From the Publisher's Desk
April 2009
"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect
savings from confiscation through inflation. Deficit spending
is simply a scheme for "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold
stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one
has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism
towards the gold standard."
- -Alan Greenspan, Gold and Economic Freedom (1968)
Is this where the dollar is continuing to head?
We have reprinted the below from a financial newsletter with thanks.
Where is the US dollar headed?
The world economic debacle affects privacy seekers and everyone
worldwide.
Stock markets continue to fall globally, breaking below their November
lows. This isn't a good sign. The contractions seen worldwide in
industrial production, capacity utilization, new orders, exports and
wealth have been unprecedented since World War II and possibly since
the Great Depression.
Our lead article at the beginning on this issue, i.e. "US backing
for world currency stuns markets" is a shocking revelation about
the, apparently, soon to fall of the US dollar dominance.
Some of the people normally looked to for guidance seem to have lost
their way too. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has just posted
its fifth straight profit drop. Fourth quarter net income fell 96
pct.
The Chinese economy which is imploding in front of our eyes. The
other major emerging market India is not doing much better. We do not
usually hear as much about the economic situation in India as we do
about China, so we have taken a closer look. As you can imagine, it
is not a pretty picture.
Exports in India have fallen dramatically since October 2008. In
December, exports were negative by 1.1 percent against a record high
of 16 percent in previous years. Imports were also impacted by the
financial crisis. They rose by 8.8 percent in December in contrast to
18 percent in the same month the year before. If we look at the
consumption of electricity as an indicator of the general economy,
consumption fell 13 percent in November 2008, which was almost as bad
as China. Despite the weaker economy, consumer prices continued to
rise towards the end of the year 2008.
We believe it's safe to conclude that the economy in India is
imploding just as the Chinese economy is. The Bombay Sensex index and
the Indian rupee are hitting all-time lows against the USD which
further supports this conclusion
It's our view that not only investors, but everyone should own
physical gold and silver to some degree. We only have one concern
regarding owning physical gold. If things one day become very bad,
governments may consider expropriating your gold holdings, not only
paper but also physical gold. Don't believe for a second that this
will never be the case.The US did it in 1933, and it might happen
again, especially if gold starts to fly.
As Voltaire once said "It is dangerous to be right when the government
is wrong."
See you next issue
Shamrock
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."
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