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The Bitcoin Effect, Gold and Silver Report 24 Dec 2017

The Bitcoin Effect, Gold and Silver Report 24 Dec 2017

Merry Christmas to our American friends. Happy Christmas to the rest of the Anglosphere. Felicem natalem Christi to our Latin-speaking audience, and góðr jól to those who are reviving Old Norse as a great language!

Let’s address two themes about the gold price trend that are increasingly in popularity the past few months—as the price of gold has been falling. Blame bitcoin. And blame rising interest rates.

Is the Bond Market About to Call the Fed's Inflationary Bluff?

Is the Bond Market About to Call the Fed's Inflationary Bluff?

Perhaps the single biggest development this year, as far as the markets were concerned, was the Fed admitting on the record that it has no idea what is going on with inflation.

This represents a kind of endgame for the Fed. Since the early ‘80s, the Fed has been actively understating inflation via a variety of gimmicks.

It first removed home prices and replaced them with “owner’s equivalent rent.” Doing that removed any sharp rise in home prices from affecting inflation data, thereby downplaying the official inflation rate.

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