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August
18
2022

An Autum With Epic Collapses of Stocks, Debt, Currencies, Much Higher Inflation - Leading to Poverty & Social Unrest
Egon Von Greyerz

The world economy and especially the political and economic situation today consists of a potpourri of lethal ingredients which will have dire consequences.

Let’s look at what this deadly potion consists of:

• Debts at levels that can never be repaid – sovereign, corporate & private
• Epic global bubbles in stocks, bonds & property – all about to collapse
• Major geopolitical conflicts with no desire for peace – major wars likely
• Energy imbalances and shortages, most self-inflicted
• Food shortages leading to major famine and civil unrest
• Inflation, leading to hyperinflation & global poverty
• Political and economic corruption in US, Europe and most countries
• No country will afford social security, medical or pension payments

So what are governments around the world doing to solve these problems?

Nothing of course.

The only thing they know is to print more money. They have never understood that a debt problem cannot be solved with more debt. All they can try to achieve is to pass the baton to the next leader so it will be his problem.

This means that all the political, economic and financial mismanagement of the past 50 years will result in a global collapse never seen before in history.

The consequences will be both dire and unpredictable since the world has no experience of this magnitude and complexity of problems.

So what are global leaders doing?

What is clear is that Western leaders will not assume any responsibility for the coming calamities.

Covid will obviously be blamed although there is a lot of evidence that it was manmade and could have been controlled with simple and cheap existing medicines. And all the lockdowns and restrictions have certainly had a bigger impact than the disease itself. Sweden for example virtually had no lockdowns or mask requirements and did not suffer more deaths than countries in total lockdown.

Special interests like Big Pharma clearly had the politicians in their hands. They had trillions of dollars to gain and nothing to lose since they are immune against any prosecution.

Anyway, it has happened and we can’t go back. The future will tell us if, as many scientists  believe, the people’s immune system will have been severely weakened by the vaccines.

Secondly, the Russians will be blamed for the current global economic problems of inflation, energy shortages and decline of global trade. The fact that these problems started well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine is quickly forgotten.

WILL THE WAR DRUMS BECOME LOUDER?

Since 3600BC, governments have fought 14,000 wars against each other. As far as I am aware, there is no period in history without an important war.

At the end of the 30-year war, European nations tried to put a stop to unprovoked wars with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. The peace conference in Muenster involved 194 states. The start of the war in 1618 was the Protestant Bohemians rising against the Catholic Holy Roman Empire. The major opponents to the Roman Catholics were the Habsburgs supported by Sweden and the Netherlands. Spain and France were also involved in the war together with many other nations.

Interestingly, my two home countries benefitted from the peace. Sweden by virtue of being a major military power at that time gained substantial territories around the Baltic and Switzerland gained formal independence from Austria.

But the major result of the Westphalian peace treaty in 1648 was:

• National self-determination
• Precedent for ending wars through diplomatic congresses
• Peaceful coexistence among sovereign nations
• Acceptance of the principle of non-interference in the affairs of other nations if there was not a clear present danger to the aggressor.

Almost all wars in history have been between neighbouring countries. But in the 20th century the US changed that.

Without provocation and far from its borders, the US invaded Vietnam, Serbia, Iraq, Libya and Syria. So the 300 year old Westphalian principle of non-interference was properly buried by the US on multiple occasions. But not only did the US break this principle but also failed in each single one of the aforementioned conflicts.

One could of course argue that Japan broke the treaty first with the Pearl Harbour attack. But like all aggressors they claimed self defence against potential US interference in Japan’s ambitions in the Pacific.

The Russians will of course argue that they haven’t broken the Westphalian treaty since Ukraine historically has been part of Russia. In the Maidan revolution in 2014, a US inspired coup ousted the Soviet friendly Ukrainian leader and replaced him by a Western friendly leader. Since then Russia has always warned the West that it cannot accept being surrounded by an increasing number of NATO countries just like the Russian missiles on Cuba in 1962 directed against the US.

What we do know is that sadly wars are an integral part of history and as long as there are people on earth, there will be wars

The risk is that what now seems a local conflict in eastern Ukraine will become a major international conflict.

This is not a war between a small innocent country and a superpower. No this is a major conflict between the US and Russia. And since China has declared it is supporting Russia, this is a conflict between the three major super powers in the world.

And since the US has coerced the EU to join against Russia with weapons, money and sanctions, this is a conflict of major proportions.

GERMANY BITING OFF THE HAND THAT FEEDS THEM

The lack of statesmen and strong leadership in the US and EU has created an absurd situation with the EU not just biting the hand that feeds them but actually biting it off totally.

With many European countries being dependent on Russian gas, oil, cereal and fertilisers, EU’s left hand doesn’t know what the right one is doing. Not only is this a human and economic catastrophe of major proportions but one which will have major implications for Europe for a long time. Germany used to be the economic and financial engine of Europe but is now on the way to becoming a basket case. But sadly they haven’t discovered it yet.

Scholz inherited ludicrous Marxist policies from Merkel. For example to close down both nuclear energy and coal was always a recipe for disaster with no medium term viable alternatives. And her immigration policy will not only be economically ruinous for Germany but also lead to major social unrest.

The demographics of Germany is also another irreparable problem. With the lowest fertility rate in Europe combined with the highest life expectancy, Germany is entering a long term cycle of economic contraction.

Add to this that Germany has financed a major part of the Mediterranean EU countries’ woes through the Target2 transfer payment system.

As the Target2 graph shows below, the transfer payments to Italy of €596 billion, Spain €526b, to the ECB €358b, Greece €107b and Portugal €69b have been mainly financed by Germany to the extent of €1.2 trillion.

Add to that the balance sheet of the ECB which has grown more than 8X since 2004 to €8.7 trillion GRAPH and we can confidently state that the whole European Economic Community -ECB- has now become -EDC- or the Economic Debt Community.

 

 

Egon von Greyerz – Founder and Managing Partner of Matterhorn Asset Management (MAM) and GoldSwitzerland based in Zurich. Egon forecasted the present problems in the world economy already in 2002 when he recommended to investors to allocate 50% of assets into physical gold (at $300) stored outside the banking system. Egon began as a banker in Geneva and was thereafter Finance Director and Vice-Chairman of a FTSE 100 company in the UK.  He makes regular media appearances  on CNBC, BBC and King World News and speaks at investment conferences around the world. MAM (founded in 1999), specialises in wealth preservation. GoldSwitzerland buys, sells, transfers and stores physical precious metals for private investors and institutions outside the banking system. His website is www.goldswitzerland.com. 

 

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