Cheap finance plus rising property values is going to attract capital. It’s as inevitable as anything in human affairs can be. Consider one of the big bogeys put out by the housing bears in 2020. No immigration anymore! Not so fast. The world is adjusting to the ‘new normal’ faster than anyone thought possible. A report just out says migrants will be back in reasonable numbers by next year. And hello…let’s not forget the state governments running huge deficits to splash out on infrastructure. Population growth. Tick. Credit growth. Tick. Infrastructure spending. Tick. What else do you need to see? The other nice component of housing is that it’s naturally a ‘hard’ asset, like gold. That’s what you want to own in an era marked by currency debasement. Governments and central banks can create credit as much as they like. They can’t build houses or pour gold bars with the same effortless stroke of a keyboard. Considering they do so much of the former, it’s a no-brainer to hold the latter. How else do you make sense of your capital allocation strategy? Jim Rickards has plenty of ideas. He has so many, in fact, he had to write a book to contain them all. As a reader of the Daily Reckoning, you have access to it earlier than anyone else in Australia. No kidding, we brokered a special deal for Jim’s latest book from his publisher. It’s possible, if you’re new to the DR, you don’t know Jim’s name. He burst onto the international financial scene in 2011 with his prescient book Currency Wars. Ever since, Jim has been analysing global trends and undercurrents with his unique analytical framework. For example, he called ‘Brexit’ when mainstream economics thought the idea was preposterous. Jim was saying to buy gold in 2015 when an esteemed Wall Street Journal commentator called it a ‘pet rock’. What’s Jim’s forecast now? We’ll have more on that in the next few days… He gives you his outlook for all asset classes. Jim’s a 30-year veteran of Wall Street. Here’s what I like about Jim: Unlike so many Americans, he’s aware there are actually other countries in the world. He was, before COVID, an avid traveller, including to Australia. That means Jim’s not some armchair observer blathering on about Australia without knowing anything about it. I’ve sat with him in our office. Last time I saw him he was presenting to Aussie fund managers. Jim’s book is coming out at an important time for another reason. Last week I mentioned that Aussie gold stocks are still off the boil since they peaked in July/August last year. They are beginning to look like huge bargains. There are two elements, both variable, that dictate where gold stocks go from here. One is the US gold price. The second is the Aussie dollar. Jim’s an expert on gold and he literally wrote the book on currencies. If you’re wondering, like me, whether to scoop up gold shares in a big way, stick around as we reveal more over the next few days. Best wishes, Callum Newman,
Editor, The Daily Reckoning Australia | 
