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

A Powerful Weapon of Financial Warfare--The US Treasury's Kiss of Death

By Nick Giambruno

It’s an amazingly powerful weapon that only the US government can wield—kicking anyone it doesn’t like out of the world’s US dollar based financial system.

It’s a weapon foreign banks fear. A sound institution can be rendered insolvent at the flip of a switch that the US government controls. It would be akin to an economic kiss of death. When applied to entire countries—such as the case with Iran—it’s like a nuclear attack on the country’s financial system.

That is because, thanks to the petrodollar regime, the US dollar is still the world’s reserve currency, and that indirectly gives the US a chokehold on international trade.

For example, if a company in Italy wants to buy products made in India, the Indian seller probably will want to be paid in US dollars. So the company in Italy first needs to purchase those dollars on the foreign exchange market. But it can’t do so without involving a bank that is permitted to operate in the US. And no such bank will cooperate if it finds that the Italian company is on any of Washington’s bad-boy lists.

The US dollar may be just a facilitator for an international transaction unrelated to any product or service tied to the US, but it’s a facilitator most buyers and sellers in world markets want to use. Thus Uncle Sam’s ability to say “no dollars for you” gives it tremendous leverage to pressure other countries.

The BRICS countries have been trying to move toward a more multipolar international financial system, but it’s an arduous process. Any weakening of the US government’s ability to use the dollar as a stick to compel compliance is likely years away.

When the time comes, no country will care about losing access to the US financial system any more than it would worry today about being shut out of the peso-based Mexican financial system. But for a while yet, losing Uncle Sam’s blessing still can be an economic kiss of death, as the recent experience of Banca Privada d’Andorra shows.

Andorra, a Peculiar Country Without a Central Bank

The Principality of Andorra is a tiny jurisdiction sandwiched between Spain and France in the eastern Pyrenees mountains. It hasn’t joined the EU and thus is not burdened by every edict passed down in Brussels. However, as a matter of practice, the euro is in general use. Interestingly, the country does not have a central bank.

Andorra is a renowned offshore banking jurisdiction. Banking is the country’s second-biggest source of income, after tourism. Its five banks had made names for themselves by being particularly well capitalized, welcoming to nonresidents (even Americans), and willing to work with offshore companies and international trusts.

One Andorran bank that had been recommended prominently by others (but not by International Man) is Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA).

Recently BPA received the financial kiss of death from FinCEN, the US Treasury Department’s financial crimes bureau. FinCEN accused BPA of laundering money for individuals in Russia, China, and Venezuela—interestingly, all geopolitical rivals of the US.

Never mind that unlike murder, robbery and rape, money laundering is a victimless, make-believe crime invented by US politicians.

But let’s set that argument aside and assume that money laundering is indeed a real crime. While FinCEN seems to enjoy pointing the money laundering finger here and there, it never mentions that New York and London are among of the busiest money laundering centers in the world, which underscores the political, not criminal, nature of their accusations.

And that’s all it takes, a mere accusation from FinCEN to shatter the reputation of a foreign bank and the confidence of its depositors.

The foreign bank has little recourse. There is no adjudication to determine whether the accusation has any merit nor is there any opportunity for the bank to make a defense to stop the damage to its reputation.
And not even the most solvent foreign banks—such as BPA—are immune.

Shortly after FinCEN made its accusation public, BPA’s global correspondent accounts—which allow it to conduct international transactions—were closed. No other bank wants to risk Washington’s ire by doing business with a blacklisted institution. BPA was effectively banned from the international financial system.

This predictably led to an evaporation of confidence by BPA’s depositors. To prevent a run on the bank, the Andorran government took BPA under its administration and imposed a €2,500 per week withdrawal limit on depositors.

However, it’s not just BPA that is feeling the results of Washington’s displeasure. FinCEN’s accusation against BPA is sending a shockwave that is shaking Andorra to its core.

The ordeal has led S&P to downgrade Andorra’s credit rating, noting that “The risk profile of Andorra’s financial sector, which is large relative to the size of the domestic economy, has increased beyond our expectations.”

For comparison, BPA’s assets amount to €3 billion, and the Andorran government’s annual budget is only €400 million. There is no way the government could bail out BPA even if it wanted to.

The last time there was a banking crisis in a European country with an oversized financial sector, many depositors were blindsided with a bail-in and lost most, or in some cases, all of their money over €100,000.
While the damage to BPA’s customers appears to be contained for the moment, it remains to be seen whether Andorra turns into the next Cyprus.

BPA is hardly the only example of a US government attack on a foreign bank. In a similar fashion in 2013, the US effectively shut down Bank Wegelin, Switzerland’s oldest bank, which, like BPA, operated without branches in the US.

To appreciate the brazen overreach that has become routine for FinCEN, it helps to examine matters from an alternative perspective.

Imagine that China was the world’s dominant financial power instead of the US and it had the power to enforce its will and trample over the sovereignty of other countries. Imagine bureaucrats in Beijing having the power to effectively shut down any bank in the world. Imagine those same bureaucrats accusing BNY Mellon (Bank of New York is the oldest bank in the US) of breaking some Chinese financial law and cutting it off from the international financial system, causing a crisis of confidence and effectively shuttering it.

In a world of fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking, that is a power—a financial weapon—that the steward of the international financial system wields.

Currently, that steward is the US. It remains to be seen whether or not the BRICS will learn to be just as overbearing once their parallel international financial system is up and running.

In any case, the new system will give the world an alternative, and that will be a good thing.

But regardless of what the international financial system is going to look like, you should take action now to protect yourself from getting caught in the crossfire when financial weapons are going off.

One way to make sure your savings don’t go poof the next time some bureaucrat at FinCEN decides a bank did something that they didn’t like is to offshore your money into safe jurisdictions. And we've put together an in-depth video presentation to help you do just that. It's called, "Internationalizing Your Assets."

Our all-star panel of experts, with Doug Casey and Peter Schiff, provide low cost options for international diversification that anyone can implement - including how to safely set up foreign storage for your gold and silver bullion and how to move your savings abroad without triggering invasive reporting requirements.

This is a must watch video for any investor and it's completely free. Click here to watch Internationalizing Your Assets right now. 

The article was originally published at internationalman.com.

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Total War over the Petrodollar

By Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Investment Strategist

The conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Total SA’s chief executive, Christophe de Margerie, started the second the news broke of his death. Under mysterious circumstances in Moscow, his private jet collided with a snowplow just after midnight. De Margerie was the CEO of Total, France’s largest oil company.

He’d just attended a private meeting with Russian Prime Minister Medvedev, at a time when the West’s relationship with Russia is fraught, to say the least.

One has better odds of being struck by lightning at an airport then a snow plow, or any other ground support vehicles hitting a plane and killing all inside the plane, in my opinion. And I say that as someone who’s familiar with airports, having worked at Vancouver International Airport when I was in university; I was the one who would bring the plane into its parking bay.

If it weren’t for those short odds, a snowplow on the runway with an allegedly drunk driver would be the perfect crime. But who would benefit from his death?

De Margerie was one of the few business leaders who spoke out against the isolation of Russia. On this last trip to Moscow, he railed against sanctions and the obstacles to Russian companies obtaining credit.
He was also an outspoken supporter of Russia’s position in natural gas pricing and transportation disputes with Ukraine, telling Reuters in an interview in July that Europe should not cut its dependence on Russian gas but rather focus on making the supplies more secure.

But what could have made de Margerie a total liability is Total’s involvement in plans to build a plant to liquefy natural gas on the Yamal Peninsula of Russia in partnership with Novatek. Its most ambitious project in Russia to date, it would facilitate the shipping of 800 million barrels of oil equivalent of LNG to China via the Arctic.

Compounding this sin, Total had just announced that it’s seeking financing for a gas project in Russia in spite of the current sanctions against Russia. It planned to finance its share in the $27 billion Yamal project using euros, yuan, Russian rubles, and any other currency but US dollars.

Did this direct threat to the petrodollar make this “true friend of Russia”—as Putin called de Margerie—some very powerful and dangerous enemies amongst the power that be, whether in the French government, the EU, or the US?

In my book The Colder War, one chapter deals with “mysterious deaths” and how they are linked to being on the wrong side of the political equation. Whether it’s going against Putin or against the petrodollar, there are many who have fallen on both sides.

If Total doesn’t close the $27 billion financing it needs to move forward with the Yamal LNG project then we’ll know someone stepped in to prevent an attack on the petrodollar.  The CEO of Total, before his death and his CFO were both strong supporters of Total raising the $27 billion in non U.S. dollars and moving the project forward with the Russians.  But, this could all change if the financing does not complete.

How many other Western executives who dare to help Russia bypass sanctions—and turn it into an energy powerhouse—will die under suspicious circumstances?

Marin Katusa, is author of The Colder War, manager of multiple global energy-exploration hedge funds, and co-founder of Copper Mountain Mining Corporation. Click here to get a copy of his must-read new book, The Colder War. Inside, you’ll discover exactly how Putin is taking over the energy sector, how far ahead he is, and how alarming it is that no one in the US or Europe has even entered the race.

The article Total War over the Petrodollar was originally published at casey research

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New Video: Obama’s Abandoning the Saudis for Iran and Dooming the Petrodollar

By Alex Daley, Chief Technology Investment Strategist

I sat down with Jim Rickards, author of many best selling economics and investing books, including his latest, titled The Death of Money. In this exclusive interview, Jim shares his view on the changes in U.S. foreign policy—the newly announced partnership with Iran to help fight ISIS and recent moves away from the petrodollar deal with Saudi Arabia—and what they mean for the dollar, gold, and investment markets in general.

This interview just scratches the surface of the topics Jim covered in his speech at the most recent Casey Research Summit in San Antonio. You can grab a complete recording of that speech, and all 25 of the others, in the Summit Audio Collection, which is on sale with a juicy preorder discount for just a few more days.

Alex Daley
Chief Technology Investment Strategist
Casey Research

The article Jim Rickards: Obama’s Abandoning the Saudis for Iran and Dooming the Petrodollar was originally published at casey research

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What Casey Research Staff Are Buying This Summer

By Jeff Clark, Senior Precious Metals Analyst

I ran across a business show last week that advertised that its guests would give out stock picks. That piqued my curiosity, so I watched to see what they would recommend. For disclosure purposes, a chart was shown that listed if the speaker, his family, his fund, or his clients owned the stock. By the end of the show, I was flabbergasted—not one speaker owned any stock they recommended!

Anyone can go on television and tell investors company X is a great investment, but how much should you trust them if they don’t follow their own recommendations? The counterargument is that the speaker could be biased if they recommend stocks they already own because then they’re just “talking their book.” True enough.

But consider a more personal situation: If you got specific investment advice from a professional you hired and found out he never bought what he told you to buy, how seriously would you take his advice?
What if a newsletter service recommended you buy gold and gold stocks, but their editors didn’t follow their own advice? And what if the market retreated and they encouraged you to average down—but they didn’t?
In the June BIG GOLD, I told subscribers to put the final touches on their precious metals portfolio over the summer, to take advantage of low prices. Do I take my own advice? What about the rest of our staff? And what about those at Casey Research who write non gold publications?

I decided to poll our editors to see if they follow the advice in BIG GOLD and International Speculator and what they plan to buy this summer in the precious metals arena. Here’s what they told me…
Doug Casey, Chairman: Most everything is overpriced, thanks to the Fed’s unprecedented money printing. That includes stocks and property, and bonds are in a bubble. So I continue to buy the metals consistently, and do private placements in deserving companies. The metals and mining stocks are about the only value out there.

Olivier Garret, CEO: I am definitely not reducing my exposure to precious metals [PMs] and stocks. I will add to my positions in PMs at Hard Assets Alliance. Our funds, of which I am a large shareholder, continue to deploy capital in the best-of-breed resource companies.

David Galland, Managing Director: Over the last year, I have been taking full advantage of the softness in the precious metals sector by concentrating my purchases only on the best of the best precious metals stocks, deciding on a price I am thrilled to pay and then waiting for the price to come to me. I have also been very selective in participating in private placements. If a private placement doesn’t come with a very favorably priced warrant with an expiration date at least three years out, giving the company time to take its business to the next level, then I’m simply not interested. That’s the beauty of periods of consolidation—you can afford to be selective.

I also like to build large positions in companies which I know have the right stuff, including a significant and feasible project as well as the money and the management needed to get the job done. When those companies pull back—as they invariably do in markets such as these—I have no reservations about buying more. Pretium Resources falls into that category. My personal upside target is over $15, so buying at these levels is a no-brainer for me. That said, I’m not greedy, so when I get a solid double-digit return on a stock, I’m happy to take a profit.

I guess when it comes down to it, now that I live most of the year in my version of paradise—La Estancia de Cafayate—and dedicate much of every day to fully enjoying the place, I try to keep things simple. Primarily, by setting aside a couple of hours each month to review my portfolio in order to make sure I still understand why I own all the investments I own and to rebalance any positions that have grown outside of my comfort zone, or pulled back, allowing me to continue to build a position. In the case of precious metals-related investments, I am very comfortable with them totaling about 25% of my overall portfolio.

Dan Steinhart, Managing Editor, The Casey Report: I have all the physical metal I want for now, and I averaged down on a couple junior miners in the last few months. For this summer, I’m looking hard at mid- and large-tier dividend payers. I want more exposure to gold because I’m confident it’s going to the moon, but I have no idea how long it will take to get there. Collecting dividends helps offset the opportunity cost while I wait. I already own a good amount of Goldcorp, so Yamana is my next target… I’m watching its chart for signs that the price has stabilized, and once I see that, I’m ready to buy.

Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Investment Strategist: I am looking to build positions in certain stocks but don’t want to advertise which ones.

Bud Conrad, Chief Economist: Gold is my largest personal position. As I wrote in the April issue of The Casey Report, the world’s financial system is approaching an important rebalancing. New political alignments will undermine the dollar’s special privileges and in turn will elevate gold’s importance.

The petrodollar arrangement will not last forever, and cracks are beginning to form that suggest it may decline faster than most expect. Since the 1970s, Saudi Arabia and OPEC have only accepted dollars for oil. The new $400 billion agreement between Russia and China does not use dollars, and this is a major geopolitical shift that could eventually undermine the reserve status of the dollar. The price of gold could rise into the thousands of dollars very quickly if the petrodollar system fails.

In the meantime, investors should understand that current price weakness comes from short term, big, institutional influence rather than from economic fundamentals. There are big forces that are able to move markets—interest rates, commodities, and stocks. The key movers are the central banks and their closely related big banks. Some international banks are being indicted for illegal activities in LIBOR, foreign exchange, and most recently London bullion fixings. Employees are being fired, some are leaving, and firms are closing some of their trading desks. We even have suspicions about some bankers’ deaths.

The Fed’s massive and not completely revealed actions have been used along with the truly massive derivatives and futures markets as developed and traded by the big banks to distort the traditional economic forces so that big deficits can be managed by keeping rates low. Prices can thus be managed in the short term, and the media continues to support the government’s policies. That high-frequency trading is tolerated as described in Michael Lewis’ book Flash Boys is only the tip of the iceberg of all that is going on.
In the long term, I agree with Doug Casey: we still face the greatest financial collapse ever when the current machinations hit their limits and the deception becomes widely understood.

Dennis Miller, Senior Editor, Miller’s Money Forever: I have a full allocation to precious metals, but I have a growing concern that Obamacare, by design, will ration care for seniors. Pity the poor senior that goes to Panama for treatment because he can’t get it in the US, or the wait is too long, or it’s too expensive—only to realize currency controls have been instituted and he can’t get money out of the country! As a result, I have been using some of the strategies in our Going Global 2014 report to assure that this won’t happen to me or my wife. And gold is part of that strategy.

Nick Giambruno, Senior Editor, International Man: This summer I plan to continue with steady purchases through MetalStream^® for gold bullion held in Singapore. I’m also keeping a higher than normal cash reserve for stink bids on juniors. I already have adequate exposure to silver and large producers.

Shannara Johnson, Chief Editor: I buy silver every week through SilverSaver, a metals accumulation program that allows you to save as little as $25 per week. When I get extra money, such as bonuses, I often use a lump sum to buy a larger amount of silver on dips. As Doug Casey says, only metal that you can hold in your hand is really yours, so whenever my SilverSaver account reaches a certain level, I have some of the bullion delivered.

The reason I’m buying silver instead of gold is that it’s more affordable, and also because of the “divisible” part of Aristotle’s criteria for money. If there ever comes a crisis so devastating that paper dollars become worthless and precious metals are used for trade and barter, I imagine that silver bullion coins will be easier to, say, buy food with than gold coins or bars.

I’m very wary of the cancer that is eating away at the heart of America—call it crony capitalism or neo-feudalism—and everything the government and Wall Street do seems to be designed to separate the little guy from his money. I believe precious metals are manipulated, the markets are manipulated, and we saw in Cyprus that nothing is sacred anymore, not even our own bank accounts. I don’t plan to sell my silver unless I have to—it’s a safety net in case things go from bad to worse.

Doug Hornig, Senior Editor: I think quality numismatic coins are the best buy right now, which I’ve focused on, because they’re down 50% or more from their highs, which is a lot more than gold itself. If collectibles rebound as they always have, I’ll do very well. But if not, I still have the value of the underlying asset, gold, which provides a powerful amount of downside protection, and that’s not to be sneezed at.
I don’t buy gold as a speculation; just as an heirloom (hopefully, provided I don’t need it myself) for my kids. So I couldn’t care less about the gyrations of the gold price. Anyone who wants to play those ups and downs is welcome to, and it could be very profitable to do it. It’s just not for me. I’m strictly buy and hold.

Ed Steer, Editor, Gold & Silver Daily: I’m full up on stocks, as I’m still “all-in,” with virtually all of them junior silver producers from BIG GOLD. Right now I’m buying silver—physical metal in hand—as it won’t be at this price forever.

Chris Wood, Senior Analyst, Casey Extraordinary Technology: I just used the bulk of the cash I had budgeted for investing this summer to buy several of the Casey Extraordinary Technology stocks we recently recommended. So I probably won’t do much in the way of precious metals investing this summer, but I definitely plan on it this fall: buying physical gold and silver bullion coins, and setting up an account with the Hard Assets Alliance.

The short term technical picture for gold doesn’t look great, coupled with the dollar strengthening over the past month and yen declining, which is generally bearish for gold. But I honestly don’t care about that at all. The long-term fundamental picture has only improved, save for the small bit of tapering that the Fed has initiated in its bond buying program. Central banks around the world continue to create currency units at a record pace.

And the mid-term outlook for gold looks good too. Even though the dollar has strengthened over the past few weeks, the beginning of the end of the petrodollar system (shown most recently by the China/Russia gas deal) and China’s desire to essentially create a new UN without the US and EU but with Russia and Iran, has to be bullish for gold.

Kevin Brekke, Managing Editor, World Money Analyst: The post-2008/09 financial crisis run-up in gold had everyone from die-hard gold bugs to momentum jockeys riding the price wave. It seemed the trend would never end. Then came the countervailing realities of monetary, currency, and economic interventions, deflationary forces, and—gasp!—profit taking.

The ensuing price volatility in the precious metals sector had the myopic, trade for today crowd scamper to the next hot trade. Yet, the consequences of misguided policies remain unknown, and the excesses that were deployed to resolve them have simply been repressed. The underlying fundamentals are unchanged, and I will not sell my gold and render myself unarmed against the eventual fallout from a delayed day of reckoning.

Louis James, Chief Metals & Mining Investment Strategist: Our household is tight on cash this summer, as we just poured much of our liquidity into buying our new home in Puerto Rico. Still, my wife and I have been going over our budget and plan to buy some stocks, maybe more bullion as well. Which ones will depend on what looks best when we pull the trigger, but adding to our position in BOZ is a high priority, and we’re thinking about SWC, too, as we’ve yet to add exposure to platinum/palladium, and our diversification into that sector in the newsletters seems to be working out even faster than expected.

If the market correction continues and we see the capitulation this summer that was close but never really fully developed last December, I will do all I can to scrounge up more cash to deploy, because I think it will be both life-changing and a once in a lifetime event.

What About Me?

I have been buying tubes of silver Eagles and Maple Leafs every time silver dips to $19.50 or below. I plan to buy the discounted bullion offered in the June BIG GOLD, as well as the new Canadian Howling Wolf. I have full exposure to equities in the precious metals space—but then Louis or Marin will recommend a compelling speculation and off I go turning over couch cushions.

What I have found very rewarding is that by just sticking to a regular accumulation plan, my stash has steadily grown. Given the crises I see ahead, I want to be sure my household can withstand the fallout, which could be ugly if Doug Casey, Bud Conrad, James Rickards, and Jim Rogers are right. The financial crisis in 2008 was a wake up call, and I realized then I probably didn’t have sufficient monetary protection. I feel differently today, thanks to my regular buying habits.

Since I’m in the public eye, I don’t keep any bullion at home—except for a dummy stash. I use several of the services recommended in our Bullion Buyers Guide, that you don’t have to be a high-net-worth investor to use.

Conclusion

What you see above started out as a survey but ended up becoming a great set of precious-metals-related investment advice. I hope you find it helpful.

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The article What Casey Research Staff Are Buying This Summer was originally published at Casey Research

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