The money supply grew by 37.08% year-on-year in November based on the True Money Supply Measure (TMS). It was effectively the same rate of growth we saw in October and remains near September’s all-time high rate of growth.
The staggering growth in the money supply becomes more clear when you compare this year with last. TMS growth in November 2019 was just 5.9%.
The big story last week was the dollar’s slow meltdown. The dollar index broke below 90 for the first time since the spring of 2018.
The financial media hasn’t ignored the dollar weakness, but Peter said they don’t seem to grasp the significance of what’s going on, nor do they realize how much further the dollar has to fall. In fact, a lot of the talk has focused on the positives of dollar weakness. In his podcast, Peter argues this growing dollar weakness is not America’s win.
Have you heard about the guy who’s spent five years in federal prison because he won’t give up the location of about 500 gold coins he found in a historic shipwreck?
Yes. Five years.
How many years would you spend in prison for millions in gold?
The Federal Reserve held its last meeting of the year this week. There were no big surprises policy-wise. But Jerome Powell and company made it clear that the easy-money spigot will remain wide open pumping trillions of dollars created out of thin air into the economy. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, Mike Maharrey talks about the Fed meeting and the ramifications of its monetary policy.
Investment in physical silver is expected to surge by 27% to 236.8 million ounces in 2020, a 5-year high. This was one of the highlights of the annual Interim Silver Market Review highlighted in the December issue of the Silver Institute’s Silver News.
In its last meeting of 2020, the Federal Reserve made it clear the easy-money spigot will remain wide open into the foreseeable future. During his post-meeting press conference, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell seemed clueless about the ramifications of this policy – particularly the impact of inflation. Peter Schiff talked about the Fed meeting and Powell’s comments in his podcast, saying Powell’s ignorance won’t be bliss.
Three bills prefiled in the South Carolina House would cut taxes on precious metals and take important steps toward treating gold and silver as money instead of as commodities. Passage of these bills would also set the stage to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.
South Carolina is the first state to propose this kind of legislation for the 2021 session, but more states will likely follow suit. This is part of a broader movement at the state level to support sound money.
Coronavirus vaccines began rolling out this week, boosting optimism that the economy will soon rebound. But as Peter Schiff said in a podcast last month, there is no vaccine for what ails the economy. Even if the vaccine proves effective and governments ease off the draconian policies they have implemented in response to the pandemic, governments and central banks will have to continue stimulus programs and loose monetary policies. That’s good for gold.
Commerzbank sees things the same way, projecting gold’s bull run will continue through 2021 with the yellow metal rising to $2,300 by Q4.
It appears the government lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the deflation of the commercial real estate bubble.
According to CoStar Group, an estimated $126 billion in commercial real estate will be forced to sell at distressed prices over the next two years. That will eclipse the amount of distressed commercial property sold during the first two years after the 2008 financial crisis.
According to a recent survey, 48% of small business owners fear they will have to shut down permanently before the end of the year. That was a jump from 42% just two months ago.
Alignable surveyed 9,201 small business owners. Analysts based their results on the answer to two questions.