Henry Smyth: Is this the Rothschild Moment for Gold?`

 by  rcwhalen.com

"Interest is the difference in the valuation of present goods and future goods; it is the discount in the valuation of future goods as against that of present goods." 

Ludwig von Mises

“Planning for Freedom”

We’ve all been watching the selloff in the global gold market.  Armies of chicken littles are in a frenzy due to suggestions that the Fed may be ending its quantitative easing, so I thought this is a good time to check in with my friend Henry Smyth of Granville Cooper Asset Management Ltd. (GCAM). Henry is a former Coutts & Co. banker and a very astute observer of the global financial markets.  We spoke last week in New York. -- Chris

RCW:  Henry, the gold market has been taking a beating in the past few months.  What do you see as the drivers of the gold market today? 

Europe: The Last Great Potemkin Village Where "The Rich Get Richer, And Poor Get Poorer"

From Charles Gave of GKResearch
 
On the surface, it would seem that the euro crisis has calmed. Markets have rallied since the summer and, to borrow a phrase from Herbert Hoover, “prosperity is just around the corner.” But outward appearances in Europe are like a Potemkin village. Behind the well-scrubbed facades, Southern Europe is in a death spiral. Anyone convinced that the European monetary union has come through the crisis stronger is a victim of the slickest PR campaign in history.
...
Let’s be very clear here: this is what the euro has wrought. This destruction of the non-German industrial bases has taken place with the active complicity of the European technocrats. They did not even realize that France, the EMU’s second largest economy, for example was becoming hopelessly uncompetitive.

Let's go one step further. According to the official GDP statistics the French economy since the beginning of the euro experiment has done as well as the German economy:

Labor Minister Says France Is "Totally Bankrupt"

by Tyler Durden

Things in France must not be very serious, because the French labor minister accidentally let the truth come out a little earlier today. As the Telegraph reports, France's labour minister sent the country into a state of shock on Monday after he described the nation as “totally bankrupt."

Remember: France is one of the supposedly stable countries in Europe.

"Michel Sapin made the gaffe in a radio interview, which left French President Francois Hollande battling to undo the potential reputational damage. "There is a state but it is a totally bankrupt state,” Mr Sapin said. “That is why we had to put a deficit reduction plan in place, and nothing should make us turn away from that objective." It appears that once one wipes out the propaganda and the smooth politico talk, things are bad and getting worse at Europe's core. "Data from Banque de France showed earlier this month that a flight of capital has already left the country amid concerns that France’s Socialist leader intends to soak the rich and businesses. The actor Gérard Depardieu has renounced his French citizenship and decamped to Russia in protest, while David Cameron said Britain will “roll out the red carpet” to attract wealthy individuals. Pierre Moscovici, the finance minister, said the comments by Mr Sapin were “inappropriate”."