just from doing what it does – seeking value in common stocks on the NYSE.

Yes, it can be done. And yes, it could be done too. US investors really could beat gold since the alarm bells rang out at the turn of 2007. Because out of the 7,500 separate funds available – with 22,000 shares classes to choose from – one fund managed it. Just like 7 funds (go on, count ‘em) managed to beat silver since the turn of 2009, and fully 11 separate US mutual funds managed to beat silver since the start of 2002.

Adrian Ash

Adrian Ash is head of research at BullionVault – the secure, low-cost gold and silver market for private investors online, where you can buy physical gold today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.

(c) BullionVault 2012

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.