Originally posted on July 27, 2020.

Part I

I was there from the start.  In early August 1971, I had just joined internationally focused research and trading firm Model Roland & Co.

On 15 August 1971, President Nixon shocked the world by announcing that the U. S. would no longer officially trade dollars for gold. At that time, gold’s fixed price was $35/oz.

By 1980, gold would hit an astronomical $800/oz.

OK then, back to Model and the firm’s wonderful head partner Leo Model. From my first day onboard at Model, I started covering a bevy of major Boston institutional accounts.  I was 30 years old, and I would become friends with analysts, portfolio managers and traders at Wellington Management, Fidelity Investments, First National Bank of Boston, State Street Bank, State Street Research, Endowment Management, Studley Shupert, and Keystone Management through my entire investment career on Federal Street in Boston.

I immediately realized that international trading (including gold shares and arbitrage), as well as monetary strategy and world currencies, was going to be my focus from August 1971 onward.

Five decades later, these subjects remain today my daily focus. I have been a buyer of gold, silver, and Swiss francs for decades, and I have never sold a single one of my positions.

By 1972 I was off to London on a mission for Leo Model. My job was to produce a strategy report for Model, Roland & Co on the international gold shares market. It took eight days in London to meet all the insiders with whom Mr. Model had arranged visits. Except for a single, most unpleasant glitch, (understatement) all went well.

I went on to submit a 25-page strategy report to Mr. Model. Shortly thereafter I was informed that Mr. Model had sent my report along to the firm’s chief monetary guru, one Edward M. Bernstein, one of the architects of the Bretton Woods monetary agreement.

Remember, I was 31 years old, and quite terrified to hear that EMB had been brought into the loop.

On 7 August 1972,  I received the surprise of my young life: EMB wrote  back on his corporate letterhead:

I think the collection of papers on gold is excellent. It seems objective and pointed. I have no suggestions. Put me on the list to get what you put out on gold.

Sincerely,

Edward M. Bernstein

Although I did not know it at the time, a year later, I would no longer be at Model, Roland.

Check back in with richardcyoung.com for my introduction Part II and the kickoff of our industry-leading precious metals, currencies, monetary madness, fed maleficence and dollar destruction weekly update.

Warm regards,

Dick

 

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Originally posted August 11, 2020.

Jeff Deist of LewRockwell.com writes abridged:

Fed Bugs are people with a faith-based belief in the power of central banks (and central bankers) to engineer economic growth using “monetary policy, “despite decades of history and current evidence to the contrary. They believe tinkering with inputs and rates and velocity and flows somehow makes us richer in terms of productivity, goods, and services. They believe in financial alchemy, as economist Nomi Prins puts it, rather than precious metals.

They believe paper has value so long as government issues it and legislates its use.

Central bankers almost by definition are Fed Bugs, but so are most monetary economists, financial journalists, and politicians. And they all hate gold with a passion.

The reasons why are multifarious, but ultimately flow from their fundamental resentment of any money they do not control and cannot design. Central planning requires central money, and gold stands apart by it very decentralized nature. It is indifferent to human conceptions, and can be discovered and summoned from the earth only with tremendous risk and effort. It cannot easily be manipulated or destroyed, and its value cannot be decreed (though they try mightily). It is unchanging, unyielding, and stubbornly at odds with the political visions of Fed Bugs.
And so they hate it.

Gold quietly serves as a lingering rebuke of the entire political fiat money project—even as central banks are forced by circumstances to buy and hold it as collateral, as the ultimate hard currency and liquid asset for their balance sheets. In fact, central banks steadily bought or repatriated huge amounts of physical gold in recent years, despite the supposedly strong world economy prior to the Covid crisis.

Nixon eliminated the right of foreign governments to redeem US dollars for gold in 1971.

Jeff Deist is president of the Mises Institute, a tax attorney, and a former staffer for Ron Paul.