저자: PeterSchiff · 외국인
요약 보기
결론: 중국·러시아의 금 매집과 연준 긴축 우려 속에서 금은 장기적으로 크게 오를 것이며 미국 채권은 붕괴 위험이 크다. 금 가격 및 중앙은행 수요: 중국과 러시아가 금을 조용히 매집 중이며, 중앙은행의 금 매수는 향후 수년간 이어질 것이라고 봄. 금 가격은 약 1,800달러 부근에서 횡보 중이나 연준 긴축 기대에도 크게 하락하지 않아 하방 리스크가 크지 않다고 평가. 금 가격 전망: 연준이 실제 금리를 인상하거나 매파적 발언을 철회할 때 금이 급등할 것으로 전망. 지난 1~2년의 인플레이션뿐 아니라 향후 수년간 예상되는 인플레이션을 반영해 금이 크게 오를 것이라고 주장. 채권: 채권 시장 붕괴가 임박했다고 보며, 명목 붕괴든 실질 붕괴든 미국 국채 등 채권 보유자는 큰 손실을 입을 것이라고 경고. 해리 덴트의 디플레이션 전망은 틀렸고 대규모 인플레이션(혹은 하이퍼인플레이션)이 올 것이라고 주장. 주식 및 부동산: 달러 기준으로는 주식과 부동산 가격이 하락할 수 있으나, 금 기준으로는 주가가 하락할 것이며 주식(S&P 500)을 금으로 사는 데 더 많은 금이 필요하지 않다는 식으로 설명. 금 대비 자산 가치는 버블 기간에 상승했다가 디플레이션기에 폭락할 것으로 봄. 인플레이션과 세금: 인플레이션은 정부가 지출 재원을 조달하는 숨은 세금이며, 저소득·중산층에 가장 큰 타격을 준다고 주장. 바이든의 40만 달러 미만 소득자 증세 면제 약속은 거짓이라고 비판. 투자 전략: 채권·현금 같은 명목자산은 인플레이션에 취약. 기업, 부동산, 실물자산, 자원(광물·에너지·농업), 특히 금을 보유해야 한다고 조언. 금 본위제로의 복귀 가능성도 언급. 리스크: 달러 신뢰 붕괴 시 유로·엔 등 다른 통화로 확산될 수 있다고 우려. 금 가격 전망은 연준 정책 전환 시점에 크게 좌우됨.
다듬은 글
Ever since China and Russia became the big buyers of gold, I've wondered whether they're actually running a deliberate long-term strategy. My view is that they're looking ahead to a post-dollar world, and they know they will need more gold reserves. They're accumulating them now, quietly. They won't announce it, because that would push the price up, and if you're trying to buy as much gold as you can, you don't want the price rising while you're still buying. So the Chinese and Russians will keep accumulating whatever other countries are foolish enough to sell, or whatever individuals and institutions happen to hold. I expect central banks to be major buyers of gold for many years to come.
Gold is drifting around 1,800 dollars, a bit above or below that level, and it hasn't reacted much so far. I wonder whether that has to do with the gold futures market, where each contract controls about 50 times the underlying amount. Does the futures market influence the spot price, and is that one reason gold sits where it does now?
Gold is actually holding up quite well. The Fed is tightening right now even though it hasn't raised rates. It's tightening through its rhetoric and by preparing markets for the taper timetable and the timing of the first rate hike. Normally, when the Fed does this, you'd expect gold to fall. The fact that it's holding up tells me there isn't much downside risk. Gold will really start to move either when the Fed finally begins raising rates, or if it never gets around to it and is forced to backtrack on its hawkish talk. Calling it "hawkish" is a misnomer, since there are no real hawks, only degrees of dovishness. At some point markets will change their view. Right now the view is that we have inflation but it will go away because the Fed will fight it. Eventually the view will be that inflation will get worse because the Fed won't fight it, or that the Fed will try and lose the fight. That's when gold goes ballistic. I expect a major move up in gold, reflecting not only the inflation of the last year or two but the inflation coming over the next several years as the government doubles and triples down on failed policies.
I think we're headed for a collapse in the bond market. Whether it's a nominal collapse or a real one matters less than the fact that you'll get wiped out if you follow Harry Dent's advice and hold IOUs for dollars issued by the US government. That's one of the worst places you could be. Harry is still stuck in the 1930s and thinks we'll have 1930s-style deflation. That won't happen. We're no longer on a gold standard, and the gold standard is what prevented the government from doing in the 1930s what it's about to do now: print even more money to keep stimulating the economy and running deficits. What Harry should worry about is massive inflation, maybe even hyperinflation, not deflation. The only way he sees deflation is if he measures prices in gold.
I agree with Harry that stock prices and real estate prices will fall, but only when measured in gold. In terms of how much gold you'd need to buy the S&P 500, you'll be able to buy a lot more of it with your gold in the future than you can today. In dollars, though, who knows? If the dollar is worthless, you might not be able to buy any stocks with it. Gold will never be worthless. Stocks will be worth much less than they are now in gold terms. When you think about prices in dollars, it's hard, because the dollar itself is losing value. On a relative basis, stocks can go down while the dollar goes down even more, so stocks look like they're rising. It's like measuring someone's height with a ruler where a foot has 10 inches. You're not getting taller just because the ruler got smaller. People will be fooled into thinking they're getting richer even as they get poorer, if they only look at dollar prices on their assets. That's why I always want to look at assets in terms of gold. During the bubble, assets rose in value relative to gold, but they'll collapse during the deflation. Harry Dent will be wiped out even more, because the dollar's price relative to gold will probably fall far more than the stocks he isn't buying now.
Inflation is effectively a tax, and that's a useful way to think about it, because the source of inflation is government. Most people think of taxes as the government taking their money and giving it to someone else to spend. The government has another way to get your money, through your purchasing power. Instead of taking your money directly, it prints new money and hands it to someone else, who spends it without having earned it or helped produce any goods or services. Prices rise, and you can't buy as much as before, even though your income hasn't changed. If prices rise 10 percent, that's exactly like the government taking 10 percent of your money. You end up buying 10 percent less, not because you have less money, but because prices have gone up. Those higher prices are effectively a tax.
That's why I was so critical of Joe Biden's promise that Americans earning under 400,000 dollars wouldn't have to pay anything for all this spending. I said it was a lie, because they'd pay the inflation tax, and that tax falls heaviest on lower- and middle-income people. The people Biden said would be exempt are the ones being hit hardest.
Inflation also conveniently erodes the real value of government debt. In a way, governments are shrinking their own problem while creating a big problem for everyone else. They're screwing their creditors, the holders of US Treasuries, but it's not just Treasury holders. When they create inflation, they destroy the value of dollar bonds of all kinds: corporate bonds, municipal bonds, all bonds lose value, not just government-issued ones but the holdings of individual investors too.
Investors should understand that inflation wipes out creditors and paper wealth, but real wealth isn't affected if you own real things: tangible property, equity in businesses, real estate. Those assets retain value because prices can rise during inflation. A business selling products can raise its prices. If you own a bond and you're clipping coupons, the coupon is stuck, and your principal is fixed in a certain quantity of money. If inflation makes that quantity worthless, what you hold is worthless too.
Governments can print money, but they can't print stuff. I want to own what governments can't print: real businesses, productive assets, capital, plant and equipment, real resources like minerals, energy, and agriculture. There are many things in business you can own. I also want to own gold, because gold will be remonetized in the aftermath of this currency crisis. The only road back to prosperity runs through a gold standard, and we won't get there by relying on fiat currencies.
Lesser fiat currencies have failed before, such as the Argentine peso collapse. But the US dollar is the primary reserve currency, and if the dollar can fail, anything can fail. How can anyone have confidence in the euro or the Japanese yen when they see the dollar collapse? Who's to say they won't be next? So how can Europe and Japan say, "Don't worry, what happened to the dollar won't happen to us"? You'd have to change the dynamics. The answer would be backing the currency with gold reserves and stopping the printing of money. That's how you could have confidence that what happened in America won't happen here.
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