This post was submitted by Erik Oswald, SchiffGold Precious Metals Specialist. Any views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Peter Schiff or SchiffGold.
The New York Times reported a major story this week about Ms. Carol Hinders, who had her checking account seized by the IRS. Why? Because she had the audacity to deposit cash in increments below $10,000. While this is an outrage in and of itself, it is merely a symptom of a larger problem: Civil Asset Forfeiture.
This post was submitted by Erik Oswald, SchiffGold Precious Metals Specialist.
Sales of the US Silver Eagle are often looked to as the leading indicator of demand for silver bullion coins. It remains the most popular bullion coin among investors both domestically and internationally.
While the Eagle has been in the limelight for nearly a decade among investors, bullion coins from smaller national mints have also seen a dramatic uptick in demand. There has also been a massive increase in ETF purchases of physical silver and substantial industrial demands from the growing solar industry.
Louis Cammarosano from Smaulgld guides us through the growing demand for silver on the industrial and investment fronts.
In the latest episode of his podcast, Peter Schiff gives his take on the end of quantitative easing. Peter reviews CNBC’s reaction to the news and Alan Greenspan’s opinion of QE. He also shares his own predictions for the future of the American economy and the price of gold.
It’s official. The Federal Reserve has ended its third quantitative easing program, QE3. The Fed claims that the economy is continuing to improve, yet they’re still going to keep interest rates at near-zero for a “considerable time.” Stay tuned for Peter Schiff’s video response to the news later today.
So the Fed claims the economy is getting better, particularly stressing how good the labor market is today. However, if you dig into the numbers, the labor market is actually terrible. There are 54% more involuntary part-time workers now than in 2007. On top of this, 1.4 million full-time jobs have been lost since 2008. Given this, it should come as no surprise that when you account for inflation, the 2013 median household income was 8% lower than 2007!
If you are in the tri-state area this Saturday, please join us at the 3 West Club in Manhattan for an afternoon of discourse on free markets, the role of government, and everybody’s favorite precious metal – gold.
Precious Metals Specialists Erik Oswald and Dickson Buchanan will be in attendance. This is your chance to meet your gold broker in person, while enjoying a fun and educational evening.
Doctors Keith Weiner and Andrew Bernstein are the keynote speakers of the conference and will discuss a variety of topics, including:
- The philosophical implications and morality of capitalism
- Prognoses on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy
- Gold as a monetary alternative in a world flooded with fiat currency
Please register online, as tickets will be more expensive if you pay at the door.
Click here for details and to register for the event.
We look forward to seeing you there.
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Interested in learning about the best ways to buy gold and silver?
Call 1-888-GOLD-160 and speak with a Precious Metals Specialist today!
On Friday, we gave you an update on silver investment demand. While it’s a leading factor in the silver price, investment demand is just one side of the silver picture. More than half of global silver demand comes from the industrial sector, and the deficit of silver supplies keeps getting larger. 2013 saw the largest deficit in physical silver since 2008 – more than 113 million ounces of silver. In fact, silver supplies have been in deficit for a decade.
Silver is used in modern medicine for its anti-bacterial properties. It’s also essential to the production of ethylene oxide, which is used to create polyester fibers – a growing industry as emerging markets continue to pull their populations out of poverty. Solar power is also a major industry for silver, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Last year, silver demand and investment broke a number of records thanks to the temporary correction in its price. It appears that this trend is not about it reverse. There has been a variety of news suggesting that both investment and industrial silver demand is going to remain strong for a while. Today we’ll take a brief look at investment demand.
In a recent press release, The Silver Institute projected that investment demand for silver is likely to increase by one billion ounces over the next ten years.
Last month we reminded you of the upcoming “Save Our Swiss Gold” initiative in Switzerland. This is a direct democracy vote in Switzerland that, if passed, would force the Swiss government to amend its constitution with respect to the way the Swiss National Bank (SNB) operates. These are the major points:
- SNB will repatriate and store all Swiss gold reserves in Switzerland.
- SNB will purchase gold until it makes up 20% of their reserves (currently 7.6%), and it must maintain this level of gold reserves.
- SNB can no longer sell gold reserves.
Switzerland used to be the first country that came to mind when it came to stable currencies and gold holdings. But things have really gone down hill since the turn of the millennium, as you can see in the chart below. It shows the dramatic amount of gold the SNB has sold off since 2000 – well over half of its holdings.
Peter Schiff has been one of the few voices of reason warning that the Federal Reserve is going to re-start its quantitative easing by mid-2015, as well as keep interest rates at zero until there is a currency crisis. With the recent market turmoil, economists around the world are beginning to realize that Peter is right – more QE is needed. Even St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard says that another round of quantitative easing might be in order. In an interview on Bloomberg, Bullard said:
Is the world waking up to the economic reality Peter Schiff has been warning about all year long? With the current chaos in the stock market and rise in the price of gold, mainstream commentators and economists around the world are starting to wonder if stocks really are in bubble territory. All sorts of technical indicators are driving speculative investors to seek the safe-haven of gold. Take a look at some of these ominous indicators highlighted by the Economic Collapse Blog:
- The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite experienced the worst three-day decline since 2011.
- The price of oil is plummeting, which happened just before the 2008 financial crisis. Oil hasn’t been this cheap for two years.
- The Volatility Index (VIX) is at its highest since the European debt crisis, indicating a lots and lots of fear on Wall Street.
