Venezuela’s Horrific Collapse
Swiss America’s
Gold News Daily
8.7.18 – Bankruptcy Booms Among Older Americans
Gold last traded at $1,218 an ounce. Silver at $15.35 an ounce.
NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rose Tuesday on bargain-hunting and a weaker dollar. U.S. stocks rose as investors shrugged off global trade worries and focused on upbeat earnings.
Wait Until You See The Price Of Gold In Venezuela Right Now –Forbes
“Prices in Venezuela are doubling roughly every 18 days. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) now projects inflation to hit an astronomical 1 million percent by the end of this year. This puts the beleaguered Latin American country on the same slippery path as Zimbabwe a decade ago and Germany in the 1920s, when a wheelbarrow full of marks was barely enough to get you a loaf of bread. Venezuela’s socialist president Nicolas Maduro – who only this past weekend survived an assassination attempt involving several explosive-laden drones – announced recently that the country plans to rein in hyperinflation by lopping off five zeroes from its currency….So where does this put gold? At some point, hyperinflation gets so ludicrously out of control that discussing exchange rates becomes pointless. But as of July 30, an ounce of the yellow metal would have gone for 211 million bolivars – an increase of more than 3.1 million percent from just the beginning of the year….A Venezuelan family that had the prudence to store some of its wealth in gold would be in a much better position today to survive or escape President Maduro’s corrupt, far-left regime. In extreme cases like this, gold could literally help save lives. Such was the case following the fall of Saigon in 1975. If not for gold, many South Vietnamese families might not have managed to escape the country….Gold was their passport. Thanks to the precious metal, tens of thousands of Vietnamese ‘boat people,’ as they’re now known, were able to start new lives in the U.S., Canada, Australia and other developed countries.”
An Inflation Nightmare in Socialist Venezuela –Craig R. Smith/SATC
“Imagine watching your life savings of 1,000,000 bolivar notes instantly shrink to just 10 bolivars! The hyperinflation, collapse in economic activity, and lack of public goods and affordable food in socialist Venezuela are now causing a huge migration into neighboring countries. This government-created famine is occurring right now and the America media have mostly ignored the story….This is the exact same type of hyperinflation that hit Germany’s socialist Weimar Republic following World War I as the cost of goods was rising literally by the minute. Could the same thing happen here in America? As I explained in my book Money, Morality & The Machine, if a society’s money loses value, that society will also lose its moral values. Socialism almost inevitably debases government paper money to maintain and expand its power. That debasement causes inflation which debases the fundamental work ethic and honesty of society. This same hyperinflation could happen in America because of the rapid socialist drift, but with the right preparation you can survive and even thrive when it happens. This is why people have relied on gold as a secure shelter for their earnings and savings around the world for thousands of years.”
As Venezuela Dollarizes, Monetarism’s Conceit Collapses –Tamny/Real Clear Markets
“No matter what economists tell you, money isn’t wealth. Wealth can’t be printed. It’s in fact what we create. Money is just an agreement about value that producers use to facilitate the exchange of what they’ve produced for what they want and need….Which brings us to Venezuela…the dollar is replacing the bolivar. As the Washington Post’s Rachelle Krygier reported last week, ‘[A]ccess to U.S. dollars’ is increasingly the ‘line between survival and starvation’ thanks to the ‘nearly worthless’ bolivar. Even though the dollar is far from stable….Not only can central banks not control so-called ‘money supply,’ they shouldn’t even if they could. Money supply is logically something set in the marketplace….Monetarists don’t care about money’s exchangeable value. They simply want central banks to centrally plan the supply of the currency without regard to its value. But as Venezuela reminds us, the stability of the unit of account is exponentially more important than the supply of money is….In Venezuela’s case, those who escaped the socialist hell are working for the dollar in countries like Ecuador, and they’re sending dollars home….So while news accounts indicate that Venezuela is in desperate shape, the creation of money for the sake of it will do nothing to fix what’s wrong.”
‘Too little too late’: Bankruptcy booms among older Americans –New York Times/CNBC
“For a rapidly growing share of older Americans, traditional ideas about life in retirement are being upended by a dismal reality: bankruptcy. The signs of potential trouble – vanishing pensions, soaring medical expenses, inadequate savings – have been building for years. Now, new research sheds light on the scope of the problem: The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, the study found, and the same group accounts for a far greater share of all filers. Driving the surge, the study suggests, is a three-decade shift of financial risk from government and employers to individuals, who are bearing an ever-greater responsibility for their own financial well-being as the social safety net shrinks….And those who are carrying debt into retirement are carrying more than members of earlier generations, an analysis by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found. Perhaps not surprisingly, the lowest-income households led by individuals 55 or older carry the highest debt loads relative to their income.”
