根據《路透社》報導，加州的研究中心（Scripps
Research Translational Institute）主任，同時為心臟學專家的Eric
Topol表示，新冠病毒不但令患者呼吸系統受到損壞，還會引起許多併發症，令患者的其他的器官系統受損。「一開始我們認為這只是呼吸道病毒，然而事實證明，它會接續攻擊胰腺、心臟、肝臟、腦、腎臟等其他器官。這些都是我們起初意想不到的事。」患者除了呼吸困難，還會併發血栓造成中風，對神經系統造成頭痛、頭暈、覺、嗅覺喪失，癲癇與精神錯亂等併發症。
有醫生更發現已康復的患者，不但難以恢復健康時的身體狀態，及後數年還可能出現後難以預見的後遺症。
而牛津大學博士 Helen Salisbury 估計約有10分之一的人新冠病毒患者症狀會延長，他們的「胸腔X光片都正常，沒有發炎的跡象」，但當他們進行以前擅長的運動時，往往會感到呼吸困難，連行樓梯都會氣喘，也可能無法百分之百回到發病前的狀態。
This article describes how China can escape the fate of a dollar collapse by tying the yuan to gold. There is little doubt she has access to sufficient gold. Currently, her
interest is to preserve the dollar, not destroy it, because it is the
principal means of Chinese foreign interests being secured .
Furthermore, a return to sound money requires China to reverse
its interventionism under Xi, returning to Deng Xiaoping’s original
vision. Sound money can only last if the relationship between the state and the wider economy is properly addressed.
Of all the major economies, China’s is best placed to implement a
sound money solution. At the moment it seems unlikely the necessary
reforms will be forthcoming; but a general collapse of the global fiat currency regime presents the opportunity for reassessment and change.
Introduction
In last week’s Insight I
examined the position of the US dollar, given the Fed’s current
monetary policies, and concluded that the Fed’s dollar is likely to
become valueless by the end of this year. The consequences for other
major currencies — the euro, yen and pound — are that they are likely to
fall with the dollar. This is because they adopt the same monetary
policies, the same macroeconomic fallacies, and through the Bank for
International Settlements, G7 and G20 meetings agree to continue to be
bound by common policies. While the intention is for all to survive by
working together, instead it ensures that they all sink together.
The maverick nations are Russia and China. Russia is obviously
working towards protecting her currency with gold — there is no
controversy there. China’s position is more complex. Her leadership
relies on the inflation of bank credit through state-owned banks to
finance her infrastructure plans as well as in financing the massive
uplift her non-financial private-sector economy has enjoyed since 1980.
Yet, she has made aggressive moves to ensure her population owns
physical gold and has invested in mine production, making her the
largest national producer by far, while ensuring virtually no gold
leaves the Chinese mainland.
Having more or less gained control over the world’s physical market,
China is the greatest hoarder of gold on the planet. She appears to
understand the importance of gold to monetary stability while at the
same time playing the West’s neo-Keynesian games.
China’s gold
The most controversial aspect of my previous comments about China’s
gold ownership is about the level of undeclared bullion. But the
strategy has always been clear. In 1983 the Peoples Bank was given a
monopolist mandate by the Communist Party to manage the state’s
acquisition of gold and silver, while private ownership remained banned.
This fitted in with the Peoples Bank’s monopoly of managing foreign
currency dealing, confirming that in 1983 at least, the leadership and
its advisors regarded both gold and silver as primarily money.
Nineteen years elapsed before the Peoples Bank opened the Shanghai
Gold Exchange, permitting members of the general public for the first
time to buy and take delivery of gold and silver. Following advertising
campaigns, the market for 24 carat gold jewellery exploded, and together
with investment gold, since 2002 withdrawals from the SGE’s vaults have
been about 17,500 tonnes, admittedly not adjusted for scrap resubmitted
for refining. To be consistent with gold policies after the SGE opened
for business, those nineteen years must have been used by China to
acquire significant quantities of undeclared bullion. But other analysts
assume that the public held some gold illegally before 2002 as well, so
about 17,000 tonnes net of scrap for private ownership seems about
right.
The opportunity for the state to build a bullion hoard before 2002
was there. Following the bull market ,which culminated on 21 January
1980, gold entered a 19-year bear market taking it from $850 on that
afternoon’s fix to a low of $256.8 in July 1999. But by January 2002,
gold was still on the floor at under $280. And there were substantial
sellers: portfolio disinvestment by Swiss banks, the largest private
depositories at that time, left them holding virtually no gold.[i] Central
banks and official sources reduced their holdings of monetary gold by
3,450 tonnes, but more importantly gold leasing by them supplied an
estimated 10,000—16,000 tonnes into the market (Veneroso, 2005).
Meanwhile, demand was soaked up by the expansion of derivative
markets, principally LBMA forwards and Comex futures. In all those
years global mine output added 43,800 tonnes. Various parties must have
absorbed the gold that wasn’t absorbed by jewellery, which probably
accounted for about 25,000 tonnes.
US policy was to rub out monetary history by denying gold as having
any monetary role and to be replaced by the Fed’s unbacked dollar as
everyone’s reserve currency. A new generation of Harvard-educated Arabs
went with the neo-Keynesians, preferring stocks to gold, the opposite of
that of their forebears who disliked financial assets, including
foreigners’ currencies. But these were also the formative years for
China’s adoption of capitalism.
The Chinese leadership, having a high degree of control over its
population, is given to long-term planning in the form of five-year
plans with longer-term underlying objectives. It is inconceivable that
these plans would have omitted a gold strategy, particularly since
regulations were put in place giving the Peoples Bank its mandate to
build national reserves.
Given all the foreign exchange dealings of the Peoples Bank, handling
inward investment in the eighties and growing exports in the nineties,
it could easily have accumulated 20,000 tonnes of gold at contemporary
prices, representing approximately 10% of foreign currency flows across
the bank’s trading desks. Traditional secrecy in gold markets would have
provided cover. All the Peoples Bank needed to do was acquire an
average of 1,000 tonnes a year, which given the bullion flows and market
dynamics in gold’s great bear market would have been achievable without
attracting attention.
It is only on the basis of this understanding that we can apply a
20,000-tonne ball-park figure to the unknowable. And since 2002, China
continued to import gold in addition to its growing mine supplies to
ensure its population ended up with significant quantities of gold as
well. Whether intentioned or not, the leadership has ensured large
quantities of 24 carat gold are in public circulation, which is
important in the event that gold backing for China’s currency is
implemented.
In the event of a general fiat currency collapse, many nations have
sufficient gold to operate a gold exchange standard, admittedly at
higher gold prices than those that prevail today. That is not the
problem. In government, treasuries and central banks, there are very few
who understand economics proper, being sold entirely on neo-Keynesian
macroeconomics. Neo-Keynesian macroeconomics is a belief system
unfounded on reality and their Zeus, or Jupiter, is inflationism. Their
lesser gods all owe fealty to this one overriding directive. Before
sound money can be introduced, they must all be swept from their
temples.
China’s worship of inflationism is less institutionally embedded and
should be easier to overturn, particularly since Marxist philosophy
predicts the end of capitalism, which today would be manifest in the
collapse of the capitalists’ currencies. The ability of the Chinese to
escape the monetary fates of the West is in theory still there.
China’s interest in the dollar
With all its gold, by monetising it China could kill off the dollar
tomorrow. Undoubtedly, this financially nuclear option has become a
backdrop to her strategy in the ongoing trade and financial war against
America. But the idea that by using this undoubted power over the dollar
China gains a simple victory if through her actions the dollar is
destroyed understates a more complex situation. It is not in China’s
interest on many levels, not least because of her ownership of dollars
is about $3.4 trillion, of which only $1.5 trillion is invested in
Treasuries, agency, corporate and short-term debt in the US. The balance
is actively used in loan finance to China’s commodity suppliers, those
involved with the belt and road initiatives and other states with which
China desires to gain influence.
Destroy the dollar and China’s heft around the world is destroyed as
well, because only a small proportion of China’s loan-influence is in
renminbi. In that sense, if the dollar collapses America gains a
geopolitical benefit over China, her means of international influence
being crippled. The Chinese leadership will be acutely aware of the
consequences of the dollar’s demise and therefore will do nothing to
encourage it. Indeed, if the dollar begins its collapse in the foreign
exchanges, we could find China increasingly calling out the Fed on its
inflationary policies. But then the Fed’s problem is and will continue
to be an inability to stop its addiction to unlimited inflationism.
Unfortunately, a banking crisis is embedded in the script, which will
have fundamental effects on all fiat currencies, some more than others.
And since international banking is overwhelmingly a dollar affair,
after a short pause the consequences are bound to weigh heavily upon it
as the reserve currency. This credit cycle unwind is a Category 5
compared with 2008—09’s Category 2 or 3. It is only after such a
cataclysm that China will have no alternative to abandoning all attempts
to support the dollar and its means of buying overseas influence. China
will then need to secure its own currency.
It will require a return to gold backing — the nuclear option so far
avoided. While the cost will be writing off trillions of dollars and its
means of securing overseas influence, there will be a monetary vacuum
to fill. And compensation will be found in an increase in the value of
China’s declared and undeclared bullion stocks, as well as the
enrichment of its gold-holding people.
Establishing a sound currency
To appreciate what is vital for a currency to be sound requires
certain conditions to be satisfied. These are the three immutable ground
rules for a gold-backed currency, all of which must be obeyed:
The state currency must be an accountable gold substitute; that is
to say every unit of currency expansion must be fully backed by gold at
the fixed exchange rate.
It must be freely convertible into physical gold on demand by everyone.
It must be freely convertible for the settlement of domestic transactions and imports and exports.
To these we can add an addendum, and that is to reform the banking system so that there is no expansion of unbacked bank credit.
If the Chinese obeyed these rules to the letter, not only would their
gold-backed currency lead to a quantum leap in the progress of its own
economy, but given China’s undoubted economic power the yuan would
become accepted as the foreign currency of choice for most of the world
and it would encourage other nations to adopt similar gold exchange
standards.
The proof is found in a nation of ten million which two hundred years
ago in less than a century dominated technology and international
trade, saw its population increase threefold as prosperity spread and
life-expectancy increased, encouraged other nations to adopt gold
standards, and by 1914 had built over 80% of the world’s shipping
afloat. That small nation was the United Kingdom. Just think of the
potential if China repeated the exercise.
Sound money works best with free markets
The impediments to the implementation of the sound money rules
defined above are, however, substantial. It requires the relationship
between the state and its people to be fundamentally reformed and
instead of state control a laissez-faire philosophy must be adopted. The
whole point behind sound money is to remove it from state control so
the temptation for inflationism, which is leading visibly to the
destruction of the current global monetary system, is removed.
The money that people use for their current and deferred consumption
is rightly their affair, and not the state’s. This is why every time the
state takes control of money away from its people it eventually fails,
and the monetary function returns to the metals trusted by people
through millennia. Today, we face no less than this transformation, the
return to the peoples’ money and the destruction of statist fiat
currencies.
Of the world’s significant economies, China appears best able to plan
for monetary reform. Even so, it will not be easy and requires the
completion of the new capitalist mindset courageously introduced by Deng
Xiaoping. Instead, under President Xi China has drifted away from
Deng’s vision towards internal suppression and increasing state control.
He must recognise that central planning in China has had its day and it
is time to give his population its economic freedom.
If only he can recognise it, Xi’s vested interest now lies in that
direction. It will not be easy, and there is no certainty he will grasp
the opportunity. But if he decides to do so, it requires the following
issues to be addressed.
The state and the economy
Being a burden upon it. the state must reduce its role in the economy
to the barest minimum to absorb less than 20% of GDP, preferably even
less than 10%. Welfarism must be abandoned, or at least reduced until
its financial burden on the state is minimal. In this respect, China is
better placed than more mature advanced economies. The World Bank
estimates China’s government spending in 2018 was 14.7% of GDP, which
compares with the US’s 34%.
China scores highly in this respect.
Mercantilism must be abandoned
China adopts a mercantilist approach to economic management, which
coupled with an iron-fist control over the population has had some
successes. But it is one thing for a reforming government to take an
impoverished population and provide a framework and monetary stimulation
to lift it out of poverty and another to continue the process. In
China’s case, anything was better than Mao and Deng seized the
opportunity.
In its early stages a mercantilist approach can have obvious
objectives, which leads to national capital being deployed with effect.
But being based on monetary expansion, even then capital is misallocated
through monetary distortion, which only becomes obvious later. As a
continuing state policy, it leads eventually to substantial tribulations
and inefficiencies, and China has had its share of these.
The error is to regard the state as capable of being fundamentally
motivated by profit. A misleading precedent for mercantilists was the
East India Company, which ran India as its fiefdom until the Indian
Mutiny. But that was a company which was mandated to produce profits for
shareholders.
A government is necessarily a bureaucracy, not suited to an
entrepreneurial role. China will need to address the relationship
between the state and its role in the economy if a yuan gold standard is
to be freely accepted through trust and trade, and for the maximum
benefit of its economy. In fairness, China is abandoning support for
zombie companies, but it still tries to pick winners, so is hardly
neutral.
Regulation must be abandoned, allowing the public to set the parameters of its own demand.
Originally the means of control adopted by fascist governments,
widespread regulation of economic activities has become the standard of
modern government policies. The assumption is that the consumer must be
protected from avaricious businessmen. The result is cronyism.
Instead of suffering from the West’s cronyism, China promotes
businesses on a purely nationalistic basis, a policy which has now
backfired in a crony world. The exclusion of American technology from
China’s “Made in China 2025” strategic plan has intensified American
hostility and is undermining Chinese technology’s international
business. This would not have happened if China had a
non-interventionist policy towards her domestic market. That has to
change.
Banking must be reformed
The Achilles’ heel of the West’s banking system is the fraudulent
issue of bank credit, which is no different in principal from central
bank inflationism. Even in the days of the gold standard the expansion
of bank credit increased currency in circulation without being backed by
gold. There were, in effect, two types of currency; fully backed gold
substitutes and fiat currency the product of unbacked bank credit, but
indistinguishable from each other in circulation.
The expansion and subsequent contractions in bank credit created a
destructive cycle of bank lending, particularly following the 1844 Bank
Charter Act in English law, which set the subsequent international
standard. This must be stopped. In the case of China, most banking is
provided by state-owned banks, so if the state is determined to maintain
a sound yuan it should present few difficulties in eliminating bank
credit expansion.
The provision of monetary capital must be backed by savings and it is
for the market to establish a balance between immediate consumption and
its deferral. And here, China is in the fortunate position of having a
strong savings culture, unlike the US and UK along with most members of
the eurozone, where after allowing for consumer credit saving hardly
exists.
Accumulation of private wealth to be embraced
The replacement of unbacked bank credit expansion with genuine
savings as the source of investment capital requires the state to take a
positive view on the accumulation of private sector wealth. Being a
young modern economy, in this regard China is better placed than nations
with more mature economies and ingrained socialism, where wealth is
regarded as a morally justified source of tax revenue.
Progressively increasing tax rates mitigate against the acquisition
of wealth, and China will need to reform its income tax regime to a flat
tax rate. Since government spending is under 15% of GDP, with a
reasonable personal allowance a flat income tax of 20% should allow for a
balanced budget and other taxes to be eliminated over time. State
spending targeted to an eventual 10% rate of state spending relative to
GDP would allow the income tax rate to be reduced and held to a 15% rate
and the abolition of all other taxes.
Income tax should be applied at the same rate on all sources of
income. To make income from savings tax-free is a distortion of the
market. Post-war Japan and Germany made it easy to avoid tax on savings
interest, and their economies became savings driven and highly
successful. But in China’s case, where a very high savings rate already
exists, not only is such a policy unnecessary, but it leads to unwelcome
imbalances in foreign trade which so long as other fiat currencies
exist are politically destabilising in the longer term.
Digital money
China is almost certain to be tempted to adopt a centralised
cryptocurrency approach, a forerunner of which is reportedly in trials
at the moment. It is thought by many that application of this technology
may well find a place in a new form of gold substitute.
Other commentators suspect that China’s motivation is to maintain
control over its citizens’ spending. If this is the case it would be a
mistake, and at odds with an objective to maximise the nation’s economic
potential for the benefit of its citizens by returning to free markets.
However, state-issued crypto technology is too young at this stage to
be relevant to the successful establishment of a gold substitute
currency.
The return to sound money
So far, we have established that of all the major economic powers,
China is well placed to adopt a durable gold exchange standard. The most
significant hurdle is the Communist Party’s control freakery over its
people. Under wise leadership, this can be addressed, more likely during
a monetary crisis when political objectives can be radically changed,
than at any other time.
Otherwise, China has sufficient bullion reserves and gold ownership
is widespread in the population. Silver, which is more naturally the
money of the people is also widely available for coinage. Furthermore,
there is reason to hope that the state is not as beholden to the
neo-Keynesian macroeconomic inflationism as are other leading nations.
We have established that it is not in China’s current geopolitical
interest to introduce a gold standard that undermines or destroys the
dollar. For this reason, China will only do so once it is clear that the
dollar is in the early stages of an unavoidable inflationary collapse,
and the risk of the yuan going down with it must be urgently addressed.
An increasingly certain banking crisis, likely in the next month or so,
and a reappraisal of the dollar’s prospects and the debt trap of rising
interest rates being sprung on western governments is likely to
determine timing.
To be successful in defending the yuan from the gathering
global monetary crisis, when the decision is taken to go ahead the
following announcements should be immediately made.
The State is transferring its undeclared bullion to monetary
reserves, announcing a figure which we believe could exceed 20,000
tonnes. At the same time, it announces the yuan will be backed by gold
from a defining date, perhaps a month hence, the rate to be determined
by the markets in the intervening period. The purpose is to let the gold
price rise to an appropriate level for a yuan exchange rate to be
fixed.
Following the defining date the quantity of yuan in circulation will
be set by market demand, and any increase in the quantity will be fully
backed by gold reserves held and allocated for that purpose by the
Peoples Bank.
The announcement will also state that conversion terms will be
offered for all government debt (currently about 40 trillion yuan) into a
new perpetual loan, interest payable at the holders’ choice in yuan or
gold at the yuan/gold fixed rate, which will be set at the defining
date.
All holders of yuan will be free to exchange their yuan for new gold
coin at the rate set on the defining date. In due course silver coins
at sterling proof will also be issued as circulating currency, the rate
set designed to ensure their continued circulation.
All exchange controls to be removed with immediate effect.
China’s withdrawal from all international cooperation at G7, G20
meetings etc., currency and economic management being no longer
appropriate.
Digitising plans, if any, will be discarded as unnecessary for the circulation of a gold-backed yuan.
Consultation with the banks will be initiated to phase in over an
appropriate period a restructured banking system. The objective will be
to separate deposit-taking as a custodial function from investment
funding of bonds and equities on an agency basis. Until these new
provisions are in place, the expansion of bank credit will be frozen
after which it will not exist.
The markets can then set a gold exchange rate which will be
adopted as the fixed rate of exchange for the yuan. The return of a
monetary function to silver is likely to reduce the gold/silver ratio to
20 or perhaps less, and allowance should be made for a settled
relationship between gold and silver that might take a little longer to
establish on a lasting basis. Only then can silver coins return to
circulation.
There can be little doubt that a move to a gold yuan will have a
profound effect on remaining fiat currencies. As noted above, a short
period of time between announcing these plans and their implementation
will be required for markets to adjust. It is likely that fiat
currencies would face downward pressure on their purchasing power, and
China must be seen to be protecting her own interests by returning to
sound money and not deliberately undermining the dollar.
The consolidated perpetual loan has many advantages. It never has to
be repaid. The coupon, reflecting gold’s rate of interest as well as
issuer risk, could be set, at say 2%, and the conversion price set at 50
per notional 100 gold-yuan of the bond. Those prepared to back the
Chinese government and its sound money regime would be rewarded for the
risk by a running yield of 4%. As the government’s rating improves with
the success of the return to gold, the price would rise towards par,
giving early investors a solid reward. The wealth creation for holders
becomes a solid contribution to providing capital for a progressing
economy.
Other nations, particularly those in Asia, are likely to follow China
in implementing their own gold exchange standards, and all nations will
be then faced with a stark choice: do they hang on to their welfare
states and their growing difficulties in financing them, or do they
stabilise their currencies? If China does adopt a proper gold exchange
standard, she would neutralise all America’s geopolitical power, whether
America follows suit or not.
And finally, China should cease to provide the statistics beloved of
neo-Keynesian macroeconomists, for they only serve to provide reasons
for state intervention.
400 years ago, in August 1619, the first ship with enslaved Africans destined for the United States arrived in what was then the colony of Virginia. But, as Statista's Katharina Buchholz notes, the cruel history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade begins much earlier.
The United States are heavily associated with slavery and the capture and forceful relocation of Africans. Around 300,000 disembarked in the U.S. directly, while
many more arrived via the inter-American slave trade from the Caribbean
or Latin America. It is estimated that almost 4.5 million enslaved
Africans arrived in the Caribbean and another 3.2 million in present-day
Brazil.
Around 40 percent of Africans uprooted in slavery are
believed to have come from Angola in Southern Africa, with another 30
percent who came from the Bay of Benin in West Africa.
The numbers taken from database project SlaveVoyages.org indicate
the number of Africans disembarking. Many more died on the way because
of lack of food and water and horrid conditions aboard the slave ships.
Others were uprooted in the trans-Saharan, the red sea and the Indian
slave trade, which partly predated the trans-Atlantic slave trade
President Trump lashed out at "delinquent" NATO members as he again
called on all members of the transatlantic alliance – particularly
Germany – to spend 2% of GDP on defense spending. Speaking at a joint
press conference with Polish president Andrzej Duda at the White House,
Trump asserted that Poland was one of eight European NATO members to
meet its financial commitments to the alliance, according to the Irish Times.
"The United States is defending a lot of countries that are
delinquent in what they are supposed to be paying," the president said.
Confirming that the US would be withdrawing troops from Germany, Trump claimed that Germany owed "close to a trillion dollars” to Nato "when you add it all up."
While he claimed that the US had secured an extra $400 billion in new
spending from NATO members, he said “we will be only satisfied when all
members are paying their fair share”.
"The United States is the major participant [in Nato],” he said. “We
defend Europe, but Europe also takes tremendous advantage of the United
States on trade – advantage like you wouldn’t believe."
Trump also confirmed that the US would “probably” going to be sending
troops to Poland from Germany, noting that the number of US military
personnel in Germany would reduce from 52,000 to 25,000, as previously
reported . “Some will be coming home, some will be going to other places
in Europe. Poland will be one of the places," he said. He added that
Poland would be paying for the troops to be stationed there, while he
also praised Poland for the purchase of 32 F35 fighter jets.
Trump's comments came after Duda told reporters he had asked the US
not to remove troops from Europe at all, arguing that their presence was
needed to guarantee security for Poland and other nations against the
threat of "Russian aggression." The US has had a military presence in
Germany since the end of WWII and while talks with Poland about a
permanent US base there have not been successful, Duda has been keen for
an additional US military presence on a rotational basis.
Moscow has denounced Poland's calls for US presence as irresponsible,
and the country's new security strategy claiming a threat from Russia
as "propagandist" and fictitious. "Whatever military potentially ends up
threatening us from Polish territory," Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir
Titov told RIA Novosti earlier this month, Russia "will take
comprehensive measures in response."
President Duda, who faces an election on Sunday, was the first
foreign leader to meet Trump at the White House since Taoiseach Leo
Varadkar’s visit in March. It is his fifth meeting with the US
president. Trump praised Poland’s protection of its borders, and
“vigilant efforts to uphold the rule of law”, an issue that has provoked
fury in Brussels as Poland’s right-wing government has pushed through a
series of laws its has deemed "anti-democratic." Trump also predicted
that Duda would do very well in the election.
“He’s doing a terrific job. The people of Poland think the world of
him…I don’t think he needs my help. He will do very well with or without
us. He’s going to have a great success.”
Asked about the possibility of further police reform in the wake of
George Floyd’s death after Democrats blocked legislation put forward by
the Republican-controlled Senate this week, Trump accused Democrats of
wanting to defund the police.
“The Democrats want to weaken our police, take away our
community….they want to take away a lot of strength from our police and
law enforcement generally. We won’t do anything that’s going to hurt our
police.”
Trump then pledged to issue an executive order on statues before the
end of the week, although he said there were “very strong laws already
on the books" which can lead to prison sentences of 10 years for those
who desecrate monuments.
"Many people who are knocking down the statues don’t have any idea
who the statue is….now they’re looking at Jesus Christ, they’re looking
at George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson. Not going to
happen while I’m here."
Earlier, during a meeting with Duda in the Oval Office, Trump accused
the Obama administration of spying on his 2016 election campaign as he
welcomed a court ruling ordering the dismissal of a case against his
former national security adviser Michael Flynn. "What happened to
General Flynn should never happen again,” Mr Trump said. “He was treated
horribly by a group of very bad people."
Whatever you do, don’t make this mistake in the gold bull market.
A Very Important Lesson
June 23 (King World News) – This is a very important lesson about not losing your position in the gold bull market from Bill Fleckenstein: The
miners were very strong out of the gate (Monday) but then they gave up
some gains as the metals did. Then they flopped back and forth in a wide
range, before closing with decent gains nonetheless.
Not Throwing Away Your Shot
Many people I think are aware that, from a seasonal perspective, the
mining complex tends to do well in the late summer and early fall. With
gold breaking out over $1,750, we may be in the early stages of that leg
higher. I do think it’s interesting that, based on what I see on
Twitter, there are so many “pundits” who are bulls in the long term
about the metals and miners, but are negative in the short run, and many
of them have been for quite some time.
This is exactly what happens in bull markets:
you get tricked into playing for a correction, but then it doesn’t
quite develop as you had expected and you get left behind. That doesn’t
mean that’s exactly what’s going to happen, but I think it’s quite
likely that it will. There’s also a possibility that this could be an
upside head fake and there will be more thrashing around before gold
finally takes off, but I think all those bulls who have been tricked
into abandoning their positions are going to have a hard time getting
back on board, regardless of exactly how the day-to-day machinations
play out.
