Tag Archives: gold standard

What if you could carry and exchange gold in the exact same manner as you do with the dollar bills in your wallet?

Last year, we introduced the precious metals community to a company called Valaurum, which has developed a technology that's making this possible.

This week, we check in to see what's new (spoiler alert: Lots), as well as announce the availability of the new 2015 Peak Prosperity aurum note.

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• Can It Get Any Better Than This?
• Did China Just Fire The First Salvo Towards A New Gold Standard?
• E Pluribus, Gen X
• The Pay Is Too Damn Low
• Health Care Law Raises Pressure on Public Unions
• Taken
• The Renewable Energy Boom that Never Happened
• On R Train, Unwelcome Reminder of Storm’s Impact

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Exactly 40 years ago today, on August 15^th 1971, the US dollar was released from the cruel tethers of an international gold standard. Today, we find notable monetary authorities seeking its return.

In the middle of a lengthy ~2,500 word speech in which Nixon sought to stabilize prices by implementing price controls and stabilize foreign trade by imposing tariffs, he slipped in these 100 words that sought to stabilize the dollar by going off the gold standard:

In recent weeks, the speculators have been waging an all-out war on the American dollar. The strength of a nation’s currency is based on the strength of that nation’s economy – and the American economy is by far the strongest in the world. Accordingly, I have directed the Secretary of the Treasury to take the action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators.

I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the American dollar except in amounts and conditions determined to be in the interest of monetary stability and in the best interests of the United States.

It turns out that such intervention was actually counterproductive to the stated aims, so we are tempted to suspect that a different set of aims was met instead. 

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This report lays out an investment thesis for gold and one for silver.  Various factors lead me to conclude that gold is one investment that you can park for the next ten or twenty years, confident that it will perform well. My timing and logic for both entering and finally exiting gold (and silver) as investments are laid out in the full report.

The punch line is this: Gold and silver are not (yet) in bubble territory, and large gains remain, especially if monetary, fiscal, and fundamental supply-and-demand trends remain in play.

Introduction

In 2001, as the painful end of the long stock bull market finally seeped into my consciousness, I began to grow quite concerned about my traditional stock and bond holdings. Other than a house with 27 years left on a 30 year mortgage, these holdings represented 100% of my investing portfolio. So I dug into the economic data to see what I could discover. What I found shocked me. It's all in the Crash Course in both video and book form, so I won't go into that data here.

By 2002, I had investigated enough about our monetary, economic, and political systems that I decided that holding gold and silver would be a very good idea, poured 50% of my liquid net worth into precious metals, and sat back and watched.

Since then, my appreciation for and understanding of the role of gold as a monetary asset and silver as an indispensable industrial metal have deepened considerably.

Investing in gold and silver is still a good idea. Here's why.

Why own gold and silver?

The reasons to hold gold and silver, and I mean physical gold and silver, are pretty straightforward. So let’s begin with the primary reasons to own gold.

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“Straight Talk” features thinking from notable minds who you, the ChrisMartenson.com audience, have indicated that you want to learn more about.  Readers submit the questions they want addressed and our guests take their best crack at answering. The comments and opinions expressed by our guests are their own.

This week’s Straight Talk contributor is G. Edward Griffin — political lecturer, film producer, and author.  In his best-known book, The Creature from Jekyll Island, Griffin details how money is created and exposes the anything-but-boring history of how the Federal Reserve came into being. The book provides one of the best explanations of how our monetary system works, as well as a prescient foreshadowing of the Fed’s bailout of the financial system at taxpayer expense.  

1. Practically everything that you outlined in your book The Creature From Jekyll Island has come to pass.  Bailouts, increased centralization of power, all of it.  Now what happens?  We are having a hard time envisioning the current debt-based fiat money system surviving for much longer (let alone forever).  If not fiat money, then what?   What are the next moves for those who might wish to see the continuation of their extremely lucrative franchise?

GEG:   What happens next also is portrayed in my book, and it isn’t pretty.

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• Germany Attacks US Economic Policy
• World Bank Chief Sparks Gold Standard Debate
• Irish Debt Woes Revive Concern About Europe
• Number of the Week: $10.2 Trillion in Global Borrowing
• China Newspaper Warns of Disaster Over Fed Move
• The New Malaise and How to End It
• Even Greenspan Admits that Moral Hazard and Fraud are the Main Problems
• Shining Light on the Cost of Solar Energy

Own the Crash Course Special Edition Set with Presenter’s Pack (NTSC or PAL)

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