Investing Archives - Page 10 of 56

A Fat Emergency Fund Is Vital to Antique Investors

Commonly-held financial wisdom is that everyone should have 3 to 6 months worth of expenses readily available in cash as an emergency fund. This might take the form of a high yield savings account, money market fund, short-term bank CDs or other high quality, liquid financial instruments.

And while this is sound advice for the average household, art and antique investors would be wise to go the extra step when building their emergency funds.

Why do I suggest this?

That’s simple. Art, antiques and other tangible assets can be some of the most lucrative investments currently available to the average person. But they do have one big downside; they are almost always extremely illiquid. This means they have wide spreads between their bid (selling) prices and ask (buying) prices.

So if you need to sell your prized antique collection on short notice to raise much needed cash, you will likely be disappointed in the prices you receive. And this little tidbit of advice is doubly true if you happen to be trying to sell illiquid art and antiques in the midst of a severe recession.

That realization brings us to my next point. Some of the most reliable economic indicators point to the high probability of a recession in the United States within the next 12 to 24 months.

For example, U.S. job growth in May of 2019 was only 75,000, well below the 200,000+ that is typical of a robust economy. Durable goods orders have also been uncharacteristically weak.

But the real tell is the U.S. Treasury yield curve. This respected economic indicator is massively inverted right now, with the 3-month T-bill trading at a whopping 35 basis point premium to the 10-year Treasury note.

Graph of the 10 Year U.S. Treasury – 3 Month U.S. Treasury Spread

This is a highly anomalous situation. Under normal circumstances, the yield curve gently slopes from the lower left-hand corner of a chart to its upper right-hand corner. This means that shorter dated Treasury securities typically trade at lower yields than longer-dated Treasuries. An inverted yield curve, where short-term Treasuries have higher yields than long-term Treasuries, is a surefire sign of financial trouble ahead.

The upshot of all these economic statistics is that something wicked this way blows. If you don’t have a healthy emergency fund right now, then you need to get one in a hurry. And if you happen to be an art or antique investor, you need to have a fatter emergency fund than most other people.

How much fatter?

I think it makes sense for tangible asset investors to stash anywhere from 8 to 16 months worth of household expenses. This is more than double the level typically recommended for the average family. So if you have expenses of $3,000 per month, I believe keeping anywhere between $24,000 and $48,000 in readily accessible cash is a good idea.

This might seem like an impossibly large sum of money to the average person, but there is a method to my madness.

You see, the next recession we experience is likely to be beyond anything within living memory. The global “Everything Bubble” has distorted our economy into a grotesque parody of a properly functioning market. This has lead to the rise of disruptive profitless prosperity companies, like Uber, Netflix, Tesla and WeWork. But these bubble companies are completely dependent for their survival on investors throwing ever greater sums of effectively free money at them.

As the economy slows down, that is becoming an increasingly unlikely proposition. Consequently, over the next few years we are likely to see massive job losses, widespread corporate bankruptcies and a crashing stock market. In other words, we will experience a mega-recession.

As an investor, it is critical to avoid a situation where you are forced to panic liquidate your treasured art or antiques collection into a brutal bear market. This is why it is vital that you build yourself a healthy emergency fund before the financial maelstrom hits.

So where should you put your cash stash?

While FDIC-insured savings accounts and bank CDs are perennial favorites, I favor brokered CDs at the moment. These are bank-issued, FDIC-insured certificates of deposit that can be bought and sold through your brokerage account, just like a stock. So you can sell a brokered CD before its maturity date if the need arises (although you may receive more or less than you originally paid, depending on whether interest rates have fallen or risen).

This is important because it is highly likely that the Federal Reserve will be cutting rates in the future, rather than raising them. So while savings accounts, T-bills and money market funds will pay less interest as time goes on, a brokered CD with a maturity date several years in the future will continue to pay today’s higher interest rate right up until maturity.

As an added bonus, banks are relatively cash-starved right now, leading them to offer much higher interest rates than you can get on a comparable Treasury security. For instance, the 5-year Treasury note is currently paying around 1.6%, while brokered CDs with comparable maturities are paying 2.2%. The 60 basis point pick-up a brokered CD gives you over Treasuries is significant.

Another intriguing possibility for your emergency fund is inflation-adjusted U.S. savings bonds. Series I savings bonds pay a fixed interest rate that is then modified for movements in the consumer price index. Now, normally I hate savings bonds as an investment, but using them as a cash-alternative is the one situation where I think they excel.

Right now I-bonds are paying a real (inflation-adjusted) interest rate of 0.5%. This might not seem like much, but it is actually quite good once the inflation component is factored in. It is the highest rate these financial instruments have offered within the past decade. It also beats out the real interest rate available on government TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) out to a maturity of 30 years!

As an added bonus, U.S. savings bonds are tax-deferred, with no tax liability on the accrued interest until the bond is redeemed (which can be as long as 30 years). And because they are obligations of the Federal Government, any interest earned is exempt from both state and local taxes.

The downside is that I-bonds are not redeemable for the first 12 months after purchase, so make sure you have some other cash available if you plan on adding I-bonds to your emergency fund. There is also a penalty equal to the last 3 months of accrued interest if the bonds are redeemed before 5 years has elapsed. And purchases are limited to $10,000 for each individual’s Social Security number per calendar year.

Despite these drawbacks, I think I-bonds are a great way to pad out an emergency fund. They provide competitive interest rates (currently 0.5% real + 1.4% inflation = 1.9% total) that are resistant to declines in the Fed Funds Rate, while also providing perfect liquidity (once the 12 month no redemption period has expired).

You’ll have to hurry if you want in on the action, though. The fixed, real interest rate on newly-issued I-bonds is adjusted every 6 months (on May 1st and November 1st). And the current 0.5% rate is sure to be adjusted down on November 1, 2019. So load up while the rates are still high!

1/4 Troy Ounce Gold Bullion Coins for Sale on eBay

(This is an affiliate link for which I may be compensated)

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the final candidate for a well-capitalized emergency fund: gold. Gold is the most liquid of the precious metals with a bid-ask spread of typically no more than $1 a troy ounce. It can easily be bought or sold anywhere in the world. And it is immune to the ravages of inflation and currency debasement.

Gold is the epitome of financial stability in our bubble-addled economy.

Global central banks, including the Chinese, Indian and Russian central banks, have been loading up on the precious yellow metal for the past several years. They know that a financial debacle is coming and that gold is the ultimate money. So holding a little gold in your own portfolio might not be a bad idea, either.

Of course, if you already have a healthy emergency fund, then by all means consider putting more money into your art and antique investments. These desirable tangible assets will undoubtedly be some of the best performing investments over the next couple decades. Just make sure that you have enough cash in your emergency fund to weather the financial storm that is sure to come.

Read more thought-provoking Antique Sage investing articles here.

-or-

Read in-depth Antique Sage investment guides here.

Anatomy of an Entry Level Art Investment

Photo Credit: Matsu Kaze Japan

The motto of the Antique Sage website is “Art as Investment”. I am fully committed to the idea that entry level art is both an affordable, and accessible, investment vehicle. But I also understand that the concept of investing in art can be very intimidating to the neophyte collector or casual admirer.

Traditional investments like stocks and bonds might seem like a safer bet in this context. It is so much easier to just turn on your automated bi-weekly payroll deductions, dump the proceeds into an S&P 500 Index fund and forget about it. But this sense of safety in paper assets is really a cruel deception.

In reality, conventional assets are more overvalued now than at any point since just before the great Wall Street Crash of 1929. A lot of people will lose a lot of money on these supposedly “safe” investments over the next decade. Fine art and antiques, on the other hand, represent a compelling alternative to these junk paper assets.

That is the primary reason I started my website: to educate people about the tremendous opportunities available in the world of fine art and antiques. I have often found that the best way to do this is to showcase a specific item and walk viewers through its merits.

But first I think it’s important to address the question, “Why entry level art?” What artwork can the average person possibly hope to buy for $100 or $200 that could be considered investment grade?

Simply put, a work of art doesn’t have to be expensive to be desirable. Sure, there are some hideously expensive pieces of art that are wonderful investments. But there are also entry level works well within the reach of the average person that are just as compelling from an investment standpoint.

The antique Japanese samurai sword fittings pictured at the top of this article are a case in point. They consist of two pieces: the butt-end of a sword grip, known as a “kashira”, and the top of a sword grip, called a “fuchi”. These two pieces book-ended a samurai’s sword handle. They were not only functional – helping to keep everything in place – but also decorative as well.

Samurai sword fittings, like this kashira and fuchi pair, are extremely collectible today. And it is easy to see why. This set undoubtedly come from Japan’s Edo era, a period from 1603 to 1868 when the island nation was ruled by the Tokugawa Shogunate. During this time, Japan was a feudal society segmented into four distinct social castes: samurai (warriors), peasants (farmers), craftsmen and merchants.

Only the samurai, sitting at the very top of the social hierarchy, were permitted to carry weapons in public. These took the form of the world-famous katana, along with the samurai’s lesser known short sword, the wakizashi. Because they were symbols of a samurai’s status, the katana and wakizashi were often lavishly decorated, especially in the later Edo period.

The kashira and fuchi pictured above are relatively simple in their design, but quite aesthetically pleasing nonetheless. The Japanese have been masters of understated ornamentation for centuries, and these samurai sword fittings underscore just how fluidly they crafted truly compelling, yet still minimalist, works of art.

These handmade Japanese antiques are truly old – at least 150 years old and possibly as much as 400 years old. In addition, they show unmistakable signs of use in the form of small dings, scratches and surface wear. Although this means they are no longer in pristine condition, conversely, it also means that they were a functioning piece of kit for a real samurai warrior. This is a true link with the distant past that you cannot get any other way, except through a fine antique.

This kashira and fuchi set are made from premium materials: horn, shakudo metal and gilt decorations. Shakudo is a traditional Japanese alloy composed of anywhere from 1% to 7% gold, with the balance copper. The resulting alloy takes on a deep, velvety black patina over time, which is fully developed on this samurai sword fuchi. Shakudo was a very expensive material in Tokugawa Japan due to its gold content.

The raised gold design on the fuchi is a kamon, or Japanese family crest. Although I have not been able to identify this particular kamon, the potential remains for the happy buyer of this lot to do so in the future. This would allow you to not only discover the samurai family associated with these intriguing artworks, but also the geographic location in Japan where they were fashioned and used.

Shockingly, this fascinating bit of Tokugawa Japan could have been yours for a mere $118 – if it hadn’t already sold, that is. $118 is hardly more than the average American family’s monthly cable bill. And if you would are willing to take advantage of eBay flash sales or eBay Bucks promotions, you could pick up similar investment grade antiques at 8% to 15% discounts off their asking price.

Personally, I find it almost unbelievable that you can buy a bona fide piece of samurai history for such a modest sum. Really the next logical question is, “Why does it cost so little?”

This answer is disarmingly straightforward.

This kashira and fuchi pair are not anywhere close to the highest quality workmanship available in antique Japanese sword fittings. In fact, it is possible that the set is provincial in origin, created by a craftsman operating in the Japanese hinterlands for a minor samurai family. Their simplicity and stylistic naiveté render them an entry level art investment.

But entry level is not necessarily a bad thing. It allows the aspiring art enthusiast or Japanophile to get in on the bottom rung of the investment grade art world for a surprisingly modest sum – only $118.

And in spite of their low price, this antique kashira and fuchi are still extremely desirable. They are also quite approachable; you don’t have to constantly fear that you are going to mishandle or damage a museum-quality piece with these artworks.

In short, they are a perfect example of the beautiful entry level, investment grade art that is sitting around just waiting to be discovered. Yes, as amazing as it sounds, you absolutely can invest in fine art for little more than a single C-note.

Read more thought-provoking Antique Sage investing articles here.

-or-

Read in-depth Antique Sage investment guides here.

The Top 3 Reasons Not to Invest in 90% Junk Silver Coins

90% junk silver coins are a marvelous way to invest in physical silver bullion, but they do have a few major drawbacks that silver stackers and investors should know about.

1) Bags of 90% junk silver contain an unsettling percentage of slicks, culls, and dateless coins

One of the downsides of buying bags or rolls of constitutional junk silver is that you are dealing with circulated coins. Not only are the coins circulated, but they are old as well. In fact, it is common to find Mercury dimes, Standing Liberty quarters and Walking Liberty half dollars in junk silver bags. These coins were all struck in the 1940s or earlier, making them as much as 100 years old.

And the longer a coin has circulated, the greater the chance it will be impaired in some way. Now, junk silver is not sold as a numismatic investment, so we’re not looking for perfection here. But there is a limit to what is acceptable at the same time.

Slick (excessively worn), dateless, holed or otherwise damaged coins often find their way into bags of junk silver sold by the major bullion dealers. Indeed, these dealers have every incentive not to remove these culls from their bags. Attempting to do so would not only increase labor costs, but also incur a replacement cost.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a non-trivial percentage of junk silver bags are composed of these impaired silver coins. I estimate that the typical bag of junk silver contains anywhere from 2% culls all the way up to 10% on the high end. 5% culls is a pretty reasonable average estimate, in my experience.

Now an argument can be made that this doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. After all, circulated junk silver is the absolute cheapest way to buy fractional silver bullion.

In addition, these coins are spotted a wear allowance in the bullion industry. Although every $1 face value of uncirculated 90% silver should theoretically contain 0.7234 troy ounces, circulated junk silver is assumed to contain just 0.7150 troy ounces – around a 1.2% wear allowance.

A lot of stackers who buy constitutional silver do so because they want to have purchasing power after a destabilizing geopolitical event, such as a natural disaster or economic crash. In these situations it is assumed that U.S. junk silver will be widely accepted due to its convenient sizes and widespread recognition among the general public.

But how do you think it is going to look when you pull out your junk silver to buy food from a stranger and some of the coins are slicks? If the other party to the transaction is smart enough to know the value of 90% silver coins, they are also smart enough to know that slick coins will come up light on a scale.

In other words, if you intend to use junk silver as a barter tool, any cull coins you receive in a bag of 90% silver are honestly pretty useless. You won’t be able to easily pass them in a survival situation, which is the primary reason for buying them in the first place.

Now I do think this disadvantage can be mitigated, albeit with a little bit of extra work and money. Simply put, you can screen and remove any cull coins from a roll or bag of junk silver you buy.

If you do purchase constitutional silver, I would recommend that you pull out anything holed, badly scratched, excessively dirty, dateless, or in a condition below Good-4 (when you start to lose full rims due to wear). This will ensure that all the remaining coins retain good weight and eye appeal, which I feel will be imperative in a doomsday scenario. The coins that you pull will be the junkiest of junk silver, and they can go straight into the smelter’s pot without a single pang of regret (once you check them for rare dates, of course).

U.S. 90% Junk Silver Coins for Sale on eBay

(This is an affiliate link for which I may be compensated)

2) Constitutional silver is bulkier than .999 fine bullion

Many stackers might find this to be an almost laughably minor drawback. But it might not be so funny once your stack reaches a certain size.

Because junk silver is only 90% fine, you end up owning extra weight compared to an equal amount of .999 fine bars or coins. In fact, you have to stack an extra 11% gross weight of constitutional silver to achieve the same number of ounces as .999 fine silver.

Your troubles don’t end there, though. 90% silver coins also have a slightly lower density (10.34 gm/cm³) than .999 fine silver (10.49 gm/cm³). This means that 100 troy ounces of silver will theoretically occupy 296.8 cm³ if purchased in .999 fine form, compared to 334.3 cm³ if bought as junk silver. So in the final analysis, constitutional silver will take up an additional 12.6% storage volume in your stack.

Now, depending on how you stack, this might be a non-issue. If you intend to purchase less than 250 troy ounces of junk silver, or about $350 face value, then I don’t think you have anything to worry about. But if you propose to accumulate many hundreds or even thousands of ounces of constitutional silver, it may contribute to long-term storage issues.

Secure storage space for silver enthusiasts is often at a premium, regardless of whether we are talking about a trusted bank safety deposit box, a stout residential safe or an ingenious home hiding spot. Although it might not seem like a deal-breaker at first, the extra 12.6% volume required for constitutional silver could eventually prove to be a significant disadvantage versus .999 fine silver coins or bars.

.999 Fine Silver Bars for Sale on eBay

(This is an affiliate link for which I may be compensated)

3) Junk silver is slowly losing its benchmark status to the American Silver Eagle

From the late 1960s until the early 2000s, $100, $500 and $1,000 face value bags of junk silver were the preferred form of physical silver in the marketplace. They were universally recognized by the public, completely trusted and readily available in almost any volume you might want or need.

Constitutional silver’s “king of the mountain” status reached its apogee in 1999 during the Y2K Crisis. During this hysteria, many pundits believed a prevalent date bug in old computer code had the potential to crash our global civilization when the calendar flipped over to January 1, 2000.

Of course, it didn’t happen. But many panicked investors stockpiled junk silver in anticipation of a possible Mad Max scenario, driving up premiums to more than 50% over spot.

Notice that they (mostly) didn’t buy Canadian Maple Leafs or American Silver Eagles or Sunshine Mint silver bars. They bought U.S. junk silver. And they bought it because it was the benchmark by which all other physical silver investments were measured.

But that benchmark status has steadily eroded over the last two decades. At this point, I think there is equal, perhaps even better, recognizability of government issued silver bullion coins – particularly American Silver Eagles.

This inevitable passing of the torch isn’t really junk silver’s fault. Every time the price of silver spiked in the past, tens of thousands of bags of 90% silver coins were shipped off to the refiners, never to be seen again. This happened most notably during the Hunt Brother’s 1980 silver bubble (also referred to as the Great Melt) and more recently with the frothy precious metal market of 2011. The melting of junk silver happened at other times too, just in smaller quantities.

The effect of all this melting is that there is simply less and less of the constitutional stuff around as time goes by. The last circulating U.S. 90% silver coinage was minted over 50 years ago at this point. They simply aren’t making anymore. As a result, it is slowly getting harder and harder to find the huge numbers of bags that are required to drive institutional-scale liquidity.

The United States Mint has also done its part to accelerate this changing of the guard. From the inception of the American Silver Eagle program in 1986 until the year 2000, the U.S. Mint struck a grand total of 81 million of the bullion pieces. But since that time, 424 million of the perennially popular silver coins have been minted. This, more than anything else, has helped to displace junk silver from its traditional role of silver bullion of first resort.

The next time a major financial crisis unfolds, I think it is a good bet that American Silver Eagles (and possibly other government-issued silver bullion coins) will be the must-have investments for those desperate to own physical silver. This isn’t to say that junk silver won’t command a healthy premium, but I suspect it will be lower than the new king of the physical silver market.

Government-Issued Silver Bullion Coins for Sale on eBay

(This is an affiliate link for which I may be compensated)

Before you send me hate mail, I want to make it clear that despite the drawbacks I’ve listed above, I don’t dislike junk silver as an investment. I’ve owned it in the past. I own a bit now. And I’ve seriously considered buying more as silver spot has lingered in the $15 to $16 an ounce range.

I feel that silver is a tremendously undervalued asset at the moment. And in my opinion, anything that convinces you to protect your financial health by purchasing physical silver is a positive. If that physical silver happens to come in the form of 90% constitutional silver, then I have no complaints.

Read more thought-provoking Antique Sage coin articles here.

-or-

Read in-depth Antique Sage investment guides here.

MMT – The History of a Bad Monetary Idea

MMT stands for Modern Monetary Theory – an economic philosophy on the lips of nearly every politician and economist today. In short, MMT states that a sovereign government that controls its own currency is not constrained by its ability to issue debt. It can simply cease issuing bonds and print money instead. And, provided that it does not have foreign currency denominated debts or liabilities, a sovereign government can never run out of money.

In Modern Monetary Theory, the issuance of government bonds is completely unnecessary. In fact, government debt is an artificial limitation on the obligation of the state to provide economic prosperity to its people.

Instead, proponents of MMT believe that the very act of government spending brings currency into existence. This is both a good and necessary thing in their eyes because government spending becomes savings in the hands of the population. Furthermore, as long as the government is receiving valuable goods and services in return for its freshly printed money, then no significant inflation will take place. If inflation does start to take root, the government merely has to raise taxes, which has the effect of destroying currency and suppressing inflation.

The reason Modern Monetary Theory is so popular at the moment is because we’ve been slogging through a soft depression over the past decade. I call it a soft depression because all the traditional economic indicators appear to be green: the stock market is up, GDP is up and the unemployment rate is down. But it is a depression nonetheless. Average people are feeling increasing economic distress while the global oligarchs and monopolists are becoming fabulously wealthy.

Is it any wonder that the middle class is desperate for some sort of alternative to the obvious failures of traditional economics?

The only problem is that MMT isn’t really a very new idea. In fact, it is a very, very old idea – at least 300 years old by my count. And it is a bad idea too. Modern Monetary Theory is really just inflationism wrapped up in a fancy new package – all the better to trick the historically ignorant.

Want proof? Let’s look back in time at episodes of MMT past.

The first major proponent of Modern Monetary Theory was John Law, an 18th century Scottish economist who later immigrated to France. Of course, this description of the man is unrealistically kind. In reality, he killed a man in a London duel and then fled to Continental Europe to avoid justice. And John Law wasn’t so much an economist as a financial speculator, gambler and conman.

In fact, Law was such a good conman that he eventually duped the Duke of Orleans into letting him try to solve France’s economic troubles! You see, in the early 18th century France was nearly bankrupt from fighting all the wars of the former king, Louis XIV. The French state was nearly out of gold and silver coins and was desperately looking for a quick fix.

Enter John Law and his profoundly dangerous economic strategy.

Law believed that replacing gold and silver coinage with freshly printed paper money would spur business and increase the supply of credit. He also planned to simultaneously extinguish the French national debt by swapping it out for shares in economic ventures.

The vague “economic ventures” mentioned above turned out to be the Mississippi Company, a firm that the French government granted a trade and mining monopoly to in the undeveloped territory of French Louisiana.

At first everything was great. Freshly issued paper money (proto-MMT) hit the markets and commerce flourished. And shares in the Mississippi Company skyrocketed in value, making investors rich.

Then reality hit.

Much like today’s Modern Monetary Theorists, John Law thought that if a little paper money was good, then a lot must be great. The paper currency was over-issued and soon people began frantically trying to exchange their rapidly depreciating paper money for gold, silver and other real goods. Mississippi Company shares didn’t fare any better. After rising from 500 to 10,000 livres in value, shares of the Mississippi Company collapsed in 1720.

The Mississippi Bubble, as it came to be known, bankrupted France far more thoroughly than Louis XIV’s wars ever did. Our MMT anti-hero John Law fled to Brussels before the end of 1720. If he had stayed in France, the impoverished French people would have killed him for his ill-advised money printing scheme. Law spent the rest of his life gambling his way around Europe, eventually dying flat broke in Venice in 1729.

Now a lot of MMT adherents might argue that John Law’s initial foray into MMT didn’t count because he omitted one very important step. When inflation starts to rise, the government needs to raise taxes to remove money from the economy.

However, this objection ignores human nature. Any inflationist monetary policy naturally creates its own constituency over time. These special interest groups benefit from the money printing and don’t want to see it stop. And they invariably gain political power as well; wherever wealth flows, pandering politicians looking for campaign donations aren’t far behind.

This is MMT’s fatal flaw. It is easy to start printing money, but almost impossible to stop printing it due to political pressure. The United States is already riddled with powerful special interests such as the military-industrial complex, higher education lobby, leviathan banking system and technology oligopoly. The idea that we could casually indulge in Modern Monetary Theory only to restrain ourselves at some future date is pure fantasy.

Still want more proof? How about another historical example?

In the early 1930s, Japan was struggling with the economic effects of the Great Depression. In comes its MMT-like savior, Korekiyo Takahashi. As the head of the Bank of Japan, Takahashi directed the central bank to purchase Japanese government debt in effectively unlimited quantities, thus allowing the government to deficit spend with abandon. This is more or less what Modern Monetary Theory prescribes (albeit without the intermediary step of issuing government debt).

In any case, the outcome was eerily similar to John Law’s experience two centuries before. At first the economy boomed and everything seemed wonderful. Then, like a good central banker, Takahashi sought to turn off the printing presses now that the economy was humming along.

But a group of ultra-nationalist military officers would not have it. They organized a coup that assassinated the central banker as he lay asleep in his bed on February 26, 1936. This is important because the Japanese military was benefiting from Takahashi’s money printing. When Takahashi tried to turn off the money spigot, he was killed. Needless to say, the Japanese money spigot remained open, thus paving the way for World War II in the Pacific.

Now even though I think MMT is a terrible idea, it doesn’t mean that I don’t think it won’t happen anyway. On the contrary, most developed nations are running excessively high budget deficits right now, while the global economy is still nominally expanding. Once the next recession hits, the cries to fire up the monetary printing press will become too loud to ignore. And it might simply be necessary, if for no other reason than to finance the gargantuan deficits ($2 trillion plus in the U.S.) that will undoubtedly materialize during any economic slowdown.

In effect, Modern Monetary Theory will become a convenient theoretical justification for politicians and central bankers to do what they intended to do all along: spend more money!

Now, maybe you don’t care about MMT or don’t believe that it will impact you directly. But let me paraphrase the famous Soviet Marxist Leon Trotsky, “You might not be interested in Modern Monetary Theory, but MMT is very interested in you.”

If MMT ever comes to pass, it will destroy confidence in the U.S. dollar – slowly at first and then with stunning speed. And the securities markets will not be far behind, either. The stocks, bonds and mutual funds in your retirement account will not help you avoid financial ruin.

The only true defense against Modern Monetary theory is the ownership of hard assets. I favor portable, high value density items like fine art, bullion, antiques and gemstones. These treasures cannot be summarily printed at the whim of a venal central banker or politician. Happily, the Antique Sage website is all about investing in antiques and other hard assets.

We would do well to realize the historical danger of trying to solve our economic problems via the printing press. But I suspect this is one mistake humanity is doomed to repeat again and again.

Read more thought-provoking Antique Sage investing articles here.

-or-

Read in-depth Antique Sage investment guides here.

Older Posts

Newer Posts