by Jeff Thomas
As the economic crisis gets ever closer, they understand that the day will soon come when a banking emergency is declared and the banks will shut their doors for an as-yet-unknown period of time (presumably until a solution is found). What will the new rules be? No one knows. Will the banks and storage facilities be obligated to deliver in full if the doors open once again? No one knows.
Therefore, in the final stretch of this race to the bottom, they want to be holding as much of your money and metals as they can.
Whether you own gold or not it is wise to know who and what you are up against.
In this publication, we warn regularly of the risk involved in storing wealth in banks. They’ve made the removal of your deposits increasingly difficult in addition to colluding with governments to allow them to legally freeze or confiscate your money. To add insult to injury, they’re creating reporting requirements with regard to the contents of safe deposit boxes and restricting what can be stored in them – again, at risk of confiscation.
More and more, banks are becoming one of the more risky places to store wealth in any form. Not surprising, then, that many people are returning to those facilities that treat wealth storage the way the first banks did millennia ago – vault facilities that store your wealth for a fee but engage in no other banking activities.
But, in suggesting to our readers that such facilities are a better bet, I’ve also repeatedly warned readers that many such facilities don’t store actual, physical gold. They instead provide a contract to you that states that they will deliver an agreed-upon amount of gold upon demand. The trouble with this idea is that it becomes tempting for such facilities to sign such a contract with you and collect the purchase price but never actually purchase and store any gold. It’s been estimated that the total worldwide value of such contracts equals 150 times the amount of gold in existence in the world.
Uh-oh.
This is why it’s imperative that you purchase only physical, allocated gold.
And another caution: I’ve repeatedly stated that, although many of the most secure facilities in the world are located in North America and Europe, these jurisdictions are on the cusp of economic crisis, a fact that suggests that, if and when the crisis arrives, the rule book will be thrown out the window. Governments and facilities alike may prove untrustworthy and, at some point, you may drop by the facility to withdraw your gold and be told, “Sorry, we’re unable to provide delivery.” There could be a multitude of reasons given, hoops to jump through, and endless red tape to deal with. And still, in the end, you may never be able to take delivery.
It’s for these reasons that we advise that, although nothing in life is guaranteed, you should always protect your wealth by choosing the least risky option.
This means that you should follow two simple rules – Rule #1: Select the jurisdiction with the best laws and reputation. Rule #2: Make sure there’s a reputable storage facility in that jurisdiction that has a Class III vault and a contract that meets your needs.
But am I being overly cautious when I so frequently offer this advice? Unfortunately, no. I’ve predicted that, in the future, as we get closer to a monetary crisis, banks and storage facilities that are located in countries that are likely to be heavily affected will work ever harder to avoid releasing either money on deposit (in the case of banks) and precious metals (in the case of storage facilities).
Be seeing you
MCViewPoint 