Federal Reserve Announces First Rate Cut in Over 4 Years

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Today, the Federal Reserve announced their decision to cut interest rates by 50 basis points (0.5%) marking a significant shift in the central bank’s monetary policy.

This is the first such cut since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which will reduce the federal funds rate to a range of 4.75%-5%.

While the decision aims to combat a slowing labor market and maintain economic growth, its implications are far-reaching, affecting everything from mortgage rates to precious metals prices.

While this is generally good for consumers in the short term, the long term implications could lead to higher inflation and other economic problems down the road.

Effect on Precious Metals Prices

Precious metals, particularly gold, often benefit from lower interest rates. When interest rates are cut, the yield on bonds and other interest-bearing assets falls, making non-yielding assets like gold more attractive.

Investors flock to gold as a store of value, especially during times of economic uncertainty or when inflation is a concern. In the short term, the Fed’s decision to cut rates will likely continue to push gold prices higher to new records, as lower rates will weaken the U.S. dollar and boost demand for safe-haven assets.

If inflation starts to pick up again, gold prices are likely to continue to climb. Historically, gold has performed well in low-interest-rate environments, particularly when real yields turn negative. Silver, which often follows gold’s price trends, may also see a boost in demand and price as a result of the Fed’s actions.

The Fed’s 50 basis points rate cut is a double-edged sword. While it provides immediate relief in the form of lower borrowing costs, it also signals concerns about the health of the economy and the Fed’s ability to manage future risks.

Everyday consumers will feel the effects in their mortgages, car loans, credit cards, and savings accounts, while investors will need to weigh the impact on stocks and precious metals carefully as the Fed navigates an uncertain economic landscape.

US Government Debt now over $33.88 Trillion, USDebtClock.org

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Earlier this year, the US Government hit a new milestone. The amount of government debt in the United States has grown to exceed $33.88 Trillion as a result of overspending by elected officials. The growing U.S. government debt is a complex issue with significant implications for American citizens and taxpayers.

This is a significant issue effecting all American taxpayers, whether they realize it or not.

A higher national debt leads to higher taxes in the future. As the government needs to bring in more revenue to service its debt. This leads directly to increasing taxes, pushing the financial burden on citizens and businesses.

A significant portion of the government’s budget goes towards interest payments on the debt. These payments consume resources that could otherwise be used for public services, infrastructure, education, or healthcare.

To manage high levels of debt, the government has resorted to printing more money in recent years, which has directly caused the inflation that we feel today. Inflation diminishes our purchasing power, causing dramatic increase in everyday living costs.

High debt levels also hamper economic growth. Increased government borrowing leads to higher interest rates, making it more expensive for consumers and businesses to borrow and invest, potentially slowing down economic activities.

US Debt Clock

As more of the government’s budget is allocated to servicing the debt, there is less money available for other spending priorities like social security, welfare programs, infrastructure, and education.

A heavily indebted nation finds its global economic and political influence quickly diminishing. This has been happening throughout the world, as many nations join the BRICS initiative, moving towards a universal gold-backed currency and away from the dollar for international trade and oil. The US is likely to face additional constraints for defense funding, compromising national security measures.

Escalating debt also affects investor confidence. Many already see the debt as unsustainable, which has led to increased yields on government bonds, further exacerbating the debt problem.

Despite all the efforts to stimulate the economy during the last few years, the financial stability of the country has been on a downward trajectory, according to leading economists. High debt levels make the country more vulnerable to financial crises and recession. The Federal Reserve continues the struggle to reach the goal of sub-2% inflation target, while repeatedly raising interested rates to levels not seen in decades. The government’s ability to stimulate the economy through additional spending is limited if it’s already heavily indebted.

Younger generations today are already limited in their ability to buy a house, caused by a combination of the housing bubble and high interest rates. Future generations will shoulder the additional burden with the responsibility of paying off the debt incurred today.

A significant portion of U.S. debt is held by foreign entities. This dependence creates complex international dynamics and potential vulnerabilities, particularly as geopolitical relationships shift.

Preparing for the Impending CBDC Crisis

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Throughout the pandemic, the federal government’s ongoing dictation of seemingly bad policies was an intentional effort to upend the normal everyday lives of millions of people.

As has been pointed out, it is not a conspiracy theory to believe that the central bank intends to control the spending behavior of people using central bank programmable software tokens instead of currency.

The general manager of the banking cartel explicitly announced it to an audience of other central bank leaders during their annual meeting in 2020.

The Bank of International Settlements is an organization owned by its members, the Central Banks of 63 member countries, and acts as a self regulator.

The BIS is creator and establisher of the rules for banks to operate in the global ecosystem of international trade. They also have control over the SWIFT banking network, foreign currency exchange and other major parts of the global economy.

During the group’s annual meeting in 2020, the General Manager of the organization explained to the audience how CBDC will give the central bank absolute control over the rules, regulations and policies that will dictate how money is used down to the transaction level.

During the recorded videoconference he discusses how CDBC technology will be used to force changes in spending behavior amongst consumers and enforce consumer spending policies on behalf of the government.

Last year, Biden signed Executive Order 14067 in order to advance development of CBDCs to skirt push forward without Congressional approval. As usually, there has been a total lack of accountability or transparency.

So far, Federal Reserve and US Treasury have been working in relative secrecy, publishing only a small amount of vague and high-level papers and studies with several quietly announced project trials in conjunction with notable large global banks. Most of the press releases have come during times when other stories were the major focus of the mainstream media, such as the collapse of FTX.

At least one bill has been drafted by Congress in an attempt to prevent the Federal Reserve from weaponizing CBDC against US citizens. However, the rollout of central bank digital currencies is likely to happen soon if and when the Biden administration can attach it to a banking crisis like the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

More recent announcements show that the Fed and Biden Admin intend to roll out a CBDC even without the authority of Congress.

In a speech to the Atlantic Council, Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance told the attendees that a CBDC Working Group consisting of policy makers from a variety of agencies is developing an initial set of findings and recommendations to support the Biden administrations agenda.

Make no mistake, the central banks have made it crystal clear that they are coming for your money and will tell you how you can spend it. The move into CBDC in lieu of traditional currency is a political power grab with the goal of having further control of your life.

Nigeria’s Failed Experiment

Initially, the Nigerian government tried several soft approaches to encourage the adoption of CBDC. These included financial incentives such as offering discounts to taxi drivers and passengers to encourage use and adoption. All of which failed.

The government quickly turned to coercive measures once it became clear that the people weren’t interested.

The largest measures include the introduction of a new currency and devaluing the old currency along with adding restriction on cash withdrawals throughout the country. The plan included the issuance of new currency notes, but only enough to cover 85% of the current naira while promoting cashless transactions by limiting the use of cash for businesses.

Beyond banknote swap, the banking regulators placed policy restrictions limiting cash withdrawals from banks and ATMs to reduce the amount of cash in circulation. With limits of $225 on individuals and $1,110 on businesses to force CBDC adoption.

Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele said, “The destination, as far as I am concerned, is to achieve a 100% cashless economy in Nigeria.”

The central bank began devaluing in the months before the switch while removing old notes from circulation leaving millions of Nigerians with no money or food.

Nigerians have violently rejected the new digital currency and cash restrictions as protests and riots have broken out outside of banks and spread throughout the country.

The war on cash and some form of crisis will bring on the introduction of CBDCs.

Precious Metals Stacking for CBDC Insurance

Gold and silver are the oldest and most trusted form of money. With all of the uncertainty in the economy, gold is safe haven from fiat and digital currency tokens.

Investing some of your cash in buying physical gold and silver bullion can help keep you in control of your financial future.

New Global Gold Standard Emerging from Recession

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The dollar emerged as a reserve currency following World War II as part of the Bretton Woods Accord. This was due to the United States having the largest gold reserves at the time. Bretton Woods provided fixed gold prices that was pegged to the USD making it the central spoke for trade.

NPR did a report in 2019 that gives some history on the Bretton Woods agreement, the development of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund or other organizations involved in evangelizing the use of the dollar in international trade.

More About Bretton Woods

In 1971, economic conditions were not entirely different than they are today. At the time, the economy was suffering from a relatively high rate of inflation, the ongoing war in Vietnam led to significant budget deficit and mounting debt, and there had been a longstanding decline in the U.S. monetary gold stock, and a recent, sharp rise in external dollar liabilities held by central banks.

Corruption in government had also reached a tipping point which later led to Watergate, the Church Committee and other investigations.

In August of 1971, Nixon held a top-secret meeting at Camp David with his top financial and economic advisors that included the likes of Arthur Burns, John Connally, Paul Volker and others.

Together they created a strategy for a controversial policy that removed the dollar from the gold standard which disrupted the global economy.

Long term, the decision to remove the dollar from the gold standard led to a decline in central bank holdings that reached the lowest point around 2010.

Since the financial crisis in 2008, Central Banks have been following the lead of BRICS nations and continued their gold buying streak in 2022. Globally, central bank holdings have now reached their highest point since 1974.

The Biden Administration faces additional problems today that didn’t exist in 2008.

Russia began exchanging rubles for gold and requiring foreign nations to pay for gas and oil in rubles to flout US sanctions. Some of this has been factored into gold prices this year.

Recent news of Qatargate involving the arrests of several prominent members of the European Parliament is more evidence of the corruption ingrained in the dollarized financial system.

Although the origins of Bitcoin remain up for debate, the original cryptocurrency also developed in response to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis that resulted from the US recession.

Cryptocurrency ledgers provide a shared and public transaction record that could provide central banks with more transparency.

However, the adoption of CBDC as proposed by the G7 as a programmable currency is fraught with controversy. Much of this causes confusion with consumers who are already struggling with mass adoption of crypto.

The recent crash of the FTX crypto exchange highlights significant issues of corruption within the current system that continues to spread to other sectors of the economy. plus the evidence of the emergence of a global BRICS currency backed by the combined gold reserves of member nations are just two of the additional challenges.

Discussions of a BRICS mixed basket currency began to emerge following the global financial crisis in 2008. Which was triggered by lax lending standards, record amounts of consumer debt and other factors that fueled the first housing bubble.

BRICS countries have been in discussion to establishment of a new digital reserve currency that is a mix of member countries.

The BRICS reserve basket currency allows member nations to engage in trade bypassing the USD. The strength of their local currency will help to strengthen their influence in the basket.

Some economist see this as a real threat to the dollar as a global reserve currency, thus reducing the demand for dollars worldwide.

On a macro level many of these things are seen as good indicators of strong demand and long term upward movement in gold prices.



BRICS, Central Bank Gold and Oil

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BRICS is loose term created by Goldman Sachs to represent the world’s five leading emerging economies. The original list included four: Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa was added to the list in 2010.

Combined, the BRICS nations represent 3.21 billion people, roughly 41.5% of the global population.

Over the last year more stories have emerged in the news about the desire for BRICS nations to seek an alternate currency to the US dollar for their international trade. Often referred to as de-dollarization. The removal of the dollar as the reserve currency used in international trade.

Russia has already established the Moscow World Standard to compete with the LBMA and other legacy markets.

In response to economic sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s gas agency began demanding payments for oil and natural gas in Rubles.

Russia’s Central Bank began exchanging gold for Rubles and many countries are now trading oil on a new gold-standard.

The PBoC, the central bank of China continues adding gold bullion to its reserves and holdings.

Worldwide central Bank gold holdings have now reached their highest point since the 1970s.

The 1970s was a time of global economic crisis. Following the oil crisis of 1973, Nixon led the collapse of the Bretton Woods system as part of his measures to fix the stagnant economy.

Nixon resigned in August of 1974 following the Watergate Scandal. Days later, President Ford signed legislation which repealed Roosevelt’s executive order restricting private gold ownership.

This global appetite for gold has the potential to give emerging nations an advantage over the value of their assets and international trading dynamics.

Many emerging nations are rich in oil, minerals and mining. Some of which are necessary components in the development of batteries, solar panels and other advanced manufacturing.

Private ownership of precious metals now continues to grow every year. During the pandemic, from 2020 until 2022, investors bought more than 75 million troy ounces of American Silver Eagles.

The US Mint has been unable to keep up with investor demand which has caused premiums to rise.

Over the same period gold investors bought more than 5 million troy ounces of Gold Eagle and Gold Buffalo coins.

Government silver coins from Canada, United Kingdom, Austria have become popular alternatives for investors looking for lower premiums.

Tokenizing Gold Bullion Bars with Blockchain Technology

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cbdc blockchain for tracking gold bars

Public trust in government central banks and global banks continues to erode as the world economy staggers to recover from issues caused by the pandemic response.

Many central banks have begun working on CBDC projects as a means of implementing programmable and controllable currencies even though popular opinion opposes the implementation of the G7, WEF and BIS recommendations, further eroding trust in the bankers who have a long history of corruption.

One way that blockchain ledger technology can help enable public trust in central banks, governments and global banks is by providing a means of transparency into the asset being held on behalf of customers.

The Dubai Multi Commodities Center recently announced a partnership with Comtech Gold to create TradeFlow warrants using Comtech Gold Tokens (CGO) based on customers depositing gold in approved vaults.

Comtech Gold is built on the XDC blockchain network with each contract on the network being represented with one gram of pure physical gold.

The DMCC TradeFlow project is already backed by 122 kilo gold bars.

Federal Reserve Votes to Raise Key Interest Rate .75%

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As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee hiked the benchmark interest rate by 3/4 of a percentage point at the end of their two day meeting.

Ongoing failed attempts by the Biden administration and Congress to get worries about the economy and a recession out of the minds of voters leading into the mid-term elections are failing miserably as prices of everyday basics continue to soar for many already living paycheck to paycheck. 

Industry leaders, including JP Morgan Chase CEO are predicting the economy may take a turn worse than a recession. Mass layoffs have already been announced at many large companies across a variety of industries.

Despite economic sanctions against Russia by the LBMA, world leaders from Brazil, India and other mineral rich developing nations are looking towards the Moscow World Standard as an alternative precious metals exchange. 

In response the economic sanctions, Russia took steps to back the ruble with gold earlier this year. Leaders of developing nations are seeing how returning to a gold-standard economy may help deflect repercussions of the recession and other issues facing the US and Europe.

Key Points

Beginning the Dollar Debasement in the mid-20th century

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Bag full of Junk Silver Quarters

After the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the US economy continued a slow debasement that coincided with the introduction of fiat paper currency. After the gold confiscation in 1933 by Roosevelt, the amount of currency in circulation began to increase exponentially.

According to data from the St Louis Fed, the amount of USD circulating during the 1920s remained steady at around $4.5 billion. During the 1930s, the number of dollars in circulation began to steadily increase, before skyrocketing during World War II to over $27 billion.

Prior to 1965, most of the coins that circulated throughout the United States were minted from an alloy of .900 pure fine silver. Historically, this alloy is known as “coin silver” and it was regularly found in colonial America for use in utensils, serving ware and other household items. In 1837, the US Mint began to issue various denominations in a 90% silver alloy.

Today, it’s difficult to believe and even harder to quantify that billions of silver coins were minted on behalf of the Treasury and circulating throughout the economy prior to the debasement of the dollar during the 20th century.

Junk silver is the simple term given to circulated silver coins from this era that have little to no numismatic value to collectors. These coins maintain their intrinsic value due to their silver content.

Circulated 90% silver coins can be purchased at most local coin shops, pawn brokers and some antique stores. Investors looking for the lowest premiums on junk silver are stacking large quantities of circulated coins. It’s not junk at all and is very easy to identify and authenticate with some basic information.

Despite these coins being readily available from local suppliers, still the most popular option is to make regular purchases from the lowest priced online bullion dealers and having bags of coins shipped directly to your door or stash location.

Coinage Act of 1965

Debasement continued on June 3, 1965, when Lyndon Johnson sent a special message to Congress requesting immediate legislation to remove silver from dime, quarter coins and to reduce the silver content in half-dollar coins.

The Coinage Act of 1965 was introduced by Senator Absalom Robertson, a Democrat from Virginia who staunchly opposed Civil Rights. He was also the father of televangelist Pat Robertson.

The composition of the half-dollar coin was reduced to 40% and a new coin was designed around a structure core, encapsulated by a silver alloy cladding.

The core alloy at the center of the coin would be minted of an alloy containing 21% silver mixed with base metal. The surrounding face cladding of the coin would be minted with an alloy containing 80% silver for a smooth and durable finish that could better withstand wear and tear that occurs with circulation.

This legislation helped to keep the silver prices artificially low by eliminating the use of silver in circulating coinage and dumping additional silver onto the market. The era of this price manipulation continued until silver hit a low of $12.08 in May 1967. Within one year, the price of silver has rise to $21.67 an ounce.

The Coinage Act of 1965 transferred millions of tons of silver from the US economy into industry.

At the time, silver was being consumed in mass amount by technological advances in photographic film on both the consumer level and in medical and industrial imaging. As the industrial consumption of silver continued to grow, so did silver prices.

During this period, Kodak had become an important innovator of photographic films and other imaging technologies. These advancements led to the mass consumer adoption of cameras and photography, in addition to be used by the military and intelligence agencies.

Photographic and X-Ray films included silver halide grains and crystals sandwiched in an acetate film. The more time that silver halide crystals are exposed to light, a chemical reaction occurs that creates the dark shades and contrasting shadows that are made from the familiar black and white film.

Under the leadership of William Vaughn, Kodak invented and manufactured high-resolution, grain-dense photographic films for CIA that were used in imaging systems like those in the SR-71 Blackbird, U2 spy planes, and other aerial intelligence aircraft that were used during the Cold War. The use of film in reconnaissance activity until the advancement of digital satellite imaging.

Silver is also consumed by medical devices and button-sized and smaller batteries were invented for use in things like hearing aids and other common assistive medical devices.