John Embry – There Will Be A Catastrophic Outcome

As Bitcoin Skyrockets, Trouble Is Looming

John Embry:  “Eric, last week was fascinating.  There was the juxtaposition of two pricing anomalies which demonstrated how totally bizarre things have become…

Continue reading the John Embry interview below…

John Embry continues:  “At the very time that silver was being driven to a recent low in the mid-$16s, it was reported that a painting by the deceased American artist Basquiat that sold for $19,000 in 1984 was bought at auction by a Japanese investor for the staggering sum of $111 million.

Thus, at a time when virtually all assets viewed as stores of value, with the exception of precious metals, are exploding in price, silver is trading at exactly 1/3 of its record high price of $50 reached in 1980 and again in 2011.  At the same time, there is a massive short position in the silver paper market, and some astute observers believe there may actually be as many as 500 paper claims on each physical ounce of silver that is currently available.
To add insult to injury for the silver investors, the cryptocurrencies led by Bitcoin are also rising exponentially, with Bitcoin doubling in price over the past several months.  I suspect this will come to a climax fairly shortly, and the winner at that point will be silver, which is remarkably inexpensive in a world filled with vastly overpriced financial assets, collectibles and real estate.  Thus I certainly agree with the sentiments expressed on KWN yesterday by James Turk.

Changing course, I read a fascinating piece by Charles Hugh Smith last week.  I’ve always had a very high regard for his thoughts on financial matters.  He emphasized a point with which I totally agree — that rates can never rise with all sectors of the global economy grossly over-indebted.  However, what caught my attention was that he said there is no alternative.  Thus there is no alternative to low rates forever in the ongoing creation of vast amounts of fiat currency and credit to keep the system from imploding.  Demonstrating this, there was a report yesterday from a Canadian bank stating that if interest rates were to rise by 1 percent in Canada, 75 percent of those people with mortgages on their homes would face a problem.

So anybody who thinks for 5 minutes about this reality will reach the conclusion that a global hyperinflation is inevitable.  However, this is a catastrophic outcome.  Previously hyperinflations had been confined to individual countries or at worst small geographical areas.  There were alternatives elsewhere for those with assets to protect in the impacted areas.

In a global hyperinflation with 7.3 billion people on Earth, there are very few escapes and the implications are simply horrifying.  Eventually the debt has to be eradicated, with or without a hyperinflation.  And that ensures a dreadful global economic environment in the forthcoming period which will dwarf anything seen in the 1930s.
Real assets will prevail in such an environment.  And the cheapest real assets on the planet remain physical silver and gold.  They are on the bargain counter now, but long before the vast majority of investors even realize that they represent the best protection, there is a strong probability that there will be very limited quantities available at any price.”

5/25/2017
King World News