Things Are Continuing To Deteriorate In The Real World At An Alarming Rate

With stocks weakening, crude oil plunging, and gold surging, today a 50-year market veteran warned King World News that things are continuing to deteriorate in the real world at an alarming rate.

Things Are Continuing To Deteriorate In The Real World At An Alarming RateJohn Embry: “Eric, things are continuing to deteriorate in the real world at an alarming rate…

“As Jason Goepfert pointed out last week, the open interest in gold and silver is blowing out as the commercials, i.e. the bullion banks, dramatically increased their short positions. This has always signaled a period of vulnerability in the paper markets for gold and silver because for the last 4 1/2 years the large speculators have generally been flushed and the commercials have covered, making significant profits and keeping the precious metals prices controlled — as per the wishes of the Western central banks and governments.

World’s Debt Position In Serious Jeopardy

However, when this ploy finally fails and the shorts get overrun, the price moves in gold and silver will make you feel like your hair is on fire. This, as you know Eric, is called a “commercial signal failure” and it happens very rarely. I agree with what James Turk told KWN about a coming short squeeze in the metals. I sense that day is getting much closer as Western gold and silver inventories dwindle, mine supply peaks, and perhaps more importantly, global economic activity continues to weaken — putting the world’s debt position in serious jeopardy.

The fact that more and more Western countries are entertaining the idea of negative interest rates gives you a solid indication that excessive debt and decelerating economies are starting to take a brutal toll.

Interestingly, while on holiday in the Grenadines last week, I had the pleasure of attending a breakfast where a very bright, well-connected finance professor from a renowned business school in Canada attempted to defend the move to negative interest rates. In my eyes he certainly wasn’t very convincing. But his complete faith in the system and the policies that are being implemented made me even more bearish.

Eric, I have believed for some time that the U.S. dollar has become severely overvalued. I got an interesting example of that on my holiday in the Grenadines, where their currency — the eastern Caribbean dollar — is pegged to its U.S. counterpart. As a result, tourism is down noticeably on the island I was on, and many expensive ex-pat homes are for sale. This is happening because the island is less competitive vs the other warm vacation spots where their currencies have fallen sharply against the U.S. dollar.

In closing, I think it’s important to note the fact that the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, has come out in favor of BREXIT, and that could be a big factor in the upcoming referendum as he has credibility amongst the people. At this point the European Union is already in sufficient difficulty that a formal British exit might just trigger a complete dissolution of the already fragile union.

Problems Now Multiplying On All Fronts
In closing, I would just say that the problems are multiplying on all fronts — economic, financial and geopolitical. This has resulted in even more frantic stock and bond market manipulations and intensifying economic propaganda. All I can say to KWN readers around the world is stay tuned and use all available opportunities to increase gold and silver exposure on any manufactured, bogus weakness.”

KWN
February 23, 2016