Tuesday, 21 May 2024

By Brian Chu Editor, Gold Stock Pro and The Australian Gold Report

[8 min read]

Dear Reader,

Just over two years ago, my family packed our belongings and drove down the M31 (Hume Freeway), heading to the Southern Highlands.

It was a summery early February afternoon when we arrived in our new home. The temperature was in the high 20 degrees.

The removalists arrived an hour after we did and unpacked our goods.

I could remember they worked up a sweat, moving boxes and furniture off the truck and into the house.

When they finished, it was 5:30 p.m. A cool breeze had set in, and the mercury quickly fell below 20 degrees.

At night, we could feel the chill gradually set in inside our new home.

This was late summer in the Highlands — balmy during the day, crisp and cool after sundown.

For several months, we acclimatised ourselves (slowly). We also took time to get a feel of the surroundings and get to know the people.

One of my readers, David, wrote me a note to tell me he lived in a neighbouring suburb. He helped me ease into my new surroundings and was warm in his welcoming. We exchanged emails and decided to meet up face to face in May 2022.

We’ve been friends over these two years.

A Persian relic linked to my son

David and I share a common passion for precious metals.

Though David’s particular love is in numismatics and coin collection, which I haven’t yet picked up. He happens to be a long-serving senior figure in an Australian numismatics club.

David showed me some Persian relics, which were fascinating.

As an aside, my son’s name is Cyrus. My wife, Cindy, chose that name because we wanted to name him from a character in the Bible, but a name that was less common.

For those who are familiar, King Cyrus the Great was the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. He was also credited with allowing the Israelites to return to their home in Jerusalem, a city that the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar sacked some 50 years before. The Bible prophesied this would happen in the Book of Isaiah, even naming him before he was born!

One of King Cyrus’s conquests was the Kingdom of Lydia, famous for its gold mines and the minted coins. Lydia may not have been the first kingdom to use gold as money, but it was certainly the most famous.

After conquering Lydia, the Persians adopted the idea of coinage. King Cyrus’ son, King Darius I, took upon this task on a grand scale. The kingdom minted gold darics and silver sigloi.

Sadly, not many remain today. The Greek Emperor, Alexander the Great, ordered the Persian coins melted and recast into his own when he conquered the Persian Kingdom some two centuries later.

You can imagine how valuable the remaining darics are today.

Over two decades ago, David came across these Persian coins and bought them. When we met, he brought the darics and sigloi to show me.

Here’s what they look like:

A money whose tale is as old as time

Besides the rarity and value these darics and sigloi hold today, I marvelled at their age and the stories within.

These coins are artefacts from over 2,500 years ago!

How many generations have come and gone during this time?

Even those empires have come and gone, as have those who conquered them. Their past is now in ruins, consigned to the history books.

Yet these darics and sigloi haven’t changed.

They were money back then, is now and will be in the future. That won’t change.

Our financial system at the crossroads

We live in a pivotal moment of history in that the petrodollar system is at a crossroads.

It’s not a question of whether the system is changing; it’s a question of what it will become.

One thing is clear: inflation has spiralled out of control, thanks to an extended period of unbridled borrowing and spending.

Even as our government agencies publish data to convince us, in vain, that inflation is mild, our own lived experience tell us otherwise.

The system thrives on debt, currency creation and spending. Like running on a treadmill that keeps accelerating, the runner eventually is out of breath and collapses dead.

Those at the top in governments, financial institutions, international think tanks, and corporations know this is unsustainable. To keep the music going, they utter sweet words backed by fallacious data.

But a growing crowd stands in their way, calling out their deceit. This crowd includes those who learnt from history, and those who stirred from their slumber after enduring the pain of the silent robbery we call inflation.

All this is happening as gold continues its meteoric run towards US$2,500 an ounce:

And silver hitting levels not seen since 2012:

As currencies worldwide lose purchasing power due to inflation, life as we know could change.

Will it happen gently, with an orderly transition from the current system into a new one?

Or abruptly and violently, like what we saw last century with world wars and international conflict?

Move before the crowd rushes in

Studying the past can be beneficial.

It might not repeat itself, but patterns can help you anticipate what could happen next.

If possible, it’s better to learn from the errors of others than to suffer one’s own pain and loss.

The indicators point to a major change, and history has proven the resilience of gold and silver.

Something that has survived for so long, has the odds stacked in its favour.

Last week I appeared on Kerry Stevenson’s Making Money Matter to talk about how it’s time to make gold great again.

In there, I outline the dire straits that many Australian households face due to rising living costs and the unaffordability of housing.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. There’s a community of precious metals enthusiasts here who have taken back their financial security.

I invite you to watch the video here:

Moreover, Kerry is hosting in late-August the 2024 Australian Gold Conference.

On Monday night the 26th of August, there’ll be a free event, Eureka 2024, aimed at helping Australians learn about how to build their wealth with gold.

She has also generously provided a special discount on tickets to the conference. It’s available to you if you are a member of my precious metals newsletters, The Australian Gold Report or Gold Stock Pro.

Why not sign up for The Australian Gold Report now? You’ll learn about how to build a precious metals portfolio to protect you against the risks associated with the transition of our financial system.

The crowd will soon get wind that the growing momentum in gold and silver’s rally spells trouble. You want to benefit from the crowd clamouring on board rather than enrich the early movers by running with the crowd.

It’s time to act NOW!

God bless,

Brian Chu,
Editor, Gold Stock Pro and The Australian Gold Report

Brian Chu is one of Australia’s foremost independent authorities on gold and gold stocks, with a unique strategy for valuing big producers and highly speculative explorers. He established a private family fund that only invests in ASX-listed gold mining companies, possibly the only such fund in Australia, putting his strategy and research skills to the test under public scrutiny. He currently writes two gold-focused investment advisories.

In his Australian Gold Report, Brian shows you a strategy for building long-term wealth in physical gold, along with a select portfolio of hand-picked stocks, mainly producers with proven revenue streams, chosen for their balance of risk and reward.

In his more specialised Gold Stock Pro service, Brian helps readers trade some of the most exciting, speculative gold mining plays on the ASX. He uses his proprietary system — based on the famous Lassonde Curve model, which tracks the life cycle of mining stocks. His aim is to help you get ready to trade the next phase of gold and silver’s anticipated longer-term bull market for opportunities to benefit.

By Bill Bonner Editor, Fat Tail Daily

[3 min read]

Dear Reader,

‘There was a young man from the city 

‘Who saw what he thought was a kitty 

‘He bent down to pet it 

‘And boy did he get it 

‘They buried his clothes without pity’ 

Our major questions for this week: 

How come ‘the West,’ with a 30-to-1 advantage over Russians... can’t win the war? 

And how come the richest, most dynamic, most virtuous and most honourable economy the world has ever seen — yes, we are talking about the USA — still can’t keep current with its bills? How come it passes them along — $35 trillion worth, so far — to its children and grandchildren? 

And how come the economy — the greatest ever, or so everyone says — can produce ‘full employment’... and still not give workers a raise in half a century? How come it is more expensive for them today... in terms of their own working hours... to buy a house or a car today than it was 50 years ago?  

In short, the US economy may have a white stripe running down its back.   

Houses and cars are the bedrock ‘assets’ of America’s middle class. Most people get them by exchanging their time (wages) for them. Logically, as it takes more and more time to buy them, people have less time left over. They are poorer in what matters most – time. 

Of course, houses and cars are supposed to be higher quality than they were in the 1970s. Some economists believe that these ‘hedonic’ improvements justify the higher prices.  

But if they are better, it is because of technological advances. An auto, for example, has more electronic components than it used to. It is said to be safer, faster and more economical.  

Why are things more expensive?

Of course, the factories became more advanced too. Competition always drives producers to make things better…and cheaper. Parts became better made and more easily assembled. Many functions that used to require manual labour are now done robotically. 

So, the technology that made autos better should have made them cheaper, too, not more expensive. 

Likewise, we are told that houses are bigger and better than ever. They are more expensive, supposedly, because they are worth more. But just the opposite may be true. New houses are often made of flimsy composite materials that are easy to work with, but lack the beauty and solidity of genuine heartwood of oak or pine.  Besides, even houses built in 1970 or before are still expensive — and often more expensive than those of more recent vintage. 

So how come the average person has to work twice as long just for a roof over his head and a set of wheels? Is it because ‘the system’ has been corrupted? It now delivers public policies that serve specific groups of people — normally, those with a good lobbying team in Washington and a lot of money to spread around the Capitol — at the expense of the public. 

In past episodes of this journal, we’ve seen that sometimes GDP has little to do with real wealth. The clearest illustrations for this were provided by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In the latter, ordinary working people got poorer — by design. The economy was organised and controlled by the elite. Industries were told what to produce and how much they could charge for it.  

The Soviet system produced a lot of products, but few that people actually wanted. And yet, as recently as the 1980s, there were still economists in ‘the West’ who were impressed by the numbers alone. 

Paul Samuelson, for example, ‘wrote the book’ on economics that was widely used as a textbook throughout the US. His Economics: An Introductory Analysis told students that the Soviet Union had achieved ‘rapid growth’ and industrialisation thanks to its central planning. 

He wasn’t completely wrong. The GDP numbers showed the Soviet Union bursting with ‘growth.’ But counting the number of Lutherans in the Gestapo…or the bars of soap in a POW camp probably didn’t tell you much.      

In the Soviet Union the soap left such a sickly smell everybody stank of it. But since the central planners disdained competition and consumer choice, everyone had to use it. Visitors reported that in a matter of days after the Berlin Wall fell, the smell disappeared. 

The GDP numbers misled economists. 

You can’t eat fighter planes

The Nazi economy was, like the US, a ‘capitalist’ economy with pervasive government influence. And what the Nazis guided the economy toward was war. At first, the numbers looked good. Orders for tanks and planes and uniforms kept factories busy. GDP went up.

Foreign observers reported that ‘Hitler made the trains run on time’; they said they had never seen so much energy. At one point, unemployment dipped deep below zero (if that were possible). With so many men in uniform, Germany ran out of workers. So, the Nazi central planners brought in slave labour from the conquered countries. 

Again, the GDP numbers told a tall tale. People couldn’t eat Messerschmitt fighter planes. And with so much labour and capital invested in the firepower industry, there was little left for things that really mattered. Food, for example. At one point, the government’s own health officials warned that German women were not getting enough to eat and may be unable to bear children.  

The economy ran hot; people got poorer. 

So, what is happening in the US? GDP figures tell us the economy is working well. Unemployment is near record lows. And the stock market is at record highs. 

But there is something stinky about it. What is really going on? If an economy doesn’t make ordinary people better off... what is the point of it?  

More to come...  

Regards,

Bill Bonner,
For Fat Tail Daily