Free Webinar: Your Second Chance for the Marijuana Boom in 2018

Our trading partner legendary speculator Doug Casey invites you to take part in the FREE "Pot Stock Millionaire Webinar". This free Summit will guide us through how we can take advantage of the coming second marijuana boom.

Doug is up $1 million dollars with just ONE tiny pot stock, a 1,900% gain. And now Doug and his team have found 5 new pot stocks that will brings us those same profits.

Space is limited so Reserve Your Seat Right Here, Right Now

The Pot Stock Millionaire Summit with Doug Casey, Nick Giambruno and Justin Spittler takes place Thursday, April 26th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. Since this is hosted on a private website you must pre register and details for access will be emailed to you.

And the cost to you? Zero....It's all FREE!

If you missed out on the first wave of marijuana investing don't miss your second chance to become a Pot Stock Millionaire in the Marijuana Bull Market of 2018. The 2018 boom is expected to be 8 times bigger than the first.

During this free Webinar we'll learn....

•   How famed speculator Doug Casey became a marijuana millionaire with one penny pot stock

• Why the 2018 marijuana boom will be 8 times bigger than the first… when pot stocks averaged peak gains of 24,000%

• The only two ways to play the marijuana bull market in 2018 for the chance to turn a few hundred dollars into a million or more

• And 5 marijuana stocks that are set to return 500% each

And this is just a small sample of the exclusive information that Doug and the team will share during this event.

Here’s What You’ll Get When You Sign Up Today

FREE ACCESS to our April 26th event: Doug Casey, Nick Giambruno and Justin Spittler will reveal why the marijuana boom is just starting right now. And how 2018 will be the year of marijuana millionaires for those who get into tiny, little known pot stocks today.

Plus, you’ll discover why some of the best profit opportunities in marijuana have nothing to do with growing or producing the plant. Instead, Doug and the team will share the most promising “pick and shovel” plays. These are companies on their way to becoming the next “Home Depot of Pot” and “Amazon of Weed.”

And Doug Casey will break down how he became a marijuana millionaire with a penny pot stock and why he sees bigger opportunities in today’s marijuana boom for those who get in now.

Access to a brand new video training series: Released for the first time exclusively for this event, these 3 trainings will show you:

• Why everyone who thinks the biggest gains in marijuana have already been made are dead wrong. We’re actually at the very start of the biggest marijuana mania in history.

• Why you don’t need to know anything about marijuana or investing for the chance to become a marijuana millionaire in today’s bull market.

• How marijuana stocks are delivering similar gains to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies… but are much safer and easier to buy. And we’re actually in an earlier stage of the marijuana boom than we are in Bitcoin.

• Why regardless what the federal government does, marijuana legalization is a runaway train and the best opportunity today to turn a couple of hundred dollars into a fortune.

And much, much more…

You’ll be able to watch these short, information packed videos right on your computer or phone.

PLUS… you’ll be able to download the transcripts directly to your computer, print them out and read them at your leisure.

During the first marijuana mania, the best pot stocks averaged peak gains of 24,000%. And that was with just two states (Washington and Colorado) legalizing recreational pot. Now that it’s legal in California, and Canada is set to go recreational this June, we’ll see the biggest marijuana profits in history from this bull market.

You’ll get all the details in our training and Summit.

Reserve Your Spot Now and gain access to the training materials at no cost to you 

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The Best Way to Protect Yourself From Out of Control Governments

By Nick Giambruno, editor, Crisis Investing

You probably know it’s a bad idea to put all of your asset eggs in one investment basket. The same goes for holding all of your assets in one country. But how much thought have you put into political diversification? With proper planning, you can greatly reduce the risk your home government presents to your financial and personal well being.

International diversification frees you from absolute dependence on any one country. Achieve that freedom, and it becomes very difficult for any group of bureaucrats to control you. The results can be life changing. Everyone in the world should aim for political diversification. Though it’s especially critical for those who live under a government sinking hopelessly deeper into financial trouble.

That means most Western governments. The US in particular. To get started, there are four core areas to consider: your savings, your citizenship, your income, and your digital presence.

Diversify Your Savings

It’s crucial to place some of your assets beyond the easy reach of your home government. It keeps that government from trapping your money if and when it implements capital controls or outright asset seizures. Any government can do either without warning.

You can diversify your savings in several ways:

• Foreign bank accounts
  
• Precious metals held abroad
  
• Foreign real estate
  

Foreign real estate is especially helpful. I call it a diversification “grand slam” because it accomplishes a number of key goals at once. Owning real estate in a foreign country moves a good chunk of your savings into a hard asset. One that’s outside of your home government’s immediate reach. Ideally, it’s located somewhere you’d enjoy living.

Unlike digital financial assets, it's probably impossible for your home country to seize your foreign real estate. Owning foreign real estate is one of the very few ways you can legally maintain some privacy for your wealth. In that sense, foreign real estate is the new Swiss bank account.

Foreign real estate often opens up other diversification options. In many cases, owning property in a foreign country makes it easier to open a bank account in that country.

It can also put you on the road to obtaining residency in a foreign country. It can even put you on a shortened path to citizenship in some cases. Lastly, owning foreign real estate gives you a second home, vacation hideaway, or place to retire. It’s an emergency “bolt hole” should you need to escape trouble back home.

Diversify Your Citizenship

One way to diversify your citizenship is with a second passport. Unfortunately, there is no route to a second passport that is simultaneously easy, fast, cheap, and legitimate. But that does not decrease the benefits of having one. Among other things, having a second passport allows you to invest, bank, travel, live, and do business in places you wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

There’s another important reason to get a second passport. No matter where you live, your home government can revoke your passport at any moment under any pretext it finds convenient. Your passport doesn’t actually belong to you. It belongs to the government. Having a second passport means that you can always escape your home country without having to live like a refugee.

Diversify Your Income

Income diversification means structuring your cash flows so you’re less dependent on any one country for your income. The goal is to create multiple sources of revenue from international investment opportunities and trends. Bonus diversification points if you do all this through your own offshore company domiciled in a favorable jurisdiction.

Diversify Your Digital Presence

Moving your digital presence to ideal foreign jurisdictions also adds significant political diversification benefits. This commonly includes your IP address (which often pinpoints you to a precise physical address), email account, online file storage, and the components of personal and business websites.

Plan for Bigger Government

Somehow, someway, your home government will keep squeezing your pocketbook harder and keep subjecting you to escalating, arbitrary, and burdensome regulations and restrictions. Expect more government and less freedom all around. The window to protect yourself closes a bit more with each passing week. The good news is you can start to diversify internationally without leaving your home country, or even your living room.

Still, it’s essential to take the necessary steps before the government slams your window of opportunity shut. If history is any guide, it won’t be open forever. It's much better to have developed and implemented your game plan a year early than a minute late.

International diversification is a time tested strategy to protect you from desperate and out of control governments. Wealthy people around the world have used it for centuries to effectively protect their money and their families. Now, thanks to modern technology, anyone can implement similar strategies.

Regards,
Nick Giambruno
Editor, Crisis Investing

P.S. Taking the simple steps above is now more important than ever. As you'll see, widespread economic chaos is coming… America is about to enter a crisis far more severe than what we saw in 2008–2009. 

Most investors aren’t prepared for what's coming. But Doug Casey and I know how to turn these types of situations into huge profits. And in this video, we share need to know information about the coming global economic meltdown.

Click Here to Watch it Now.

The article The Best Way to Protect Yourself From Out-of-Control Governments was originally published at caseyresearch.com

This Giant Welfare State Is Running Out of Time

By Justin Spittler

The Saudis are begging Trump to stop pumping so much oil. Saudi Arabia made the plea earlier this month in its monthly oil report. The report said “the collective efforts of all oil producers” would be needed to restore order to the global oil market. It added that this should be "not only for the benefit of the individual countries, but also for the general prosperity of the world economy."

It’s a bizarre request, to say the least. You’re probably even wondering why they would do such a thing. As I'll show you in today's essay, it's a clear act of desperation. One that tells me the country is doomed beyond repair. I’ll get to that in a minute. But first, let me tell you a few things about Saudi Arabia.

It’s the world’s second largest oil producing country after the United States.…
It’s also the largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a cartel of 13 oil producing countries. Like other OPEC countries, Saudi Arabia lives and dies by oil. The commodity makes up 87% of the country’s revenues. This was a great thing when the price of oil was high. Saudi Arabia was basically printing money.

But that hasn’t been the case for years. You see, the price of oil peaked back in June 2014 at over $105 a barrel. It went on to plunge 75% before bottoming in February 2016. Today, it trades under $50.

Low oil prices are wreaking havoc on Saudi Arabia’s finances.…
But not for the reason you might think. You see, Saudi Arabia is the world’s lowest-cost oil producer. Its oil companies can turn a profit at as low as $10 per barrel. That’s one fifth of what oil trades for today.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that Saudi Arabia is one giant welfare state.

Nick Giambruno, editor of Crisis Investing, explains:

Saudi Arabia has a very simple social contract. The royal family gives Saudi citizens cradle-to-grave welfare without taxation. The Saudi government spends a fortune on these welfare programs, which effectively keep its citizens politically sedated. In exchange, the average Saudi citizen forfeits any political power he would otherwise have.

Not only that, about 70% of Saudi nationals work for the government. These “public servants” earn 1.7 times more than their counterparts in the private sector.

In short, Saudi Arabia uses oil money to keep its citizens in line.…
But this scheme isn’t cheap. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Saudi Arabia needs oil to trade north of $86 a barrel to balance its budget. That’s nearly double the current oil price. This is creating big problems for the Saudi kingdom. In 2015, the Saudis posted a record $98 billion deficit. That was equal to about 15% of the country’s annual economic output. Last year, it ran another $79 billion deficit.

Saudi Arabia is now desperately trying to restore its finances.…
It’s slashed its government subsidies. It’s borrowed billions of dollars. It’s even trying to reinvent its oil addicted economy. In fact, it plans to increase non oil revenues sixfold by 2030. It’s also trying to spin off part of the national oil company, Saudi Aramco, on the stock market. And it wants to create a $1.9 trillion public fund to invest at home and abroad.

The Saudis have even tried to rig the global oil market.…
It’s why they met with non OPEC members like Russia at the December meeting. At this meeting, OPEC and non OPEC members agreed to cut production. It was the first deal like this since 2001. OPEC hoped this historic pact would lift oil prices. There’s just one big problem.

U.S. oil producers aren’t playing ball.…
Instead of cutting output, they’ve rapidly increased production. You can see this in the chart below. U.S. oil production has jumped 10% since last July.

U.S. oil production is now approaching the record level set back in 2015. There’s good reason to think production will blow past that high, too. To understand why, look at the chart below. It shows the total number of U.S. rigs actively looking for oil. You can see that the total number of rigs plummeted in November 2015 before bottoming a year ago.

The total U.S. oil rig count has now risen 28 weeks in a row. There are now 396, or 125%, more rigs looking for oil in the United States than there were a year ago.

If this continues, the price of oil will slide lower.…
Saudi Arabia isn’t used to feeling this helpless. After all, the Saudis had a firm grip on the global oil market for decades. If it wanted, it could raise the price of oil by slashing production. It also had the ability to drive the oil price lower by flooding the market with excess oil. Those days are over. The United States now rules the global oil market, and it’s showing no mercy.

Unless this changes soon, Saudi Arabia is doomed.

After all, the country is already in a race against time. According to the IMF, Saudi Arabia is on pace to burn through all of its cash within five years. In other words, we’re witnessing a seismic power shift in the global energy markets, one that could cause oil prices to plunge even lower. That would be bad news for many oil companies in the short term. But it should also lead to one of the best buying opportunities we’ve seen in years. I’ll be sure to let you know when it’s time to pull the trigger. Until then, stay on the sidelines. This one could get nasty.

P.S. Crisis Investing editor Nick Giambruno predicted that Saudi Arabia’s oil addicted economy would implode back in March 2016. Not only that, he told his readers how to profit from this crisis by recommending a world class U.S. oil company.

Nick’s readers are up more than 20% on this investment. But it should head much higher once the U.S. puts Saudi Arabia out of its misery. You can learn all about Nick’s top oil stock by signing up for Crisis Investing. Click here to begin your risk free trial.

The article This Giant Welfare State Is Running Out of Time was originally published at caseyresearch.com.

Top Two Ways to Store Wealth Abroad

Nick Giambruno sits down with Doug Casey to get his take on what his favorite places and ways to store our wealth abroad.

Nick Giambruno: For centuries, wealthy people have used international diversification to protect their savings and themselves from out of control governments. Now, thanks to modern technology, anyone can implement similar strategies. Doug, I’d like to discuss some of the basic ways regular people can internationally diversify their savings. For an American, what’s the difference between having a bank account at Bank of America and having a foreign bank account?

Doug Casey: I’d say there is possibly all the difference in the world. The entire world’s banking system today is shaky, but if you go international, you can find much more solid banks than those that we have here in the US. That’s important, but beyond that, you’ve got to diversify your political risk. And if you have your bank account in a US bank, it’s eligible to being seized by any number of government agencies or by a frivolous lawsuit. So besides finding a more solid bank, by having your liquid assets in a different political jurisdiction you insulate yourself from a lot of other risks as well.

Nick Giambruno: Moving some of your savings abroad also allows you to preempt capital controls (restrictions on moving money out of the country) and the destructive measures that always follow.

Doug Casey: This is a very serious consideration. When the going gets tough, governments never control themselves, but they do try to control their subjects. It’s likely that the US is going to have official capital controls in the future. This means that if you don’t have money outside of the US, it’s going to become very inconvenient and/or very expensive to get money out.

Nick Giambruno: Why do you think the US government would institute capital controls?

Doug Casey: Well, there are about $7 - 8 trillion, nobody knows for sure, outside of the US, and those are like a ticking time bomb. Foreigners don’t have to hold those dollars. Americans have to hold the dollars. If you’re going to trade within the US, you must use US dollars, both legally and practically. Foreigners don’t have to, and at some point they may perceive those dollars as being the hot potatoes they are. And the US government might say that we can’t have Americans investing outside the country, perhaps not even spending a significant amount outside the country, because they are just going to add to this giant pile of dollars. There are all kinds of reasons that they could come up with.

We already have de facto capital controls, quite frankly, even though there’s no law at the moment saying that an American can’t invest abroad or take money out of the country. The problem is because of other US laws, like FATCA, finding a foreign bank or a foreign broker who will accept your account is very hard. Very, very few of them will take American accounts anymore because the laws make it unprofitable, inconvenient, and dangerous, so they don’t bother. So it’s not currently against the law, but it’s already very hard.

Nick Giambruno: What forms of savings are good candidates to take abroad? Gold coins? Foreign real estate?

Doug Casey: Well, you put your finger on exactly the two that I was going to mention. Everybody should own gold coins because they are money in its most basic form—something that a lot of people have forgotten. Gold is the only financial asset that’s not simultaneously somebody else’s liability. 

And if your gold is outside the US, it gives you another degree of insulation should the United States decide that you shouldn’t own it—it’s not a reportable asset currently. If you have $1 million of cash in a bank account abroad, you must report that to the US government every year. If you have $1 million worth of gold coins in a foreign safe deposit box, however, that is not reportable, and that’s a big plus.

So gold is one thing. The second thing, of course is real estate. There are many advantages to foreign real estate. Sometimes it’s vastly cheaper than in the US. Foreign real estate is also not a reportable asset to the US government.

Nick Giambruno: Foreign real estate is a good way to internationally diversify a big chunk of your savings. What are the chances that your home government could confiscate foreign real estate? It’s pretty close to zero.

Doug Casey: I’d say it’s just about zero because they can make you repatriate the cash in your foreign bank account, but what can they make you do with the real estate? Would they tell you to sell it? Well, it’s not likely.

Also, if things go sideways in your country, it’s good to have a second place you can transplant yourself to. And I know that it’s unbelievable for most people to think anything could go wrong in their home country—a lot of Germans thought that in the ’20s, a lot of Russians thought that in the early teens, a lot of Vietnamese thought that in the ’60s, a lot of Cubans thought that in the ’50s. It could happen anywhere.

Nick Giambruno: Besides savings, what else can people diversify? How does a second passport fit into the mix?

Doug Casey: It’s still quite possible—and completely legal—for an American to have a citizenship in a second country, and it offers many advantages. As for opening up foreign bank accounts, if you show them an American passport, they’ll likely tell you to go away. Once again, obtaining a foreign bank or brokerage account is extremely hard for Americans today—that door has been closing for some time and is nearly slammed shut now. But if you show a foreign bank a Paraguayan or a Panamanian or any other passport, they’ll welcome you as a customer.

Nick Giambruno: The police state is metastasizing in the US. Is that a good reason to diversify as well?

Doug Casey: It’s a harbinger, I’m afraid, of what’s to come. The fact is that police forces throughout the US have been militarized. Every little town has a SWAT team, sometimes with armored personnel carriers. All of the Praetorian style agencies on the federal level—the FBI, CIA, NSA, and over a dozen others like them—have become very aggressive. 

Every single day in the US, there are scores of confiscations of people’s bank accounts, and dozens having their doors broken down in the wee hours of the night. The ethos in the US really seems to be changing right before our very eyes, and I think it’s quite disturbing.

You can be accused of almost anything by the government and have your assets seized without due process. Every year there are billions of dollars that are seized by various government entities, including local police departments, who get to keep a percentage of the proceeds, so this is a very corrupting thing.

People forget that when the US was founded there were only three federal crimes, and they are listed in the Constitution: treason, counterfeiting, and piracy. Now it’s estimated there are over 5,000 federal crimes, and that number is constantly increasing. This is very disturbing. There is a book called Three Felonies a Day, which estimates that many or most Americans inadvertently commit three felonies a day. So it’s becoming Kafkaesque.

Nick Giambruno: Thanks, Doug. Until next time.

Doug Casey: Thanks, Nick.

Editor’s Note: The US is nearing the worst financial disaster of our lifetimes. It’s inevitable. And it’s the single biggest threat to your financial future.

Fortunately, you can learn the ultimate strategy for turning the coming crisis into a wealth-building opportunity in this urgent video from New York Times best selling author Doug Casey.

Click Here to Watch it Now

The article Doug Casey’s Top Two Ways to Store Wealth Abroad was originally published at caseyresearch.com.

Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse

By Nick Giambruno 

In just over a century, the international monetary system has collapsed three times: in 1914, in 1939, and in 1971, when Nixon severed the dollar’s last ties to gold. We are due for another major breakdown soon.

This time, the US dollar will lose its status as the world’s premier reserve currency. And the ramifications of that happening are hard to overstate. It will likely be the tipping point at which the US government becomes desperate enough to officially restrict the movement of people and their money… desperate enough to nationalize retirement savings… and desperate enough to make other forms of overt wealth confiscation routine.

For decades, countries around the world have conducted most of their international trade in US dollars. If they want to play in the international sandbox, most have to buy US dollars on the currency market first. This creates a (frequently artificial) demand for dollars, which makes those dollars more valuable.

Imagine the overall boost this arrangement gives to the dollar’s value. It’s enormous.

This system allows the US government and US citizens to live way beyond their means. It also gives the US government immense geopolitical leverage. It can pick and choose which countries can participate in the US-dollar-based financial system—and, by extension, the vast majority of international trade.

All of these unique benefits will disappear when the dollar loses its premier status. No one knows exactly when that will happen, but we’re quickly moving in that direction. Russia, China, Brazil, and India are all making serious moves to dump the dollar and trade in their own currencies. The momentum is quickly gaining critical mass.

I believe it won’t be long before the US government will be desperate enough to enact the restrictive measures we all fear. It’s important to prepare for the economic and financial consequences now. However, you also need to prepare for the sociopolitical consequences of the next economic collapse. It’s probably not going to happen tomorrow, but the direction the bankrupt US government is headed is clear.

Once the dollar loses its status as the world’s premier currency, your options for protecting your savings will have likely narrowed significantly, if not disappeared altogether. It’s important to act before that happens.

P.S. New York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and I think that a crisis for the record books is coming soon. We think your savings are highly vulnerable. There’s a good chance you could be wiped out.

That’s why we released an urgent new video on surviving and thriving during the next financial crisis. 

Click here to watch it now.

The article Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse was originally published at caseyresearch.com.

Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia, and the Petrodollar

By Nick Giambruno

Obama pulled out his veto pen 12 times during his presidency. Congress only overrode him once. In late 2016, Obama vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). The bill would allow 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in US courts. With only months left in office, Obama wasn’t worried about the political price of opposing the bill. It was worth protecting Saudi Arabia and the petrodollar system, which underpins the US dollar’s role as the world’s premier currency.

Congress didn’t see it that way though. Those up for reelection couldn’t afford to side with Saudi Arabia over US victims. So Congress voted to override Obama’s veto, and JASTA became the law of the land. The Saudis, quite correctly, see this as a huge threat. If they can be sued in US courts, their vast holdings of US assets are at risk of being frozen or seized.

The Saudi foreign minister promptly threatened to sell all of the country’s US assets. Basically, Saudi Arabia was threatening to rip up the petrodollar arrangement, which underpins the US dollar’s role as the world’s premier currency.

Donald Trump and the Saudis

Unlike every president since the petrodollar’s birth, Donald Trump is openly hostile to Saudi Arabia.
Recently he put this out on Twitter:

Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money. Can’t do it when I get elected.

The dopey prince that Trump is referring to is Al-Waleed bin Talal, a prominent member of the Saudi royal family. He’s also one of the largest foreign investors in the US economy, particularly in media and financial companies. The Saudis openly backed Hillary during the election. In fact, they “donated” an estimated $10 million–$25 million to the Clinton Foundation, making them the most generous foreign donors. Besides Hillary Clinton, the single biggest loser from the US presidential election was Saudi Arabia. The Saudis did not want Donald Trump in the White House. And not because of some bad blood on Twitter. There are real geopolitical issues at stake. At the moment, Trump seems determined to walk back on US support for the so called “moderate” rebels in Syria.

The Saudis are furious with the US for not holding up its part of the petrodollar deal. They think the US should have already attacked Syria as part of its commitment to keep the region safe for the monarchy.
Toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a longstanding Saudi goal. But a President Trump makes that unlikely. That’s not good for Saudi Arabia’s position in the Middle East, nor its relationship with the US.
This is just one of the ways President Trump will hasten the death of the petrodollar.

Saudi Arabia, Islam, and Wahhabism

I loathe quoting a neoconservative historian like Bernard Lewis, but even a broken clock is right twice a day:

Imagine if the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nation obtained total control of Texas and had at its disposal all the oil revenues, and used this money to establish a network of well endowed schools and colleges all over Christendom peddling their particular brand of Christianity. This is what the Saudis have done with Wahhabism. The oil money has enabled them to spread this fanatical, destructive form of Islam all over the Muslim world and among Muslims in the West. Without oil and the creation of the Saudi kingdom, Wahhabism would have remained a lunatic fringe in a marginal country.

This is actually an apt description of Wahhabism, a particularly virulent and intolerant strain of Sunni Islam most Saudis follow. ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and a slew of other extremists also follow this puritanical brand of Islam. That’s why Saudi Arabia and ISIS use the same brutal punishments, like beheadings.
Many Wahhabis consider Muslims of any other flavor—like the Shia in Iran, the Alawites in Syria, or non-Wahhabi Sunnis—apostates worthy of death.

In many ways, Saudi Arabia is an institutionalized version of ISIS. There’s even a grim joke that Saudi Arabia is simply “an ISIS that made it.” After living in the Middle East for three years, it’s clear to me that many people in the region despise everything about Wahhabism. Yet it flourishes in certain Sunni communities, among people who feel they have nowhere else to turn.

It’s also widely believed in the Middle East that Western powers deliberately fostered Wahhabism, to a degree, to keep the region weak and divided—and as a weapon against Shia Iran and its allies. That includes Syria and post-Saddam Iraq, which has shifted its allegiance towards Iran. Thanks to WikiLeaks we know the Saudi and Qatari governments, which are also the two largest foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation, willfully financed ISIS to help topple Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Julian Assange says the email revealing this is the most significant among the Clinton related emails his group has released.

Here’s an excerpt of the relevant interview with Assange:

Interviewer: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation?

Julian Assange: Yes.

Interviewer: That’s extraordinary….

With all this in mind, Vladimir Putin opened an unusual conference of Sunni Muslim clerics recently. It took place in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, a Sunni Muslim region within Russia’s southwestern border.
The conference, which included 200 of the top non-Wahhabi Sunni Muslim clerics, issued an extraordinary statement labeling Wahhabism “a dangerous deformation” of Sunni Islam. These clerics carry serious weight in the Sunni world. The imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar mosque, one of the most important Islamic theological centers, was among them. (Egypt is the Arab world’s most populous Sunni country.)

Basically, Putin gathered the world’s most important non Wahhabi clerics to “excommunicate” the Saudis from Sunni Islam. In other words, Putin is going for the jugular of the petrodollar system. Russia and Saudi Arabia have been enemies for decades. The Russians have never forgiven Saudi Arabia (or the US) for supporting the Afghan mujahedeen that drove the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan. And they haven’t forgiven the Saudis for supporting multiple Chechen rebellions. As far as I know, the British writer Robert Fisk was the only Western journalist to cover this extraordinary conference.

Here’s Fisk:

Who are the real representatives of Sunni Muslims if the Saudis are to be shoved aside? And what is the future of Saudi Arabia? Of such questions are revolutions made.

If the Saudis are shoved aside, it could strike a fatal blow to the petrodollar system. The truth is, the petrodollar system is in its death throes. It doesn’t matter if the Saudis willfully abandon it, or if it crumbles because the kingdom implodes. The end result will be the same. Right now, the stars are aligning against the Saudi kingdom. This is its most vulnerable moment since its 1932 founding.

That’s why I think the death of the petrodollar system is the No. 1 black swan event for 2017

I expect the dollar price of gold to soar when the petrodollar system crumbles in the not-so-distant future. You don’t want to find yourself on the wrong side of history when that happens. But that brings up another crucial point.

There’s also likely to be severe inflation
The petrodollar system has allowed the US government and many Americans to live way beyond their means for decades. The US takes this unique position for granted. But it will disappear once the dollar loses its premier status.

This will likely be the tipping point….

Afterward, the US government will be desperate enough to implement capital controls, people controls, nationalization of retirement savings, and other forms of wealth confiscation. I urge you to prepare for the economic and sociopolitical fallout while you still can. Expect bigger government, less freedom, shrinking prosperity and possibly worse. It’s probably not going to happen tomorrow. But it’s clear where the trend is headed. It is very possible that one day soon, Americans will wake up to a new reality.

Once the petrodollar system kicks the bucket and the dollar loses its status as the world’s premier reserve currency, you will have few, if any, options. The sad truth is, most people have no idea how bad things could get, let alone how to prepare. Yet there are straightforward steps you can start taking today to protect your savings and yourself from the financial and sociopolitical effects of the collapse of the petrodollar.

This recently released video will show you where to begin. Click here to watch it now.

The article Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia, and the Petrodollar was originally published at caseyresearch.com

One Giant Powder Keg… and the Fuse is Already Lit

By Nick Giambruno

Their mission was to capture, or more likely, kill. Dozens of renegade commandos in three Blackhawk helicopters swooped in on the holiday residence of the president. Immediately, they engaged in a fierce gun battle with the president’s bodyguards and killed a number of them. Tourists in a nearby five-star resort fled for their lives. Their idyllic vacations had turned into a war zone in the blink of an eye.

The president, however, was nowhere to be found. He had been tipped off about the plot and made it to the safety of his private jet. He had cheated death by mere minutes. The renegade soldiers got wind of the escape. They commandeered a couple of F16 fighter jets and sent them to the skies to shoot down the presidential jet. Aware the rebel F16s were hunting them, the president’s pilots were able to obfuscate the identity of their aircraft by altering the jet’s transponder signal.

The transponder is an electronic signal that shows an aircraft’s identity. It’s used by air traffic controllers to keep track of planes in the air. Somehow, the pilots of the presidential jet were able to set their transponder signal to make it appear as if they were instead a civilian passenger jet. The confused rebel fighter jets ran out of fuel and had to return to base before they figured out what happened.

The president had cheated death for the second time that day. This story sounds like something out of a Tom Clancy novel or a Hollywood blockbuster. But it’s not. It happened in real life earlier this summer. In Turkey.
The country is one giant powder keg and the fuse is already lit. When the next global crisis explodes, there’s a good chance Turkey will be involved somehow.

Turkey was founded from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. It’s where Europe meets Asia. Today, it’s at the epicenter of many crises that are destabilizing the world the migrant disaster in Europe, the ongoing carnage in Iraq and Syria, the battle with ISIS, a conflict with the Kurds, and the new Cold War with Russia. It could soon also play a big role in the collapse of the world’s largest economy, the European Union (EU).

It’s hard to think of another place that has more tripwires for a global meltdown. In light of all these potential triggers as well as the recent failed military coup d’état that killed over 290 people, I thought it was time to take a closer look at Turkey. Doug Casey and I just returned from the crisis stricken country, the latest destination we visited with (literal) blood in the streets.

We put our boots on the ground in the same area where that hit squad of rebel soldiers nearly assassinated Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president. (In addition to all of the crises listed above, the Turkish military had invaded northern Syria just before our arrival.)

Perhaps most importantly, Turkey is at the heart of the migrant crisis that is tearing Europe apart. The migrant crisis will be one of the main issues on the minds of Italians as they vote in the upcoming referendum, which could very well decide the fate of the EU and the euro currency. That’s why I’ve spent weeks on the ground in Italy, watching these events unfold.

The Financial Times commented on what would happen if the Italian referendum fails:

It would probably lead to the most violent economic shock in history, dwarfing the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008 and the 1929 Wall Street crash.

Like with the Brexit vote, the migrant issue and by extension Turkey may determine the outcome of the Italian referendum on December 4, 2016.

Turkey Holds the Keys to the EU’s Future

Parroting U.S. concerns about democracy and human rights, the EU has also harshly criticized Turkey’s response to the failed coup. This hasn’t endeared them to the Turkish government. It’s actually incredibly stupid for the Europeans. And by stupid I mean exactly that an unwitting tendency toward self destruction. The Europeans fail to see the indirect and delayed consequences of their decision to antagonize the Turkish government.

That’s because the Turkish government holds the trump card on what is perhaps the most explosive political issue on the continent right now: the migrant crisis. Concerns about the unprecedented flow of migrants into Europe over the past couple of years played a key role in the Brexit vote. It’s also acting as a political accelerant to the rise of anti-EU parties all over Europe. It’s a simple relationship. The more migrants come to Europe, the more popular anti-EU political parties become, and the weaker the EU itself becomes.

This is where Turkey holds the keys to the future political landscape of Europe. Turkey is a major transit point migrants use on their way to Europe. The Turkish government doesn’t want the migrants to stay in Turkey, so they haven’t really had much of a reason to stop them from leaving for Europe. They even enjoyed the situation because it gave them negotiating leverage with Brussels. The Turks essentially said “give us what we want or we’ll open the floodgates.”

What the Turks want is lots of money and to join the Schengen visa free zone, which allows unfettered access to most of Europe. Brussels partially gave in to the blackmail. They started giving the Turks money to the tune of $6 billion and agreed to hold talks about getting visa-free access to the continent. In return, the Turks would cut off the flow of migrants.

For a while this arrangement worked. But after the attempted coup and then the purge of suspected putschists, the EU cried foul. They deemed the purges to be an erosion of democracy and the rule of law.
They basically told the Erdogan government it can forget about joining the Schengen zone.

Unsurprisingly, the Turkish government not so subtly warned that if the EU walks away from its part of the deal, so will it. Specifically, the Turkish government has threatened to open the migrant floodgates just in time for the Italian referendum and other key European elections. The Italian referendum could very well lead to the end of the euro and the EU itself, while triggering a global financial meltdown of historical proportions.

Turkey sending a new wave of migrants into Europe just before this key vote will help seal its fate.
There are potentially severe consequences in the currency and stock markets. That’s exactly why I recently spent weeks on the ground in Italy getting the scoop on this explosive story that almost nobody else is talking about.

New York Times best selling author Doug Casey and I just released an urgent video with all the details.
Our video reveals how a financial shock far greater than 2008 could strike America on December 4th, 2016. And how it could either wipe out a big part of your savings or be the fortune building opportunity of a lifetime. 

The video describes specific ways to profit as well as which stocks to avoid like radioactive waste. You can get a first look at this video by clicking here.

The article One Giant Powder Keg… and the Fuse is Already Lit was originally published at caseyresearch.com.

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If You’re Thinking About Investing in Oil Stocks...Read This First

By Justin Spittler

Is it safe to buy oil stocks yet? If you’ve been reading the Dispatch, you know the price of oil has plunged more than 70% since June 2014. Thanks to a massive surge in production, oil hit its lowest price since 2003 earlier this year. New extraction methods like fracking made the production surge possible. Last year, global oil production hit an all time high. Since then, companies have been pumping far more oil than the world consumes.

America’s largest oil companies lost $67 billion last year..…
Falling profits caused oil stocks to plunge. The SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP), a fund that tracks major U.S. oil producers, has dropped 72% over the past two years. The VanEck Vectors Oil Services ETF (OIH), which tracks major oil services companies, has fallen 57% since 2014. Oil services companies sell “picks and shovels” to oil producers. However, oil stocks have showed signs of bottoming out in the past few months. XOP is up 57% since January, while OIH is up 45% in the same period.

Oil companies have cut spending to the bone..…
They’ve abandoned ambitious projects. They’ve cut back on buying new machinery and equipment. Some have even stopped paying dividends. For many companies, spending less wasn’t enough. Global oil companies have laid off more than 250,000 workers since 2014. Companies have also sold parts of their business to raise cash.

In March, Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) announced plans to sell $30 billion worth of assets. Shell is the third biggest oil company on the planet. According to Oilprice, Shell’s huge sale could include oil pipelines in the United States. In April, Marathon Oil (MRO), one of the largest U.S. shale oil producers, said it plans to sell about $1 billion worth of assets. Both companies have no choice but to get leaner. Shell’s profits plummeted 80% last year. Marathon lost $2.2 billion in 2015. It was the biggest annual loss in the company’s history.

Many companies have sold oil assets in North Dakota..…
As you may know, North Dakota was ground zero of America’s shale oil boom. From 2009 to 2014, the state’s oil production surged 554%. It became the country’s second biggest oil producing state after Texas.
North Dakota’s booming oil economy attracted more than 80,000 workers. It became the fastest-growing state in the country. Then, oil prices plunged.

North Dakota’s oil production has fallen 10% over the last 18 months..…
And it’s likely to keep falling. According to The Wall Street Journal, more than 2,000 oil wells in North Dakota haven’t pumped a drop of oil in over a year. That’s the highest number of idle wells in over a decade. Many oil companies in North Dakota are burning through cash right now. They’re under distress, and they’re selling assets at deep discounts to pay the bills.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that this has attracted opportunistic investors:

The vultures are descending on North Dakota…
Hundreds of wells have changed hands or are in the process of being sold, state figures show, to a grab bag of fortune seekers ranging from industry experts to first-time wildcatters. They are picking up properties as more established producers scale back or shed assets to pay creditors.

According to The Wall Street Journal, some of these opportunistic investors are Wall Street veterans:

Houston-based Lime Rock Resources, founded by a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker and an oil-industry veteran, bought more than 340 North Dakota wells from Occidental Petroleum Corp. in November. The firm says it has at least $1.6 billion in private-equity money to invest, a portion of which it has spent on the Bakken. In another pairing of Wall Street and oil-patch veterans, NP Resources LLC bought 53 wells from Whiting Petroleum Corp. in December and is looking for more Bakken acreage.

This is a prime example of "crisis investing." Regular readers are familiar with this strategy. As you’ve probably heard us say, crisis investing is one of the world’s most powerful wealth building secrets. In short, crisis investing involves going against the crowd to buy beaten down assets that have been left for dead. You can often use this strategy to buy a dollar’s worth of assets for pennies. The good news is that you don’t need to step foot in North Dakota to crisis invest in the oil market. Anyone with a brokerage account can turn the oil crash into a money making opportunity.

As we said earlier, many oil stocks are showing signs of bottoming..…
Lots of big oil companies, like Devon Energy Corporation (DVN) and Continental Resources, Inc (CLR), are up 50% or more off their lows. That’s because oil prices have jumped 89% since January. Last week, oil prices closed above $50 for the first time since July. These big swings are typical for oil. Like most commodities, oil is cyclical, meaning it goes through big booms and busts.

It’s impossible to know for sure if oil prices have bottomed. Time will tell if oil’s recent jump is the start of new bull market. But we do know that many oil stocks are trading at their best prices in years. And because the world still runs on oil, it’s smart to go “bargain hunting” for great oil stocks today.

If you're buying oil stocks, stick to the elite companies..…
We look for a companies that can 1) make money at low oil prices. We also like companies with 2) healthy margins 3) plenty of cash and 4) little debt. In March, Nick Giambruno, editor of Crisis Investing, recommended an oil company that checks all of these boxes. It has a rock solid balance sheet…some of the industry’s highest profit margins…and “trophy assets” in America’s richest oil fields. Most importantly, it can make money at as low as $35 oil.

Like the “vultures” that descended on North Dakota, Nick used the oil meltdown as an opportunity to buy this world class oil company at a huge discount. He bought the stock just weeks after it hit a three year low. Since then, the stock has gained 10%. But Nick says it could go much higher. After all, it’s still down 30% since June 2014. You can access the name of this stock with a subscription to Crisis Investing, which you can learn more about right here.

By clicking this link, you’ll also hear about the biggest crisis on Nick’s radar. Every American needs to prepare for this coming crisis. By the end of this video, you’ll know how to protect yourself AND make money in its aftermath. Click here to watch this free video.

Chart of the Day

The oil surplus is shrinking..…
Today’s chart shows the price of oil going back to the start of 2014. As we said earlier, the price of oil has nearly doubled since January. But you can see that it’s still about half of what it was two years ago.
Oil prices are still low for a couple reasons. One, the global economy is slowing. As Dispatch readers know, the U.S., Europe, Japan, and China are all growing at their slowest rates in decades.

Secondly, the world still has too much oil. According to the Financial Times, oil companies are producing 800,000 more barrels of oil a day than the world consumes. In February, the global surplus stood at about 1.5 million barrels a day. The surplus has come down because oil companies are pumping less oil. But that’s not the only reason the global oil surplus has shrunk. On Monday, Bloomberg Business said the industry has also been hit by major “disruptions”:

Outages also have taken their toll on supply, with global disruptions reaching an average 3.6 million barrels a day last month, the most since the Energy Information Administration began tracking them in 2011. Fires that began early May in Alberta took out an average 800,000 barrels of Canadian supply last month, while Nigerian crude output dropped to the lowest in 27 years as militants increased attacks on pipelines in the Niger River delta.

The article If You’re Thinking About Investing in Oil Stocks, Read This was originally published at caseyresearch.com.

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The Bear Market in Commodities Is Over…Here’s How Casey Analysts Are Cashing In

By Justin Spittler

It’s official. The bear market in commodities is over. If you’ve been reading the Dispatch, you know commodities have been in a crushing bear market for more than five years. The Bloomberg Commodity Index, which tracks 22 different commodities, has plunged 58% since April 2011.

In January, it hit its lowest level since 1999. Then, commodity prices took off. According to the Financial Times, 15 out of the 22 commodities that make up the Bloomberg Commodity Index are up on the year. The price of oil is up 85% since February. Sugar is up 81% since August. Soybeans are up 33% since March.

The index is up 11%. It’s off to its best start to any year since 2008. And it’s up 21% since mid-January.
According to the popular definition, a bull market begins when a stock, commodity, or index rises 20% from a low. By that measure, commodities are “officially” in a bull market.

You can see how commodities have bottomed in the chart below:

For months, we’ve been saying commodities were close to a bottom..…
The 5-plus year bear market in commodities has slammed the world’s largest miners. According to accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world’s 40 largest publicly traded miners lost a combined $27 billion last year. To survive, commodity companies have cut spending to the bone. They laid off hundreds of thousands of workers. They sold parts of their business and abandoned projects. Some companies even cut their prized dividends.

This is classic behavior of a bottom..…
As you may know, commodities are cyclical. They go through big booms and busts. That’s because commodities like copper, natural gas, and oil have unique supply/demand dynamics. For example, when oil prices get too low, many companies that produce oil go out of business. Also, when oil prices are cheap, folks are likely to use more of it. You’re likely to drive more when gasoline prices are cheap than when they’re expensive.

Eventually, prices get so low that demand exceeds supply. Prices bottom out and begin to rise. That’s when a commodity bear market turns into a commodity bull market. When a commodity bull market gets going, the gains can be huge. During the 2002–2008 commodity bull market, the Bloomberg Commodity Index rose 172%. Shares of some of the world’s largest mining companies climbed many times higher. For example, Anglo American (AAL.L) returned 464% over the period. BHP Billiton Limited (BHP) returned 1,106%.

The weak dollar has also given commodities a boost..…
The U.S. Dollar Index has fallen 5% this year. This index tracks the dollar’s performance against major currencies like the euro and Japanese yen. The dollar is the world’s most important currency. Most investors “think” in dollars. If you look up the price of sugar, corn, or gold, you’ll see its price in dollars. So when the dollar loses value, it takes more dollars to buy the same amount of a commodity. That’s why a weak dollar is good for commodities.

Still, there’s at least one reason to be skeptical about the rally in commodities..…
Commodities are the “building blocks” of the global economy. And Dispatch readers know that economic growth has come to a standstill. China, the world’s largest commodity consumer, is growing at its slowest pace since 1990. The U.S. is growing at its slowest pace since World War II. Japan’s economy hasn’t grown at all in two decades. When the economy slows, developers build fewer homes, office buildings, and bridges. That means they use less copper, aluminum, steel, and other commodities.

If you’re buying commodities today, make sure to buy ones that can do well while the economy struggles..…
Some commodities depend more on economic growth than others. For example, lumber, which is used to build homes, benefits from the tailwind of a growing economy. Soybean prices, on the other hand, can rise no matter how well the economy is doing. That’s because people have to eat no matter what’s happening with the economy.

So while the Bloomberg Commodity Index is up 11% this year, not every commodity has rallied. Natural gas prices are still down 9% on the year. Copper is down 3%. Meanwhile, soybean prices are up 34% Although several Casey analysts have recommended commodity investments this year, they’ve been very selective about the types of commodities they recommend. This approach has paid off…..

➢ Nick Giambruno, editor of Crisis Investing, used the crash in oil prices to pick shares of a world-class oil company. This stock is up 13% since March.

➢ E.B. Tucker, editor of The Casey Report, used the turnaround in commodities to buy two gold stocks. One of those is up 47% since March. The other is up 31% since April. He also recommended a silver stock that’s jumped 36% since April.

➢ Louis James, editor of International Speculator, is cashing in on the commodity rebound too. One of his stocks has surged 162% since September. Another is up 122% since July. A third is up 63% since March.

Most investors would do well owning just gold..…
As we often say, gold is real money. It’s preserved wealth for thousands of years because it has unique set of qualities: It’s durable, easy to transport, and easily divisible. It has intrinsic value that folks recognize around the world. Like many commodities, gold “officially” entered a new bull market earlier this year. It’s in an uptrend, yet still cheap. It’s trading 34% below its 2011 high. Unlike many commodities, gold can do well even if the economy is struggling. It’s a safe haven asset that’s protected wealth through history’s worst financial crises.

Casey Research founder Doug Casey thinks we’re on the verge of a major financial crisis..…
Doug says the coming crisis will be “much more severe, different, and longer lasting than what we saw in 2008 and 2009.” When it hits, “paper currencies will fall apart, as they have many times throughout history.”
Doug says this will spark a “true mania” in gold. That’s why we encourage everyone own physical gold. Putting just 10% or 15% of your wealth in gold could help you avoid big losses during the next financial crisis.

Finally, an important announcement from Jim Rickards..…
Part of our job at Casey Research is to share interesting opportunities with you. That's why we're passing along this important news from our good friend Jim Rickards. You've probably heard of Rickards. He’s one of the most respected analysts in the business. He’s a gold expert and author of The New Case for Gold. Jim recently launched a new service to help readers take advantage of the coming gold boom. Because he’d like as many folks as possible to read his service, he’s arranged a special deal exclusive to Casey Research readers. You can learn more by watching this free video. In short, if you take Rickards up on his special offer today, he’ll send you two “G-series” gold coins in the mail.

Again, this deal is only for Casey Research readers. Click here for the full story.

REMINDER: Casey Research founder Doug Casey will be in Poland next weekend..…
Doug will be presenting at the "Alternative for Difficult Times" seminar in Warsaw on June 18 and 19. Nick Giambruno, editor of International Man, will be there too. Doug and Nick will be there for the Polish launch of Doug's classic book, Crisis Investing. They will also be presenting at a seminar discussing the impending global financial hurricane, the state of freedom around the world, and how you can protect yourself and even profit from these trends.

Click here for more information.

Chart of the Day

Gold has been one of the best places to put your money this year. Today’s chart shows the performance of gold, commodities, bonds, U.S. stocks, and global stocks this year. You can see gold is up 17% this year. It’s crushed stocks, bonds, and even commodities as a group. For most of this year, gold was the top performing commodity. It was up more than 22% at one point. Then, it cooled off. It’s down more than 3% since late April.

We think gold is in the early innings of a major bull market. And, as we often say, bull markets don’t move in straight lines. It’s healthy for gold to take a “breather” after its red hot start to the year. If you’re looking to buy gold, we recommend using down days as buying opportunities. And again, for specifics on a coming opportunity in gold, we recommend you check out Jim Rickards' short video right here.

The article The Bear Market in Commodities Is Over…Here’s How Casey Analysts Are Cashing In was originally published at caseyresearch.com.

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How Negative Interest Rates Will Turbocharge the Migrant Crisis

By Nick Giambruno

In the 1989 Batman movie, the Joker (played by Jack Nicholson) showers a crowded Gotham street with free money. In the scene, it looks like it’s raining hundred dollar bills. The people love it. Little do they know, the money is actually a trap. Once the Joker has lured them into the street, he unleashes poisonous gas.

I think the latest gimmick to stimulate the economy is pretty much the same thing. It’s one of the most absurd ideas I’ve heard in a while. And that’s saying something, considering the outrageous schemes our economic luminaries have recently come up with, like..…

• Faking a space alien invasion to help stimulate the economy.
• Minting a trillion dollar coin.
• Negative interest rates.
• Banning physical cash.
• Cash for clunkers.
• Increasing rounds of money printing, euphemistically called “quantitative easing.”

These ideas would be comical if people in power didn’t actually take them seriously. But they do. It’s the same bad medicine the economic witch doctors have been prescribing for years. With a track record like this, it’s hard to imagine they could come up with something even more ridiculous. But they have. This latest gimmick goes well beyond the absurdity of their previous ideas. It’s verifiably insane. And the scariest part is, this dangerous idea is gaining currency. It’s spreading across the world like a smallpox outbreak.

Helicopter Money

Politicians and establishment economists call this scary idea “a basic income.” I call it sheer lunacy. It’s where the government gives you money just because. There’s no requirement to work or even display a willingness to work. You could sit at home all day, watch TV, and still get a check from the government. Simply put, a basic income is “free” money the government hands out to everyone unconditionally. European politicians are heavily pushing this policy.

• Finland wants to pay its citizens around $1,000 a month.
• The Netherlands and the U.K. have also proposed dishing out free money.
• In Switzerland, there’s a proposal to hand out around $2,800 a month to everyone. This one is surprising since the Swiss are generally sensible about money.
• The basic income virus has also infected Canada, which recently announced a pilot program in Ontario.

It’s just a matter of time before the idea gains traction in the U.S. In fact, U.S. central economic planners are already discussing it. You might recall former Fed chair Ben Bernanke’s nickname, “Helicopter Ben.” He got the name after he spoke publicly about using helicopter drops of money to “stimulate” the economy. This is just another flavor of a basic income.

Whether you call it free money, a basic income, or helicopter money, the idea is spreading. It’s the next potion the economic witch doctors will use once their latest scam—negative interest rates—not only fails to cure our economic ailments, but predictably makes them worse. No matter, the idea will be politically popular. Who would protest free money?

And, once a country adopts a basic income, it would be next to impossible to get rid of it until the system collapses under its own weight. Who would vote for a politician that stops (or even slows down) the gravy train? The Joker used free money to lure the people of Gotham to poisonous gas. Now real world politicians are using the same trick. They’re using free money to lure the masses into perpetual dependence on government.

More Problems Ahead for Europe

If Europeans think they have a migrant problem now, just wait until they institute a basic income. It’s obvious what will happen….Once European governments start handing every person thousands of dollars in free money each month (more than many in Africa make in a year), everyone will be scrambling for Europe.

A basic income is a sure recipe for economic disaster and increased cultural tensions. It’s an environment where blowhards and demagogues flourish. Unfortunately, this has happened repeatedly throughout Europe’s history. Once again, it’s going to lead to some very bad things.

I think a basic income will greatly accelerate this recurring trend.

Without a basic income and other welfare benefits, immigrants are usually skilled and the very best of people. But the average European will surely forget that once free money draws in the world’s riffraff. This is why, although the financial effects will be severe, the sociopolitical ones will be much worse.

Here’s the bottom line: All you can do is protect yourself from the consequences of all this stupidity. This is a big reason why I think everyone should own some gold. Gold is the ultimate form of wealth insurance. It’s preserved wealth for thousands of years through every kind of crisis imaginable. It will preserve wealth during the next crisis, too.

Unfortunately, most people have no idea how to prepare for the next economic collapse…..

How will you protect your savings in the event of a crisis? This just released video will show you exactly how. Click here to watch it now.

The article How Negative Interest Rates Will Turbocharge the Migrant Crisis was originally published at caseyresearch.com.

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