Central banks

After China's official gold reserves rose for the first time in around two years (since Oct 2016) in December, Beijing appears to have joined the global gold rush, increasing its gold reserves for the third month in a row in February to 60.26 million ounces.

Here are the numbers: France’ public debt has reached €2,299.8 billion, the equivalent of 99% of its GDP. Public debt keeps growing year after year since deficits – State ones being the largest – persist.

Since the bottom of the market in 2009, $14 trillion have been printed by the Fed, ECB (European Central Bank) and the BOJ (Bank of Japan). Alfred has never considered that this substantial liquidity might have been the reason why the market is up 4x since 2009.

Bank of Italy’s Governor Ignazio Visco said on Monday the country’s reserves of gold belonged to the central bank and could not be used to fund government spending.

Romania may be set to join a wave of countries moving their gold home from vaults abroad after the nation’s de facto leader started a push to relocate 61 tons of the reserves, worth about $2.4 billion, from the U.K.

At least 8 tons of gold were removed from the Venezuelan central bank’s vaults last week, an opposition legislator and three government sources told Reuters, in the latest sign of President Nicolas Maduro’s desperation to raise hard currency amid tightening sanctions.

History’s biggest bear market in fiat money and bull market in eternal money or gold is about to start. You will ignore it at your peril.

Do not believe anyone telling you the European banking sector is healthy. None other than the European central bank, the ECB, is aware of the problem, having just confessed to it.

Once the Maginot Gold Line is broken, that creates the conditions for the Chinese Gold Line which means a panic to get hold of gold and permanent shortages. So the current complacency in the West that gold has lost its lustre and serves no purpose is extremely dangerous.

The Chinese government saw already 48 years ago that Nixon’s decision to end the gold backing of the dollar would be the end of the dollar and the Western monetary system. No one believed their prophecy at the time. But they are being proven right.