The Fed’s ‘tapering’ comments have ramped up market volatilaty and Faber gives some advice for short and long-term strategies. For example: “”The best course of action is to actually not buy anything, but rather to reduce positions on a rebound,” Faber said: Also, “New highs in emerging markets and in high yield bonds are out of the question, and if it happened in the S&P, which I don’t believe, it would be driven by very few stocks. Longer term, the market is far from oversold. It still has considerable downside risk everywhere,” he said.

Finally, buy more gold……he is. (6:31)

The Best of Marc Faber

When asked about the price of gold, Faber stated: ‘Well, I think we will be higher by year end but I am not worried where we are. I have said that I buy gold regularly. I just bought today at $1300 and I will buy more at $1200 and I will buy more at $1100.’

The Best of Marc Faber

“A safe country? I’m not so sure about that under the present government. But in 1933, gold was taken away from Americans. The government paid them $25 and after, they revalued the gold to $35. So, basically what the government can do once again, and that is a possibility. They could artificially depress, manipulate the price down and then say ‘Gold is illegal to be held. We have to collect all the gold from the citizens.’ Say if they manipulated the price down to $1,000. They could collect it at $1,000 and then revalue to $10,000.”

Faber continues: “I bought gold at $1,400, I buy every month some gold, and I have an order to buy more at $1,300 because I want to keep an allocation towards gold – physical gold – and not stored in the United States at all times.”

The Best of Marc Faber

The following is a partial transcript of Dr. Marc Faber’s interview airing for subscribers on Friday:

Jim Puplava: Joining me on the program today is Dr. Marc Faber who heads up the Gloom, Boom, and Doom report. And, Marc, recently we’ve seen a precipitous fall in gold unlike anything seen in a few years. I’d like to get your take: What’s behind this fall in gold? Because it took the markets by surprise – there’s a lot of theories out there, including this week in Barron’s by Randall Forsythe saying that, this time, gold bugs may have a point. What are your thoughts?

Dr. Marc Faber: Well, there are many theories why the price went down. Simply put, there were more sellers than buyers. Now, of course, a lot of people have all kinds of theories that people manipulate the market down and so forth. That might be the case. I don’t have a clue. Now, rather than say it has been the case or hasn’t been the case it may be worthwhile to analyze why someone has an interest to manipulate the price of gold down. As you may know, Eric Sprott has maintained for some time that central banks, particularly the U.S, don’t have the gold anymore – that they leased it out and there may have been a shortage and so central banks may have had the inclination to suppress the price for whatever reason. So, can you explain to me why – and I never overestimate the intelligence of western central bankers – why would someone in the west want to suppress the price and enable the Asian central bankers to buy gold at the depressed price? I just don’t see it that way. Number 2: One more reason why a central bank would want to suppress the price and that is expropriation. In 1933, the U.S. collected all the gold that U.S. citizens held, and then they revalued it to $35. So the people that owned gold [previously] missed out on this appreciation. It amounted, basically, to a devaluation of the dollar against gold by over 30%. Now, a western central bank, say the Federal Reserve, could say, “Okay, let’s depress the gold price down to $1000 or below and then we’ll declare gold holdings to be illegal and then we will buy at the prevailing price. Then, once they’ve collected all the gold they can revalue it at, say, $10,000. Is this likely? I don’t think the central bankers would be smart enough to think of that. And, technically, it would be quite difficult to implement. So, I can’t see it really happening, but this would be a motive to depress the price artificially. Otherwise, actually, central bankers would have an interest to push the price up because they own most of the gold.

In the rest of this interview, Marc explains a very important difference between central banks leasing gold versus selling their gold along with a large number of other topics, including:

• Does massive retail buying of gold signify a bottom?
• Whether he’s buying at these prices
• What a strong dollar means for financial assets around the world
• The impact of a falling Yen on other Asian countries
• What export statistics from each of China’s trading partners say about the alarming state of China’s economy?
• Where he is investing currently
• Why investors should diversify
• Why the market has been much more volatile since the inception of the Federal Reserve
• What the biggest mistake investors make is

The Best of Marc Faber

Marc Faber’s market commentary for May

First, I am discussing capital flows and the general belief among some economists that trade and current account deficits do not matter because the money flows back in the form of investments in equities, bonds, real estate, direct investments, and corporate takeovers.

According to Barron’s Big Money Survey, “74% of large portfolio managers are bullish about stocks, which is the Highest Level Ever.” Time to be a contrarian?

I am reluctantly maintaining an approximately 25% weighting in equities (mostly in Asia and in Europe) and I have not yet shorted any stocks because I have learnt that a bubble can get bigger still and exceed my expectations – before it implodes violently.

I want to make clear that I own equities not because of the belief that they are inexpensive and that they will move up substantially but because I do not trust the banking system and, therefore, I do not wish to be overexposed to bank deposits.

Finally, has gold completed its correction and are we entering another major advance as the gold bugs tell us, or are we at the beginning of a major gold bear market as the bears want us to believe?

Cash & Government Bonds Cannot Protect You

The central banks around the world gone the path of money printing and once you choose that path you’re in it, and you have to print more money.

If you start to print, it has the biggest impact. Then you print more – it has a lesser impact unless you increase the rate of money printing very significantly. And, the third money printing has even less impact. And the problem is like the Fed: they printed money because they wanted to lift the housing market, but the housing market is the only asset that didn’t go up substantially.

In general, I think that the purchasing power of money has diminished very significantly over the last ten, twenty, thirty years, and will continue to do so. So by being in cash and government bonds is not a protection against this depreciation in the value of money.”

“At the moment, a lot of people are knocking gold down. But if we look at the records, we are now down 21% from the September 2011 high. Apple is down 39% from last year’s high. At the same time, the S&P is at about not even up 1% from the peak in October 2007. Over the same period of time, even after today’s correction gold is up 100%. The S&P is up 2% over the March 2000 high. Gold is up 442%. So I am happy we have a sell-off that will lead to a major low. It could be at $1400, it could be today at $1300, but I think that the bull market in gold is not completed.”

Faber went on to say that due to the record highs “I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 30-40 percent decline from the peak”. Although he hasn’t shorted the market yet, he’s being tempted to now. (5:46)

Dr, Faber says he’s buying gold every month. And he states: “I will NEVER sell my gold in my life, certainly as long as there are people like Bernanke, Obama and the US congress in power”.

“When you print money, the money does not flow evenly into the economic system. It stays essentially in the financial service industry and among people that have access to these funds, mostly well-to-do people. It does not go to the worker.

II just mentioned that it doesn’t flow evenly into the system. Now from time to time it will lift the NASDAQ like between 1997 and March 2000. Then it lifted home prices in the U.S. until 2007. Then it lifted the commodity prices in 2008 until July 2008 when the global economy was already in recession. More recently it has lifted selected emerging economies, stock markets in Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand up four times from 2009 lows and now the U.S. So we are creating bubbles and bubbles and bubbles.

This bubble will come to an end. My concern is that we are going to have a systemic crisis where it is going to be very difficult to hide. Even in gold, it will be difficult to hide.”

Over at Examiner, I reported on a recent interview that Marc Faber, publisher of the “Gloom, Boom and Doom” report, took part in with CNBC. He talked about the debt, the global financial system, how we lived beyond our means for nearly three decades and how we will have to pay it back. In usual Faber fashion, he did not hold anything back.

These dire warnings have been going on for quite some time but they are hardly ever listened to. Most of these warnings that come from the likes of Faber, Jim Rogers, Peter Schiff and Ron Paul are common sense, but for some reason or another, they are ignored. Why?

Anyway, without pontificating my didacticisms, here is a little bit of what Faber said Tuesday.

“The market is going down because corporate profits will begin to disappoint, the global economy will hardly grow next year or even contract, and that is the reason why stocks, from the highs of September of 1,470 on the S&P, will drop at least 20 percent, in my view.”

“There will be pain and there will be very substantial pain. The question is do we take less pain now through austerity or risk a complete collapse of society in five to 10 years’ time? In a democracy, they’re not going to take the pain, they’re going to kick down the problems and they’re going to get bigger and bigger.”

“In the Western world, including Japan, the problem we have is one of too much debt and that debt now will have to be somewhere, somehow repaid or it will slow down economic growth,” stated Faber. “I think we lived beyond our means from 1980 to 2007, and now it’s payback period.”

The entire interview can be read about in this article. A brief excerpt can be seen below.

In order to exercise control over the population, governments throughout history have made people dependent on government largess. A government can make an increasing number of people dependent on its generosity by providing more and more benefits to a larger and larger share of the population.

Because of these u201Cfreebies,u201D people will go along with the government's enlargement as a percent of the economy. The masses believe in their free lunch and because the business elite knows it can profit from the growth in government.

However, there comes a point at which the u201Cnanny stateu201D becomes unviable. Raising taxes to pay for the freebies become problematic. Fortunately for the governments, they have a Treasury and/or a central bank that can print money and monetize the government's debts.

As Ludwig von Mises observed in Human Action:

Credit expansion is the government's foremost tool in their struggle against the market economy. In their hands is the magic wand designed to conjure away the scarcity of capital goods, to lower the rate of interest or to abolish it altogether, to finance lavish government spending, to expropriate the capitalists, to contrive everlasting booms, and to make everybody prosperous.

Therefore, the broad population, whose attention will be distracted by the media, won't realize the negative consequences of large fiscal deficits. They will hardly notice their declining standard of living due to the loss of purchasing power of the currency. In the meantime, the media will bombard them with further immaterial news, such as which Hollywood star is divorcing whom, which team will win the Super Bowl, and abortion rights and gay marriage issues.

The government will also become involved in larger distractions, such as arguing for the need to eliminate continuously new (usually invented) threats or foes arising from ethnic or religious minorities, communists, socialists, terrorists, spies, or, as is now the case in the US, the u201Cviciousu201D 1% of the population that lives well.

A political system controlled by an ignorant electorate that is manipulated by a dishonest and controlled media that dispenses propaganda on behalf of a corrupt political establishment can hardly be the path to lasting prosperity.

In fact, I am surprised that economists continue to discuss GDP growth (usually in real terms), when they should be focusing on sustainable growth. Let me explain. Since 2000, US government debt has increased from US$5 trillion to over US$16 trillion. Over the same period, nominal GDP is up from approximately US$9.5 trillion to US$15.5 trillion.

In my opinion, an adjustment to GDP should be made for the increase in government as well as household debt, because both inflate GDP figures, but are not sustainable in the long run, as we now know from some peripheral European countries. I mention this because Eric Fry, writing for The Daily Reckoning, points out the following:

During the last four years, the number of Americans on food stamps has soared by more than 17 million, while the number of employed Americans has dropped by more than 3 million. In percentage terms, the number of Americans on food stamps has soared 60% in four years!… In fact, according to the u201COutreachu201D section of the USDA [US Department of Agriculture] website, the soaring number of food stamp recipients is an absolutely fantastic success story: u201CSNAP (i.e. food stamps) is the only public benefit program which also serves as an economic stimulus, creating an economic boost that ripples throughout the economy when new SNAP benefits are redeemed. By generating business at local grocery stores, new SNAP benefits trigger labor and production demand, ultimately increasing household income and triggering additional spending.u201D

There you have it. The government increases its borrowings (through fiscal deficits) in order to pay for, among other things, food stamps. In turn, the food stamp recipients go and spend the money in stores (mostly at Wal-Mart), which boosts GDP. But is this real, sustainable GDP growth?

So, not only do fiscal deficits allow the government to expand useless and unproductive programs and expenditures that artificially boost GDP, but they also increase the number of bureaucrats who implement the new regulations that stifle business. To the neo-Keynesians, I can only say: u201CWell done.u201D

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

The Best of Marc Faber

Marc Faber, renowned publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report, believes that all the financial machinations in Europe are a cosmetic fix that won’t lead to any long-term resolution of the real problem.

Faber states: "If you put one or 100 sick banks in a union, it does not change the fact that they’re sick. In my view the markets are rallying because they were grossly oversold. When markets are grossly oversold, especially markets of Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, then any news that is not disastrous news propels stocks higher. Their cosmetic fix basically forces Germans to continue to finance people in Spain and Portugal and Greece that are living beyond their means."

"If I were the Germans, if I were running Germany, I would have abandoned the eurozone last week…It is a costly decision, but losses are there and somewhere, somehow, the losses have to be taken. The first loss is the banks. In the case of Greece, one should have kicked out Greece three years ago. It would have been much cheaper."

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

The Best of Marc Faber

Economic Times

In an interview with ET Now, Marc Faber, editor and publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, speaks about the emerging & global markets, and shares his outlook for investment. Excerpts:

ET Now: The famous bear on the street I have heard is turning a bull?

Marc Faber: Well, it depends on what one is bearish about and what is one is bullish about. So you have to specify your question.

ET Now: Let us start with gold. I understand that you are bullish on gold and you believe that in the current environment the best thing to buy or the best asset price to buy is gold?

Marc Faber: I do not think it is necessarily the best asset. What I am suggesting is that people should diversify their assets and should own some gold compared to paper money. Over time central banks will continue to print money everywhere in the world. Therefore, the purchasing power of paper money will decline. So I would own some gold. We are in a correction period and we may still go lower. But on this weakness I would continue to accumulate gold.

ET Now: What about dollar then? Are you a dollar bull and do you think the currency is only going to appreciate further?

Marc Faber: I think it is very difficult to be bullish about the US dollar or anything in the US economy. But, compared to other currencies, the dollar is now a relatively safe currency. Global liquidity is tightening and so the dollar probably will continue to appreciate, most likely also against Euro. But it is not that the US dollar is particularly good. It is just less bad for the time being. I have to specify for the time being compared to other currencies.

Read the rest of the article

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

The Best of Marc Faber

Marc Faber, editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, believes the rise in stock prices earlier this year was artificial and that the current May correction could turn into something more serious. Contrasting the situation in other world markets, Faber notes that US stocks are breaking down every day, giving back 3 to 4 months of previous advances. This is a very negative sign. When asked what investors should be doing today, he replies "cover your shorts in the next 10 days" as we are very close to approaching an intermediate low.

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

The Best of Marc Faber

Market Oracle/Bloomberg

Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report, spoke with Bloomberg TV’s Betty Liu and said that, "I think the market will have difficulties to move up strongly unless we have a massive QE3 and if it moves and makes the high above 1422, the second half of the year could witness a crash, like in 1987."

Faber went on to say that, "I do not have a high opinion of the U.S. government, but the bureaucrats in Brussels make the government in the U.S. look like an organization consisting of geniuses."

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

The Best of Marc Faber

by Aftab Singh Market Oracle

US President Barack Obama gave a speech accusing Republicans of "social darwinism" with budget cuts they are proposing, calling them antithetical to the country’s history as a land of opportunity. But how much opportunity is there left exactly? We speak with Dr. Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom report. He says that wealth destruction and social unrest may be on the way for Western economies, whose citizens are being outcompeted by those in emerging economies who are willing to work harder and are far hungrier than Westerners are.

And yesterday, Wall Street had a strong start to the second quarter, with the S&P 500 marking its highest close since mid-May 2008. And the FOMC minutes today reveal the Federal Reserve is holding off on more monetary easing unless US economic growth falters or inflation goes below two percent. So is this inflation or deflation? Is this risk on or risk off? And what does it mean for the economy that this is the way we are always looking at things? Marc Faber has his own thoughts on the matter. He believes that this debate is not quite so simple. He says inflation in money and credit can cause bubbles, but it is hard to know where they are, and it is not easy to know where inflation is taking place. Governments hide inflation through various official numbers and estimates, and also, much of that inflation goes into asset prices. We do not know exactly how much the Federal Reserve, the ECB, the BOJ, etc. are propping up the prices of stocks, commodities, etc. We can only estimate. The money printing and loose language of the central bankers and policy makers around the world certainly does distort the price mechanism, however, and Marc Faber is not optimistic about the ramifications of these actions.

Read the rest of the article

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

The Best of Marc Faber

Wall Street Pit

Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report, spoke to Bloomberg Television’s Betty Liu this morning and said that the “Japanese market may outperform all the other markets against all expectations in 2012.”

Faber said that investors “should be very careful at this stage” because he believes that “earnings may begin to disappoint” and “corporate profit margins could deteriorate.” Also that “the economy has bottomed out, but is far from robust.” Excerpts from the interview can be found below, courtesy of Bloomberg Television.

Faber on whether he’s finding more shorts in the equity market:

“In a money-printing environment I’m reluctant to short. But say whereas I recommended investors to increase their positions last October, November, December, now I think that if people are overweight in equities they should reduce positions somewhat…maybe cash. The U.S. dollar is desirable at the present time. And we have to say one thing. The market consists of thousands of stocks and the market consists of many different stock markets globally. The S&P has done exceptionally well relative to, say, emerging economy stock markets, most of which are still lower than they were in 2011. So, if you look at the advance-decline line of all the share markets in the world, then it is definitely being deteriorating. And I happen to believe that money printing will continue and I would probably buy financial shares and I believe that the Japanese market may outperform all the other markets against all expectations in 2012.”

On saying that earnings will deteriorate and profit margins will shrink:

“First, I think there are some cost pressures creeping in terms of rising raw material costs, especially energy, and the problem with, say, a QE3 would be that you are doing it in an environment of very elevated oil prices. So, maybe the energy prices would go up more and squeeze the margins of some corporations. And certainly squeeze the consumer. And my sense is that the economy has bottomed out but is far from robust because the typical household is being squeezed by higher cost of living increases. There are various measurements. You can measure the CPI. It is rising by less than 3%. Everywhere I look I see households essentially paying between 5% to 10% more for goods and services than a year ago.”

On whether Q2 will be as strong as Q1 for investors:

“I think that if you look back at a year ago we made a peak of 1370 on S&P on May 4 and then dropped sharply to 1074 on October 4. Then we recaptured the lows in November and December. Since then, the first quarter has been very powerful and has surprised investors because of its strong performance. And I think now the expectations are very high. The market is no longer oversold the way it was in December. And everybody thinks that the race is on, go along with equities, the hedge funds have positioned themselves on the long side and optimism is high. I would be very careful at this stage.”

Read the rest of the article

© 2012 Wall Street Pit

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

The Best of Marc Faber

Interviewer: James Stafford, Editor Oilprice.com

As the world economy teeters on the brink and rising oil prices threaten to de-rail the delicate roots of recovery Oilprice.com asked legendary investor Dr. Marc Faber to join us and give his views on high gasoline prices, the shale boom, alternative energy, developments in the Middle East and much more.

In the interview Mark talks about the following:

• Why investors shouldn’t buy oil right now
• Why alternative energy investments are a bad idea for investors
• Why Iran should be allowed Nuclear weapons
• Which direction oil prices could go and why
• Why Investors should be taking money off the table NOW.
• Why we shouldn’t be pinning all our hopes on natural gas
• Why selling down the strategic petroleum reserve to reduce oil prices is a useless strategy.
• Why the shale boom won’t affect US foreign policy priorities
• Why Obama is a disappointing president

Dr. Faber is a very well known commentator throughout the investment community. He regularly appears on CNBC and is a member of the Barrons round table.

Marc is the editor and publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report, which is a very popular investment newsletter that highlights unusual investment opportunities for its subscribers. You can find out more about the Gloom Boom & Doom Report at Marc’s website: www.GloomBoomDoom.com.

OilPrice.com: A number of our readers have been enquiring about the recent oil price increases, where a few weeks ago we saw them rise to a ten month high. Where do you see oil prices going from here, and what do you see as the main reasons for the rapid increase?

Marc Faber: I think there is a risk that oil prices will go much higher. At the same time, the bullish consensus on oil is now at one of the most elevated levels it’s ever been. In other words, from a contrarian point of view, you shouldn’t buy oil right now. I think it may go down somewhat. In general, if trouble breaks out in the Middle East, or if there is a war, I think the price of oil could go much higher.

OilPrice.com: What are your 3-5 year projections for oil prices?

Marc Faber: Well, you’ll have to give me a second. I need to call Mr. Ben Bernanke and ask him how much money he will print. Commodity prices were in a bear market from 1980 to 1998, and since then they’ve gone up. But because of expansionary monetary policies and artificially low interest rates they have increased more than would have otherwise been the case. We don’t know exactly how long this asset bubble will last — but say if you had interest rates in real terms, of five percent, instead of negative five percent, then I think all commodity prices, including gold, would be lower.

OilPrice.com: Obama is being pressured by the Democrats to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to flood the market with a large supply of oil in an attempt to drive down prices. Some commentators seem to think that this will help, although only in the short term because low supply isn’t the cause of the high prices. Do you think it’s sensible advice to use the reserves now to lower short term prices or should Obama remain strong and only use the stockpile for what it was designed for?

Marc Faber: I think selling down the reserves would be a useless strategy as one of the main reasons prices are rising is due to international tensions. It’s possible for an increase in supplies to drive down the price a little bit. But in emerging economies like China and India, the demand continues to go up. Now, it may not go up every year by the same quantity it did in the last 3 years, because in the last 15 years, oil demand in China tripled, from 3 million barrels a day to 9 million barrels a day. So it’s conceivable that in a recessionary environment in China, oil demand will not go up substantially for one or two years. But because the per capita consumption is so low in countries like China and India compared to say the U.S. and Japan and Western Europe, I think the trend will continue to increase.

OilPrice.com: There’s a great deal of political theater going on around the Keystone XL pipeline. Do you see the pipeline as being essential to U.S. energy security and something that has to be pushed through at some point?

Marc Faber: Yes, I think it would be important to have the pipeline. But as you say, there’s a lot of political pressure and so forth. I think it would be very desirable for the U.S. to become energy self- sufficient. Some observers and forecasters say they can achieve this goal within ten years, due to advances in natural gas extraction. I don’t believe it, but I have to respect the view of some experts.

OilPrice.com: The media has been full of reports on the coming shale gas boom. What are your thoughts on shale gas? Is it the energy savior we are hoping for?

Marc Faber: I doubt it. But as long as the market believes it, we have to translate every forecast and every view into investment opportunities. I think a lot of people believe in shale Gas’s potential and so this may underpin some strength in equities and currencies. But as I said, I don’t believe it.

OilPrice.com: Do you think the shale boom could lead to a change in U.S. foreign policy priorities?

Marc Faber: Well, I don’t really believe it. But as you know, Mr. Obama has engaged in more foreign policy initiatives in Asia. For what, I’m not quite sure. The thinking is in the U.S. is that China is a threat. Therefore, they have to increase their cooperation with Asian countries, such as India and the Philippines.

Personally, I think it’s an ill-timed move, because I don’t think that China has any military ambitions in Asia. But put yourself into the chair of China’s leadership. What is the top priority? China obtains 95% of its oil from the Middle East. The top priority is to make sure that this oil continues to flow and that the supply is secure. So they have to secure the oil shipping lanes, from the Middle East, past the southern tip of India, through the Straits of Malacca, up the Vietnamese coast, into China.

Each time they do that or attempt to do that, America and it allies in Asia perceive it as a threat. So the tensions increase.

OilPrice.com: You just mentioned that you don’t believe China has any military ambitions in Asia, but we’re seeing quite a lot of tension in the South China Seas, especially the Spratly Islands and the energy resources located there. How do you see the situation playing out between China and its small neighbors in this region who all have a good claim on the resources?

Marc Faber: As I just mentioned, China’s a huge country. They have certain views about territories in Asia, and I think the U.S. would not react particularly positively if say China or Russia or any other nation had numerous military and naval bases, in the Caribbean or in the Pacific, and military bases in Canada and Mexico.

You have to look at the world from the perspective of the Chinese. I’m not saying that because I’m super-bull about China. On the contrary, I think the Chinese economy faces numerous problems. But I’m saying that if you put yourself into their position, a top priority is to secure a regular supply of oil, iron ore, and copper. If you look at the Kondratiev Cycle where Kondratiev said it’s not a business cycle. It’s a price cycle, and certain things happen during the downward wave, and certain things happen during the upward wave.

During the upward wave, we have rising commodity prices, which is a symptom of shortages. Then countries become more belligerent, because they begin to be concerned about the supply of commodities, and so tensions increase.

I’m not saying war will break out tomorrow. I’m just saying the conditions have improved.

OilPrice.com: Aside from the South China Seas, where do you see the potential flash points in the world over resources?

Marc Faber: Well, I think a big potential flash point is obviously the Middle East and Central Asia, because neither Russia nor China wants permanent American military bases in Central Asia and to be encircled. The Chinese are encircled by the Americans in the Pacific with naval bases, plus the Americans have 11 aircraft carriers. The Chinese have just one. Plus, in the last 12 months, Mr. Obama has made initiatives to have India as a strategic ally. The result of this is that China, which always had good relationships with Pakistan, has strengthened their relationships with Pakistan. This of course has increased tensions in the region.

OilPrice.com: Moving off fossil fuels, what role do you see renewable energy playing in the future? Do you think government should help innovation in this area?

Marc Faber: This is a very difficult question to answer. Basically, I’m convinced that, over time, to drill a hole in the ground in the Middle East or in other emerging economies and then bringing that oil through a pipeline onto a ship into the countries that consume oil is not an elegant solution to the energy problem. I think eventually this will go away. But in the meantime, alternative sources of energy are extremely expensive. Unless the oil price collapses to like $50, most alternative sources of energy will not be profitable. If someone says to me, we need alternative sources of energy for security reasons, yes, I agree. But for profitability I doubt it.

OilPrice.com: As an investor then, are there any renewable sectors you’re bullish on? Or would you stay away from the space entirely?

Marc Faber: I would stay away from it.

OilPrice.com: Following the Fukushima disaster Japan has now shut down 54 nuclear power plants. The population’s trust in nuclear energy has been shattered — but do you think this is only temporary and how would Japan make up the energy shortfall — as before Fukushima Japan met around a third of its energy demand with nuclear?

Marc Faber: Well, I guess they’ll lean towards more natural gas and more oil so they can offset this shortfall of nuclear energy. Now I don’t think that this will change the nuclear energy prospects long term in the world, because other countries like India and China will build their numerous nuclear energy plants. In the case of Japan, I think the power plants which had the problems were antiquated. In other words, they were not up to modern standards.

OilPrice.com: Iran has finally offered to resume talks about its nuclear program and has agreed to allow UN inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit its Parchin military complex where a nuclear weapons program is suspected of be being developed. How do you see events developing here and how can investors protect themselves from an escalation in this region?

Marc Faber: Well, if there are escalations, then obviously you have to be long, oil and gold. My sense is that the Iranians are playing the same game the Japanese played in the ’70s and ’80s. They always negotiated but never did anything about the changing balances — they just want to delay the hour of truth. Every day, I think the Iranians are getting closer to having nuclear weapons. I can understand why. The whole world is hostile towards Iran, and they are encircled.

In the west, France has nuclear weapons and Britain and the U.S., and their neighbor Israel, towards the west. Then in the east, India and Pakistan and of course China. So why shouldn’t they have nuclear weapons?

Mind you, either there is all around abandonment of nuclear weapons by all the powers, or every country should be allowed to have them. We in the Western World, we have the misguided belief that we are there to judge which countries may have and which countries should not have nuclear weapons.

But maybe our view is wrong. My view is that if I were looking after Iran, for sure I would want to have nuclear weapons. For sure!

OilPrice.com: Okay. So on to investments — you’ve mentioned oil and gold, but which other sectors are you bullish on, and what would you advise investors to avoid?

Marc Faber: Basically, since March 2009, equities have doubled in value by and large. Some have gone up more than 100%, some a little bit less, we’ve had a huge bull market. Last year, almost a year ago on May 2nd, the S&P reached a high of 1,370. Then we dropped into August and into October, and we bottomed out on the S&P at 1,074 on October 4th. Since then, we have a 25% rally. The mood in October and November of last year was extremely negative.

I think this is the time to be rather cautious. Personally, if I had heavy exposure to equities, I would take some money off the table.

OilPrice.com: Where do you see the best opportunities for investors in Asia at present?

Marc Faber: Right now, for the next one or two months, I don’t think that stocks will go up a lot. I personally think they will correct. But long term, I still like Asia. My concern is if the Chinese economy slows down meaningfully that we could have economic weakness spreading around Asia as well, as well as in countries that supply commodities to China, like Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and so forth.

Right now, say for the next two months, I’m very cautious.

OilPrice.com: I was looking through some of your previous interviews as well, and in one of them, you mentioned Barack Obama. You said he was by far one of the worst presidents that the U.S. has had, and that you still believe he’ll be re- elected. In what ways do you think he is unsuitable as a president? I mean, are you fundamentally against his ideas and position on certain topics?

Marc Faber: I don’t want to get into an overly political discussion, but I think that first of all, we have in the U.S. and elsewhere highly expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, but we have restrictive regulatory policies. In other words, Obamacare is a big problem for many medium sized and even large companies, because they don’t know exactly how much it will cost them. That has retarded hirings of people.

Mr. Obama has intervened into the economy massively, left, right, and center. Every government intervention has consequences. Just to give you an example, the U.S. government debt — I’m only speaking about the government debt, not the prime debt — has gone from essentially zero 200 years ago, to a trillion dollars in 1980.

By the year 2000, we were roughly at $5 trillion. Now in 12 years, we’ve gone to close to $16 trillion. That excludes the unfounded liabilities. Under Mr. Obama, the fiscal deficit has exploded.

The big question is: Will we ever, in the U.S., have a fiscal deficit of less than $1 trillion or $1.5 trillion? I don’t see it. Under Mr. Obama, spending has gone up and tax revenue has gone down. Change, if there was any change under Mr. Obama, it was for the worse. In my view, he’s a very disappointing president.

OilPrice.com: Marc, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you.

Marc Faber: It was my pleasure.

Article originally published at: Oil, Alternatives, and Nuclear Weapons — An Interview with Marc Faber

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

© 2012 OilPrice.com

The Best of Marc Faber

GoldCore

Gold’s London AM fix this morning was USD 1,685.60, EUR 1,282.24 and GBP 1,068.26 per ounce.

Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,698.00, EUR 1,286.17 and GBP 1,073.60 per ounce.

Gold fell $6.30 in New York yesterday and closed above the $1,700/oz level at $1,705.30/oz. Gold fell in Asia prior to further modest price falls in Europe which saw it fall below yesterday’s inter day low of $1,694/oz. Gold is now trading at $1,686.40/oz.

Gold’s short term technicals are poor and a further correction to or below the 200-day moving average at $1,670/oz is possible (see Barcap view below). However, it is worth noting that gold’s weakness has coincided with recent dollar strength and gold has not fallen as much in euro, pound or other fiat currency terms.

The fundamentals of significant macroeconomic, systemic and monetary risk will support the precious metals. As will the increasingly risky geopolitical situation – the risk of which is not priced into markets just yet.

Swiss money manager and long term bear Marc Faber, aka "Dr Doom", says political risk in the Middle East has increased significantly with war between Iran and Israel “almost inevitable”, and precious metals and equities investments offer some safety.

"Political risk was high six months ago and is higher now. I think sooner or later, the U.S. or Israel will strike Iran – it’s almost inevitable," Faber, who publishes the widely read Gloom Boom and Doom Report, told Reuters on the sidelines of an investment conference.

Brent crude traded near $123 per barrel in volatile trade on Tuesday on fears of a disruption in Iranian supplies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed no signs of backing away from possible military action against Iran following a Monday meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama.

"Say war breaks out in the Middle East or anywhere else, (U.S. Federal Reserve chairman) Mr Bernanke will just print even more money – they have no option…they haven’t got the money to finance a war," said Faber.

"You have to be in precious metals and equities … most wars and most social unrest haven’t destroyed corporations – they usually survive," he said.

He said that Middle East markets had largely bottomed out, though regime changes from the Arab Spring revolutions were unlikely to be investor-friendly.

Faber said that in uncertain times, investors had to reconcile themselves to volatility.

"If you can’t live with volatility, stay in bed," he said, pointing out that even cash [sic].

The 66-year-old, who has earned the moniker "Dr Doom", earlier told the conference that the likelihood of war in the Middle East was boosted by Western powers’ imperatives of keeping China in check, given its dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

"The Americans and the western powers know very well they cannot contain China economically…. but one way to contain China is to switch on and switch off the oil tap from the Middle East," he said.

"I happen to think the Middle East will go up in flames," he said.

Reprinted with permission from GoldCore.

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

© 2012 GoldCore

The Best of Marc Faber

The Gold Report

With more than 40 years as an economist to his credit and claiming gold as the "biggest position in my life," Gloom Boom & Doom Report Publisher Marc Faber assures us that gold is nowhere near a bubble phase, but cautions that corrections of 40% are not unusual in a bull market. At the end of March, Faber will share his secrets for surviving corrections at the World MoneyShow in Vancouver. In advance of that appearance, he sat down with The Gold Report for this exclusive interview where he discusses his bias for portfolio diversification in terms of geographies as well as asset classes.

The Gold Report: After Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgraded a cluster of Eurozone countries in January, you came out saying that downgrades should have been even deeper, depending on the country’s credit-worthiness. S&P did give below-investment-grade ratings to Portugal and Cyprus – BB and BB+, respectively – but you indicated that some of these countries warrant CCC ratings. Do you anticipate additional downgrades?

Marc Faber: If you accounted for the unfunded liabilities of most European countries, as well as the U.S., the quality of the government debt would be significantly lower. In other words, yes, I do expect to see more and more downgrades over time.

TGR: Could that happen in 2012?

MF: Yes, and some thereafter.

TGR: Have the markets priced in further downgrades already or should we expect a bigger impact in the next round?

MF: I don’t think the market has priced it in because the yield today on U.S. 10-year government bonds is 2%, and 3% on 30-year bonds. If the market were priced properly based on the quality of these bonds, the yields would be far higher.

TGR: Did yields change much with these recent downgrades?

MF: Yes, particularly in the U.S., where investors perceive U.S. government bonds as safe. The U.S. will pay the interest as long as it can print money. But suppose you buy a 10-year government bond that yields 2% and inflation is perceived to be 5–7%. To what extent would investors still buy these bonds? That question will arise one day.

TGR: You’ve discussed investors leaving the European markets in favor of a "safe haven" in the U.S. Would U.S. bonds continue with such low yields with the European downgrades?

MF: For a while, yes, but at some point people will wake up and realize that the U.S. will default through a depreciating currency – in other words, through printing money – or by not paying the interest on the bonds. I don’t think the U.S. will stop paying the interest, but printing more money will weaken the currency and produce higher inflation in consumer prices, asset prices and commodity prices. So being in U.S. government bonds will result in losses to investors through currency depreciation.

TGR: You’ve pointed out that negative real interest rates force people to speculate, which creates enormous market volatility. That seems to be happening now, but apparently investors are keeping a great deal of money on the sidelines as well. If that comes in, would it make the markets even more volatile? Or would you say the smart money will stay on the sidelines and the speculative money is in play already?

MF: I think there is a lot of money on the sidelines. Some will stay there, because people who don’t trust the system anymore will just keep it there. Some will be invested, but it may not go into equities. It could go into some other asset class, perhaps hard currencies such as gold and silver, or real estate, which is now relatively inexpensive in the U.S.

As for volatility, it increased sharply last year, but has diminished over the last three-months. I expect we’ll see increasingly very high volatility in all asset classes in the next few years. The money in an environment of negative real interest rates will flow. It might flow into fewer and fewer stocks, or into fewer and fewer assets that could go ballistic on the upside.

TGR: Which asset classes would you expect on the speculative upside?

MF: We had the NASDAQ bubble 12 years ago, the housing market bubble probably five years ago, and I would say also a bubble in commodities in 2007–2008, when oil spiked to $147. What’s next, I’m not so sure. I could imagine some stocks, maybe some precious metals, in a bubble stage – not the entire market necessarily.

TGR: Could you delineate characteristics of stocks that will appreciate versus those that will stagnate or lose value?

MF: If we look at the market, we have some stocks where the outlook is perceived to be particularly bright, and then there are others – for instance, Eastman Kodak Company (EKDKQ:OTBPK) – that are at the opposite end of the spectrum. It depends on the fundamentals and the imagination of investors. I wouldn’t necessarily buy up, so I’m not saying it will go down. Maybe it will go up further. But in general if you buy the company with the largest market capitalization in the world you’re not going to make a lot of money.

TGR: What captures the imagination of investors?

MF: Basically mania fed by excessive liquidity, with more and more people convinced that something is the Holy Grail. It was the NASDAQ in 2000, Asia before 1997, housing from 2000 to 2006–2007, or more recently China. Exactly what it is, I don’t know. But when a market has been strong, the media write about it and people are attracted to it. Then some useless academics write books about why stocks, or real estate, always go up, and so forth. The media again write that up, and more people flow into that sector.

TGR: A couple of weeks ago James Turk told us that he thinks the low price for gold in 2012 was already established early in January. What makes you think it will pull back?

MF: The big rally into Sept. 6, 2011, took the gold price to $1,922/ounce (oz) and then it dropped until the end of the year, touching $1,522/oz on Dec. 29. It has rallied, and is now above $1,700 again, but I don’t think the correction is entirely over. Corrections of 40% are nothing unusual in a bull market.

As an adviser, my duty is to always inform people of investment risk. I’m not saying I expect gold to collapse, but telling people the gold price will go up leads them to leverage up and speculate. If the gold price drops $50/oz, they’re wiped out. All I’m saying is that, in my opinion, the gold price correction is not yet entirely completed. I see significant support around the $1,500/oz level, but it could drop lower. It depends on global liquidity and on money printing by central banks. We could have a big correction if global liquidity tightens or they stop printing money.

TGR: Over what timeframe are you looking at the correction?

MF: This year the gold price may not exceed the $1,922/oz high that we reached on Sept. 6. Maybe it will. I’m not a prophet. I’m just telling people that I’m buying gold and holding it. I don’t speculate in gold. If you buy gold, you better understand that the price could always move to the downside. If you don’t understand that, don’t invest in gold – or in anything.

TGR: Investment show commentators have been talking about gold being in one of those mania bubbles you described because it’s been increasing for 11–12 years. Do you agree?

MF: No, gold is not in a bubble. It wasn’t in a bubble in 1973, either, but it still corrected by 40% then. I don’t believe gold is anywhere near a bubble phase. A bubble phase is characterized by the majority of market participants being involved in a market space. I saw a gold bubble in 1979–1980, when the whole world was dealing – buying and selling gold 24-hours a day, globally.

TGR: But not since then?

MF: No. If you went to an investment conference in 1989, 90% of the people there would have told you they owned shares in Japanese companies. In 2000, 90% of them would have said they owned NASDAQ shares. Only about 5% of the participants at an investment conference today would tell you they own gold. Very few people in this world own gold.

I don’t believe that we’re in a bubble.

TGR: Should people who aren’t yet in gold or want to add to their position wait for a correction?

MF: I have argued for the last 12 years that investors should buy a little bit of physical gold every month and put it aside without concerns about corrections. If you don’t own any gold, I would start buying some right away, keeping in mind that it could go down.

For the last 40 years in my business I’ve seen people always lose money when they put too much money into something and then it goes down. They panic and sell, or they have a margin call to sell – and lose money. I own gold. It’s my biggest position in my life. The possibility of the gold price going down doesn’t disturb me. Every bull market has corrections.

TGR: What do you think about silver as an alternative precious metal to hold?

MF: Gold and silver will move in the same direction, up together or down together. At times, silver will be stronger relative to gold, and at other times gold will be stronger relative to silver. My friend Eric Sprott thinks that silver will go ballistic. I don’t know. I own gold.

TGR: You’re on record as recommending that investors maintain diversified portfolios, with 20% to 30% each in gold, real estate, equities and cash. Focusing on equities, as we’ve discussed, means tremendous volatility. What are your thoughts? High value? Large cap? Dividends? Something more speculative, perhaps gold mining shares?

MF: Because I live in Asia, I am quite familiar with the Asian markets and economies. I have a bias toward Asian equities, especially because I can find deals in places such as Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong – stocks that give me 4–7% dividend yields. With yields at those levels, at least I’m paid to wait. Even if they’re cut 5%, I’d still get better cash flow than I would from, say, U.S. government bonds. Consequently, I feel reasonably confident owning such shares.

Because I have allocated only 25% of my portfolio to equities, if the markets were to drop 50%, I would have funds elsewhere in my portfolio to buy more equities. That’s not a prediction for a 50% market decline; it’s just to say that I’m positioned in such a way that I could put more money in equities through a) my cash flow, b) my income and c) my cash position. And I do own some gold shares through stock options, because I’m a director of several exploration companies.

TGR: Given that you’re satisfied to, in essence, being paid to wait with dividend-paying stocks, do you consider yourself a buy-and-hold investor?

MF: With my asset allocation of 25% in equities, I can afford to hold them. If I had 100% in equities, I would be more inclined to take profits from time to time.

TGR: Let’s get back to Asia for a moment. Headlines in the U.S. have focused lately more on what’s going on in Europe, with Asia basically relegated to page 2. What’s your perception of the markets and economies there?

MF: We don’t have recessions yet, although there have been slowdowns in economic activity and some corporate profit disappointments. The big question is whether we have a problem in six months to one year’s time that results from a meaningful slowdown or even a crash in the Chinese economy. That may happen.

Second, it’s not everywhere, but in some cases I see bubbles in the real estate market, as there are in everything that relates to luxury – luxury properties, paintings, collectibles, the luxury department stores and shops, the Swiss watch companies. They’re all doing very good business. I think there’s a bubble essentially in everything at the high end of the market. That concerns me a little bit. It may continue for another year or so but will not last forever, so I’m relatively cautious.

Having said that, lots of companies in Asia do not cater to the high-end consumers but to the rising middle class. I believe they are reasonably well positioned to weather even a recession.

TGR: If China’s bubble in those luxury goods and real estate bursts, would the Asian markets go down in tandem?

MF: Yes, I think so. Last year the Chinese markets – by the way, also India – grossly underperformed the U.S., so maybe the market has already discounted a Chinese slowdown to some extent. But because I happen to think that it hasn’t discounted the Chinese slowdown entirely, yes, I think the markets are still vulnerable.

TGR: Are your investments in the Asian markets focused on companies that are not catering to the high-end, like food and items that the middle class buys?

MF: Yes, I have a mixed portfolio of both industrial and residential real estate, healthcare companies, retailers, food companies, agricultural companies, finance companies and banks. So, it’s fairly broad.

TGR: Are those financing companies and banks Asian-based or internationally based? That sector is certainly out of favor in North America.

MF: I have no Chinese banks, but I own banks in Singapore and Thailand and finance companies in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Actually, I’m also positive about some financial stocks in Europe and America. Simply because of the money printing, these financial institutions are benefiting at the expense of honest people who have savings that yield nothing while their cost of living is progressing at 5–10% per annum.

I took a taxi the other day from New Jersey to Manhattan. The Lincoln Tunnel has raised its toll by 50%, from $8 to $12. But the government, brainwashed by incompetent academics at the Federal Reserve, will tell you that inflation is 2%.

TGR: You mentioned liking finance companies in Europe and America because of money printing. How does that benefit them?

MF: I don’t like them. In investing, it’s not a question whether you like or dislike something. It’s a question of price. The best company or the worst sector may be overvalued at one price and undervalued at another. I happen to think that having weakened to around the 2009 lows last fall, when the S&P dropped to 1,074 on Oct. 4, the financial sector was very cheap. Since then, there have been big rallies for Citigroup Inc. (C:NYSE), Bank of America Corp. (BAC:NYSE) and other banks. I saw opportunities there, but with the market rallying so much, I believe it is now overbought and due for a correction. We will see whether it’s just a correction or a resumption of a downtrend.

TGR: Which do you think it will be?

MF: I don’t know. We haven’t seen a correction yet. I think it’s about to start. Then we will have to see the shape of the correction, which could last a month. After that, we’ll have to look at the shape of the recovery – the number of stocks that will participate, the number of new highs and so forth.

TGR: You’ve indicated that your portfolio allocation includes real estate. Do you consider real estate a good value in North America now?

MF: I travel around the world all the time and I’m interested in the formation of prices so I have an idea about trends in prices. You have to consider real estate prices in the context of currency valuations. For example, five years ago, homes in Australia and Canada were inexpensive and now they aren’t, but not necessarily because prices have gone up. Although prices don’t necessarily track with whether a currency increases or decreases in value, in those two cases, the value of the currencies also has increased.

The U.S. does have areas where real estate is incredibly low relative to other parts of the world. I can buy homes in Atlanta and Phoenix for less than I’d pay in Thailand, and because the GDP per capita in the U.S. is of course much higher than in Thailand, on a relative basis, those homes in Atlanta and Phoenix would be attractive.

As a foreigner, I am not interested in investing in U.S. real estate for various reasons, including taxation, management and regulation. But if I were a U.S. citizen, I would say now is a relatively good time to buy real estate and rent it out and net a yield of maybe 6–8%. Many of my friends who own rental apartments do very well on rental income. Many of the people who no longer qualify for mortgages can rent.

TGR: In terms of asset diversification, to what extent ought the average U.S. investor focus on international equities or real estate?

MF: I think U.S. citizens should focus very much on diversifying their assets internationally. Only Americans still believe that America remains the most important economy in the world. Everybody else knows it has become relatively less significant over the last five years. Everybody, including Americans, should be global investors, and Americans should have at least 50% of their money outside the U.S. I would argue that a global investor should have maximum 40% in Europe and in the U.S., with the rest in Asia, Latin America, Africa, etc.

It’s very difficult for Americans to open bank accounts overseas, but buying real estate overseas is one way to diversify, and that’s not a problem. Maybe the U.S. will close this loophole one day, but for now U.S. citizens may buy real estate in South America, Europe or Asia – anywhere in the world. That’s what I would do.

TGR: Do you consider investments in stocks that are based in international areas part of the diversification?

MF: Basically you want exposure to rapidly growing economies. This is best achieved by buying companies that have large exposure in the emerging economies rather than the U.S. and Europe. The Coca-Cola Company (KO:NYSE) is a U.S. company but the bulk of its business comes from outside the U.S.

TGR: You’re scheduled to speak at the World MoneyShow, coming up in Vancouver March 27–29. We understand that in your presentation, entitled "The Causes and Investment Implications of Dishonest Money," you’ll be discussing unintended consequences of large fiscal deficits and expansionary monetary policies. Would you give us some highlights of what you plan to cover?

MF: Basically I will try to explain that instead of smoothing out the business cycle, government interventions have created more economic and financial volatility and have had very negative consequences for the U.S. in particular. And as I pointed out earlier, these measures, such as some of the fiscal and monetary measures we’ve talked about, are based on erroneous economic sophism.

TGR: What do you think people will learn from listening to your presentation?

MF: That in this environment of money printing, cash and government bonds are not very safe and that you have to navigate through different asset classes. Under normal conditions, cash and government bonds are essentially the safest investments – not investments with the highest returns, but the safest. That is not the case today.

TGR: And we appreciate the pointers you’ve made about some of those different asset classes. Thank you very much.

Swiss-born Marc Faber, who at age 24 earned his Ph.D in economics from the University of Zurich, has lived in Hong Kong nearly 40 years. He worked in New York, Zurich and Hong Kong for White Weld & Co., an investment bank historically managed by Boston Brahmins until its sale to Merrill Lynch in 1978. From 1978 to 1990, Faber served as managing director of Drexel Burnham Lambert (HK), setting up his own investment advisory and fund management firm, Marc Faber Ltd. in mid-1990. His widely read monthly investment newsletter, Gloom Boom & Doom Report, highlights unusual investment opportunities. Faber is also the author of several books, including Tomorrow’s Gold: Asia’s Age of Discovery (2002), which spent several weeks on Amazon’s best-seller list and is being translated into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai and German. He also contributes regularly to leading financial publications around the world. Much also has been written about Faber. Nury Vittachi, one of Asia’s most popular writers and speakers, published Riding the Millennial Storm: Marc Faber’s Path to Profit in the Financial Markets (1998). The Financial Times of London described him as "something of an icon" and Fortune called him a "congenital contrarian and shrewd Swiss investment advisor."

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Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

© 2012 Streetwise Reports LLC

The Best of Marc Faber

by Constantine Gardner Business Intelligence Middle East

Dr. Marc Faber the Swiss fund manager and Gloom Boom & Doom editor has taken ultra bearishness to a new level. He remains negative about the outlook for the world because policy makers in Europe and the US are trying to solve the crisis created by too much debt and leverage with even more credit and leverage. Eventually when interest rates go up, he says, the cost of financing the failed monetary policies will become burdensome and will ultimately bring a big bust.

End game

He sees a shift in economic and military power from West to East and is increasingly convinced that the end game will be war. But, so far, he had avoided giving a time frame to the war scenario. Not any longer.

Dr. Faber was amongst 10 investment experts assembled by Barron’s last week at the Harvard Club of New York for the Barron’s 2012 Roundtable. The members of the Roundtable discussed the economy, China, Europe, market volatility, investment picks and World War III.

"On an optimistic note, World War III will occur in the next five years," Faber announced to the other members of the Roundtable, in his characteristic contrarian manner.

"That means the Middle East will blow up," he said, without providing any details about specific countries.

When this happens, "new regimes there will be less Western-friendly," he reckons.

"The West has figured out it can’t contain China, which is rising rapidly and will have more military and naval power in Southeast Asia," he explains.

The only way for the West to contain China is to control the oil tap in the Middle East, Faber argued.

The prelude to war will be a "big bust that will see the end of credit expansion," he said in a recent interview. But before this happens, "governments will continue printing money which in time will lead to a very high inflation rate, and the economy will not respond to stimulus".

Cyber war?

"This war will be different from World War I where troops faced each other in trenches or World War II where tank divisions faced each other, he said. This will be Cyber War. A war where you can turn a switch and turn the London electricity supply off. This will be a war where you can stop airplanes from flying and bring the whole financial system of a country to a halt," Faber said in an August 2011 interview.

And during war times, "commodities go up strongly,” he argued.

"If you want to hedge against war, you don’t want to own derivatives in UBS and AIG, but you have to own them physically, like farmland and agricultural commodities. That is something to consider for you as a personal safety and hedge. You have to own some commodities," he stressed.

Containing oil flows to China

Tensions have been escalating in the Gulf, with Iran threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 35% of seaborne crude and 20% of the world’s traded oil passes daily, while the US and Europe seek help from Arab and Asian allies to reduce Iran’s oil revenues in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme,

Saudi Arabia has reportedly told a senior US lawmaker it stands ready to increase its current oil output of 10 million barrels per day should new sanctions curb Iranian oil exports. Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said in Sunday’s edition of his country’s al-Watan newspaper that "Saudi Arabia is able to produce 12.5 million barrels per day to meet the needs of the world market and satisfy any increase in demand from consumer countries."

For its part, China, Iran’s biggest oil customer, has rejected new US sanctions that seek to block Iran’s central bank from clearing oil payments. However Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was this week visiting his country’s prime supplier, Saudi Arabia, as part of a Middle East tour of oil-producing nations.

"I believe that China is not the only country to buy oil from Iran… Legitimate trade has to be protected if global economic chaos is to be avoided," Wen said while visiting Qatar yesterday, according to a Chinese foreign ministry transcript.

A game of chess

The Iranians already have a "nuclear option," namely, the prospect of blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Doing so would hurt them, too, of course, George Friedman wrote this week in a Stratfor report.

"Each side is seeking to magnify its power for psychological effect without crossing a red line that prompts the other to take extreme measures,” reckons the provider of global intelligence.

"Iran signals its willingness to attempt to close Hormuz and its development of nuclear weapons, but it doesn’t cross the line to actually closing the strait or detonating a nuclear device. The United States pressures Iran and moves forces around, but it doesn’t cross the red line of commencing military actions."

Thus, each avoids triggering unacceptable actions by the other, said Friedman, adding that in that game of chess, "the possibilities of miscalculation, of a bluff that the other side mistakes for an action, are very real."

Read the rest of the article

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

© 2012 Business Intelligence Middle East

The Best of Marc Faber

Well known economist, trend forecaster and Gloom, Boom and Doom Report publisher Dr. Marc Faber joined some of the world’s leading investment minds at the Barron’s 2012 Roundtable to discuss what’s in store for 2012 and beyond with respect to the economy, inflation, political stability and a host of other issues.

As is generally the case, Dr. Faber doesn’t mince words and warns that, despite what happens in the near term, the end game is global conflict.

Excerpted from Barron’s 2012 Roundtable via SGT Report

Marc Faber: On another optimistic note, World War III will occur in the next five years. That means the Middle East will blow up. New regimes there will be less Western-friendly. The West has also figured out it can’t contain China, which is rising rapidly and will have more military and naval power in Southeast Asia. The only way for the West to contain China is to control the oil tap in the Middle East.

Bill Gross (Founder, Pimco): How does your World War III hypothesis affect the financial markets? Is it positive for stocks?

Marc Faber: It is very positive for stocks and negative for bonds, because debt will grow dramatically. There will be massive monetization of debt. When the U.S. entered World War II total credit equaled 140% of GDP, and there were no unfunded liabilities. Now total credit-market debt is 380% of GDP, and unfunded liabilities make that 800%.

Brian Rogers (Chairman, T. Rowe Price): How is World War III good for stocks?

Felix Zulauf (Zulauf Asset Management): Unused capacity in an economy can be directed to the defense and war industry. That will be paid for by new government debt, and that keeps the economy growing.

Scott Black (President, Delphi): Marc, if Israel strikes Iran’s nuclear facilities, they will use air power. They aren’t going to commit ground troops. It won’t be the kind of conflagration you’re thinking.

Bill Gross: War takes place today in cyberspace and in terrorist space. Whether or not there will be a land war isn’t the question.

Dr. Faber has also expressed his views on prior occasions, suggesting that World War III is an inevitable outcome when nations begin to default on trillions of dollars worth of debt (whether by refusing to pay or simply easing their monetary supply).

In August of 2010 Faber urged his subscribers to begin making preparations for worst case scenarios:

In his latest GBD Report, Faber again advises those with the means to do it, to leave urban areas and seek safety in rural, country areas, preferably farms, and to be prepared to defend that land in the event the worst happens:

Faber has an interesting suggestion for investors if the plunge comes to pass.

With tongue apparently in cheek, he says buy a farm you can tend to yourself way out in the boondocks. And protect it with high voltage fences, barbed wire, booby traps, military weapons and Dobermans.

While several members of the Roundtable disagree with the idea that a conventional global war is out of the question, suggesting instead that conflicts will be dealt with through air superiority and in cyberspace (in itself a potentially catastrophic battlefield for modern civilization), they are ignoring the real possibility that an attack on Iran, or even a rogue attack against Europe or the United States, could escalate to such a level that China or Russia would have no choice but to get involved.

While hard to believe, we’ve seen it before. Twice just in the last century.

Not many people would have believed it prior to 1914 either. But within just a few short months of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in late June of that year, millions were dead and the Western front had extended hundreds of miles across Europe to the North Sea.

Events played out with similar velocity in World War II when Adolf Hitler’s aptly named Blitzkrieg (Lightning War) overtook entire nations in a matter of days.

It only takes one country, one sociopathic leader with his finger on the button, to get the ball rolling. Then there is no stopping it.

Reprinted from SHTF Plan.

Mac Slavo [send him mail] is a small business owner and independent investor.

The Best of Mac Slavo

Business Intelligence Middle East

Marc Faber the Swiss fund manager and Gloom Boom & Doom editor recently discussed his 2012 predictions. In a nutshell, he expects politicians in the US and the EU to keep on addressing symptoms rather than dealing with the fundamental problems of the crisis.

He can smell more money printing and sees less prosperity – to the point that within 5 years many investments could lose 50% of their value.

"You can increase debt but it doesn’t increase prosperity or economic growth," he says. He predicts the collapse of the derivatives market – down to zero – and favors equities and gold.

QE3 and equities

Speaking in an interview with Jeanne Yurman of Reuters on the sidelines of the IndexUniverse’s 4th Annual “Inside Commodities” conference held on December 8 at the New York Stock Exchange, Faber said: "There is no doubt that QE3 will come in one form or the other, and in Europe also".

"They will monetize," he stressed.

Because of impending additional quantitative easing, Faber, who predicted the stock market crash in 1987 and turned bearish shortly before the 2007-2009 bear market, is less bearish on equities now.

If the S&P drops 10%-15% here [the US] and in Europe, "they are going to print money," he predicted.

Addressing symptoms: The limit of Keynesian policies

Faber sees more can-kicking and more avoidance of real solutions through additional fiscal deficits and money printing in 2012.

"When the EU [and the eurozone] were formed, in the Maastricht treaty it was stated that no country should have a fiscal deficit of more than 3% and the debt to GDP ratio should not exceed 60%, but nobody kept that promise, Faber reminded his host.

The first one to violate [the rules] was Germany, he added.

When you look at what happened subsequently where countries had huge expansions in debt/GDP, you have to ask yourself what did these bureaucrats do all day? asked Faber.

The renowned investor clearly disagrees with Keynesian policies that seek to get out of the crisis caused by too much borrowing and spending by spending and borrowing even more.

The limit of these [Keynesian monetary] actions has been reached he said. You can increase debt but it doesn’t increase prosperity or economic growth, because there is a point where the excessive debt growth doesn’t stimulate economic activity any more, but it does create bubbles in different sectors of the economy.

And because we’re in a global economy, the intended consequences of the actions may not even happen in the US. "Mr. Bernanke’s monetary policy was designed to lift the housing market. The only asset that didn’t go up since 2008 is housing."

Banks are so leveraged

Asked about his view on European banks, Faber said they will need more than US$153 billion to restore confidence. He was referring to documents from the European banking regulator stating that Europe’s banks will need to raise 114.7 billion euros (US$152.8 billion) in fresh capital as part of measures introduced to respond to the euro area’s sovereign-debt crisis.

German banks need 13.1 billion euros and Italian banks 15.4 billion euros in core tier 1 capital, the European Banking Authority (EBA) said in a document published early December.

"The banks are in a very bad shape because they are so leveraged. US banks are also leveraged through the derivatives markets and so forth," Faber told Yurman, adding that he was very bearish.

The European Central Bank announced December 21 it will lend eurozone banks 489 billion euros (US$645 billion), more than economists forecast, for three years in its latest attempt to keep credit flowing to the economy during the sovereign debt crisis.

It will go down to zero

You can postpone the problems with monetary measures for a long time, but you can’t solve it, Faber noted.

Adding to his repertoire of gloomy predictions, Faber said: "I am convinced that one day the whole derivatives market will cease to exist, will become zero."

"Greece should have defaulted; it would have sent a message that not all derivatives are equal because it depends on the counterparty."

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Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

© 2011 Business Intelligence Middle East

The Best of Marc Faber

Appearing on Fox Business, legendary investor Marc Faber discusses the on-going Euro-zone crisis. The problem is that nations do not want to give up their sovereignty and cannot agree to sticking to the 3% budget limits. He believes the best solution is to dissolve the EU, let the nations default, take their medicine and let the markets sort things out. Anything else will not work in the long term. Plus there’s the added bonus of getting rid of all the useless bureaucrats in Brussels. (6:52)

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

The Best of Marc Faber

Business Intelligence Middle East

Investment gurus Jim Rogers and Marc Faber agree to various degrees on many issues but the one thing separating them this week is the future direction of the Chinese economy and if this could have a devastating impact on commodities around the world.

Both Faber and Rogers have been warning about the effects of monetary and fiscal policies on the US economy, since the recent rally has been mostly based on printed money, a kind of ‘reverse Robin Hood policy’ of governments, to steal from the peasants to give to the rich.

As with Faber, Rogers is mostly to be seen being interviewed on CNBC and Bloomberg Asia or Europe as they both live in Asia now and since their views are to put it mildly, somewhat negative on the prospects of a sustainable US recovery.

The clash Marc Faber, the Swiss fund manager and Gloom Boom & Doom editor, believes a Chinese slowdown is already under way.

In a phone interview with CNBC Friday, he said that a hard landing for China will have a major negative impact on global commodities and risk currencies, before going as far as saying that he is "more worried about a Chinese economic downturn than a recession in Europe".

For his part, legendary global investor and chairman of Singapore- based Rogers Holdings, Jim Rogers thinks Faber has got it wrong about China.

"Marc still does not understand China. There are going to be several hard landings in the next few years, but China’s will be less hard overall than others such as Greece, U.S…" Rogers told CNBC Friday.

China’s manufacturing activity slumped to its lowest level in 32 months in November, banking giant HSBC said November 23, renewing fears the Asian powerhouse is losing steam amid global economic woes.

HSBC chief China economist Qu Hongbin said he expected cooling domestic demand and weakening external demand for China’s exports heralded a further slowdown in production in coming months.

"The (Chinese) economy consists of many sectors and I think some sectors are already probably in a recession," Faber elaborated.

"I think growth will be much lower and it is possible that we could have a hard landing with no growth at all," he predicted.

The commodities market, in particular, will bear the brunt of a China economic deceleration, according to Faber.

"I think a lot of people will care if china grows only at 5% rather than 10% or 0% in a hard landing case because china is the largest buyer of commodities in the world," he said.

"If the Chinese economy slows down the demand for commodities slows down and then the economies of brazil, Argentina, everybody is affected and then they can buy less from china and then you have a downward spiral, Faber added.

Rogers agrees the commodity market will have a correction, but rebutted Faber’s view that it would be devastating. "Yes, there will be consolidations in the commodity bull market just as all markets have consolidations," he said. "In 1987, stocks declined 40%-80% worldwide, but it was not the end of the secular bull market in stocks."

"If I was always bullish about commodities and completely missed out on the crash in 2008, then obviously, having tied essentially my reputation to commodities, I’d continue to be bullish," Faber had earlier said about Rogers’ view on commodities.

"I proclaimed repeatedly far and wide that one should not buy commodities in the run up phase", replied Rogers. "I also explained that I was not selling mine since we were [and are] in a secular bull market," Rogers stressed.

When one’s shorts decline 90%-100%, it is a good year even when one’s longs decline," Rogers added.

According to Rogers, Faber is the one who has made many wrong calls, arguing that he "totally missed" the secular bull market in commodities that began in early 1999.

China’s economic growth eased to 9.1% in the third quarter from 9.5% in the second quarter, as government efforts to tame inflation and economic turbulence in Europe and the United States curbed activity.

Vice Premier Wang Qishan, China’s top finance official recently warned that China needed to fix "structural problems" in its financial system to cope with a "long-term" global downturn that threatens the world’s second largest economy. "For an economy like China that depends heavily on exports, the key is to understand the situation and put one’s own house in order," the state Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.

Speaking in a subsequent interview on Saturday with CNBC’s Simon Hobbs and the Money In Motion traders, Faber reiterated his view: The data can be manipulated, but in general I would say there is an obvious slowdown in the Chinese economy and I think there is a chance for a hard landing.

Faber went on to elaborate on the unintended consequences of easing: "When Mr. Bernanke became fed chairman, the S&P was at 1264 – that was on February 1st, 2006. We’re now at 1244. So, the market is lower than it was at that time. In the meantime, gold has gone to US$1,746…The easing may not mean that the economy will do particularly well as the easing can shift money into some sectors of the economy…The stock market in China may rebound, but I don’t think we’ll see new highs, and I think the economy will weaken because we have a very capital goods oriented economy, and capital spending is very volatile."

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Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

© 2011 Business Intelligence Middle East

The Best of Marc Faber

by Crystal Hsu Taipei Times

Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report, yesterday reiterated his criticism of money printing practices, which he believes will continue in the US, Europe and elsewhere, causing bubbles such as those seen in the Chinese real-estate market.

“A third wave of quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve is just a matter of time,” said Faber, a contrarian investor who has been referred to as “Doctor Doom” for a number of years.

Printing money is the way global governments will evade debt crises, such as the one that is gripping Europe, Faber said in Taipei.

That would forestall the crisis rather than solve it, keeping prices elevated for assets like stocks, real estate in some areas and precious metal, he said.

Loose monetary policies, including low interest rates, intended as a short-term fix, can have unintended consequences later, Faber said.

While central banks can inject fresh funds into the markets, they cannot control where the funds flow, he said, adding that money printing has encouraged speculation on commodities whose prices have gone up faster than real demand in recent years.

“Some people will benefit from money printing that deflates the purchasing power of currency … but the middle and lower – income classes are being hurt,” said Faber, an investment adviser focused on value investments, who owns Marc Faber Ltd.

Countries with resources are basking in the trend in light of their sharp increases in international reserves, which Faber said was symptomatic of monetary inflation and a shift in wealth.

The fast-growing economy of China has pushed up its inflationary pressures, with the bubble in the real-estate sector on the brink of bursting, Faber said.

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Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

© 2011 Taipei Times

The Best of Marc Faber

Economist, global trend analyst and well know Doctor of Doom, Marc Faber, suggests that with so many monetary, fiscal and political variables at play, the end game of this crisis can be delayed for months or years to come. Faber, who has warned since before the 2008 crisis that entire nations would fail due to high debt levels, that hyperinflation is an inevitable outcome of the Fed’s accounting games, and that war will be the ultimate result, shares his views on CNBC:

[Video Interview Below]

I don’t know what other people think, but what I think will happen eventually – and there are so many contradictory statements coming out that nobody really knows – but eventually the same will happen as in the United States. The ECB (European Central Bank) will print money one way or the other. And, the debts that essentially should be written down to realistic value will continue to be carried on the books of banks at unrealistic values. So, the end crisis will be postponed until the sovereigns go bankrupt.

…

Before they go bankrupt they’ll print money. They’ll print endless money. As long as we have Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellin at the Fed they’ll print money and so they can postpone the end game endlessly…Endlessly not, but say for another five to ten years.

Each money printing exercise brings about unintended consequences. These unintended consequences are partly higher inflation rates than had no money been printed.

Business Intelligence Middle East

Marc Faber the Swiss fund manager and Gloom Boom & Doom editor spoke Tuesday about the Occupy Wall Street protests, blaming lobbyist and Washington for the current economic stagnation and characterizing Wall Street as a "minority" that is only "using the system."

He suggested protesters should instead go after the real culprits in Washington and "also occupy the Federal Reserve on the way."

Speaking in an interview with CNBC from Montreal, Faber blamed "Keynesians and US Democrats for their interventionist policies.

"There has been too much intervention in the Western World where the share of the total economy that goes to the government and is government sponsored has grown," he said.

"That essentially makes it very difficult for the Western World to grow substantially…I don’t see how the Western World, including the US, Japan, and Western Europe can actually grow. They’re going to stagnate," Faber predicted.

Stagnation, in turn, leads "people to ask questions and to go after minorities," he said.

"Wall Street is a minority, anyone else would have done the same, they use the system but they didn’t create the system. The system was created by the lobbyists and by Washington. So they [the protesters] should actually go to Washington and also occupy the Federal Reserve on the way," Faber suggested.

The protesters say the Wall Street bank bailouts in 2008 left banks enjoying huge profits while average Americans suffered under high unemployment and job insecurity with little help from Washington. They contend that the richest 1% of Americans have amassed vast fortunes while being taxed at a lower rate than most people.

What America needs

Faber blamed an excessive regulatory environment in the US for curtailing initiatives by businesses, leading to a drop in net investments.

Businesses no longer employ and invest capital in the US, he said, preferring instead to invest in china or somewhere else in the world where the regulatory environment is more favorable.

"If you look at net investments in the US, it has gone down for the last 20 years, and it’s now negative. In other words, basically the capital stock of America is not being replenished…althought it’s being replenished somewhere else in the world. At the same time, the policies of the Keynesians have always encouraged spending," the renowned investor noted.

"We’re not going to get out of a recession by saying spend, spend, spend. That is wrong!"

"The lack of saving is the problem of the United States."

In one of his most memorable recent rants, Faber then went to explain what the US [really] needs to do: "I tell you what the US needs. The US needs Lee Kwan Yew [Singapore's first Prime Minister] who stands in front of the US and tells them: Listen you lazy buggers, you have to tighten your belts, you have to save more, work more for lower salaries and only through that will we get out of the current dilemma, that essentially prevents the economy from growing."

Markets and the Dollar

Faber, who predicted the stock market crash in 1987, turned bearish shortly before the 2007-2009 bear market and called the March 2009 level a major low which is not going to be broken any time soon, expects market volatility to continue for a long period of time and sees global liquidity tightening.

He is quite positive about the Dollar because whenever global liquidity is tightening "it’s bad for asset prices but good for the US Dollar as was the case in 2008."

Tyranny of the masses

In an interview with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt on Bloomberg Surveillance on Thursday, Faber was asked about one of the themes in the current issue of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report regarding alleged widespread corruption in many US institutions, including the political and corporate systems.

"The problem with government is that the original intention of, especially a democracy, is very good," he started by saying.

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Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

© 2011 Business Intelligence Middle East

The Best of Marc Faber

Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report, warns of a huge financial catastrophe on the way, which will make the 2008 financial crisis pale in comparison.

Faber can’t predict the timing of the next crisis, but believes the stock market is going down because it’s discounting a very bad event. Faber says government intervention has gone so far that reducing intervention and lowering the deficit will cause temporary pain. He predicts President Obama will do anything to get re-elected, including giving out more handouts in exchange for votes.

Reprinted with permission from Bull Source. You can subscribe to Bull Source posts for free here.

© 2011 Bull Source

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

The Best of Marc Faber

Marc talks about the diversification of asset classes and the necessity of holding them in different jurisdictions. Indeed, he says "I don’t trust anyone." While he does see a correction coming in gold, he says that everybody should hold some physically, and recommends that it be stored outside the US.

Dr. Marc Faber [send him mail] lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and is the author of Tomorrow’s Gold.

The Best of Marc Faber