Marc Faber: Prepare for a Gold-Backed Chinese Currency (Video)

Renowned contrarian investor Marc Faber predicted in an interview with GoldSeek Radio that China will eventually switch to a gold-backed currency. He bases this on the widespread understanding that China has larger gold reserves than are officially reported. Faber also explained why the US dollar’s days as a global currency are numbered. This is due to the rise of the East as a dominant economic power, as well as the complete ineptitude of central bankers to deal with the systemic economic problems of Western nations. In fact, he believes the worldwide bailout is doomed to failure.

Like Peter Schiff, he believes in holding gold to protect your portfolio, but he’s even more aggressive than Peter in his allocation. Faber advocates holding 25% of your assets in precious metals.

Highlights from the interview:

GoldSeek Radio: I wanted to talk to you today about an interesting comment that China may have much more gold bullion in their reserves than originally thought — several thousand tons they might be preparing for a fully convertible currency. Just last week there was a talk about a peg to the yuan on the futures exchange in China, the Shanghai Exchange. Give us and our listeners today an idea of if this sounds like a feasible reality.

Marc Faber: This comment I would agree with and think is appropriate. I think the Chinese will eventually have a global currency, certainly with their trading partners. China is the largest trading partner with 124 different countries in the world…

Wages in real terms are basically down. The cost of living has gone up substantially — partially also because of this brilliant idea of Obamacare. So all I’m saying is the household is suffering at the present time. That’s why retail sales are not picking up. And while the employment numbers look better, I say that jobs have been replaced by low-paying jobs. In the 70s we had high consumer price inflation, now we have extremely high asset price inflation…

GSR: China continues to import tons of gold through Hong Kong. We aren’t certain of the stockpile. It’s not regularly announced. They don’t release a statement, as some other countries in the world. And there’s been some speculation lately they may have accumulated much more than is widely accepted. In the event that at least a regional gold-based currency were to emerge, would you expect this to change the dynamics?

MF: China increasingly trades directly with foreign countries, not in US dollars, but in local currency. I think that eventually China will have a gold-backed currency. That could be 5 years from now, it could be 10 years from now. My view is that US dollar’s day as the global currency is doomed. Now [with] this scenario, you should own some gold.

The point is however the following: the central banks around the world have engaged in money printing and it’s not at all a currency war. It is a coordinated effort by central banks that are run by some professors who’ve never worked a single day in their lives in the private sector to kind of bail out the system. Now this bailout will of course fail. And when it fails, the question is what will happen then.

I would hold about 25% of my assets in precious metals. I don’t know whether silver will go up more or gold but the fact is simply I want to have some assets outside the banking sector. Because the banking sector is run by an academic mafia. They are the destroyers of the purchasing power of money. The professors at the federal reserve — they don’t care about ordinary people. They are not even independent. They are ruled by someone that tells them, “you do this, you do that.” And that is largely the banking cartels… Now other countries [besides the US] have grown dramatically, but all I can say is I would hold some precious metals because of the central banks in the world. This is not a currency war, this is an agreement among academics and professors that do not relate to life of ordinary people to print money… The purchasing power of money will continue to decline.

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