Showing posts with label hyperinflation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hyperinflation. Show all posts

Thursday, April 21, 2011

50 Factors Launching Gold

The following article is written by Jim Willie and published at Goldseek.com (which I came across on goldsilver.com)

It covers many areas I follow on this blog in a quick snap shot. State and local Government debt problems in the US are getting closer on the horizon. Gold and silver continues to advance against ALL government currencies (including in Australia).

Edification is not the word that comes to mind when observing an interview with Larry Fink of Blackstone this morning on network financial news. It was inspirational if not humorous, and somewhat pathetic. Of course the interviewer treated him like royalty, when just a syndicate captain, a Made Man. As a cog within the US financial hierarchy, he was asked why Gold is approaching record price levels near $1500 per ounce. He gave his best 10-second answer, showing no depth of comprehension but an excellent grip of propaganda laced with simplistic distortion. He said, "GOLD IS RISING FROM ALL THE GLOBAL INSTABILITY, AND NOT FROM INFLATION AT ALL." Sounds good, but it lacks much reflection of the world of reality burdened by complexity and interconnectivity that the enlightened perceive. At least he did not babble about Gold being in an asset bubble. It cannot, since Gold is money. It is curious that all the analysts, bankers, fund managers, corporate chieftains who did not advise on Gold investment over the last ten years are precisely whom the financial network news appeals to for guidance in the current monster Gold bull run. They knew nothing before, and they know nothing now. The major US news networks carry the Obama water while the USCongressional members carry the USBanker robes and show respect with genuflection before the priests. But guys like Fink are their harlot squires. Poor Ben Bernanke, despite his high priest position, does not gather a fraction of respect that Alan Greenspan did even though Alan presided over the collapse. The wild card possibly later this year or 2012 will be a national movement to force mandatory wage gains, and thus avert a national economic collapse. The squeeze is on in a powerful manner to both businesses and households.


ANOTHER STRONG GOLD BREAKOUT

As long as Quantitative Easing programs are in place and actively pursued, Gold & Silver prices will soar. The programs are urged by exploding budget deficits and absent USTBond demand. That translates to a ruined USDollar currency. Gold & Silver respond to the debasement and ruin. Efforts will become ridiculously stretched to save the USDollar, but will fail. QE will go global and secretive, assuring tremendous additional gains in the Gold & Silver price. No effort to liquidate the big USbanks will occur, thus assuring the process will continue until systemic breakdown then failure. The more extraordinary the measures to save the embattled insolvent fraudulent USDollar, the more the Gold & Silver price will soar. It is that simple. Gold & Silver will soar as long as central banks continue to put monetary inflation machinery to work. They are attempting to provide artificial but coordinated USTreasury Bond demand. In the process their efforts will continue to push the cost structure up further. In my view, since the Japan natural disaster hit with financial fallout, the Global QE is very much in effect, but not recognized as a global phenomenon. It pushes up Gold in uniform fashion worldwide.


50 FACTORS POWERING THE GOLD BULL

1) USFed is stuck at 0% for over two years and printing $1.7 trillion in Quantitative Easing, otherwise called monetary hyper inflation. They are not finished destroying both money and capital.

2) USFed tripled its balance sheet, with over half of it bonds of exaggerated value, while it gobbled up toxic mortgage bonds as buyer of last resort. The mortgage bonds have turned worthless. The USFed waits for a housing revival to bail itself out, but it will not arrive.

3) Debt monetization has gone haywire, as over 70% of USTBond sales from the USFed printing press. The QE was urgently needed, since legitimate buyers vanished. Even the primary dealers have been reimbursed in open market operations within a few weeks.

4) PIMCO has shed its entire USTreasury Bond holdings, seeing no value. They joined many foreign creditors in an unannounced buyer boycott in disgusted reaction to QE which is essentially a compulsory unilateral debt writedown.

5) Growing USGovt deficits have run over $1.5 trillion annually, with absent cuts, obscene entitlements, endless war. The prevailing short-term 0% interest rates are out of synch with exploding debt supply and rising price inflation.

6) Unfunded USGovt liabilities total nearly $100 trillion for medicare, social security, pensions, and more. The obligations are never included in the official debt. It represents insult to injury within insolvency.

7) Standard & Poors warned that USGovt could lose AAA rating in lousy credit outlook, one chance in three within the next two years. Ironically, the announcement came on the day when the USGovt exceeded its debt limit. The network news missed it.

8) State & Municipal debt have collapsed, as 41 states have huge shortfalls, and four large states are broken. They might receive a federal bailout. It could be called QE3, maybe QE4.

9) Coordinated USTBond purchases from Japanese sales have relieved the USFed, as other major central banks act as global monetarist agents. The sales by Japan are vast and growing. Witness the last phase in unwind of Yen Carry Trade, where 0% borrowed Japanese money funded the USTreasury Bonds and US Stocks.

10) Quantitative Easing, a catch word for extreme monetary inflation and debt monetization, has become engrained into global central bank policy, soon hidden. It is so controversial and deadly to the global financial structures that it will go hidden, and attempt to avoid the furious anger in feedback by global leaders. This is the most important and powerful of all 50 factors in my view.

11) The FedFunds Rate is stuck near 0%, yet the actual CPI is near 10%, for a real rate of interest of minus 9%. Historically a negative real rate of interest has been the primary fuel for a Gold bull. This time the fuel has been applied for a longer period of time, and a bigger negative real rate than ever.

12) The USGovt claims to have 8000 tons of Gold in reserve, but it is all in Deep Storage, as in unmined ore bodies. The collateral for the USDollar and USTreasury debt is vacant. It is in raw form like in the Rocky Mountain range or Sierra Nevada range.

13) Fast rising food prices, fast rising gasoline prices, and fast rising metals, coffee, sugar, and cotton serve as testament to broad price inflation. So far it has shown up on the cost structure. Either the business sector will vanish from a cost squeeze or pass on higher costs as end product and service price increases.

14) The entire world seeks to protect wealth from the ravages of inflation & the American sponsored QE by buying Gold & Silver. The rest of the world can spot price inflation more effectively than the US population. The United States is subjected to the world's broadest and most pervasive propaganda in the industrialized world.

15) The European sovereign debt breakdown with high bond yields in PIIGS nations points out the broken debt foundation to the monetary system. The solutions like with Greece in May 2010 were a sham, nothing but a bandaid and cup of elixir. Spain is next to experience major shocks that destabilize all of Europe again, this time much bigger than Greece. The Portuguese Govt debt rises toward 10% on the 10-year yield, while the Greek Govt debt has risen to reach 20% on the 2-year yield.

16) Germany is pushing for Southern Europe bank climax in their Euro Central Bank rate hike. Europe will be pushed to crisis this year, orchestrated by the impatient and angry Germans. They have no more appetitive for $300 to $400 billion in annual welfare to the broken nations in Southern Europe.

17) Isolation of the USFed and Bank of England and Bank of Japan has come. The small rate hike by the European Central Bank separated them finally. The Anglos with their Japanese lackeys are the only central banks not raising rates. With isolation comes all the earmarks on the path to the Third World.

18) The shortage of gold is acute, as 51 million gold bars have been sold forward versus the 11 million held by the COMEX in inventory. Be sure that hundreds of millions of nonexistent fractionalized gold ounces are polluting the system. Word is getting out that the COMEX is empty of precious metals.

19) Such extreme Silver shortage has befallen the COMEX that the corrupted metals exchange routinely offers cash settlement in silver with a 25% bonus if a non-disclosure agreement is signed. The practice cannot be kept under wraps, as some hedge funds push for fat returns in under two months holding positions with delivery demanded.

20) China has begun grand initiatives to replace its precious metal stockpiles. They are pursuing the Yuan currency to become a global reserve currency. As they build collateral for the Yuan, they are also elevating Silver as reserves asset.

21) A global shortage of Gold & Silver has been realized in national mint production. From the United States to Canada to Australia to Germany, shortages exist. Many interruptions will continue amidst the shortages, which feed the publicity.

22) The Teddy Roosevelt stockpile of 6 million Silver ounces was depleted in 2003. He saw the strategic importance of Silver for industrial and military applications. The USEconomy and USMilitary will turn into importers on the global market.

23) The betrayal of China by USGovt in Gold & Silver leases is a story coming out slowly. The deal was cut in 1999, associated with Most Favored Nation granted to China. But the Wall Street firms broke the deal, betrayed the Chinese, and angered them into highly motivated action. No longer are the Chinese big steady USTBond buyers, part of the deal also.

24) Every single US financial market has been undermined and corrupted from grotesque intervention, constant props, and fraudulent activity. The degradation has occurred under the watchful eyes of compromised regulators. Fraud like the Flash Crash and NYSE front running by Goldman Sachs is protected by the FBI henchmen.

25) The USEconomy operates on a global credit card, enabling it to live beyond its means. The USGovt exploits the compulsory foreign extension of credit in USTBonds, by virtue of the USDollar acting as global reserve currency. Foreign nations are compelled to participate but that is changing.

26) The USMilitary conducts endless war adventures for syndicate profits. They use the USTreasury Bond as a credit card. The wars cost of $1 billion per day is considered so sacred, that it is off the table in USGovt budget call negotiations, debates, and agreements.

27) Narcotics funds have proliferated under the USMilitary aegis. The vertically integrated narcotics industry is the primary plank of nation building in Afghanistan. The funds keep the big US banks alive from vast money laundering.

28) No big US bank liquidations have occurred, despite their deep insolvency. Any restructure toward recovery would have the liquidations are the first step. The USEconomy is stuck in a deteriorating swamp since the Too Big To Fail mantra prevents the urgent but missing step.

29) The unprosecuted multi-$trillion bond fraud over the last decade has harmed the US image, prestige, and leadership. The main perpetrators are the Wall Street bankers and their lieutenants appointed at Fannie Mae and elsewhere. They bankers most culpable remain in charge at the USDept Treasury and other key supporting posts like the FDIC, SEC, and CFTC.

30) The ugly daughters Fannie Mae and AIG are forever entombed in the USGovt. They operate as black hole expenses whose fraud must be contained. The costs involved are in the $trillions, all hidden from view like the fraud. Fannie Mae remains the main clearinghouse for several $trillion fraud programs still in operation.

31) The US banking system cannot serve as an effective credit engine dispenser, an important function within any modern economy. It is deeply insolvent, and growing more insolvent as the property market sinks lower in valuation. The banks lack reserves, and hide their condition by means of the FASB permission to use fraudulent accounting.

32) The big US banks are beneficiary of continuous secret slush fund support from the USGovt and USFed. Their sources and replenishments have been gradually revealed. The TARP Fund event will go down in modern history as the greatest theft the world has ever seen, easily eclipsing the biggest mortgage bond fraud in history.

33) The insolvent big US banks continue to sit at the USGovt teat. The vast umbilical cord of banker welfare has not gone away. Goldman Sachs still is in control of the funding machinery.

34) The shadow banking system based upon credit derivatives keeps interest rates near 0%. The usury cost of money is artificially low near nothing. As money costs nothing, capital is actively and rapidly destroyed.

35) A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USGovt. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USMilitary. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USCongress. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the US press networks.

36) A chronic decline of the US housing sector keeps the USEconomy in a grand decline with constant deterioration. With one million bank owned homes in inventory, a huge unsold overhang of supply prevents any recovery of housing prices. Home equity continues to drain, and bank balance sheets continue to erode.

37) Over 11 million US homes stand in negative equity. The sum equals to 23.1% of households. They will not participate much in the USEconomy, except when given handouts. They have become downtrodden.

38) The USEconomy will not benefit from a export surge. The US industrial base has no critical mass after 30 years of dispatch to the Pacific Rim & China. The industry must contend with rising costs in offset to the falling USDollar, which is cited as providing the mythical benefit. Then can export in droves if they do so at a loss.

39) A global revolt against the USDollar is in its third years. The global players work to avoid the US$ usage in trade settlement. Several bilateral swap facilities flourish, mostly with China. If China supplies products, then the Yuan currency will be elevated to global reserve currency.

40) Global anger and resentment over three decades has spilled over. The World Bank and IMF have been routinely used by the US bankers to safeguard the USDollar and Anglo banker hegemony. Neither financial agency commands the respect of yesteryear.

41) A middle phase has begun in a powerful Global Paradigm Shift. The transfer moves power East where the wealth engines of industry lie, far from the fraudulent banking centers. The next decade will feature the Chinese as bankers, since their war chest contains over $3 trillion.

42) The crumbling global monetary system was built on toxic sovereign debt. Legal tender has been nothing more than denominated debt posing as legitimate by legal decree. That is what word FIAT means. The system is gradually breaking in an irreversible manner.

43) The global central bank franchise system has been discredited. It is a failure, which is not recognized by the bank leaders still in charge. The stepwise process of ruin continues with a new sector falling every few months. Next might be municipal bonds.

44) Witness the final phase of a systemic cycle, as the monetary system has run its course. It is saturated with debt from faulty design. The deception cited in the mainstream media focuses upon the credit cycle which will renew. It will not. It will break of its own weight and lost confidence.

45) The recognition has grown substantially that suppression of the Gold price has been the anchor holding fiat system together. The Chinese realize that Gold, when removed, leads to the collapse of the US financial system. They realize it more than the US public. But the syndicate in control of the USGovt understands the concept very well, as they designed the system.

46) The institution of a high level global barter system might soon take root. Gold will sit at its central core, providing stability. No deadbeat nations will participate. That includes the United States and several European nations. The barter system will be as effective as elegant.

47) The movements spread like wildfire in several US states to reinstitute gold as money. In a few states, led by Utah and Virginia, progress has been made for Gold to satisfy debts, public & private. Consider the movement to be in parallel to the Tenth Amendment movements.

48) Anglo bankers have lost control in global banking politics. The phased out G-7 Meeting is evidence. China has wrested control of G-20 Meeting, and has dictated much of its agenda in the last few meetings. The US has been reduced to a diminutive Bernanke and Geithner being ignored in the corner.

49) New loud stirrings by Saudi Arabia seek a new security protector. If security is no longer provided by the USMilitary, then the entire defacto Petro-Dollar standard is put at risk. Remove the crude oil sales in USDollars exclusively, and the US sinks into the Third World with a USDollar currency that cannot stand on its own wretched wrecked fundamentals.

50) The IMF solution to use SDR basket as global reserve is a final desperate ploy. By fashioning a basket of major currencies in a basket, they attempt to enforce a price fixing regime. It is a hidden FOREX currency exchange rate price fixing gambit that will invite a Gold price advance in uniform manner across the currencies bound together. This ploy is being planned in order to prevent the USDollar from dying a horrible death at the expense of the other major currencies. By that is meant at the expense of the other major economies which would otherwise have to operate at very high exchange rates.


THE BIGGEST UPCOMING NEW FACTORS

Introduction of a New Nordic Euro currency is near its introduction. The implementation with a Gold component will send Southern European banks into the abyss, marred by default. The new currency has the support from Russia and China, even the Persian Gulf. In my view, it is a USDollar killer. The first nations to institute a new monetary system for banks and commerce will be the survivors. The rest will slide into the darkness of the Third World.

Gold & Silver seem to be the only assets rising in price, an extension of a terrific 2010 decade. The exceptions are farmland and the US Stock market. However, stock valuations are propped by constant and admitted USGovt support. Their efforts are mere attempts to keep pace with the USDollar decline, as stocks merely maintain a constant purchase power.

A hidden overarching hand seeks the global Gold Standard as the bonafide solution. Darwin is at work, but Adam Smith turns a new chapter. The crumbling monetary solution demands a solution. Further investment in the current system assures a devastating decline into the abyss of insolvency and ruin.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Can't see the forest from the trees

Can't see the forest from the trees

In Australia today, we are being reassured by the Australian Government that "Australia is different", that we can "weather the financial storm in the United States". This can't be further from the truth. The economic/financial systems in Australia are essentially identical to the economic/financial systems in the US, Europe and around the world. The immediate fallout from the US, so far, is in our sharemarket, and consequently, in our retirement savings (superannuation).

There are differences in regulations between countries, but regulations cannot prevent the market from what it wants to do. If the sharemarket wants to plummet. It will plummet. Central banks and governments try to influence and manipulate markets, and they fail time and time again. They try to put a bandaid on problems such as the sub-prime crisis, without looking at the root causes. Governments are essentially powerless to the market forces. You cannot change the direction of the tide.

Is the Australian economy strong today?

- Our unemployment rate is 4.1% (seasonally adjusted)
- We have 10.7 million workers and 457,000 unemployed;
- "Official" CPI inflation rate is 4.5% (year end to 30 June 2008);
- Exports are growing strong, but so are imports; and the
- Australian Dollar has been strong compared to most currencies in recent years.

These numbers still sound great, except inflation has gone well over the 2-3% RBA target band. Australia now has very low unemployment, and retail spending is still buoyant. Export values are climbing fast. Today, we feel more distant from the problems in the US. We cannot see the forest from the trees because the current good times have been going strong since the early 1990s. Look at the big picture!

We cannot ignore what is happening in the US. It will affect us in a huge way… it’s a matter of timing. Wait for when the unemployment rate will turn around and head towards 7-10% again. Inflation is already on the rise. With high inflation and more people unemployment, foreclosures in Western Sydney and Melbourne will become more frequent. The wheels will start to fall off.

Is the economic data reliable?

As I have stated previously, politicians, scientists, journalists or whoever can bend facts to make their argument look better then another person's argument. One scientist can use one set of data to try to prove climate change is man made, while another scientist could use a longer data set to prove climate change is a natural, cyclical process. It's the same with inflation and unemployment data. Numbers are based on methodology and reliability.

Measuring Inflation

Lets look at inflation. Is it really 4.5% in Australia today? It might be if you have full confidence in government.

Inflation in Australia is measured through a the Consumer Price Index (CPI). It measures quarterly changes in the price of a "basket of goods and services". Items consumed by the CPI population group (capital cities) include things such as: food, health, housing, household contents, alcohol, clothing, and transportation. Common items such as milk, bread, cars, petrol are collected monthly as they can be quite volatile in price.

Your spending habits may be completely different to what's in the basket. A family renting, with 3 kids under five years, spending $20 a week on milk will have different spending habits to a retired couple who has no mortgage, and is travelling around Australia (for this couple price inflation for food and fuel will vary greatly around the country). I believe CPI does not represent the true cost of inflation. Ask farmers what the price inflation of fertiliser has been in the last 12 months, or ask manufacturers who are buying steel. A lot of the inflation in the economy has been in input prices (fuel, commodity prices, wages etc.), not output prices (what end users will pay).

At its most basic level, I previously mentioned that Australia's money supply expanded by 23% in the year to end June 2008. This tells us there is a lot of inflation coming to Australia very soon. In this year alone the 23% extra money in the pool has to "find a home". It will compete with existing money to push up rent prices, food prices, property prices etc. Real inflation is much worse then the CPI is telling us.

In Australia, the CPI method was first introduced in 1960. Since this time the CPI has been reviewed and reweighed 13 times – generally every 5 years. In 1998 for instance, several major changes were made to the index. That is, CPI changed from measuring living costs of employee households to a general measure of price inflation for the household sector as whole. Changing the methodology, and changing what's in the basket and outside the basket, changes the outcome. The same happens with measuring unemployment rates. Changing the defition, changes the published unemployment rate. We cannot easily compare apples today to apples fifty years ago, because the apples today have been diluted.

CPI is just like what happens on the sharemarket. Standard's and Poor's (S&P) review and reweigh their share index's four times a year. Take the ASX top 100 stocks. If a stock has performed badly it is removed from the index and replaced by a better performing stock. For instance, Centro Properties was removed recently because its share price has fallen 91% in the last 18 months. By removing the bad companies (or items) out of the index, you can make the index look better over time then what it would be otherwise.

What we must do instead is measure items in terms of our purchasing power. Today, a lot more households have two breadwinners to try and pay off the mortgage and to meet expanding debt liabilities. A few decades ago, most households had one breadwinner to pay the mortgage and everything else. Back then there were no computers or plasma's, but people still bought houses, cars and food. Are we really any more prosperous today? Cars and restaurants might be fancier today, but they still serve the same purpose.

Inflation in the United States

Like Australia, the US has constantly reviewed and reweighed how it measures inflation. The following charts shows this quite clearly.

Chart 1: Real Money Supply Growth in the US
According to shadowstats.com,m3 money supply growth in the US grew by 17% in 2007. Remember from my previous post, the US stopped publishing M3 money supply in March 2006. This is the fastest rate of money supply growth the US has seen ever. This new money (including the $700bn if approved by Congress) has to find a home in prices somewhere...

Chart 2: Real Inflation in the US
According to shadowstats.com, if the US did not keep diluting its CPI measures, real inflation in the United States today would be around 14% per annum (blue line), vs what the government tells us (red line).

Chart 3:
CPI today compared to pre-Clinton administration.
So the pre-clinton CPI would be about half-way between the red and blue lines in Chart 2. Obviously Government is keen to dilute the facts more and more often (as the news gets worse).

Extreme Price Movements

There are 2 main types of extreme price movements and economy can experience.

1) Deflation

Deflation is the opposite to inflation. It is when there is a contraction in money supply (a decrease in prices of goods and services). Money is becomes illiquid and does not flow.

2) Hyperinflation

Hyperinflation is extreme inflation of prices. It is when prices are increasing by 1000% or more per annum. Think of what's happening in Zimbabwe today. It's money supply is currently doubling in price every 28 days. So if your home is worth $5 million today, it will be worth $10 million in a month's time. You will not be any more wealthy, just the opposite. Purchasing power erodes rapidly during hyperinflation. Wage increases wouldn't be negotiated yearly; they would be negotiated fortnightly or weekly under hyperinflation – just to keep pass with increases in the cost of living.

Old and new words

For the last few decades the media has largely used terms such as inflation and recession. ie. mild hike in prices, and mild economic downturns. These words will be replaced in coming years by hyperinflation and depression. We are heading for "extreme" inflation and a "great" depression (GD2?). Governments, the media, and the people will have to change their context and get with the times...

The next Great Depression will be characterised by hyperinflation

The last Great Depression of the 1930s was a deflationary one, characterised by prices collapsing. The next Great Depression will likely be more along the lines of what is happening in Zimbabwe today, or in Weimer Germany in the early 1920s. The 1930s Great Depression was deflationary because the gold standard invoked monetary discipline, whereas today, the limitless printing of money will create hyper-inflationary pressures on prices. Both deflation and hyperinflation cripple purchasing power, employment and the normal functions of an economy.

For some great to-the-point commentary on the current economic environment in the US and where we are heading, I strongly recommend reading John Williams (of Shadowstats.com) Hyperinflation report (of April 2008).

Williams states that "what promises hyperinflation this time is the lack of monetary dicipine formerly imposed on the system by the gold standard, and a Federal Reserve dedicated to preventing a collapse of the money supply and the implosion of the still, extremely over-leveraged domestic financial system."

Williams believes the US will experience hyperinflation as early as 2010, if not before, and likely no more than a decade down the road from today. The US can no longer turn around and avoid financial Armageddon. As I've previously stated, the US and the world can only print money to meet existing debts and future obligations. The US Dollar will eventually collapse and be worth its true value – nothing. The same result will happen to the Australian Dollar, the Euro etc. All currencies today are paper money or fiat. It is no longer backed by an asset of value, namely gold. It is backed by our confidence in government. Throughout history all fiat currencies have collapsed.

Interestingly for many, Williams also details that the next US President is highly likely to be a Democrat (Obama) based on a simple economic calculation. "In every Presidential race since 1908, in which constant, real (inflation-adjusted) annual disposable income growth was above 3.3%, the incumbent party holding the White House won every time." Below 3.3% growth, the incumbent party would lost every time. "(today) the current annual growth in real disposable incomes is at 2.2%". ie. a victory for the Democrats.

I will repeat again, regardless of whether it will be Obama or McCain, both candidates will follow the Federal Reserve and print, print, print its ways towards hyperinflation and the US Dollar will eventually collapse. Neither candidate is looking at the root causes of sub-prime, the collapse of the investment banking model, the collapse of the US Dollar. The root cause is Government! It is Government which severed all ties to the linking currency with Gold in 1971. It is Government which created the Federal Reserve in 1913 (a market manipulator). It is Government which has encouraged business and individuals to use Keynesian economics – the system which encourages: inflation, debt and the devaluation of the currency. The world will head to a great depression and remain in a great depression until a leader is elected that recognises these facts! Ron Paul was the only Presidential Candidate this time that understoodd the flaws to the current monetary system, however he was not popular today because the masses want free money thrown at them to fix the system. Printing money will not be sustainble to meet medicare obligations, social security payments etc. You have to keep adding more wood to the fire to keep it going.

The Great Depression will end when currency is linked back to gold (real money).

The world got out of the last Great Depression in 1944 due to the creation of the Bretton Woods system, not because of World War II as most historians recite. After WWII, the world had no workable monetary system. The system had to be re-drawn because the United States had accumulated a bulk of the world’s gold and silver during the war from other countries which took loans from the US. (The US Government had about 6 billion ounces of silver – today it has none!). In a nut shell, the monetary system created at Bretton Woods (in the US) linked currency back to the gold. The US Dollar became the world currency, and would be redeemable to gold at US$35 per/ounce. The system ultimately collapsed in 1971, because France started cashing in its US Dollars for gold. Other countries started to follow, and the US lost over half its post-WWII gold reserves. Bretton Woods was far from a true gold standard; it was a quasi-gold standard and was fundamentally flawed. Gold is finite.

It all comes down to economic accountability. The United States, Australia and the world has been using an economically irresponsible monetary system. Throughout the last century, the strings have gradually been released, moving the system from gold (economic discipline) to all-out "government backed" fiat currency. If an individual does not pay off their credit card, the bank with eventually cut it up in front of you. Central Banks around the world are on the verge of cutting up the US Dollar in front of the US Government, and consequently all world fiat currencies. The fiat system only works because of confidence in government. This confidence will collapse due to the forthcoming hyperinflation great-depression. Paper money won't be worth the paper it is printed on.

Best,
Scott