Thursday, June 9, 2011

Marc Faber : Maybe in gold terms, we could one day reach a ratio of Dow Jones to gold of 1-to-1

Marc Faber : I think we are all doomed. I think what will happen is that we are in the midst of a kind of a crack-up boom that is not sustainable, that eventually the economy will deteriorate, that there will be more money-printing, and then you have inflation, and a poor economy, an extreme form of stagflation, and, eventually, in that situation, countries go to war, and, as a whole, derivatives, the market, and everything will collapse, and like a computer when it crashes, you will have to reboot it.For the investor, the question is: How do I navigate through this complete disaster that is going to unfold? And I think if you look at different asset classes– real estate, equities,bonds, cash, precious metals – I suppose that you have to be diversified. I think real estate in the U.S. may go down another 10% or so, or even 15%, but I am always telling people, if you can buy the piece of land or the house you like, what do you actually care if it does down another 10%? If everything I bought in my life had only gone down 10-15%, I would be very rich, because a lot of things became worthless, especially loans to friends, and bonds, and so forth.Look at the history, for example, of Germany, for the last 100 years. They had World War I. They had the hyper-inflation in World War II. The bond-holders got wiped out three times. If you owned Siemens, and you still own Siemens today, it was not a fantastic investment, but at least you still have something. You were not wiped out. I think that in equities you will be better off because you have an ownership in a company,than by being the lenders to companies, and the lenders, especially, to governments "
" In a money-printing environment, it is very difficult to know what is actually cheap and what is expensive. Is the price of wheat high, or is it low? Inflation-adjusted,it is extremely low. In nominal terms, it is relatively high. I believe that, in March 2009when the S&P was at 666, the market was actually much cheaper than is generally perceived, because of the money-printing, and I do not anticipate that we will see 666 on the S&P again, in nominal terms.In other words, they are going to print so much money that the S&P could be at, perhaps,2000, but in real terms, it could be down below the lows of March 6, 2009. Maybe in gold terms, we could one day reach a ratio of Dow Jones to gold of 1-to-1, as we were in 1980. In other words, the Dow could be perhaps at 10,000 or 12,000, and gold could beat the same level.That is why I am advising people to accumulate gold. Can gold have a correction? Yes,there has been a little bit too much euphoria about gold, and we may have a correction,but I do not think we are in a bubble in the price of gold. In fact, I could make a case that gold, at this level of $1400 an ounce, is cheaper than in 1999, when I look at the unfunded liability growth of the U.S., at the credit growth of the U.S., and at the household growth, and at the money printing, and at all the wealth creation that happens in China and Russia.Just consider, when I started to work in the 1970s, it was said there were two billionaires in the world. One was Rockefeller, and the other one was Mr. Ludwig. Then in 1980there were, I think, six or eight billionaires. Now you have thousands of billionaires.The paper money has become of lower value, and in that environment, it is conceivable that actually stocks do not go down a lot, in nominal terms, but they go down inflation-adjusted, and not inflation-adjusted by what the government is publishing, but in inflation-adjusted terms, as John Williams points out. He says inflation is running at 8%per annum. I have it slightly lower, depending also on the household, whether you have children, or no children, and where you live, but I would say between 5-10% in America is probably a realistic figure, and between 8-12% in countries like India, China, Viet Nam."

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