Wednesday, November 25, 2009

War and Commodities

"the average family will be hurt by that, and then in order to distract the attention of the people, the governments will go to war"

- said Marc Faber, on the subject of governments' money printing, last week in Singapore.

Mark Faber is a Swiss Fund manager and economist and is highly regarded internationally. His comments reported here are in regard to the failed stimulus policies by governments:

"I think eventually there will be a big bust and then the whole credit expansion will come to an end,"
"Before that happens, governments will continue printing money which in time will lead to a very high inflation rate, and the economy will not respond to stimulus".

Mr Faber advises people to invest in commodities. That would be a good way to financially survive a military conflagration:

"At some stage, somewhere in future, we will have a war - that you have to be prepared for. And during war times, commodities go up strongly,” said Faber.

Among his predictions: "has been warning about a collapse of the capitalistic system 'as we know it today,' massive government debt defaults and the impoverishment of large segments of Western society." And he goes on to say:

"I repeat what I have said in the past, no decent citizen should trust the Federal Reserve for one second. It’s very important that everyone own some gold because the government will make the dollar (in the long term) useless."

I think we can assume that the Bank of England and the pound sterling can be put in that category too.

I'd like to see the SNP stepping up the pressure on Brown and Britain's economic situation. Scots should be told that independence is the only escape option from a collapsing British state.

2 comments:

voiceofourown said...

Good stuff, Alex.
The salient question is though, does Eck disagree with our sainted govt's 'quantative easing' tactic?
I'm not entirely sure he does.
I am sure, like you, that it's merely storing up trouble for the future - a bit like sticking a wad of cash up your bung hole to stop the flow of skitter.
I could take that analogy further but I'm just off to lunch so perhaps not.

Regards,
Davie Park.

Alex Porter said...

Davie,
Aye well, the problem is that if printing is the game then Alex needs to make sure Scotland gets its fair share of the volume. I mean how can he ask for a fair share of the dough and fight against borrowing at the same time?

I think he could. He could explain that he thinks the monetary policy in London is diabolical but that he has no choice, owing to lack of economic levers, but to fight for Scotland's share..

I agree with your metaphor. It reeks and cause a run ;)