Deutsche Bank has become the latest “too big to fail” bank that is in trouble. First it was Italian banks led by Monte Paschi. As you read in our email a few weeks ago, Italian banks are up to their ears in bad debt on their books.

The London based Financial Times broke the story that bad loans in Italy represent 18% of all loans on the Italian banks’ books. The worst of these is Monte Paschi, the oldest Italian lender and third largest bank in Italy. It is in the middle of a “recapitalization effort” to sell off upwards of 28 billion euros in troubled non performing loans with the help of an Italian government guarantee.

Next Wells Fargo shocked the banking world when the respected, historical American institution (that also happens to be one of the five largest in the U.S.) acknowledged that it had opened over 2 million different unauthorized checking, savings, and credit card accounts to meet sales targets and goals. Fully 5,300 Wells Fargo employees were fired for the practices, and the bank got off light with $185 million in fines. This is chump change compared to the $2 billion class action lawsuit filed on behalf of current and former employees who were fired or demoted for not engaging in such deceitful and unethical banking practices.

Enter the latest major problem bank, Germany’s largest financial institution Deutsche Bank. The bank’s headlines over the last week ranged from an eyebrow raising “Deutsche Bank Denies that CEO John Cryan Has Asked Merkel for Support” to one reminiscent of the 2008 Financial Crisis with “Deutsche Bank Can Only Be Saved by the German Government.” This time a bank has run afoul of the U.S. Justice Department (as with Britain’s HSBC and France’s Societe Generale a few years ago).

The Justice Department has accused Deutsche Bank of underhanded and unethical tactics in its efforts to sell the famously doomed mortgage backed securities leading up to the 2008 financial crash. The U.S. government is recommending an incredible $14 billion fine for these practices. This amount is so large that the German government may be forced to pay the fine for its largest home based bank.

It seems that the entire market cap of the largest German bank by assets has dropped over 50% in 2016 alone. It is now down to a paltry $16 billion. Obviously, this means the bank can not come up with the cash to front a $14 billion fine, or even one anywhere near this enormous amount. German analysts such as Stefan Müller of the Frankfurt based DGWA research firm claim that only a timely and “substantial intervention” from the German government will save the bank from a complete collapse.

You may wonder why the problems with litigation, fines, and lack of profitability of a bank in Europe should concern you personally. These major banks are all interconnected to each other by derivatives exposure to one another’s debt. If Deutsche Bank were to collapse, this would create major uncertainty and unknown amounts of counter party losses at the likes of such major institutions as Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs. The pain of the last financial crisis should still be fresh enough in your mind to remember what happened after investment bank Lehman Brothers suddenly collapsed.

A bigger concern surrounds how large a bailout might be needed from the German government to contain the crisis. International Managing Partner Paul Gambles of MBMG believes the exposure could be larger than the resources of the entire German government. “If Deutsche Bank goes, it would take the German economy, the euro zone banking system, the euro zone economy, the Chinese banking system and the global economy with it,” he stated.

You can protect yourself by keeping a portion of your savings in gold. Gold has no counter party risk and is not an institution that can fail on you. Get started by requesting your free information kit from Regal Assets today.

Gold Investment is the alternative currency that can safeguard you from these types of events. Putting a portion of your savings into this precious metal will help protect you. Download your free self directed IRA rollover gold IRA information kit today.

It hadn’t happened before, at least not since US presidents started visiting foreign countries after the Second World War.

In early September, when President Obama landed at Hangzhoi for the G-20 summit in early September, the CIA security men were told in no uncertain terms by the Chinese that they were not in charge of landing arrangements, and that the President would disembark by the rear exit. It had the hallmarks of a calculated snub, as did the obligatory photograph of the world’s leaders, where the President was placed firmly on the far left, and not near the centre, which is customary.

Barak Obama suffered a further indignity, when ahead of his visit to Laos the following week, the new Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte, referred to him as “a son of a whore”. The official meeting between the two was cancelled, though they did meet privately. So not only are ordinary Americans showing signs of rebelling against the status quo at home, but foreigners, some of them very important, are as well.

What follows is an assessment of today’s geopolitical situation, based on a mixture of obtainable facts, background information, informed opinions, and reasoned deduction. Guesswork, eliminated as much as possible, is inevitably involved, particularly in assessing outcomes. The conclusions are not something anyone in the deep states of America and elsewhere will admit to or endorse, which paradoxically gives this article its importance.

This article assesses the failing American empire and the current state of the global power-play between China and Russia on one side, and America on the other. It summarises the importance of gold which is central to China’s financial strategy, and concludes that America is likely to be an accumulator of bullion, for strategic if not monetary reasons. It also looks at the challenges the top three major currencies will face next year, in the context of geopolitical developments to date.

Decline and fall

All empires eventually decline and usually their fiat currencies fall with them, which is what westerners are seeing today. In modern times, it has happened to the British, and now it is happening to the Americans. And when the decline starts, it proves impossible to stop. Either you accept it and retreat gracefully, as the British did giving up her colonies under Macmillan, or you fight it. The Americans are fighting it, which means the decline will be increasingly messy and dangerous. At the centre, directing strategy, is America’s deep state, the senior officials mostly in the intelligence services, who guide the President on security matters. They are obsessed with impeding by fair means or foul the foreign forces that in their paranoia they believe oppose them.

Every significant country has its own deep state. Presidents and prime ministers are not omniscient and need the guidance of experts in both domestic and international affairs. Naturally, this is why intelligence services are central to government, because they provide and present the most important information concerning risks to the state. It is these people who can wield the ultimate power behind elected politicians when it comes to external relations and domestic security, by managing information and influencing their decisions.

External relations are effectively under the control of the CIA in America, and MI6 in the UK. The world saw how dangerous these intelligence services can become when they fabricated intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Make no mistake, these two intelligence services took it upon themselves to take us to war. It was clearly intended to pave the way for Saddam’s removal, and led to an appalling civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, as these religious factions sought supremacy in the power vacuum left by Saddam’s overthrow. Tony Blair was discredited, and is reviled by his former supporters. George W Bush was marginally luckier, only because America did not have a damaging Chilcot inquiry.

Then there was Libya, where Hillary Clinton took much of the rap, which could lose her the cherished presidency. The Arab Spring revolt, which started in Tunisia and was encouraged by developments in Libya, spread to Egypt and from there to much of the Arab world, including Syria. In Syria, formally a thriving, peaceful country tolerant of all religions, the CIA stirred up trouble, with the intention of overthrowing President Assad, whose crime was to be loyal to Russia. The lack of any foresight by the Americans has led to a refugee crisis that threatens to destabilise Europe, and was a major factor in the British referendum vote for Brexit. There is also Ukraine, and before that Georgia-Ossetia.

One could go on, listing the CIA’s failures and pyrrhic victories, which are all well documented if you are prepared to dig for the information. With hindsight, we can date the peak of American power to the second invasion of Iraq thirteen years ago. It has been gently downhill ever since, driven by the groupthink in the deep state that advises the President, rather than by China and Russia becoming a threat to the security of the west, as many might suppose.

The mistakes have been all America’s, assisted by her NATO handmaidens, and will continue to be so, and that was the point behind China’s snub at the G-20 meeting, and why a maverick politician in the Philippines can insult the greatest leader on earth and get away with it. It was a public signal that the new kids on the block, China Russia and the emerging economies in the Pacific, are fully aware that the world’s dominatrix is now an aging has-been, unable to crack her whip like she used to. Their own deep states probably saw this coming some time ago, and have played their cards defensibly, rarely being wrong-footed. They understand the dangers created by the power vacuum left on the world stage, and are responding not by seeking America’s dying role for themselves, but by securing their homelands, which in the case of China and Russia is most of the Eurasian continent.

Global power in 2017

In the thirteen years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, China in partnership with Russia has evolved the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) from its roots as an intelligence-based anti-terrorist committee into a fully-fledged forum for economic cooperation. Importantly, China had the prescience to acquire as much gold as she could, having appointed the Peoples Bank for that function thirty-three years ago in 1983 (more on this below).

China has shown up the extent of America’s decline, by rising to become the world’s largest supplier of goods and user of commodities, purely based on providing the world with the goods it wants. In the last eighteen months she has laid much of the groundwork for her own financial security. With Russia, she has led the establishment of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which will be the financing channel for the future infrastructure development and industrialisation of all Asia.

China is modernising her own territory and expanding the middle class, which will soon be larger than the entire population of the United States. Her citizens, who are strong savers, are accumulating wealth, while westerners are seeing theirs destroyed. Additionally, China plans an industrial revolution encompassing the whole of Asia, starting with land and sea Silk Roads. What took Britain two hundred years for the Asian backwaters she plans to complete in a series of five-year plans. The demand generated for copper, cement, steel and energy will be massive and prolonged, which is why China is keen to deal directly with resource-rich suppliers. China plans to finance this incredible project using any money but dollars. So it is hardly surprising that some of America’s most dependable allies were quick to sign up to the AIIB as partners, because very big money talks very clearly.

With these ambitious projects in mind, China is establishing a new BRICKS bank, a potential rival for the IMF which will allow China and Russia to arrange their own supra-national financing, independently from any US interference. She has even persuaded, some would say blackmailed, the IMF to include the yuan in the SDR in order to accelerate the yuan’s international acceptability. Increasingly, she is settling trade in yuan, and planning sovereign-to-sovereign loans repayable in her own currency. While further depth is needed in her capital markets, much of the groundwork has already been laid, such as setting up new currency pairs, bypassing the dollar in the foreign exchanges, and by pricing oil and gold in yuan. And all this has occurred despite America’s firm grip on global trade settlement through the dollar with its reserve status.

2017 is shaping up towards a new phase. China now has the means to start funding resource-rich countries against their future income flows, much of which will be underwritten by Chinese demand. Target countries typically have high levels of government debt, and are acutely aware that they will be destabilised by the inevitable rise in dollar interest rates. Obvious candidates are Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, both major oil suppliers. They could include Canada, where intriguingly, Justin Trudeau only last week received Premier Li Keqiang after extending his own visit to China for a whole week over the G-20 meeting. China already controls the economies of much of sub-Saharan Africa, where she is building railways, and loans in yuan against future commodity supply are also likely to be extended.

If Canada is on China’s list, that will take her provokingly into America’s back yard, risking a response from America. But how is this all to be paid for, before BRICS becomes fully operational? The answer is simple. Initially, China will draw on her official currency reserves, estimated to be $3.2 trillion equivalent, the bulk of which is in US dollars. US Government debt can be sold down or transferred under swap deals for other parties to liquidate, at least until the US refuses to authorise the transfer of ownership. But this is an interim measure, which will ease the way to the yuan being more widely used for key commodity pricing and for Pan-Asian trade settlement.

The importance of gold investment

It is easy to forget that China’s economists thirty years ago were taught the Marxist line, that capitalism will destroy itself. Yet from about 1980 onwards, they found that supplying yuan for inward investment left the Peoples Bank accumulating growing quantities of dollars, which according to Marxian philosophy would one day be worthless. This led to regulations appointing the Peoples Bank as sole manager of the State’s precious metal acquisition programmeⁱ. So for China, the acquisition of gold would have originally been a logical diversification from accumulating dollars. But, presumably not wanting to create friction with the anti-gold Americans, gold purchases were not declared as official reserves, and were hidden in undeclared accounts.

China also embarked on a drive to increase mine output, and today she is the largest producer in the world by far, at about 460 tonnes last year. Refining has always been a state monopoly as well, taking in gold doré and ore from Mongolia and other countries. Much of this gold appears to be absorbed by the state, because state-refined bullion bars, as opposed to branded bars recast from SGE deliveries for retail, are rarely seen on international markets.

In the past I have speculated that this covert accumulation of gold over the last thirty-three years could amount to over 20,000 tonnes, taking into account the scale of inward investment flows, subsequent trade surpluses, contemporary prices, and supplies from western central banks and investors during the great gold bear market of 1981-2000. What originally started out as diversification from exposure to western fiat currencies at some stage became a strategic imperative, presumably when it became obvious to the Chinese that western central banks were leasing and swapping physical gold to be sold into the market. Whatever the total accumulated, the state obviously felt it had acquired enough gold by 2002 to permit the Chinese public to begin buying. The Peoples Bank established the Shanghai Gold Exchange that year for this purpose, and so far has delivered an additional 11,000 tonnes into public hands, net of scrappage.

It is clear that Russia places a similar importance on the accumulation of gold, having in recent years surprised western analysts by adding gold to her reserves, when the preservation of dollar reserves as ammunition to support a falling rouble was deemed to be more important. The extent of her undeclared holdings is obviously not known, but could be significant, though not on China’s scale. Furthermore, it is common knowledge that the US’s Exchange Stability Fund has in the past sold physical gold with a view to supporting the dollar, leading to speculation that the US’s official reserves are considerably less than stated.

Why does this matter? It matters because, despite the wishful thinking of the macroeconomists in the west, gold is still the ultimate form of money, at least in the eyes of the central banks which maintain and add to gold reserves, and more importantly the people and governments of the bulk of the Eurasian land mass. And given that today’s geopolitics is all about China and Russia versus the US, gold is the primary strategic money in a future financial conflict. Chinese analysts also know that the west is badly short of physical metal, with bullion banks running unallocated accounts on a fractional reserve basis for their customers. Bullion banks also suppress gold prices by supplying large quantities of paper gold in futures and options markets out of thin air to soak up speculative demand, positions either hedged into other paper, or not at all.

If China chose to do so, she could bring the west to its knees just by squeezing the market for physical gold. A western financial collapse would be a disaster for all, but China and Russia, together with their SCO partners would be the last men standing, so in that sense the ownership of gold bullion is the ultimate financial weapon. So what does America’s deep state do about it? It must accumulate physical gold as a matter of urgency. This is why, if the stories are true, it made sense for the CIA to smuggle out Libya’s and Ukraine’s gold under cover of the prevailing chaos, and why, far from suppressing the price, the new priority must be for the deep state to accumulate physical gold as rapidly as possible.

Currency implications

The gold story rumbles on, but the more visible topic is the growing likelihood of the old Marxian prediction about capitalism destroying itself turning out to be true, at least for the highly corrupted form we call western capitalism today. By a process of stealth, the economies of Europe and America have actually evolved towards a national socialist model, where the means of production remains in private hands, but the state controls and directs it through regulation. The collapse, if it happens, will have more in common with the failings of socialism, than with anything to do with free markets. And with economic collapse, so too goes the purchasing power of fiat currencies.

The most obvious currency danger is from the euro, for all the reasons we don’t need to go into here. However, Western Europe is seen by China as a trade partner at the end of her Silk Roads, potentially in need of her assistance. She has already bought control of Piraeus, Greece’s largest port, which will become one of her Silk Road terminals. The lesson here was rather like a spider with its web, China just waits patiently for opportunities to come her way.

When individual EU countries need rescuing from future banking and debt crises, it is reasonable to assume China will be willing to help, on her terms of course. At that point, NATO members, such as Italy and Germany, will be faced with a choice: is their future to be a vassal of America, or will it be better to be in a commercial partnership with China and Russia?

If the Eurozone disintegrates politically, the accompanying debt crisis is bound to undermine the euro. It seems unlikely that China will seek to support the euro, instead looking to benefit from the opportunities emerging from distress. She can support systemically important banks if it is in her interest to do so, despite the complete destruction of the euro. This, surely is already under discussion in Beijing. The question is one of price, which will involve both trade considerations and the use of the yuan. Japan is also at a crossroads, but is both physically and culturally closer to China. For the moment, the issue is not so much about currency, but about the failure of monetary and economic policy while in the American sphere of influence. At the political level, relations with China are volatile, reflecting both history and Japan’s alliance with America. But big Japanese corporations, the zaibatsu, work with China very well, employing many people in their manufacturing plants and buying other Chinese goods. The tension between Japan’s political and commercial objectives is therefore increasing all the time, which leads one to speculate how long it will be before commerce triumphs over politics. When that happens, we can expect Japan to join the AIIB, and move away from America’s political domination.

But we return to America, and her deep state. Not only has she made a frightful mess of Syria, opening the way for Russia to dominate the region politically, but she will see her Middle Eastern allies deserting the dollar, simply because they have little use for it, trade having shifted to China and now India. As China develops her parallel international financial markets, surplus dollars outside the US from the Middle East and elsewhere will almost certainly return home in growing quantities. This will obviously put enormous pressure on its purchasing power, necessitating a significant rise in interest rates to offset the price inflation effect. If this is allowed to happen, it will threaten to bankrupt big business in America, and even government itself. So what does America do?

These are the deep state’s likely options.

1. Accept reality and revise foreign strategy accordingly. Given the high level of groupthink and the remnants of cold war philosophy, it is difficult to envisage this being taken as an early option, if at all.

2. Prevent the Chinese from selling Treasuries by refusing bond transfers, and/or banning US banks from allowing currency transfers. The intention would be to hinder China’s plans to provide finance to commodity suppliers by transferring dollars and Treasury bonds to them, or simply selling down their holdings. The danger is this course of action will eliminate the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency for all foreign holders. The subsequent dollar crisis would likely escalate out of control.

3. Introduce exchange controls, restricting the return of offshore dollars in the belief that domestic purchasing power would be preserved. That would simply accelerate a collapse of the purchasing power of external dollars, increase the attractions of the yuan and gold as settlement currencies, and create shortages of imported raw materials for the US economy. The ghost of Smoot-Hawley would rattle its chains again.

4. Create more false flag operations, severe enough to encourage foreign speculators to maintain their dollar reserves.

The deep state is unlikely to accept that it’s Check Mate to China and Russia. Increasing desperation and the deep state’s groupthink place a high probability on the fourth option, another false flag operation, or a variant thereof. The world is at a critical juncture already with Syria, where the super-powers are at war through their proxies. Let’s just hope the fears expressed in this article over the senselessness of America’s future actions are overstated.

Gold Investment is the alternative currency that can safeguard you from these types of events. Putting a portion of your savings into this precious metal will help protect you. Download your free self directed IRA rollover gold IRA information kit today.

Even if you’re only a casual observer of financial markets, you must have noticed gold has had some pretty distinguished company during its most recent rally. Most of the market attention has gone to oil, which jumped above forty dollars per barrel after the Fed announced its softened plan for rate increases for the remainder of the year.

Commodities in general are raring for a climb since the dollar’s started to decline. But we’re starting to see significant action in two of gold’s sister metals, silver and platinum. They’re both exhibiting spillover energy from gold, as seasoned investors turn to them on the heels of a breakout in the yellow metal.

One of the signs market analysts look for in a stock or a commodity is resistance – a technical term that simply means a temporary price ceiling beyond which investors are reluctant to buy. It’s a bullish sign when a stock or a commodity pushes past and then sustains a price level above its resistance.

On Thursday silver shot up thirty cents to take out its intra-day sixteen dollar resistance, and then backed off twelve cents for a market close of fifteen-dollars and ninety-three cents.  Its current trend signifies the gray metal is now like a coiled spring.

Platinum, the “rich man’s gold,” has moved up eight percent since the beginning of the year. Thursday it closed at a spot price of nine hundred and eighty-six dollars. Traditionally the white metal has traded at a premium to gold because it’s much rarer and because it’s an industrial metal. Platinum is used as an anti-pollutant agent in the catalytic converters of automobiles.

But the price of platinum had actually slipped below gold to a price of $774 in 2008 because of production difficulties and reduced global demand for automobiles. Its current price at almost a thousand dollars per ounce most certainly reflects a positive outlook for the auto industry.  It’s also a sign that platinum is once more riding the coattails of gold.

Silver and platinum then present lucrative opportunities for investors who like precious metals and are looking to diversify. Of the two, I personally prefer silver.  While platinum looks promising this year, it has more work to do to reclaim its throne. Before its price had slipped in 2008, platinum was trading at over twenty-two hundred dollars per ounce.

Silver, on the other hand, has a much broader range of industrial uses than platinum.  It’s used in photography, medicine, batteries, bearings, electronics (including both computers and smart phones!), radiography, solar panels and many other applications.

I like silver coins too because they’re minted in smaller denominations than gold coins.  It’s easier to use them as cash in a monetary emergency to purchase everyday necessities like groceries and gas, while gold secures the bulk of your wealth.

Ideally, it makes sense for you to hold both silver and gold. Both are time-honored tangible assets. Gold is the ultimate protection against failing paper currency.  And, in a gold bull market, silver performs like gold with a bit of a kicker.

Now is the time to place a portion of your retirement money or savings into gold. Gold shines its brightest in times of economic uncertainty and collapse. Click here to download your free Gold IRA information package to learn how you can roll over part of your retirement account to gold and silver.

Gold Investment is the alternative currency that can safeguard you from these types of events. Putting a portion of your savings into this precious metal will help protect you. Download your free self directed IRA rollover gold IRA information kit today.

Sometimes the markets tee up some pretty easy trades. Investing is subject to trends and fashions, just like the clothing industry. The hot sector today will fall out of the headlines tomorrow. That’s why it’s good to keep part of your wealth in cash or liquid assets, so when those opportunities come by you can capitalize. For people who don’t day trade, don’t deal in options or play the market on margin, the market routinely presents very attractive sectors for long term buys. If you wait until the fundamentals get so out of whack that it makes the financial news, the train has already left the station.

The easy play right now is gold. Just wait, in another six weeks financial news channels will be raving about gold like they just discovered fire. This opportunity is easy to spot because the factors influencing the gold prices have nothing to do with the fundamentals of the metal itself. All of the factors pushing gold around today are external.

The Dollar

Of all the things in the world that can influence gold prices, the relative strength of the dollar compared to other world currencies by far has the biggest influence on the price of gold. That is also true for silver and almost every other commodity traded on open markets and sourced from more than one supplier. That’s because commodity trades are denominated in dollars. Consequently, when the dollar gains strength on world markets, commodity prices move lower to compensate. When the dollar goes on a run against other currencies, that means your dollar buys more gold. The relationship between the dollar and gold is not always exact, because the price of gold is influenced by many factors, but it tends to hold true over a long period of time.

The Fed

The dollar’s also being pushed higher by the U.S. Federal Reserve going it alone among world banks in its dogged (though still theoretical) resolve to raise interest rates. That determination to hike rates is creating the opportunity to purchase gold at a discount. Our currency policy is still the same disastrous accommodative, near-zero interest it’s been for the last seven years. In that time, despite all the talk, the Fed has raised interest rates exactly one time, for a measly quarter-point increase. They’re talking about, maybe, raising it another quarter-point in December. Considering the volume of cash that flows through the U.S. banking system, a quarter-point is barely a rounding error. The reason such a small potential increase is having such a large impact on the markets is because the rest of the world is doing all they can to dilute the value of their currencies. We’re not really doing all that great in terms of currency policy, just better than everyone else.

Steady Physical Demand

Sales of gold coins at the U.S. Mint continue to run at near record levels. This is also the time of year when gold sales in India surge due to the festival season. Physical demand for gold remains high in China as both China and India vie to be the top consumers of the precious metal.

Global Unease

There just isn’t anywhere you can look in the global economy and make a case that there’s growth. Continued weakness in the Chinese economy, the seemingly endless conflict in Syria, and the uncertainty generated by the Brexit vote and Deutsche Bank means the global economy is not going to ride to the rescue.  Thus gold will continue to provide a safe hiding place for edgy investors’ cash.

Unique Circumstances

Continued strong demand both domestically and overseas, combined with a sudden, and one could argue undeserved, surge in the dollar, we’re now looking at one of those rare moments when markets offer up buying opportunities. As long as demand remains high, the rate of growth in gold prices should remain steadily upward. Continued weakness in global markets, the demand for physical gold and the overreaction to the Fed hiking interest rates are all positive for gold prices going forward.

You can protect yourself against economic fallout from the situations like the Italian referendum. Now is the time to place a portion of your retirement money or savings into gold. Gold shines its brightest in times of economic uncertainty and collapse. Click here to download your free Gold IRA information package to learn how you can roll over part of your retirement account to gold and silver.

Gold Investment is the alternative currency that can safeguard you from these types of events. Putting a portion of your savings into this precious metal will help protect you. Download your free self directed IRA rollover gold IRA information kit today.

Between credit cards, debit cards, electronic payments, and more, virtual currency is taking over. But even so, good old fashioned cash will always be accepted for anything and everything, right? Well, not always. We may be irrevocably moving towards a cashless society. But what does that means for all of us?

Cash Not Accepted

Sweden’s economy relies almost entirely on credit cards or mobile phone payments. Physical cash makes up a mere 2% of all payments made in the country, and around 20% of transactions in brick and mortar retail establishments. An increasing number of Swedish citizens never carry cash anymore, since it’s simply not needed.

In fact most retail stores don’t even want cash. They’re legally allowed to refuse notes and coins if they want to, and an increasing number do. Most vending machines also only take credit cards, as do a lot of street vendors, and even some churches and banks.

The U.S. isn’t quite at that level yet, but we’re getting there. There are some establishments that won’t take it anymore. Instead, the new trend is towards mobile payment apps. Starbucks has its own mobile wallet, which allows you to pay for your coffee on your phone, and around 20% of Starbucks transactions employ it. Other retail stores are introducing their own apps.  In addition some payment apps, such as PayPal, are good in a variety of different places.

Problems with a Cashless Society

It would seem on the surface that this move towards credit cards and mobile payment apps is merely the latest trend, and not anything to worry about. But there are a number of negative consequences to this decline of physical currency.

First of all, with electronic transactions, there’s no privacy. Everything you buy leaves a paper trail leading directly back to you. Advertisers are more than happy to use the records of your purchases to send you targeted ads. This already happens with the purchases you make online. Mobile payment apps make it possible to spam you in the stores as well.

Additionally, not everyone is equipped for a cashless society. Particularly for lower income families, cash is a staple. Around one in thirteen households in this country have no bank accounts or credit cards at all, and can’t afford to be refused service because all they have is cash.

The biggest problem, though, is that the less tangible currency becomes, the less stable it becomes as well. Instead of paper money and coins, currency is all just a bunch of 1s and 0s. Moreover, as this summer’s bitcoin heist proved, when your currency is entirely virtual, it’s subject to hacking and cyberattack. In a cashless society, your savings and your investments can disappear in the blink of an eye, before you even realize anything’s wrong.

The best way to combat this is to put a healthy portion of your investments into something physical, with intrinsic value: something like gold or silver. As physical assets, gold and silver coins won’t destabilize like virtual currency or even paper money. They’re not vulnerable to hacking, either, and their prices tend to remain stable in times of economic difficulty. If you want to protect yourself and your retirement fund against the dangers of a cashless society, then an investment in physical gold and silver is the best way to do it.

Gold Investment is the alternative currency that can safeguard you from these types of events. Putting a portion of your savings into this precious metal will help protect you. Download your free self directed IRA rollover gold IRA information kit today.

With the economy in the condition it is in, lots of people are contemplating different investment options in order to secure their future. Precious metals are a possible investment decision, yet often, many people are unsure why they should invest in precious metals. The multiple reasons differ regarding scope and individual preferences, but in the end, most of us should look into precious metal investments due to a few simple reasons.

Security Compared to Paper Currencies

The world is gradually becoming more interconnected, as the economies of several leading nations are all intrinsically interdependent in some form. As it has become clear recently, when one major country’s economic situation suffers, so too does the situation of several other major countries. That can result in a significant global economic decline, which can impact everyone, investors and ordinary people alike.

Whenever those difficult economic troubles occur, one of the widely performed actions by governments around the world is the deliberate printing of more of their federal currency. This often means that while the supply of global money increases, its true value drops, therefore the currency decreases in value. If considerable percentages of your personal assets are tied in cash, then you will realize that your overall net worth can gradually deteriorate in terms of considerable funds. Unlike with paper money, gold offers the opportunity for traders to hedge against inflation, as whenever the worth of paper money declines, gold’s value, conversely, goes up. A decent investment in gold will allow you to counteract any losses that you may generate during an inflation. Numerous industry experts believe that in the worst case scenario, should a worldwide economic crisis happen, the worth of gold would sky rocket, to the point where it would be worth more than most other commodities. While it is a rather extreme scenario to consider, the truth is that investing in gold could well prevent such financial problems from occurring, even on a smaller scale.

Portfolio Expansion

Due to the reason previously mentioned, robust gold investment may help you broaden your portfolio. No matter the amount of experience, many traders are aware of how crucial it is to keep diversified investment portfolio. Even so, a staggering number of traders commonly invest in stocks and shares. When economic declines take place, the value of stocks and shares can be expected to be as adversely impacted as the worth of the dollar itself, which often can further devalue most portfolios. By securing substantial amount of gold in your individual portfolio, you can safeguard it in the event of negative impact on your other investments. When the general value of stocks and shares suffers a downturn, the chances are that gold prices will be steadily increasing. Carefully balancing your portfolio with gold and other precious metals will allow you to foresee just about any economic situation that might arise in the future developments of the market.

Demand and Scarcity

In contrast to paper currency, gold is not something that can just be printed and put into the market. Precious metals must be mined, meaning that there is consistent demand that must be met and which could not be met unless the lengthy and difficult process of mining it is in effect. Historically speaking, there is no indication that the demand for precious metals will ever diminish. Most people value gold, since it projects a strong image in regard to financial wealth and it is an important part of human history. If projections suggest anything, it is that the interest in precious metals will only grow with the passage of time, as more and more developing countries emerge and the worldwide supply of precious metal dwindles. Therefore, with the demand for precious metals on the rise, it makes sense that its worth will rise as well.

Potential Long Term Rewards

People who are considering investing in precious metals must keep the long run in mind, as the price of gold generally fluctuates in the short term. In the long term, however, the overall price is going upwards at a constant pace, despite the periodic downturn. Acquiring precious metals is usually an exceptional financial plan, as long as the investor recognizes that persistence must be taken into consideration when dealing with gold investments. Gold is something which will always possess unique value, and, as such, it must not be taken lightly. Investing in the stock market might be a great way to think about the short term, yet the fact remains that so long as paper money is linked to the worth of the stock, then you will always face the risk of losing your investment in the unfortunate case the business should go bankrupt or suffer another type of economic downturn. On the other hand, should you physically possess gold, in the event of a short-term value dip, you will still be shielded for the future.

Simple and Versatile Trading Alternatives

One of the best advantages of precious metal investment is that traders find it very quick and simple to buy precious metals, especially in recent years. Precious metal investments have become a lot more popular since the invention of the internet, because now there are several ways you can trade precious metals online. Buying gold on the web has become very easy and uncomplicated, as all that you have to do is figure out how much gold you intend to purchase, what form want it to take, and then place your order with the internet gold company. Delivery is often immediate, and in a few days, your precious metals will be delivered straight to your home. Some premiums might need to be considered when purchasing silver, but luckily, one of the best things about investing in precious metals on the internet is that a good number of businesses keep their premiums affordable.

In case you are excited about beginning gold investments, it is a great idea to stop by RegalAssets.com. The many positive experiences dealers have reported with this website have made it the top precious metal company online. Visiting today can help you safeguard your financial future with a simple to use precious metal rollover kit.

Click here to request your free gold IRA investment kit from Regal Assets today to learn how you can diversify and protect your retirement savings.

Last week we learned that the government’s total debt has reached an incredible $19.5 trillion. Since they hit $18.5 trillion in November of 2015, this means it only took them 10 months to pour another trillion onto the national debt pile. The government managed to do this without fighting a recession or a major war.

Nearly all of the money they receive in tax receipts goes to mandatory entitlement programs and the mounting interest on all of this debt. The net result you get from this is debt financing for most traditional government programs such as defense spending, the IRS, and airport security. The government has not suffered from a shortage of lenders in the past.

This is all starting to change now. The Treasury Department’s own most current data reveals that two of the largest foreign lenders to America, China and Japan, have already started reducing their over $2.3 trillion worth of American debt instrument holdings.

The Federal Reserve has been a reliable buyers since the financial crisis as well. They have increased their debt holdings from $479 billion immediately before the financial crisis erupted in 2008 to today’s present $2.46 trillion. This is an impressive over 500% increase in less than a decade.

They will not be a reliable buyer in the future though. Thanks to Congress seizing $20 billion from the Fed at the beginning of 2016, they have a miniscule .8% capital ratio now. This makes the Fed nearly insolvent and unable to create trillions more dollars to buy debt without creating economic instability for the United States.

The biggest single holder of U.S. Treasury debt remains the Social Security fund. For decades now, the program has loaned all of its tax take surplus to the federal government. They have provided trillions of dollars to the U.S. government in these years.

The problem with this source is that both Social Security and Medicare are nearing the end of their so-called surpluses. The board of trustees from Social Security has recently explained that the two largest trust funds start delivering critical deficits in 2020. Only 14 years later they will be depleted.

This gives them only four more years to loan money to the federal government. You can see that the government is going to have to find someone else to loan it money when its largest lender disappears. Otherwise they are forced to resort to capital controls.

This is already happening in Europe. The European Union’s new banking bail in rules mean that they seize account holders’ money over certain minimums whenever an institution is in trouble. Cyprus already did this a few years ago on all accounts over 100,000 Euros.

In European and other countries where negative interest rates are the order of the day, the banks have begun passing through to customers the negative rates. Sometimes these are explained in the forms of new fees to keep cash in current accounts when they do not want to say you have to pay for the privilege of keeping money in the bank.

There is even a move gaining traction in Europe (and the U.S. is studying it) to outlaw holding physical money. This would trap money in negative interest rate banks accounts.

The writing is on the wall. The U.S. government’s debt financing situation is unsustainable. They will be looking for additional dollars to appropriate within only a few short years.

Gold Investment is the alternative currency that can safeguard you from these types of events. Putting a portion of your savings into this precious metal will help protect you. Download your free self directed IRA rollover gold IRA information kit today.

Did you know the government has effectively printed an extra $3.5 TRILLION since the financial crisis by using a controversial, untested monetary policy?

It’s called ‘quantitative easing’, and allows the Fed to basically print money by expanding their balance sheets. Since 2008, the desperate Federal Reserve has bought trillions in unstable mortgages, securities and bonds in an attempt to keep banks solvent and lending. In effect, the Federal Reserved printed trillions of dollars out of thin air, expanding the value of their balance sheet by $3.5 trillion, in three rounds of quantitative easing. This will have grave consequences on the dollar and on your retirement accounts.

Quantitative easing was the largest financial stimulus the world has ever seen. Economists and common sense tell us these policies will dilute the value of the dollar, ushering in years of high inflation that will eat away at the value of savings. What other outcome can there be, when the government basically conjures up money as if by magic, and then pumps it into the economy?

Think of it like this: money is like soup. If you have a bowl of soup, and you dilute it with more and more water, pretty soon you won’t have soup anymore. That’s what printing trillions does to our dollar.

Now, we’re facing hyperinflation and the collapse of the dollar – two prospects that should strike fear into the heart of any retiree. This out-of-control money printing will have devastating consequences on the purchasing power of your retirement accounts.

Desperate governments can print all the money they want, but they can’t print more gold. Believe me, they would if they could – and even then it wouldn’t be worth much, just like our dollar. That’s why smart investors looking to hedge against years of money printing are turning to gold and silver IRAs to protect the purchasing power of their hard-earned savings.

Click here to request your free gold IRA investment kit from Regal Assets today to learn how you can diversify and protect your retirement savings.