By Frank Holmes, CEO and Chief Investment Officer
U.S. Global Investors
With another syringe of quantitative easing being injected into the U.S. economy’s bloodstream, Ben Bernanke is giving the markets their liquidity fix. The Federal Reserve’s action reaffirmed my stance I’ve reiterated on several occasions that the governments across developed markets have no fiscal discipline, opting for ultra-easy monetary policies to stimulate growth instead.
The government’s liquidity shot promptly boosted gold and gold stocks, as investors sought the protection of the precious metal as a real store of value. You can see below the strong correlation between the rising U.S. monetary base and growing gold value. Since the beginning of 1984, as money supply has risen, so has the price of gold.
The dollar declined due to the Fed’s easing, which isn’t surprising, given the fact that gold and the greenback are often inversely correlated, and increasing money supply generally causes the currency to fall in value.
What’s interesting is that currency decline was what Richard Nixon sought to avoid when he ended the gold standard in 1971 and announced that the country would no longer redeem its currency in gold. During his televised speech to the American public, Nixon translated in simple terms the “bugaboo” of devaluation, saying, “if you are among the overwhelming majority of Americans who buy American-made products in America, your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today.” (more)
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