Video: Adam Fergusson: Inflationism is Playing with Fire

GoldMoney.com's Director James Turk, interviews Adam Fergusson, author of the bestselling book When Money Dies at the recent Casey Research/Sprott Summit.




Gold Money summarizes the interview...

Fergusson discusses how the hyperinflation affected different groups in German society in different ways – with debtors benefitting and huge numbers of middle-class savers wiped out. Riots, corruption and political extremism were just some of the malignancies encouraged by the hyperinflation. He points out that those who held hard currencies as well as people who held tangible assets like gold and silver were in-large part protected from the worst economic consequences of the hyperinflation. In his words: “gold remained at all times in Germany the measure of what was important to them.”

James and Adam discuss whether or not today there is any way for governments in the developed world to repay their huge debts. Both men conclude that inflation is the only politically viable method of repudiating these unmanageable obligations. Fergusson highlights the importance of velocity and the demand for money in determining whether or not inflation turns into hyperinflation – though points out that this tipping point can take a surprisingly long-time to arrive; in Germany, people kept confidence with the rapidly devaluing mark throughout the First World War, despite clear signs that the country was heading for a currency crisis.

Fergusson thinks that we are heading for high inflation in many countries, but is doubtful that Weimar Germany’s nightmare currency collapse can be replicated in a sophisticated modern economy. He concludes with a quote from Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, who recently commented with respect of the sovereign debt crisis: “we all know what has to be done; what we don’t know is how to get re-elected once we done it.”

While Mr. Ferguson doesn't want to predict the imminence of hyperinflation in the West, he questions if policymakers would have "the kind of courage that politicians cannot have" in preventing a full blown hyperinflation from happening (34:20) once the tipping point arrives. He further sneered at economists for repeatedly predicting the wrong things (33:12).

You can read When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse in pdf form by pressing this link

Where are Germany’s Gold’s Reserves?

That’s essentially the question posed by James Turk of Gold Money below

Mr. Turk writes,

This gold has been entrusted to the Bundesbank and provides peace of mind knowing that it is there. But where is it really? And just as important, how much is there? Unfortunately, we do not know the answer to these questions.

The Bundesbank’s latest Annual Report states: “As of 31 December 2009, the Bundesbank’s holdings of fine gold (ozf) amounted to 3,406,789 kg or 110 million ounces. The gold was valued at market prices at the end of the year (1 kg = €24,638.63 or 1 ozf = €766.347).” The total value therefore reported by the Bundesbank on its balance sheet is €83,939 million. There have been, however, repeated claims suggesting that the Bundesbank's gold vault is empty. The reporting by the Bundesbank in its Annual Report does nothing to disprove these claims.

The Annual Report states that the Bundesbank owns €83,939 million of “Gold and Gold Receivables”. Surprisingly, it does not distinguish between these two fundamentally different assets, nor does it report how much of each it owns.

Clearly, gold stored safely and securely in the Bundesbank’s vault in Frankfurt has a different level of risk than gold that has been loaned out. Physical gold is a tangible asset, and therefore does not have counterparty risk. But a loan – regardless whether you are lending euros, dollars or gold – is only as good as the creditworthiness of the borrower. This lesson was learned the hard way, for example, by the central bank of Portugal. It had loaned gold to Drexel Burnham Lambert, and that gold receivable was still outstanding when this bank failed two decades ago.

By not reporting “gold in the vault” and “gold receivables” separately as two different assets, the Bundesbank is saying in effect that cash and accounts receivables are the same thing. Of course they are not, and their fundamental difference is made clear by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, which highlights a deficiency in the Bundesbank’s Annual Report.

Are central banks being transparent? Or has central banks been using accounting entries to fudge their actual gold reserve holdings? Or to the point, has major central banks, as the Bundesbank (and Belgium), been short gold (via gold leasing)?

To me, these represent as more signs of the growing fissures of the paper money system. And fresh record prices of gold attest to such development.