2015 & 2016 Will Be Among The Most Critical Years In Western Civilization

kingworldnews.com

Today an acclaimed money manager told King World News that "2015 and 2016 will be among the most critical years in Western civilization."  He also said that gold is going to regain it prominence in the monetary system and silver is headed into the stratosphere.

Stephen Leeb:  “Above all I am focused on oil prices and its temporary negative effect on gold.  But longer-term what is developing is phenomenally bearish for the West and bullish for the East.  Several reports from brokerages, Goldman Sachs among them, have been released in recent days saying that if oil prices stay near current levels you could see a $1 trillion reduction in capital expenditures across the globe.

“The implications of that would probably be a 7 or 8 percent fall in oil production worldwide.  This would lead to dramatically higher oil prices….

"I believe these lower oil prices were engineered by the Saudis and the Chinese and I think the Russians have been good soldiers and have gone along with it.  But the kind of volatility you will see in the future in the oil market is something we have never witnessed before.  

I also believe that 2015 and 2016 will be among the most critical years in Western civilization.  I know that the dollar is no longer going to be king of the hill at the end of this.  So the United States is no longer going to have any real control of our fate. I also think it’s way too late for the U.S. to start trying to build an alternative energy based economy.  The Chinese are way ahead of us in that space.

 

Instead we have placed our faith in fracking and deep-water drilling.  But it’s going to be impossible to do this stuff with oil prices anywhere near where they are today.  You need to get 4 or 5 barrels of oil for each barrel you use in procuring energy.  But we are lucky if we get 3 barrels of oil for every 2 we use when fracking.  So the fracking industry is headed for catastrophe.

Now, the Russians are going to have a very bad year with the ruble under pressure, but I don’t think they are that worried.  I think the Russians will trade a bad year if they believe the coming years will be some of the best in their history.  The Russians will be the primary beneficiaries of the wipeout in the oil patch and especially the fracking industry.  The Russians have an incredible amount of energy resources and money is going to pour into that economy in coming years.  

 

So Russia is going to turn out to be a major winner before this is over.  And China has already been a major winner.  They have been buying oil hand-over-fist, and you will also continue to see a massive flow of gold to these Eastern countries.  These nations know the dollar has a much less important roll in tomorrow’s world.  And Eastern countries, led by a gold-backed yuan, are preparing to seize the head seat of world dominance.

 

Just a side note on silver, Eric.  We will continue to see some volatility but silver is headed into the stratosphere over time because of dramatically increased demand from China.  So gold will be the world’s currency of choice in the future but silver is where investors will see the biggest gains.  By the way, these rumors that Russia will be forced to sell some of its gold are  fairy tales.  This talk is just being used to jawbone the gold market lower.  But investors simply need to disregard this anti-gold propaganda and own gold and silver and forget about the paper markets because they will eventually burn.”