Bill Bonner [in 2015] : "Recently, one of our dear readers summarized the three major points of view, along with one minor one:
Deflation Camp
Harry Dent is in line with the Austrian Business Cycle Theory: Money printing causes financial bubbles, distorts the economy, and is therefore counterproductive.
Like Bob Prechter (I don’t follow him closely, but his argumentation sounds similar), Dent bets on deflation and depression.
Fighting debt deleveraging and demographics is like putting yourself in front of a tsunami.
In such an environment, the U.S. dollar would gain purchasing power, and gold would underperform significantly. (Harry sees it back to $700 in 2018-19.)
Cash/T-bills/short-term Treasurys are the place to be. Rates will stay low for very long.
Inflation Camp
Jim Rickards’ thesis – “inflate debt away via a massive issuance of SDRs after China has joined the club” – is also very credible.
World currencies are massively diluted via issuance of SDRs, which serve only the powers that be. Rather than a new gold standard, this is the solution to Triffin’s dilemma (more flexibility for the elite).
[Triffin’s dilemma describes the constant need for the global reserve currency issuer – in this case, the U.S. – to supply the world with reserve currency by way of a long-term trade deficit. Eventually, argued Yale economist Robert Triffin, this would lead to a loss of confidence in the reserve currency.]
Citizens are excluded/not allowed to own SDRs. Their purchasing power shrinks. They don’t know who to blame.
The IMF does not consist of elected officials, and the majority of the population doesn’t even know it plays a role in creating inflation. And they can pretend that they have to save the world, too. (Remember the Greek bailout?)
Hyperinflation Camp
Shadow Stats’ John Williams is having a really hard time fighting for his ideas. He is right about the “CPI-CP Lie” and the current true state of the economy. But whoever invests along his ideas is running out of capital to stay in the game.
Peter Schiff and Mike Maloney are on a similar line. The problem with them is that they have a conflict of interest with their businesses. But I have no doubt about their integrity: They do/live what they say.
Deflation to Hyperinflation Camp
I recall an interview with Nassim Taleb on Bloomberg TV in 2009 when he said, “We will go from deflation to hyperinflation without seeing inflation.”
Tokyo to Buenos Aires
Our view is that Taleb will be proved right.
Back in 2009, we predicted “Tokyo… then Buenos Aires” – a Japan-like deflation, followed by Argentine-like hyperinflation.
Most likely, there will be no stop in between for moderate levels of inflation.
Inflation, as economist Milton Friedman observed, is “always and everywhere” a monetary phenomenon. But hyperinflation is a political phenomenon.
It is caused by those same authorities the masses think they can trust. When they are threatened, they will protect themselves by printing money on a scale we haven’t seen since the War Between the States. (Consumer prices in Richmond, Virginia, had risen 6,700% by the end of the war.)
There are times when printing money seems like the best course of action – especially for the people running the printing press. It may not do the common man any good, but it gets the feds out of a jam."
http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/whats-next-deflation-inflation-or-hyperinflation/
Financial Safety Services Commentary:
Fact: For fundamental reasons, to do with human action and markets,_nobody_ , but nobody, can reliably and consistently predict future economic events; not Dent, Schiff, Prechter, nor Taleb, yourself, or anyone else.
Fact: It’ not necessary to be able to predict the economic future to safeguard one’s long term savings from an unknown , and unknowable, economic future:
Regards, onebornfreeatyahoo
