JEFF BERWICK
The DOLLAR VIGILANTE
It was just yesterday that we said that Donald Trump had chosen the best of the two available options for the US government. The two, and only two, options are to default on the debt or to hyperinflate. And the best option for almost everyone (except those who stupidly and immorally loaned the US government money to carry on its worldwide terrorism) is to default. It would leave the US and world economy with at least some hope of rebuilding.
But, after he was admonished by the media for his “crazy” idea of not paying unpayable debts he showed the true politician in him and immediately flip-flopped.
On Monday, he recanted what he said last week. He assured us that default would “never happen” because the US can simply print money, echoing the party line of all policymakers these days.
Make no bones about it, what he is saying is that he will just continue to do what past presidents and Federal Reserve Chairmen have done… and that is to ignore the elephant in the room and just keep printing money until it is worthless. “Make America great again by doing the same things that got it into this mess!” should be his slogan.
We have seen this idea by many names: liquidity, reflate, expanding credit, stimulus… and “quantitative easing” simply being the latest and most fashionable term to describe this age old destructive process. It’s the same answer to the same problem caused by past money printing… print more!
The mainstream media didn’t even get the point of what just happened. Stories like one published by CNN mostly regurgitated the text of what he said without understanding the underlying implication.
If rates go up, and “The Donald” wants to buy bonds at a discount, he is prepared to use the Federal Reserve printing press to do so. You would think that isn’t his decision. After all, the Fed claims to be independent! But, we all know the US federal government and the Federal Reserve are just two arms of the giant bankster octopus that rules them all.
What he said last Thursday, was that his solution to dealing with the $19 trillion-plus national debt involves a form of default such as repurchasing (or renegotiating) existing bonds at a discount.
After being severely criticized for his suggestion (by everyone but us), “The Donald” clarified his statements on Monday on CNN: “I said if we can buy back government debt at a discount, in other words, if interest rates go up and we can buy bonds back at a discount — if we are liquid enough as a country, we should do that.”
There is nothing different here than what the Fed has been doing for the last 8 years. Our take is that Donald doesn’t really understand how the current monetary system works. The self proclaimed “King of debt” seems to think he’ll negotiate some deals… but all he is saying is they’ll just print more money.
Yesterday we pointed out what would happen if the US government were to default on its debt: a potentially catastrophic worldwide depression, stock and bond markets falling 90% or higher, almost all Americans bankrupted by massively rising interest rates… and the potential of nothing left standing but a smoldering heap by the time it was all done.
And, that was the best case scenario!
Here’s what will happen if the US federal government and the Federal Reserve continue down the money printing path that leads to hyperinflation as Donald now says he would do:
Markets around the world will continue to go haywire, trillions in wealth will be lost by continued mis-allocations of capital, which will hollow out the entire capital (wealth) base of the economy… This will lead to continued market booms and busts that impoverish almost everyone (except the 0.0001%) that will eventually lead to a crisis in confidence of the US dollar (and all other fiat currencies which will also be forced to inflate by the Fed’s actions). And this will eventually lead to stagflation exponentially worse than the 1970s… Finally, a complete cessation of economic activity will occur as everyone becomes so impoverished and money becomes so worthless that the only transactions left will be black market food, cigarette, alcohol and drug transactions in exchange for silver, gold and bitcoin.
The reason those will be the only transactions still happening is because it will be what the people, so impoverished, will desire (food and a way to escape the reality of life). And the reason they will be black market transactions is because by that point the government will have outlawed the use of gold, silver and bitcoin and blame the crash of the dollar on them… and the Chinese, we’re sure.
The government will come out in force to quell riots and to crack down on anyone dealing in currencies other than the US dollar, imprisoning or killing “enemies of the state.” How do I know this? Because this is what almost always happens during a hyperinflation. I just visited Venezuela and saw it for myself.
There’s just one big difference. In all past hyperinflations people were able to use foreign currencies to salvage some of their wealth or to use for transactions in the black market… like the US dollar is used, in back rooms, with shady characters, in Venezuela today.
When the US dollar goes into hyperinflation we will witness a worldwide nightmare that you can’t even begin to describe. It hasn’t yet, but it sounds like Trump is willing to help the process along.
People in Venezuela have now resorted to eating dogs, pigeons and rats as hyperinflation savages the economy. That is where the US is headed if it continues down this path.
And Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders all have the exact same plan. Worse, they all want to be in charge as it all happens, making them either stupid or psychopaths.
We’ve said since the beginning, here at TDV, that the US will choose the path of hyperinflation over default and, although for a few days last week we wondered if we’d be wrong, it’s clear that no one is willing (or able) to put a stop to the path towards hyperinflationary destruction in the US.
There are ways to save yourself, and even profit from, this inevitable path that we are already going down. Subscribe to the TDV newsletter and join thousands of other dollar collapse survivors and profiteers as we watch the ship sink… and just hope it doesn’t take us all down with it.