Category Archives: Paul Volcker

Gold Will Not Be Available At Any Price

In one of my previous blogs, I stated that gold does not need the dollar or any other currency, but the dollar needs gold to be the Reserve Currency or Official Currency of the World. Without the connection to gold, a Fiat Currency is a useless piece of paper that is imposed on the people by legal tender law. No other currency can be used in the US except the Dollar. The Bretton-Woods Agreement made the Dollar the official currency of the world with the convertibility of the dollar into gold at 35 dollars an ounce. All trade in the world was conducted in dollars. The US became Master of the World.

In 1950, the US had twenty thousand tons of gold and the rest of the world had very little. The gold reserves of the USSR were secret, but Western Intelligence analysts concluded that they were significant. By 1968, the run on the gold was significant, and in 1971 President Nixon defaulted on the US gold obligation of 35 dollars for an ounce of gold. Very significant events took place after the US defaulted. The War of October 1973 started between the state of Israel and the Arabs, which Israel would have lost without US help. In 1973, OPEC, the Organization of the Oil Exporting Countries, was formed with the help of the US. The US was the godfather of the OPEC, and OPEC promised that the dollar would be its’ official currency. The price of oil was encouraged to rise many, many fold. Third World countries went into massive dollar debt buying needed oil. Inflation ensued, followed by high interest rates imposed by Paul Volcker, the Federal Reserve Chairman.

So far so good. The US economy boomed due to the growth of debt. The Crash of 1987 did not matter. In 1989, Communism disappeared, the USSR collapsed, and Japan, the economic power house, went into irreversible decline, which continues to this day. The 1990’s were characterized by the plunder of the Russian Federation under the leadership of Yeltsin. In 1998 occurred the Russian default. The Stock Market boomed, not because of the NASDAQ dot com bubble, but because of the plunder of the Russian Federation by the West with the help of the Russian-Jewish mafia. Vladimir Putin is appointed Premier of Russia by President Yeltsin and the US stock market took a plunge, because the plunder of Russia was about to end.

The economy was on the skids, so  September 11, 2001, happened, but we do not know for sure who is really responsible, but it was good enough reason to declare the War on Terror to revive the economy. Osama bin Laden and his people were blamed. Osama was in Afghanistan, so Afghanistan was bombed and invaded. The Afghani War continues to this day with no end in sight. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the opium trade boomed as production rose from 96 tons annually under the Taliban to over 6000 tons presently and that is more than a several trillion dollar business, the biggest business in the world denominated in US dollars and controlled by the US. (The US dollar is not only the Petro-Dollar but also the Narco-Dollar.) In 2003, Iraq was invaded and Saddam Hussein hanged, not because of weapons of mass destruction but because Saddam refused to sell Iraq oil for dollars. The war in Iraq still continues; the War on Terror keeps the Western Economy alive.

In 2008, due to subprime mortgages and too much debt, the Stock Market and financial markets everywhere faced serious collapse. Under the leadership of Hank Paulsen, the US Treasury Secretary, the system was propped up. By 2011, gold went up to over 1900 dollars, and silver went up to near fifty dollars. After the economic debacle of 2008, the US and the World has been enduring negative energy flow. There is no real economic growth in the US, but statistically there is a concocted growth. Europe is just as bad, if not much worse, and Japan is dying. China is in a precarious situation as well. Third World countries are in depression or even super depression. Eastern Europe is similar. Russia is suffering, but is self sustaining, with very little debt and is the cleanest shirt in the laundry…

Non Western Central Banks are buying and hoarding gold by the tons. Some Western countries are repatriating their gold. People all over the world are buying physical gold and silver. People who buy physical precious metals do not sell them unless forced by circumstances. OPEC is in disarray, many members are selling their oil for other currencies such as the Euro and the Yuan. The dollar is still important but no longer absolute. The world is de-dollarizing. A point will be reached when there will be a panic for buying of gold and no gold will be available. Gold trading will be closed and gold will not be available at any price. The well being of countries such as the US will be changed for ever. Only time will tell.

 

 

Quo Vadis Gold?

Gold is a symbol of power and truth, and yet it is suppressed. The reason gold is in jail is so that the dollar is  free to be the official currency of the world. It is not only essential that gold stay in jail, but that the dollar be convertible into gold at the lowest price possible. The Modus Operandi to keep gold suppressed is  called “paper shorting” of gold. Capping the price of gold has enabled the Federal Reserve to reduce interest rates to near zero and to indulge in quantitative easing to prop up stock markets, bond markets and the economy without endangering the supremacy  of the dollar.

To keep gold suppressed is very expensive and limiting. Let me explain. Physical gold must be available at whatever price the paper shorts of gold set through their daily trades for those individuals, organizations, or countries who want physical gold. The cheaper the paper gold, the cheaper will be the physical price. So, countries like China, India, Russia, Iran, and others are accumulating gold at an incredibly cheap price. Gold is leaving the West and going to the rest of the world. Gold must be available for the dollar to be convertible. The point will be reached when gold will not be available at any given price and the dollar will lose its convertibility into gold; financial panic will ensue

Before gold availability is finally exhausted, the US policy is to destroy the economies of the rest of the world. Russia was first in the line of fire because of the Ukraine. The US engineered the collapse of the price of oil and the value of the ruble. They tried sanctions and that didn’t work because Russia is only getting stronger. They tried to destroy China by collapsing their stock market and so far the results have been inconclusive. However, they have been quite successful in destroying the economies of the Third World. By increasing the buying power of the dollar, they have increased the debt burden of the Third World, hence collapsing the price of all their commodities. The Third World has less money to buy manufactured goods from China and Europe, so China and Europe in turn slow down, which further collapses commodities. So the whole game becomes a vicious circle to the down side. Most Third World countries are in a depression. But gold availability to support the dollar is reaching the exhaustion point. In order to maintain dollar dominance, interest rates have to be increased.

The Federal Reserve has no choice to do this in order to be able to defend the dollar in the future, irrespective of what interest rate increases will do to stock or bond markets. The high yield bond market is already collapsing because liquidity is drying up. The official story is that the FED wants to normalize interest rates but in reality they want to create “Volcker Momentum*” and increase the interest rates to as high as they can go. Gold will rise because it will no longer be available at these low prices to support the dollar. Gold will go as high as it will go. To support the dollar, the interest rates will rise to as high they will have to go. These will be events that have no parallel in human history. Only time will tell.

 

*= Volcker momentum is my expression. Paul Volcker was a Fed Chairman from 1979 to 1987. He increased the interest rates to near 20%, so he could reduce the inflation rate to below 5% after the US went off the gold standard in 1971 under President Nixon. My thesis is that to support the dollar to be convertible to gold, gold price in dollars must be suppressed. Gold must be kept in jail. However, this is very costly, because Gold is leaving the West and going to the rest, China, India, etc. Soon, there will be no physical Gold at such cheap prices. Presently, Gold and Silver are very cheap, so the US must increase the interest rates to protect the dollar in the future. Hence, “Volcker Momentum”

How much is the dollar really worth?

The dollar is a fiat currency. It is created out of thin air through debt. A person goes to the bank and wants to borrow 10,000 dollars and if the borrower meets the criteria of paying back the sum plus interest agreed on, the bank issues a cheque of 10,000 dollars or direct deposits the amount to his account. Money has been created out of nothing to enslave that person for 10,000 dollars which he must now pay back at a certain interest rate for a specific period of time. In other words, he sells his labour, his life force, to pay the debt. He is exploited, he is a slave. This is the essence of capitalism, and the fiat currency is an instrument of enslavement.

Initially, the dollar was a gold backed currency as were other world currencies. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, early in his presidency devalued gold from 20.67 dollars an ounce to 35 dollars an ounce. Also, he made it illegal for Americans to own gold, unless it was in a jewelry form of 18 karats or less. The Bretton-Woods Convention made the dollar the Reserve Currency of the World. The US would keep the gold and the rest of the world would keep the dollars. Other central banks could exchange dollars for gold at 35 dollars an ounce. Gold, however, would be stored in the US and some would be stored in London. This arrangement was propped up by fear that “the Communists” would take over if the gold was not stored in the US. Publicity  made Fort Knox, Kentucky, infamous as the storage place  for the world’s non-communist gold. General Charles de Gaulle, President of France, was not fooled. He realized it was the perfect scam. He had never trusted the Anglo-Americans. He knew how perfidious they were during the Second World War II. The Anglo-Americans hated him, and of course, he reciprocated. He withdrew France from N.A.T.O. and sent French warships to retrieve French gold from the US. Other European countries followed. A run on gold followed…

The gold drain from the US followed. President Nixon closed the Gold window. This closure was permanent, contrary to the President’s statement that  it was temporary. The US was running trade deficits and the Vietnam War was draining the country of its real wealth, gold. The dollar paper drainage was no big deal, because it was only paper. The Arab oil embargo saved the dollar and the US. The US told the oil producers to increase the price of oil but just have it denominated in dollars. The excess dollars of the world poured into US treasuries and helped finance government operation. The decade of 1970’s showcased growth throughout the world but with inflation. Gold was allowed to reach its equilibrium value of 850 dollars an ounce. Silver, taken out of circulation in 1965, went to 50 dollars an ounce in 1979-80. Interest rates were high because demand for money was high. Demand for real money, gold and silver, was high. But the dollar was losing value. In 1969, one could get four Swiss Francs for one dollar, but in 1979-80 period, the Swiss Franc was on parity with the dollar.

President Carter appointed Paul Volcker Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. The Prime Rate went to almost twenty percent. The price of precious metals collapsed and value of the dollar rose. Money from all over the world poured into the US. By 1992, the USSR and communism had disappeared in Europe. The end of history was proclaimed. The plunder of the ex-USSR and Eastern Europe, along with the rest of the world began with increasing tempo. A unipolar world of ten years duration was achieved. In Nature, when one extreme is reached, opposite forces start building momentum, and new forces started brewing on the horizon…

Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister of Russia in 2000, and the economic decay started in the first decade of the New Millennium in the West. It is now worsening and encompassing the entire world. The central player in all this has been the dollar. It has no intrinsic value like gold, land or water, but is the instrument of US power. The US wants to maintain that power come hell or high water, and in order to maintain it, debt in dollar terms has to grow. The IMF and World Bank, along with other private organizations, are working overtime to trap more and more countries into unsustainable debt and milk them for all they are worth. This is the MODUS OPERANDI of capitalism…

But opposing forces are rising, and the de-dollarization of the world has began. The World is trying to dis-infect itself from the dollar. Very interesting and dangerous times are approaching. But the US will not willingly give up its instrument of power. It is negotiating trade deals with Europe, South America, and South East Asia to insure the dollar to be the supreme currency. It is confronting China in the South China Sea, but at the same time, it is enticing  it to join the IMF arrangement of Special Drawing Right Currency. The US wants the China to row the dollar-SDR boat, and the US would steer it. Whether China falls for it or not remains to be seen. China, Russia, Brazil, Iran, and other countries that have backbone are trading amongst themselves in their own currencies. The river of history is flowing and it cannot be reversed.

How much is the dollar really worth? Nothing. It is merely an instrument of power, intimidation, and war, like aircraft carriers. And history will be unkind to both. Only time will tell.