A light goes on in Russell’s brain — Driving back from a restaurant last night we were listening to National Public Radio from China. They were interviewing many Chinese who had lost their jobs in the big cities and were heading back to be with their families in the country. We noted what terribly hard lives these Chinese lead. The problem the Chinese leaders have — is to keep the populace employed or at least semi-content and not in a revolutionary mood.
I have been wondering why the Chinese government has been almost pleading with the Chinese people to buy and hold gold and silver. And it suddenly occurred to me that the Chinese government sincerely believes that gold and silver are heading substantially higher. The Chinese leaders want the Chinese people to benefit from any higher prices of the precious metals.
The idea is that if the people are happy and richer by holding gold and silver, the leaders will be that much safer. The one thing the leaders of the Communist party want is a peaceful, contented (and richer) population.
So far, the leaders of China have been very smart, and it occurs to me to tell my subscribers — “Do likewise.”
Question — Russell, I don’t get it. You keep talking about deflation taking over. If so, why has gold been going up?
Answer — Like everything in the markets, gold is in a discounting mode. Gold is looking past the current deflation — and into the future at the almost incomprehensible debts the US has been building. Gold knows and the world knows American monetary history under the Federal Reserve. I can tell you it’s history in a sentence, “Inflate or die.” But with our growing debt rising into the trillions, the amount of inflation that lies ahead can only be imagined.
The national debt is now $11 trillion dollars. In 10 years it will be $20 trillion, according to the amount that Obama plans to add to the national debt.
What is a trillion? If a stack of one dollar bills is placed in a column, that column would reach to the moon and back twice. A trillion seconds is over 30,000 years!
Ed Note:
A million seconds is 12 days.
A billion seconds is 31 years.
A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.