by Patrick Henningsen – this article was originally published on 21st Century Wire.
It’s been a decade since the financial crash of 2008 which we now know was orchestrated by Wall Street and a compromised US Treasury Dept. Many believe that the very practice which triggered the collapse back then – the inflation of the subprime housing bubble and other paper swaps – is happening again, only this time it’s potentially much worse and more widespread. As a result, major moves are being made now to hedge against an impending tumult.
When the shock wave hits, most everyone will feel it. One of the biggest risks is the over-accumulation of debt internationally over the last ten years as a result of ridiculously low-interest rates, hence, countries that are holding inordinate amounts of debt denominated in US-issued fiat paper notes (aka the US dollar) will unfortunately find their balance sheets heavily exposed. As the Federal Reserve initiates this latest phase of Quantitative Tightening , ‘QT’, this global debt bubble could become critical. No more cheap money to refinance your old deficit means a certain global liquidity crisis, and potentially a global austerity crisis too.
However, a few countries appear to have enough foresight to hedge against this and the potential for a dollar plunge, by moving a significant portion of their reserves out of the US dollar and into hard currencies like gold, and only keeping enough dollars on reserve as needed to conducted essential transactions for essential commodities denominated in US dollars. Among the leaders in this trend are Russia and China who have been quietly repatriating record amounts of physical gold.
Slowly, and maybe not so surely, Europe is trying to get into the act also. Claudio Grass of Precious Metal Advisory Switzerland, spoke to RT International about the latest trend where European states repatriating their gold reserves. If there is a squeeze coming, one of the first institutions to feel it will be the European central banking institutions. Grass notes multiple harbingers in convergence tight now, stating, “The central banks started the repatriation already a few years ago, meaning before we had Brexit, Catalonia, Trump, AFD or the rising tensions between the Politburo in Brussels and the nations of Eastern Europe.”
