What’s Next When Policy Makers Can’t Hide Their Sins?

It’s almost comical to watch policy makers of all stripes and country codes caught in a corner yet pretending we don’t notice.

Children In Charge

I’m reminded of the kid with his hand in the cookie jar while pretending his parents can’t see him—denying his guilt despite the crumbs falling from his face.

Again: It’s almost comical.

But there’s really nothing funny at all about major economies crawling into recession (Germany, Japan, UK, China) or denying recession (USA) while our mental midgets from DC to the EU play with bonds, inflation currency and war like kindergarteners with gas and matches.

Can’t Hide the Debt Cookie Crumbs

Speaking of kids caught with crumbs on their face while denying responsibility, it seems that even our central bankers can’t keep hiding the facts of now “unsustainable debt” (Powell) with clever lies, such as they had tried to do in the past:

In short, the days of hiding bad math behind empty words are now coming to an end, as most recently evidenced by another comical treasury market auction (below).

Keep It Simple: Debt & Bonds

As we’ve repeated ad nauseum, “the bond market is the thing,” and its survival, like a diesel V8 engine, lives and dies on liquidity/grease—i.e. dollars.

After trillions in outright grotesque QE grease following the bond crisis of 2020 and a hidden TBTF bank bailout (disguised as pandemic relief), the combined efforts of the Fed and Treasury Dept (i.e., the yin and yang of Powell and Yellen) to provide backdoor liquidity to this thirsty market are both tragic and remarkable.

Despite Powell’s headline tightening since 2022, the level of direct Fed liquidity is still tens of billions per month, and the hundreds of billions provisionally drawn from the reverse repo markets, the Treasury General Account (TGA), the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) are just QE by another pathway.

In addition to these tricks, tack on Yellen’s desperate attempt to issue trillions from the short end of the yield curve to take supply (and price) pressure off the sacred U.S. 10-Year, we can trace more examples of open desperation and backdoor liquidity by another name.

But at some point, all these liquidity tricks (as well as liquidity) run dry.

And when this “grease” runs out, that is when the bond engine stalls and the global financial system, led by a broke(n) U.S.A, starts its slow stall to the side of the proverbial road as the engine hisses, coughs and then dies.

Stated otherwise, the kids in DC are running out of cookies and jars (i.e., liquidity), and their lies and excuses are getting harder to hide.

Don’t believe it? Just look at the unloved US bond market.

A Very Telling & Embarrassing Treasury Auction

Having issued too many IOU’s (T-Bills) from the short end of the yield curve, Yellen’s Treasury Dept recently tried to auction off some IOUs from the longer end, namely the US 20Y UST.

Folks: It was embarrassing.

Foreign bidders for Uncle Sam’s 20-Year bond dropped to under 60% (they were 74% of the bidders in November).

This means that primary dealers (i.e., big banks) were forced to fill the gap by purchasing almost 22% of Uncle Sam’s increasingly unloved bar-tab of 20Y IOUs…

In simple speak, this is an open sign that the bond market is cracking. In fact, however, it has been cracking for a while…

Memories are short, as many have already forgotten the extreme dysfunction on the short end of the curve in Q1 of 2023 (not to mention the bank failures that followed, and with more to come, as warned…).

A similar disfunction is now openly obvious on the long-end of the bond curve, at least for those paying attention.

When bonds are unloved, their prices begin to fall, and their yields, which move inversely to price, start to rise, which means their interest rates rise too—adding more pressure (and cost) on Uncle Sam’s ability to repay the same.

Fiscal Dominance—More Than Just a Term of Art

This moment of interest expense “uh-oh” for DC is what the St. Louis Fed described in June of last year as “Fiscal Dominance,” namely that point where rising rates (and debt costs) get so high (i.e., dysfunctional), that the only option (and source) for more “greasy liquidity” (i.e., USDs) to support those ugly bonds is with money “clicked” out of thin air.

In short: More QE to the moon is inevitable, not debatable.

This QE inevitability is inherently inflationary, and this by the way, is the end-game for the Dis-United States, even if we experience a dis-inflationary recession somewhere in the middle of this tragic playing field.

Dollar Debasement—Right Before Our Eyes

Needless to say, such fake liquidity in the from an increasingly weaponized (and hence unloved) USD, places even more negative pressure on a DXY, which at the time of the aforementioned (and embarrassing) auction, was at 104, down from its 110+ levels of Q3 2022…

In the last four years of increasing bond dysfunction in the wake of drying liquidity, DC has shown five times in a row that it will come quickly and aggressively to the rescue to provide more fake grease (again, from the TGA, the BTFP, the repo markets etc.) to “save” the bond market at the expense of the currency.

Soon, we’ll just see plain ol’ QE, which will debase the USD even more, regardless of its “relative strength” to other equally, if not more, debased global currencies.

Such currency debasement, again, fits the pattern of all nations slowly dying from their own debt sins.

For now, of course, the markets are expecting Powell’s promised rate cuts to become actual rate cuts.

As a result, these markets are just giddy in anticipation and have recently hit all-time-highs on Powell words rather than Fed actions.

These already dangerously bloated markets will rise even further whenever the Fed has no choice but to hit the QE red button at the Eccles Building.

Tread Carefully You Top-Chasers

For those few, very few, who know how to trade nose-bleed tops without getting burned when net-incomes/margins trend south, the speculation and momentum trade juices are flowing.

But as I recently warned with evidence rather than hyperbole, today’s S&P, which is little more than a glorified tech ETF lead by 5 names, is the most dangerous bubble I’ve ever seen, traded or studied.

That Clever Pet Rock

Gold, meanwhile, will clearly get, and is already getting, the last laugh as stock bubbles inflate and bond markets scream for more debased USD grease.

The recent 20Y bond auction, above, with its foretelling of rising yields, should have been a massive headwind for that “yield-less pet rock.”

But as I argued from Vancouver in January, gold is breaking away from the standard correlations to rate, currency and inflation/deflation indicators.

Why?

For the simple reason that the overall system is now so openly broken, cracked, and dis-trusted that gold’s historically trusted (as well as speculator-ignored) role as a provider of real value (and 52-week highs) in world of diluted yet inflated currencies and bubble assets is becoming more obvious.

Again, this easily explains why central banks are stacking (and TRUSTING) this pet rock and dumping Uncle Sam’s IOUs at record levels.

That is, the world’s central banks (and leaders) see a US Humpty Dumpty about to fall off a wall, and when it does, gold will do far more to protect investors and sovereigns than bad IOUs and bubble assets measured in paper “money.”

Not surprisingly, the 0.5% of global financial assets allocated to gold are and will be rewarded not because they are just “contrarian for contrarian’s sake,” but because this remarkably small/informed minority are wise enough to think ahead rather just follow the sell-side sirens (and the crowd).

Which Needle Will Pop the Red Debt Ballon?

For now, and in the surreal backdrop of spiking markets and a Main Street on its knees and waiting for the “wealth effect” of a feudalistic rather that capitalistic financial system, all we can do is stare at the greatest debt bubble in history and guestimate which needle will “pop” it…

Will it be spiking rates colliding with the white swan of unprecedented global debt? A derivative market implosion? A geopolitical black swan? Another war? A collapsing Japan? China? America? A fractured/fragile EU? An immigration-lead fracturing of social order?

Who knows.

With so many needles pointed at a now historically unfathomable (and mathematically unpayable) red debt balloon, the actual needle that pricks us is rarely the one we see coming…

A Bank Needle?

As in 2008, the next crisis may come from where most crises are born, namely behind the glass doors of our stupid (and system-protected) banks…

The commercial real estate (CRE) crisis, of which I warned as far back as 2020, is anything but a minor matter.

The CRE losses on non-performing loans (NPLs) now exceeds the loss reserves at many of the largest US banks (Citi, Goldman, Wells, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan etc.)

The Fed’s Real Mandate

Ironically, however, I don’t worry about these silly banks, because their Rich Uncle Fed’s real mandate is not inflation and employment, but making sure the foregoing banks, from which the Fed was un-naturally spawned, do not fail.

Bank regulators, who are just former bank executives, will meet FOMC and Treasury “experts” in DC and paste-together more back-room extend and pretend programs (which is how all failed banks deal with their failing loans and leadership) to provide the bigger boys with needed “grease” (i.e., liquidity) to stay alive (via forced yet subsidized UST, MBS and syndicated CRE/ABS purchases) as the Fed, once again, decides between saving the banking system or the currency.

Needless to stay, the suspense is hardly killing any of us who know how DC and Wall Street work.

In other words, expect more mouse-clicked trillions to save Uncle Fed’s spoiled banking nephews in a NYC which has slowly become not only a den of thieves, but a half-way house for millions of illegals which we like to call “asylum seekers” …

Ah, the American Dream, ah, the city that never sleeps…and the nightmare that never ends for every inflation-braced Main Street from Sea to Shining Sea.

Big Trouble in Little China

Of course, the US is not alone with yet another real estate cancer. China’s CRE crisis is arguably and mathematically worse.

But is that any real consolation to those facing an increasingly debased Greenback and unloved UST?

Are we supposed to be happy that our currency and bonds, though awful, are still better (for now, at least) than China’s?

Well, if our Dollar and IOU are so relatively special, why are the yields on our 10Y UST spiking 200 basis points above the CGB (Chinese Government Bond) yields?

Well, unlike the US, China is not pretending to be above total control over its markets and people, a trend which will come to the West once its childish leaders are forced into a debt corner.

History’s Sad Pattern

As I’ve warned for years, the syllogism from debt-crisis to market-crisis to currency and inflation crisis, followed by social unrest and then increased centralization from the extreme left or right is a pattern as old as history itself.

China has no shame about overt capital controls or state-owned banking.

But are our Fed-supported TBTF banks any less “centralized” just because their CEO’s get paid like capitalists despite being bailed out like state-sponsored entities?

We have had Wall Street socialism for years, but have put a nice “free market” lipstick on what is in essence just an “insider” pig.

Based on the trends above, and the pattern just described, the slow-drip toward more currency debasement, inflation and centralized (and capital) controls (think CBDC) in the wake of social unrest (from truckers and tractors fighting their “lords” from NYC to Berlin) is not only here and now, but the tragic road ahead.

This pattern of centralization, sadly, is just history and math. The cycles will play out. And gold, though no cure-all for all the overt and covert sins of our failed leadership, will at least be a cure for our failed currency.

What’s Next When Policy Makers Can’t Hide Their Sins?

In this critically important Gold Matters discussion, VON GREYERZ principals, Egon von Greyerz and Matthew Piepenburg, place the enormous risks of the current U.S. equity bubble within the much-needed context of unprecedented global economic factors.

Egon opens the discussion with a brief review of the unprecedented string-cite of global geopolitical, social, economic and debt risks. From a preventable and escalating land war in the Ukraine to conflicts in Gaza and the broader Arab world to nose-bleed global debt levels in the backdrop of now undeniable social tensions and de-dollarization, the need to be realistic rather than just “negative” is of common-sense importance. As we head into a year already marked by such massive fissures, any attempt to gloss over these facts with an S&P making record highs would be missing the forest for the trees. In fact, the current U.S. bubble is far more of a dangerous rather than safe indicator when placed into needed context.

Toward this end, Matt speaks to something all-too familiar, having managed a hedge fund as well as a family office during prior asset bubbles. Matt gives particular attention to the overt risk indicators of the current S&P bubble, which teeters on the twin edge of unprecedented concentration and over-valuation metrics.

Matt’s perspective is not theoretical, but hands-on, as he explains how the current asset bubble, like the dot.com bubble of 2000, is in fact driven by the same fundamentals. He compares the Magnificent 7 to equally profitable and “good” names like the Microsoft, Cisco and Qualcomm of 1999-2000, noting that such otherwise profitable companies rising on margin growth eventually experience inevitable contraction in net income once price, volume and cost advantages trend negatively. No one, of course, can time such shifts, but “this time is NOT different,” as all such bubbles end the same: They pop.

What makes the current bubble (AI mania) so much more dangerous, however, is that it is led by 5-7 names, and when they mean-revert, as all over-valued companies do, there’s nothing left to prop the S&P. In short, when these names fall, everything falls with it, and this time around, the entire global economy is already on its knees. This is bad.

Egon closes the conversation with his own, and equally hands-on, perspective of investing through asset cycles and bubbles, offering needed insights on the risks, as well as lessons, of prior manias. Naturally, the conversation turns to real money and real assets, namely the far less “maniacal” gold. As the foregoing risks continue their exponential growth, gold rewards the far-sighted investor in obvious ways not otherwise understood by speculators. Matt, though not averse to the speculative mind-set, warns of the seductive appeal of chasing (and buying tops) and makes an equally straightforward case for gold in a world losing perspective.

What’s Next When Policy Makers Can’t Hide Their Sins?

All the fundamentals are now in place for the above equation to be true: 

• Wars will sadly not go away but instead escalate since there is ZERO desire for peace from the US neocons or the weak Europeans. 
• Inflation and interest rates will increase rapidly, driven by deficits and exponential growth of debt.
• Wars and inflation will lead to a major shift into GOLD by Central Banks, the BRICS  as well as for wealth preservation purposes.

“Poverty is the parent of revolution, crime and war” is what Aristotle stated 2,300 years ago. I added “war” since this is often the consequence of poverty and bankruptcy for a nation in a desperate attempt to borrow more money and blame the war for the economic woes.

As the US is now totally losing its hegemony, we can on a daily basis follow the desperate actions that a failing super power takes. 

As every empire and nation that fails, the US has followed the same pattern whether we talk about the Roman, Mongol, Ottoman, Qing or British Empires. 

Initial economic success as well as military might lead to illusions of grandeur and infallibility. 

Riches, often stolen from other nations, turn to deficits and debts, collapsing currencies and decadence. That leads to money printing followed by the collapse of the currency. At that stage wars are often started which generally have disastrous consequences. 

The RISK OF A COLLAPSE OF THE global geopolitical and economic SYSTEM is crystal clear BUT the outcome is extremely murky.

So let us look at what is clear on the geopolitical side:

• The US is not led by a visible leader but by an invisible and unaccountable group of neocons who only want war. And in Europe there is not a statesman to be found. Instead, weak European leaders follow the headless US.

• The US Neocons want to crush Russia by any means, even if it leads to nuclear war. Thus the US has implemented sanctions against Russia and forced Europe to take their full part by also sending weapons, money and military expertise to Ukraine. The cost of these measures is destroying the European economy and making the US even more bankrupt than it is, by running a deficit approaching $2 trillion with total US debt at soon $100 trillion. Remember it was $1.7 trillion in 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window.  See graph further down. 

• If the US war against Russia (carried out in Ukraine) escalates, Russia will have many friends on their side like China, North Korea and Iran. The US and NATO do not have the capacity to win a war on the ground so any war involving the West will be in the Air and very likely nuclear. 

• The US also wants to crush the Muslim/Arab world. Iran is currently the principal enemy. But the US is also supporting Israel against Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen. The Muslim world has no capacity for a major war against the West but they have a much more effective method of paralysing the West which is terrorism on a major scale.  Most Western countries have well armed Muslim cells, most probably also with dirty nuclear weapons. So surprise attacks on strategic buildings or major shopping centres  in the US, UK  and rest of Europe are probable. That would totally paralyse the countries involved.

• A cyber war is also very likely. Whether Russian and Chinese missiles can take out major communication satellite systems, as recently published, remains, to be seen. But they have well developed skills for cyber attacks anywhere. 

• The US has no desire for peace. They and other NATO countries are not sending a single peacemaker to Russia but only weapons and money. 

• The majority reaction to the recent Tucker Carlson 2 hour interview is typical for the propaganda led hatred for Putin. Most people in the West have been told by MSM to hate Putin and blame him for all evil acts and thus not listen to the interview. I am by no means saying that Putin is an angel because he definitely isn’t. But nor is any other leader of course. Nevertheless Sun Tzu, the Chinese General, strategist and philosopher told us 2,500 years ago: KNOW YOUR ENEMY.  

• So how can anyone in the West understand Russia or Putin when they are not prepared to listen to him calmly presenting the Russian side for 120 minutes? 

• Tucker Carlson – Biden interview. Some US politicians wanted to ban Tucker Carlson from coming back to the US after the interview. Instead I would suggest that Tucker would be given a 2 hour interview with Biden. Just like with Putin, there should be no advisors present, no crib sheets and no teleprompters. 

• Let the world thereafter compare the quality of the argument of the two leaders, their clarity and if they are both Compos Mentis. After all, these are the minimum requirements for a leader of a major power and someone who personally can press the nuclear button. 

I  have above covered the global geopolitical situation which is “crystal clear” from a risk point of view. 

I have since the Ukraine war started been very clear that Ukraine can never beat Russia. After a lot of initial enthusiasm for the underdog and a lot of fake news that Ukraine was winning, the world now realises that this war is a human catastrophe with both sides reporting big losses for the enemy and minimal for themselves. Total deaths are probably well above 500,000 but we will never know. 

The tragedy is of course that the leaders sit in their safe offices and send 100s of thousands of men to their slaughter with no resolution in sight. 

How this war will play out in detail, we will of course only know afterwards. But in the end it will be seen as another futile war with no winners and one or several million losers, just like most wars that megalomanic leaders start. 

THE RISK OF A COLLAPSE OF THE WESTERN ECONOMY IS CRYSTAL CLEAR

So let us now look at the global economic picture. 

The risk of your wealth declining by 70-90% in the next 5-7 years is today probably greater than any time in history. 

The US market is driven by a handful of tech stocks which are massively overvalued. 

On any measure, US stocks are greatly overvalued and as the US debt disaster starts to dominate the discussion, markets will quickly realise that the US is bankrupt.

TOTAL US DEBT IS NOW GROWING EXPONENTIALLY  

US debt has almost quadrupled this century. 

As I have set out in several articles, the interest cycle bottomed in 2020 and we will now see a long term trend up for 20-30 years.  

US Federal debt has doubled every 8 years on average since 1980. With the state of the US finances, the debt is likely to now grow super exponentially. Thus it is likely that $100 trillion Federal debt will be reached before 2036 as a mere doubling every 8 years would result in. 

So with $100 trillion or more of Federal debt within the next 10-12 years, the US economy will default, especially if interest rates reach 10% or more. Remember they were around 20% in the late 1970s and early 80s. 

Obviously, at that point, or more likely well before it, the US dollar will have collapsed and gold will be the only real money that central banks and ordinary investors will be willing to hold. 

Yes, there will probably be a few rounds of other forms of fake money in between like CBDC’s issued by central banks, in the next few years. But they will fail as CBDC’s will just be another Fiat currency backed by debt and no assets. 

So there we have it. Aristotle’s prediction is coming to pass. The US debt and deficit is the Poverty for the country as a whole and will rapidly spread to the people as the financial system implodes. Revolution or internal conflicts will follow both in the US and Europe. The truckers’ action in the US and in many European countries is the start of a form of Revolution.  But it will get much worse. There will be conflict between various political fractions whether it is Trump supporters against the system or neo-Nazis against immigrants or just ordinary people against the wealthy. Extreme income and wealth inequalities, like we are currently seeing in the West,  normally lead to conflicts or revolutions. 

And anyone living in the WEST knows that Crime (as Aristotle said) is rampant and the prisons in most countries are full.

Anyone who doesn’t see that we are at the end of a major era, with massive calamities next, will soon have a rude awakening. 

So overvalued stock markets will crash as will bond markets with interest rates surging. 

SO WHAT ABOUT CASH IN A BANK– will that save investors?

Your cash in a bank belongs to the bank: And that is where most people keep their cash. 

What people don’t realise is that your cash in the bank isn’t your money. 

No, all you have is a claim on the bank as an unsecured creditor. 

And as soon as the bank receives your electronic money, it lends it out up to 10X!

The consequence of that is if one borrower out of the ten can’t repay his loan, you have lost all your money. 

This process is now happening slowly but just as debt is accelerating exponentially, so will defaults. I explain the process in this article. 

First Gradually and then Suddenly – The Everything Collapse

Banca Rotta or Bankrupt: This expression comes from the Italian financial system in Florence in the 1600s when banking was conducted on a bench or desk. If the banker couldn’t honour his obligations, his bench was broken. And that is where the word Bankrupt (Banca Rotta in Italian) derives from. 

So there we have it, a broken or rotten banking system is what the world is looking at now. 

We had the first signs just under one year ago when four US banks had to be saved, starting with Silicon Valley Bank. Shortly thereafter Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second largest bank, had to be saved by the Swiss National Bank and government and then UBS were made an offer by the Swiss government that they weren’t allowed to refuse and bought Credit Suisse. 

What we saw during the Ides of March last year (March 15 when Caesar was murdered), was the first warning signal for the world that the banking system is broken.

The pressure on the banking system continues. The number of companies that failed to meet required repayments increased by 83% in 2023. 

US corporate debt has increased by 18% since 2000 and is now at $13.7 trillion.

Further deterioration is expected for 2024 due to higher rates. 40% of debt Rated B- or below is risking to be downgraded in 2024. 

The market is hoping for lower rates in 2024 but as I have stated many times, inflation and continued deficits will put pressure on the debt markets.

Commercial property is a real timebomb with vacancy rates approaching 15% and rents under pressure. Office sales prices are also falling rapidly by between 20% and 66% (in San Francisco).

The commercial property market is likely to lead to major write-offs for the banks and eventually either rescue actions (=money printing) or defaults – Banca Rotta!

But let’s face it, the exponential growth of total US debt is unsustainable. 

Please read my article on how exponential moves explode towards the end. So whether US debt goes to $200 trillion, $500t or quadrillions will be determined in particular by the collapse of the derivative market. 

I have in many articles explained that the outstanding derivatives are likely to be a lot higher than the BIS figure of just under $700 trillion like in this article: $2 quadrillion debt precariously resting on $2 trillion gold.

There are sources quoting up to $7 quadrillion derivatives but since I cannot prove it, I cannot make that claim myself. But since there are so many “bets” outside the banking sector and in the shadow banking sector, most of them uncollateralised, we will never know the true size until the system implodes. But whatever the sum is “only” $700 trillion or as much as $7 quadrillion, it is at least 8X global GDP which is enough to break the world financial system and collapse the world economy. 

This is not a fantasy. It is a nightmare. Because when counterparties fail the gross outstanding derivates cannot be netted and the gross amount outstanding is due. 

Initially governments will assist banks in turning the derivatives into on balance sheet debt but as the sheer weight of the debt becomes unmanageable and hyperinflation ravages, that’s when the system will fail. 

Yes, central banks will issue CBDS (Central Bank Digital Currencies)  and try to hide the debt but CBDS is just another form of fake money and will suffer the same fate as paper money. 

Besides the risk of the financial system, governments and central banks around the world, have throughout history destroyed our money without fail. 

Only since the early 1700s over 500 currencies worldwide have become extinct, the majority through hyperinflation. 

Just take the dollar which has lost 98% of its purchasing power since 1971 and 86% since 2000. 

GOLD

As I declared in a recent article – Catch the Goldwagon or lose your Fortune.

If stocks crash there might be some short-lived gold sales but 

GOLD IS ON THE CUSP OF A MAJOR MOVE AS:

• Wars will continue to ravage the world.
• Inflation will rise strongly due to ever increasing debts and deficits.
• The world flees from stocks, bonds, and the US dollar. 
• The BRICS countries continue to buy ever bigger amounts of gold.
• Central Banks buy major amounts of gold as currency reserves instead of US dollars.
• Investors rush into gold at any price to preserve their wealth. 

SO PLEASE DO NOT MISS THE GOLD WAGON BECAUSE IT WILL BE YOUR LAST CHANCE TO PRESERVE YOUR WEALTH

What’s Next When Policy Makers Can’t Hide Their Sins?

VON GREYERZ partner, Matthew Piepenburg, joins VON GREYERZ advisor, Grant Williams along with Andy Schectman and Jay Martin in the opening presentation at the recent Vancouver Resource Investment Conference to discuss the truly “tectonic shifts” in the global political and financial playing field.

The panel gives specific attention to the now undeniable and growing trend toward de-dollarization and the rise of the BRICS+ trading alliances outside of the USD. The evidence of the shift away from the USD and UST in the wake of the 2022 Putin sanctions is literally everywhere, from Main Street and the bond market to global currency, energy and gold markets.

For longer-term investors seeking to prepare for these changes, this special panel makes it clear that change is not just coming, it is already here. Knowing where currency and bond markets are moving, as well as global trade, the extent and implications of these changes won’t be scary but opportunistic. Of course, gold will play a central role in the new world unfolding before our very eyes.

What’s Next When Policy Makers Can’t Hide Their Sins?

The French poet, Arthur Rimbaud famously wrote that “Nothing is true.”

Hmmm.

Fairly sensational, no?

Deciphering the nuance behind such poetic phrases is almost as difficult as deciphering the meaning behind so many political (and hence central banking) phrases.

Reality Amidst Fantasy: Putin Speaks

Of course, not everything is a lie—but in the backdrop of a now openly discredited legacy media and the growing swells of mis-information, dis-information and mal-information, one has to be selective in sifting through pounds of fantasy for an ounce reality.

Recent headlines regarding the Carlson/Putin interview, for example, will draw passionate reaction, commentary and bias depending largely upon whether or not one views Putin as Hitler 2.0 or a Realpolitik pragmatist, Zelenskyy as George Washington reborn or a puppet thespian, or Tucker Carlson as a media lightweight or awe-shucks truth seeker.

Nothing we say here will change such personal biases floating above a cesspool of politicized and weaponized tricks and messages, from the DOJ to the WSJ, or the FOMC to NYT.

Stick to the Math

That is why math and factual data, far more than prompt-readers, sell-side bankers and power-prioritized politicos offer the safest lighthouse in the current financial and geopolitical fog.

So, let’s stick to math and facts and let us/you be our/your own judges.

Putin Getting Cheeky?

Putin, for example, wondered out loud why the US is spending billions in an avoidable war protecting its Ukrainian satellite nation despite its own country drowning in over 33 (in fact 34) trillion in public debt, a clear immigration disaster on its southern border and undeniable signs of de-dollarization as China and Russia, along with a whole lot of BRICS+ nations, move gradually away from the Greenback.

He also made a few sly, and potentially prophetic observations about the slow demise of the petrodollar, a theme we’ve addressed many times.

Was this just dis-information? Pro-Russian propaganda and hence more biased lies?

You can decide for yourselves.

Putin is no angel, after all, but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid, and when it comes to certain mathematical facts, he does have a few points worth considering…

Debt Matters

When it comes to US national debt (now over 120% of its GDP), we and many others, have been openly warning for years that it’s not only a national embarrassment (and managerial sin), but that such abstract trillions of debt are also mathematical deterrents to genuine (rather than debt-based) “growth.”

After all, debt-based “growth” is not actual growth, it’s just more debt—akin to giving teenage frat boys a credit card to party every semester while ignoring the subsequent invoice until graduation…

We’ve also reminded that the war on inflation, which Powell famously described as “transitory,” is not only far from over, but that its worst battle wounds (i.e., inflation pains) are yet to come.

In plain speak, Powell needs inflation and a debased dollar (via inevitable rate cuts and more mouse-clicked trillions, i.e., QE to the moon) to pay for (and inflate away) not only Uncle Sam’s rising, and embarrassing public debt, but the trillions more in unfunded liabilities off the public balance sheet.

Caught in this fatal undertow of debt, the Fed, and hence the US economy and dollar, is now openly trapped, and whatever one thinks of Putin, he knows this to be true.

Powell’s “higher-for-longer” rate hikes since 2022 were indeed dis-inflationary, but they also strengthened the USD, crushed bond prices and sent bond yields too high (and too costly) for foreigners holding over $13T in debt obligations pegged to those rising yields.

This forced foreigners to sell large chunks of their $7.6T in USTs to come up with the cash (i.e., USDs) to pay their dollar-denominated debts.

The net result was an increasingly disorderly bond market as the USD and yields rose while bond prices tanked, which only added more depth to US deficits (fiscal dominance), more pain to small businesses, more interest expense for Uncle Sam, tighter lending at the banks and increasing IOU issuance (i.e., more debt) from the US of A.

The Big Rub

But here’s the rub—and it’s a BIG RUB: No one wants those IOU’s.  (They prefer gold.)

Trust in American debt just aint what it used to be, and faith in that weaponized USD (as we warned since 2022) is fading—slowly, yes, but surely.

Recently, Jay Martin, Andy Schechtman, Grant Willaims and myself knew this; central banks know this, and not surprisingly, even that clever and hated/loved Mr. Putin knows this…

Thus, unless Uncle Sam wants to default on its debt (aint gonna happen) or allow a UST auction to fail (aint gonna happen), the only realistic option for more needed dollar liquidity (short of a Bretton Woods 2.0) is going to boil down to more synthetic liquidity, first from the repo markets and Treasury General Account (as seen in Sept of 2019 and 2022, and in March and October of 2023) and finally, from QE to the moon (as seen in March of 2020).

As for when the bow breaks and “Super QE” kicks in (and the USD falls and inflation once again rips), don’t ask me for a date, as NO ONE knows—but it’s coming, and at a faster pace than even Putin thinks…

Where the Rubber Meets the Road for Investors

So, what does all this debt, bond, currency and Fed disfunction mean for YOU, the markets and your fiat money?

Well, a helluva lot.

As for Main Street, the suffering, as I’ve shown and argued many times, is as loud and clear as Oliver Anthony’s guitar.

Stated simply—the middle class is already screwed.

Stocks, Gold, BTC and Bonds

Job cuts are objectively trending up, which ironically boosts earnings for companies with less over-head due to, well less employees…

Full-time employment has tanked by 1.4 million Americans in the past 3 months at a pace rarely seen in US history while politicians are bragging about GDP growth.

But, and to repeat, that GDP “growth” is coming from deficit spending (deficit to GDP at 8%), not a robust Main Street.

Think about that a second.

In the near-term, these disfunctions, lay-offs, lower-rate projections by the Fed and embarrassing debt levels are actually bullish for equities, a point which seemed to shock one of my recent interviewers.

Be Careful You Near-Term Dragon Slayers

But tread carefully in this so-called “bull market” of new stock highs, as there’s a great deal of comical rot beneath its rising wings.

Notwithstanding a 2024 market opening of all-time highs marked by extreme volatility, short-earnings momentum and AI mis-pricings reminiscent of the dot.com mania, the market is dangerously narrow—lead by Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia and META.

The fact that Microsoft is bigger than the French GDP has me wondering about my anti-trust books in law school as well the definition of corporatism in the annals of fascism… As warned elsewhere, what I see is more akin to feudalism not free-market capitalism.

Meanwhile, in the span of 30 days, Nvidia has become another Tesla in terms of market cap, with mind-numbing factor pair moves (i.e., price to value mismatches). The signals we are seeing look almost identical to 1998-2000, 2006-08 and 1970-73, circumstances which ended “with blood in the streets.”

Just saying…

Longer Term Wisdom

Longer-term investors tend to be more prudent than short-term speculators. They see the broader debt (and death) spiral of the US currency and IOU (measured by the US sovereign bond index, or TLT).

The growing performance of the GLD/TLT, BTC/GLD and SPX/TLT ratios (i.e., gold, Bitcoin and S&P outperforming the US10Y bond), for example, is fairly clear evidence that the markets are seeing what we have been warning, namely: Cash and bonds are no longer a “safe haven” in a nation on its knees in debt and a debased dollar.

Gold Matters

Of course, our bias, and more importantly, our conviction in a world wherein currency debasement is effectively inevitable and already in play regardless of relative strength comedies, is to protect your wealth in the best currency debasement asset history has ever known: Gold.

As for gold, I recently reminded that among the many foreseeable consequences of the stupid idea of weaponizing the USD to “hurt” Putin was the slow but equally inevitable move from Western to Eastern gold repricing, which is just another way of saying “fairer repricing.”

In short, fundamentals are slowly returning to a once completely price-fixed NY and London based gold market.

The SGE Matters

That is, as more nations are moving away from the weaponized USD and net-settling their trade deltas in gold rather than greenbacks (a fact which Putin, love him or hate, coyly reminded Tucker Carlson), the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) is getting busier by the day converting Rubbles, CNY and other currencies into gold to settle trade imbalances outside USD circles.

Premiums on the SGE, as well as pricing of the metal, are moving from West to East.

At some point, the 200-day moving averages in the gold price set on exchanges in London and New York will have to mirror rather than ignore what’s happening in the increasingly more popular Chinese exchange.

And speaking of the SGE, big things are happening right before our eyes.

Gold Withdrawals—Scary or Bullish?

Specifically, the SGE just saw 271 tons of gold withdrawals in a single month, the largest amount seen in 10 years.

Is that not bad for gold? Is it not akin to a “run on the [gold] bank”?

Actually, it’s the very opposite.

First, this move openly signals that Chinese investors trust gold more than their stock and real estate portfolios, something American investors have been slower to realize—often until it’s too late.

But in the US, gold held in ETF’s (which is not a smart place to “own” gold…) is also seeing big withdrawals at the same time the Spot price has been surging rather than falling.

Such Western gold ETF sell-offs occurred before in 2015 and 2013, and it drove the gold price down—not because investors hated it, but because the LBMA banks in London needed more of it.

This time, however, as ETF withdrawals increase, the gold price is going up.

Hmmm.

Why the new direction?

How the West Mistakenly Created a New Gold/Oil Order

Well, it has a lot to do with what we’ve been saying about the SGE.

Unlike 2013, the world now has an increasingly powerful Yuan-driven gold exchange as well as a Yuan-driven oil contract (with, among others, Russia…).

This creates a Yuan-based gold/oil ratio, as we predicted from Day 1 of the back-firing Putin sanctions, and this ratio is competing with the USD-based gold/oil ratio.

Again, and we can’t repeat this enough: Weaponizing the USD against Putin in Q1 of 2022 was a watershed momentin global currency (and hence oil, gold and other commodity markets).

Why?

Because it brought two major powers (Russia & China) closer in geopolitical and financial alignment, along with a growing list of eager BRICS+ nations now making bi-lateral trade deals outside the USD.

Don’t believe us or our warnings two years back? Well: See for yourself, here.

We also said this process would be slow, rather than overnight, but even we are amazed by the speed and scope of these market changes.

Given that global markets will not tolerate two-prices and two-markets for gold and oil, it is our contention (as well as Luke Gromen’s) that “the USD gold/oil ratio must remain the same as the CNY gold/oil ratio.”

The West Forced to Acknowledge Gold’s Monetary Role

As Gromen further argues, and I agree, this means that if the USD price of gold were to crash, then USD oil prices would have to crash along side the gold price, which would “crush” US shale production and “effectively cede the global oil market to Russia and Saudi.”

This makes the US nervous. More importantly, it will force some changes…

Stated more simply (and ironically), thanks to the knee-jerk Western sanctions against Putin, the West now and unwittingly has a vested interest in keeping gold more fairly priced as a primary net reserve asset for commodity and energy trade deltas/imbalances.

After all, the USA can’t simply ignore what the rest of the world is doing with gold and oil.

This, of course, creates even more ironies and more challenges for the openly cornered US.

For example, everyone in DC and Wall Street knows the open secret that a rising gold price, as well as a rising gold role in international trade, is an open insult and embarrassment to an increasingly unloved, debased and mouse-clicked fiat USD.

It’s also an open embarrassment to years of central bank mismanagement of the USD.

But now the West in general, and the US in particular, can no longer ignore the golden elephant in the room nor openly ignore (and quietly manipulate) the gold price.

The East, in short, is now reminding the world, and the West, that in a world of increasingly crappy paper dollars, money-printing and debt gone wild: Gold matters.

It really matters.

Fork in the Road

This means the US-led west will have to face realities about its currency and debt markets, as well as its society and Main Street.

Putin, whether trusted or untrusted, has suggested peace and more cooperation.

Does our power-thirsty and Pentagon-led DC, so openly disconnected from its citizens and once credible State Department, seek the same?

Or will DC simply do what Hemingway warned, and drag us further into wars and a debased Dollar in your wallet?

We shall see…

What’s Next When Policy Makers Can’t Hide Their Sins?

In this brief yet refreshingly blunt discussion, VON GREYERZ partner, Matthew Piepenburg joins David Lin at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. From Canada, Piepenburg fleshes out the longer-term facts vs. the short-term inflation “debate” and the now mathematical inevitability of further USD debasement to “save” an objectively broken financial system.

The conversation opens with the media-ignored (and almost comical) denial of an economic hard-landing despite current market highs driven by forward-guided rate hikes. Piepenburg reduced the stock market to a Pavlovian dog which simply turns up or down on dovish or hawkish Fed policies. Free market capitalism is now entirely perverted.

Powell’s projected rate cuts, necessary to bail out private and sovereign bonds repricing in 2024, is a tailwind for over-valued stocks but is not a sign of economic strength. Instead, we are seeing centralized markets, Fed desperation and a further postponed debt reckoning. The end-game will be “mouse-clicked” trillions to monetize unwanted USTs, the net result of which, is naturally inflationary.

Piepenburg reminds that such an inflationary end-game is part of undeniable and historical debt patterns which are always blamed on “external” forces which then justify increased policy dishonesty, as well as political control and centralization. This sickening pattern, he says, is historically true “without exception” as policy makers “prostitute sound debt policies at the expense of the many for the benefit of the few.”

Of course, sacrificing the currency to extend and pretend otherwise broken risk asset markets and purchase votes in the near-term ruins Main Street purchasing power while creating social unrest–the political, social, cultural and financial evidence of which is literally everywhere we look.

Gold, by itself, can’t save the financial system from these abuses and mis-uses of power and political opportunists. Leaders and central bankers will continue to maintain power while perverting currencies and pointing the blame outside their bathroom mirrors. This, however, does not prevent sophisticated investors from protecting their own wealth against currency destruction by owning their own physical gold outside of a failed financial order and Fed-protected banking system.

What’s Next When Policy Makers Can’t Hide Their Sins?

In this brief yet substantive conversation with Charlotte McLeod of Investing News Network, VON GREYERZ partner, Matthew Piepenburg, bluntly answers the financial questions and concerns which political figures and central bankers have a vested interest in mis-representing.

Toward that end, he highlights the recessionary facts which are currently being ignored by an S&P rising on rate cut projections from the US Federal Reserve. As for pending rate cuts, Piepenburg argues that Powell will indeed cut rates in 2024 for the simple reason that Uncle Sam (and risk asset markets) can’t afford “Higher for Longer” much longer…

Of course, rate cuts make Piepenburg temporarily bullish on equities, as lower rates are an obvious tailwind for risk assets which go up or down depending on whether central banks are dovish or hawkish.

As for gold, this asset wins regardless of which direction—hawkish or dovish—the Fed takes. Should Powell cut rates (dovish), the USD declines and gold outperforms. However, should Powell be bluffing and stick to higher rates (hawkish), then risk asset markets tank and gold ultimately rises above that chaos. Again, gold will rise in either scenario.

Most importantly, Piepenburg sees an ultimate and inflationary end-game when the Fed is eventually required to resort to extreme QE (mouse-click money) to monetize the trillions in deficit spending projected out of the US Congressional Budget Office. Stated simply, Uncle Sam is drowning debt, and the only buyer of his IOUs will be a Fed money printer, which is inherently inflationary. As such, gold will rise because the USD will be debased to pay Uncle Sam’s debt.

As Piepenburg concludes, this pattern of debasing sovereign currencies to save otherwise rotten debt systems is nothing new. In fact, and without exception, this is what all broke(n) regimes have done throughout history. The US, and USD, will be no exception, which means gold will be exceptional.

What’s Next When Policy Makers Can’t Hide Their Sins?

VON GREYERZ founder and chairman, Egon von Greyerz, sits down with Investor Talk’s Jan Kneist to discuss his outlook for 2024, which includes clear signs that now, more than ever, investors need to be prepared for an historic wealth transfer.

Egon opens with a brief explanation of the naturally evolved name change from Matterhorn Asset Management AG to VON GREYERZ AG. He places specific emphasis on the values and principles behind the family name–the very same values which will mark his enterprise for generations to come.

As to looking forward, Egon’s core views of current and future financial conditions are driven by a consistent understanding of past lessons and patterns. Market patterns today, for example, are reminiscent of the boom and bust cycles of yesterday; he addresses the massive (and dangerous) over-valuation in current markets with greater detail.

As to inflation concerns, Egon’s conviction for a much higher inflationary end-game remains the same. Current Fed balance sheet tightening (QT) is also discussed. Given massive deficit levels in the US, the shift toward synthetic liquidity to monetize US debts will make future QE inevitable. As Egon reminds, demand for USTs is weakening not strengthening, a fact made even more obvious by the West’s absurd decision to freeze the FX reserves of a major economy like Russia.

In short, trust in the American IOU has now irrevocably fallen, all of which places more pressure on the Fed as the buyer of last resort for its own national debt—all classic characteristics of a banana republic.

Turning to gold, its superior performance over the last two decades remains ignored and misunderstood by the vast majority of pundits and investors. Of course, once this misunderstanding (and BIS-led great deception) becomes clear to more investors, the subsequent demand for this relatively fixed-supply asset will send gold’s price much higher in the years ahead. The DOW-Gold ratio, Egon argues, will reach 1:1, which means risk assets will see pain and physical gold will surge in price as global debt levels send markets and economies toward historical turning points, from the US to China.

This, of course, requires sophisticated investors to think more about preparation and wealth preservation over delusion and speculation. Gold, and VON GREYERZ, serve to provide such preservation.

What’s Next When Policy Makers Can’t Hide Their Sins?

In late December, I published a final report on the themes of 2023 while looking ahead at their implications for the year to come.

I repeated my claim that debt markets and debt levels made the future of Fed policies, currency moves, rate markets and gold’s endgame fairly clear to see.

Of course, as facts change, opinions change as well.

But the facts are only worsening, which means my opinions in late 2023 are only growing stronger as we conclude the first month of 2024.

Then as now, the debt-soaked US is tilting ever more toward policies which will weaken its currency, wound its middleclass and reward its false idols (and false markets) with even greater desperation.

In particular, some recent facts below are emerging which further support my otherwise sad conviction that the American economy (not to be confused with its Fed-supported stock exchanges) is literally living on borrowed time.

The Latest Bits of Crazy from the CBO

Almost a year ago to date, I was shaking my head and rubbing my eyes as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced a staggering $422B Federal budget deficit for Q1 2023.

Now that’s a lot of borrowing in a short amount of time…

For some strange reason, this bothered me in early 2023, as I was still under this odd impression that debt, and hence deficits, actually mattered.

Fast forward to January 2024, and that same CBO has just announced a $509B Federal budget deficit for Q1 2024.

Folks, that adds up to annual deficit run rate of $2.2T.

Please: Re-read that last line again.

Do the Math: DC is Getting Even Dumber

In this 12-month interim, fiscal revenues did increase by about 8%, but outlays (i.e., expenses) for that same period rose by 12%, which is just a mathematical way of saying that either: 1) Uncle Sam is out of his mind in debt; or 2) that I am out of my mind in common sense.

But it seems I’m not the alone in saying out loud what no one DC can say to themselves, namely: The US is now in an open and obvious debt spiral.

Uncle Sam’s embarrassing bar tab of debt is now racing at a rate that far exceeds his GDP, pushing the deficit to GDP ratio toward 8% and higher–ratios we’ve never seen except during the GFC of 2008 and the “COVID” (i.e., hidden bond) crisis of 2020.

From Debt Spiral to Super QE

If recent memory serves me correctly, in both of those embarrassing years (and ratios), what followed was QE to the moon and the ongoing fantasy that every debt problem can be solved with trillions of fiat dollars mouse-clicked out of thin air.

And this time around will likely be no different, as I and others like Luke Gromen have been warning week after week, and month after month.

Such warnings, which NO ONE can time, are not merely bearish “opinions” and don’t require a crystal ball or sensational guessing.

They just require a calculator and a basic understanding of history.

Simple Math

As to basic math, one can have their own opinions but not their own facts, and the facts (i.e., math) tell us that the current cost of servicing the aforementioned debt is 16% of Federal tax receipts.

Again: Please re-read that last line. It matters, because, well…debt destroys nations.

Nor am I alone in this sober understanding.

As the former head of European block trading at Goldman Sachs, Alex Harfouche, just warned, these sickening debt ratios mean the US economy’s ability to shoulder such debt is both “horrible” and “crippling.”

Which means we all know (or should know) what’s coming next.

The Patterns of the Foolish

As in 2008 and 2020, we can now see a pattern playing out in 2024, namely an inevitable shift from rate hikes and pauses toward rate cuts and the inevitable shift from QT to QE.

Why inevitable?

Because stupidity combined with a Will to Power that would make Nietzsche blush are the profile traits of nearly all math-ignorant but ego-savvy policy makers seeking re-election or a Nobel Prize in Economics (fiction?).

That is, and especially in an election year, policy makers will not cut spending but increase it in a desperate bid to bribe the gullible masses into a Pavlovian voting pattern based on generations of political over-promising and grotesque under-delivering.

This political inability to cut entitlement spending makes a US debt spiral (and hence QE to the moon) as foreseeable as the NY Yankees beating my high-school baseball team.

DC Cutting Rates Rather than Spending

Furthermore, since the DC children running our country into the ground won’t cut spending, the only thing they can (and will) cut is interest rates.

Why?

Because cutting rates not only takes pressure off Uncle Sam’s IOUs (USTs), but also eases the pain of those complicit S&P zombies staring down the barrel of over $740B in debt rollovers in 2024.

Main Street Screwed Again

Remember: The Fed serves TBTF banks and exchanges, not citizens and their realities.

Interest rate cuts + QE = a further debased USD and rising inflation (with a deflationary recession in the middle).

And this means the voters on Main Street are about to feel the darker side of DC’s real mandate: Covering their own A$$’es while keeping Wall Street on a respirator.

Meanwhile, the masses feel pain, but can’t quite see from where it’s coming, as the media, MMT hucksters and political Ken and Barbies keep telling them that deficits don’t matter.

Deficits Don’t Matter?

Even worse, there are those sitting in private wealth management suites smugly reminding their clients that Japan is in much worse debt (see below) than Uncle Sam, and if Japan can muddle through, certainly the US has nothing to fear.

But as I recently reminded the attendees at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, Japan does not have twin deficits, a negative 65% Net International Investment Position nor an externally financed bond market.

In short: Japan aint America. But even if it were, it’s nothing of which to boast…

Whistling Past the Debt Graveyard with More Spending

Like Luke Gromen, I am of the sober and math-based view that unless the US cuts entitlement and defense spending by 40% (unthinkable in an election year and a world of beating [US?] war drums almost everywhere), such austerity is about as likely as an honest man in Congress…

Failing such needed cuts and sound budget honesty, policy makers will merely whistle past another year of multi-trillion deficit levels and pass the bill on to current and future generations while inflating their way out of debt with more of the debased money in your pockets.

As I’ve written before, this is no surprise. In fact, it was the plan all along, despite Powell’s efforts to pretend otherwise.

Keep It Simple: Powell Will Pivot

Debtors, including Uncle Sam, need inflation and need a debased currency. 

They need negative real rates whereby inflation outpaces the yield on 10Y bonds.

Powell, of course, tried pushing real rates to a positive 2% to allegedly “fight inflation,” but, and as in 2018-19, the net result was that he simply broke nearly everything but the USD in the process.

In fact, Powell was merely raising rates and thinning the Fed balance sheet so that he’d have something (anything) to cut (rates) and fatten (balance sheet) when the recession that his higher-for-longer policies ushered in (and then denied) became too impossible to ignore.

Or stated more bluntly: His recent QT was a planned precursor to more QE, and his recent rate hikes were a planned precursor to more rate cuts.

Keep It Simple: A Future of Debased Currency

Thus, and long before hitting “target 2%,” Powell will once again throw in the towel in 2024 on rate hikes for the simple reason that Uncle Sam can’t afford them.

Or stated (and repeated) more simply, his “war on inflation,” waged in the last 2 years, will ultimately (and ironically) end in even greater inflation.

Ahhh the ironies. Or better yet: “The horror, the horror…”

History confirms this pattern in one debt-failed nation after the next.

In fact, and without exception, currencies are always sacrificed to save a broken regime. And folks, our regime is objectively broke(n).

Thus, for those who know the math (above), and the history of yesterday, preparing for tomorrow is simple.

Projected rate cuts (and the scent of more synthetic liquidity) can and (already have) sent inflated risk assets higher as the inherent purchasing power of the currency gets weaker.

Keep It Simple: Natural Gold vs. An Un-Natural Dollar

This simply means gold, though never marching in a straight line, will reach higher highs and lower lows for no other reason than paper currencies like the USD will get more debased.

And this is all because the issuance of unloved sovereign USTs will become greater and greater, as the opening data from the CBO in Q1 now makes factually clear.

Soon the Fed will run out of tricks within Treasury General Account (Yellen’s game) and the Reverse Repo Markets to generate fake liquidity for those over-supplied and under-demanded USTs.

And this means Powell will once again crank out the money printers at the Eccles Building to “buy” those IOUs.

Fortunately, Powell has no machine in DC to produce physical gold, which means this natural precious metal of unlimited duration yet finite supply will rise, while USTs, an unnatural asset of finite duration yet infinite supply, will continue to sink.

It’s just that simple.

What’s Next When Policy Makers Can’t Hide Their Sins?

In this brief yet important conversation between Egon von Greyerz and Matthew Piepenburg, these former “MAMChatters” announce a new discussion series, GOLD MATTERS. The timing and series-change is both appropriate and exciting, as Matterhorn Asset Management, AG has now officially changed its entity name to VON GREYERZ, AG.

VON GREYERZ principal, Matthew Piepenburg, opens by explaining the new entity name as a natural and shared decision among the entire VON GREYERZ organization to reflect the insights and vision of its founder and Chairman, Egon von Greyerz.

As Matthew reminds, Egon’s professional career, which includes years in Swiss banking before taking a small UK retail enterprise to much greater heights as a listed FTSE 100 company, is one marked by a steady understanding of business ethics, personal values and disciplined growth. Those same characteristics shaped Egon’s journey in taking Matterhorn Asset Management from a small circle of family-and-friend investors into a global enterprise with clients in over 90 countries.

Matthew specifically enquires about Egon’s relationship with–and deep understanding of–global debt and risk levels as critical components of the VON GREYERZ narrative, the success of which Egon explains with the clarity earned from decades of experience. Gold, he reminds, is the culminating asset for those who understand the myriad risks now rising before us in real time, from fractured banking practices and geopolitical fissures to unsustainable debt levels and broken fiat currency systems. Toward this end, the VON GREYERZ wealth preservation service via physical gold is the perfect expression of (and name for) Egon’s deeply respected approach to solving for such risks.

Piepenburg concludes the discussion by announcing the enhanced VON GREYERZ website, which offers users an even richer experience (and on-site education) in not only why sophisticated investors own gold, but where and how it needs to be held, and not held, in the current global backdrop. The new website also underscores the menu of services behind VON GREYERZ, which have made it the industry leader in wealth preservation.