With tensions heating up around the world, a new monetary system is coming but we are being threatened with a crushing blow to our way of life.
A New Monetary System And A Threat To Our Way Of Life
Stephen Leeb: “I’m starting this interview with a depressing admission: today, for the first time in a pretty long life, geopolitical events are starting to really scare me to death. No, it’s not Trump, or any particular president, nor is it Korean missile tests or any other specific event in the news. Instead, I refer to America’s growing inability to see, think, or plan long term. Commodity shortages are coming, a new monetary system is coming, and a divided, short-sighted country has no response. We are threatened with a crushing blow to the U.S. and our way of life…
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Or to express it differently, despite America’s belief that under Reagan we won the Cold War as the Soviet Union dissolved, decades later I am convinced that we actually lost it and don’t know it – that Russia and China have done an end run around us that will become increasingly clear. With this growing awareness of our vulnerability comes an even firmer belief that the only way Americans can protect themselves is through gold. We’re facing unprecedented turmoil and chaos, and gold is the surest haven.
It should seem so obvious that you can’t solve most problems and build for the future overnight, but instead need to think long term and plan ahead. In the world of business, which is less complicated than governing a country, most leaders don’t have the nerve or vision to proceed with a long-term calculus. The few exceptions – Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway spring to mind – prove the rule. At first glance, they seem like strange bedfellows, the leading Internet retailer and a massive conglomerate with a more than two-generation record of nearly 20 percent gains. The common thread is that both invest for tomorrow, which can mean many years from the present, and that both have been the most successful companies in their life span.
China’s Move To Control Eurasia And The World
What works for individual companies works for countries. In 1996, China’s GDP amounted to about $860 billion, about 1/9th that of the U.S. By 2016 China’s economy in nominal dollars had grown more than 13-fold to about $16 trillion, only 15 percent smaller than the United States. This is a remarkable story that has been told many times. But less known is that even in 1996, China was thinking ahead to the 21st century and beyond, laying plans to dominate perhaps not just the East but the whole world.
That year, 1996, was when China along with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan formed a military, economic, and political alliance called the Shanghai Five. In 2001, the year China became part of the WTO, Uzbekistan was added to the group, which was then renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The six members account for about 60 percent of the Eurasian land mass and a quarter of the world’s population. This year, India and Pakistan will likely join as well.
Of the six current members, the four countries outside of China and Russia were part of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and make up the core of Central Asia. Central Asia is a storied region. Its significance stems from its proximity to great historical powers on all sides and important routes that connect those powers, which include China, Russia, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Iran, and now other Middle Eastern states. These undeveloped countries are richly endowed with natural resources. According to Alfred Thayer Mahan, a 19th century U.S. naval officer regarded as one of the great geopolitical strategists in American history, and British geopolitical thinker Halford MacKinder, control of Central Asia provided a clear path to control of the Eurasian land mass and in turn of the entire world.
Nicholas Spykman followed in the footsteps of Mahan and Mackinder by arguing that no country or collection of countries could control the Eurasian landmass without controlling the seas surrounding Eurasia, requiring a naval presence along the European coast, the Arabian Sea, and East Asia. To extend control of Eurasia to the rest of the world would require a navy that is dominant. That conclusion is at least somewhat reassuring, since currently China’s navy, while world class, is still surpassed by U.S. naval might.
But as I’ve noted previously, China, by virtue of its navy’s concentration in the East and its superior technologies, including hypersonic missiles, is well able to defend the territory it has carved out for itself. That includes various economically important and militarily strategic ports such as Piraeus in Greece, which is a gateway to Eastern Europe; Gwadar at the foot of Pakistan, which is gateway to the Middle East; and various ports on Africa’s east and west coasts. As the Financial Times put it: “China’s global port ownership clusters around key trade routes and maritime chokepoints.”
One reason many powers failed in their attempts to control Eurasia is that Central Asian countries are a motley bunch characterized by differences in culture, religion, and language. Even Russia, despite its strong military, never established firm control over these FSU countries. But now, with the military and economic backing of China and also Russia, the countries have come together. Some problems remain, but are being resolved amidst the economic cooperation and development that the SCO has fostered. Moreover, the SCO is being complemented by China’s Silk Road, or One Belt One Road, initiative.
Each year the SCO has a summit that concludes with a declaration being issued. According to the People’s Daily, a declaration issued last decade stated that the SCO member countries “have the ability and responsibility to safeguard the security of the Central Asian region and called on Western countries to leave Central Asia (bolding added). This is the most noticeable signal given to the world.” With India and Pakistan very likely to join the group, it is clear that China and Russia are aiming for control of more than just Eurasia.
China’s Massive And Growing Gold Hoard
This brings me back to where I started, the importance of thinking long term. China’s long-term planning began in the late 1970s with the ascension of Deng. The country’s plans were multifaceted and included initiating an export-based economy that would in time transition to a market-based economy. The initial plans had room for a lot of trial and error. One persistent element of China’ plans for growth mandated accumulating gold. In the late 1970s the country created the “Gold Armed Police”, a military unit tasked with the development of the nation’s gold reserves. China, according to a translation of a Chinese Wikipedia page, believed development of “foreign exchange and other hard currency is very urgent.” Between the late 1970s and today, gold production in China has climbed from about 10 tonnes a year to over 400 tonnes. It is unclear how much of the West’s decline the Chinese foresaw in the late 1970’s, but it certainly could have been a factor in the all-out accumulation of gold, which they saw then as necessary for economic discipline.
Today, while Chinese gold production is the highest in the world, it’s a relatively small part of China’s yearly accumulation of the metal. The clear message is that the East, which could easily extend its sway to include a big chunk of Europe, is headed for a gold standard of sorts, one that will translate into gold prices that will skyrocket above almost anyone’s target – easily into five digits ($10,000 and higher). The bottom line is that in a world of rising turmoil in which the U.S. appears woefully unprepared, every investor should be buying gold.”…KWN has just released the remarkable audio interview with Michael Belkin, the man who counsels the biggest money on the planet, discussing the mining shares, gold, silver, global markets, and much more, and you can listen to it by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
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