by Egon von Greyerz Matterhorn Asset Management AG / Gold Switzerland
Recently by Egon von Greyerz: Disregard Current Manipulation of PreciousMetals
CYPRUS
The Cyprus event may later, in the history books, be seen as the catalyst of the fall of a century long Ponzi scheme. This could rank in line with the shot in Sarajevo as the start of WW1 or the collapse of Kreditanstalt in 1931 as the start of the Great Depression.
Isn’t it ironic that exactly 100 years after the creation of the Fed (a private bank created for the benefit of bankers) that the fragile and bankrupt financial system is likely to fall due to the insolvency of a couple of Cypriot banks.
But what is happening in Cyprus will not be the reason for a collapse but just the trigger for what has always been inevitable.
There are only two possible outcomes of the crisis we are now in:
- Either there will now be a run on the massively leveraged (25-50 times) banking system which would lead to no debt being repaid and a deflationary collapse.
- Alternatively, we will now see the beginning of the most massive money printing that the world has ever experienced, leading to a hyperinflationary depression.
The second outcome is the most likely although the risk of an systemic implosion is very high if central banks are too slow in flooding the system with money. The deflationary outcome would lead to no banks surviving and no money in the system. And the hyperinflationary outcome would lead to money being totally worthless. In both cases gold will be a major beneficiary.
But printing money will of course not solve anything since worthless pieces of paper with ZERO intrinsic value can never create wealth. At best it will just kick the can down the road for a very short time.
