Gold beats banks
Re: "Strength of baht spurs fear", (BP, Dec 24).
As someone who is something of an amateur investor, it never ceases to amaze me how clueless central bankers are (in general, if not entirely) when managing their countries' economies.
Take, for example, the Fed in the US. President Trump -- bless him -- has been waxing lyrical about how "hot" the US economy is right now. So why, if things in America are so hunky dory, has the Fed (under Jerome Powell) just reduced interest rates? Surely this is counterintuitive? My impression was that hot economies usually require interest rate rises to cool their out-of-control markets, whilst it's economies that are in trouble that central banks tend to want to resuscitate by lowering rates. Evidently not!
Now, witness the latest misstep from a central bank, alas from the Thai governor Vitai Ratanakorn, blaming the baht's appreciation on capital inflows from abroad, and into the gold market. This, I'm afraid, is utter tosh. There are even threats to tax gold trading, which, of course, would decimate one of the most vibrant markets, if not the last, in Thailand. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot! The real reason there are capital inflows into the gold market is that sound-thinking (and, indeed, sound-money) individuals/advocates are running for the hills as central banks around the world debase, with apparently gay abandon, their currencies.
Gold is a hedge against inflation, and people with half a brain can see that inflation is eroding their purchasing power, hence the gold price is soaring. Of course, central banks hate people who want to protect their wealth, because they want to enslave you. (I realise that, at this point, I'm sounding a tad like Michael Setter, for which I apologise!). But I'm reminded of a wise saying: gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, and debt is the money of slaves. Regarding baht strength, there is no mention of US dollar weakness, nor that the Thai central bank has been slow to react to said weakness (they cite the excuse that they're "data driven", which basically means that they're reactive and not proactive -- go figure). The US dollar is down almost 10% against the Thai baht year-to-date. The Vietnamese dong, by contrast, has barely moved versus the US dollar, making their exports 10% cheaper than those from Thailand. This is the problem. Thai exports and tourism -- traditionally, the two most lucrative sectors within the Thai economy -- are floundering because the Thai central bank has been asleep at the wheel and has failed to manage exchange rates appropriately. Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, no one, it seems, is owning up to the mismanagement. Rather, they're attempting, kind of ironically, to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
I would urge your readers to wake up to the lies of central bankers, to their smoke and mirrors kind of propaganda, and become their own central bank, in order to protect themselves from the coming inflation.
