Two highly respected global authorities in macro-economic risk and precious metal investing, Egon von Greyerz and Matthew Piepenburg, have co-authored a much-needed examination of gold as an essential wealth preservation asset in a modern setting of unprecedented financial risk. Never before have financial systems been stretched this dangerously thin. Never before have investors faced a future of such epic change demanding immediate solutions.
Von Greyerz and Piepenburg provide a clear, blunt yet fact-based case for significant and pending wealth destruction arising form a global convergence of historically unprecedented debt, market, currency and banking risk. Rather than sensationally assert such warnings, the authors of Gold Matters carefully examine each of these financial fault-lines with simple and graph-supported facts rather than dramatic declarations.
Von Greyerz and Piepenburg open with an objective, reader-friendly yet largely ignored history of central bank and sovereign mismanagement of international monetary and fiscal policies, characterized today by the reckless expansion of the broad money supply to address unsustainable (as well as unprecedented) debt levels. Such distorted yet consistent policy errors (i.e., solving a record-breaking debt crisis with more debt) have led to the largest risk asset bubbles (stocks, bonds, property) ever recorded in the history of capital markets.
As history All bubbles pop, but the interim (and artificially stimulated) euphoria and extreme inflation of risk asset pricing placed the majority of retail investors into a dangerous and false complacency. Wall Street pundits, cornered policy makers and an increasingly discredited financial media have deliberately ignored and/or downplayed the fatal patterns and consequences of such desperate money creation to pay for equally desperate debt expansion, The inevitable arrival of wealth destroying inflation, serial market implosions, social fracturing and the classic debasement of the currencies by which uninformed investors otherwise measure their accumulated wealth. In short, as currencies weaken, so does wealth.
Physical gold, often misunderstood as a “barbarous relic” of the past, is revealed in Gold Matters as an essential real asset in this distorted modern backdrop. With the calm of two market veterans sharing over 70 combined years of experience at the highest levels of enterprise management, global banking, hedge fund, and wealth management circles, von Greyerz and Piepenburg bring much-needed candor, expertise and perspective in identifying the obvious challenges investors face. As importantly, they offer equally obvious solutions. As Zurich-based principals to the world’s largest private wealth management enterprise for ultra-affluent gold investors outside of the commercial banking system, their experienced critique of, and solutions to, this broken financial system are based on objective facts rather than subjective theory or bias.
Their deep understanding of precious metal solutions, hitherto reserved for only the world’s most affluent, are now shared openly for all investors seeking to be informed and prepared rather than anxious and uncertain. With great crisis comes great opportunity, and despite the clear risks and struggles ahead, Gold Matters offers a sane and clear path to wealth generation and preservation in an otherwise volatile future setting marked by increasing wealth destruction and profound systemic change.
This is a contrarian appraisal that many will not heed. Their commission compensated broker and \or bank advisor will not tell them. This book will and the few that act upon it will survive, if not thrive the coming financial storm be it inflation or deflation or both.
Well, the authors are themselves in the gold supply business, but nevertheless, the case for wealth preservation is a forceful one, and most of the driving forces behind the staggering loss of purchasing power of fiat money are discussed in an easy to understand manner; the manuscript could have benefitted from some expert editing and the figures should be made uniform and smoothed out; on precious metals be sure to check out the case for silver: The Great Silver Bull: Crush Inflation and Profit as the Dollar Dies and as a primer: Precious Metals Investing For Dummies®.
My journey reading books on that barborous relic continues unabated! For what it is, this is an excellent read on the investment elements of Gold. I am referring in particular to its properties as a premier wealth preservation asset and as a hedge against a world gone mad in unsustainable financial hocus-pocus.
That said, if Von Greyerz and Piepenburg had hired a proper editor - I think it would have read a lot better. There were places where it could have been summarized and where it sounded more like a script rather than a book. However, there are some serious pieces of golden nuggets traversed throughout. If they had only worked with a professional historian or a journalist with a gift for the written word - it would have resulted in a much tighter and more interesting book.
Matthew Piepenburg is probably the smartest most eloquent financial speaker I've ever encountered. And Egon is exceptionally trustworthy and truthful. Together they've written one of the best books available explaining money and what governments (The Fed & bankers) have done to money and our currency. This is a Must Read. If you want to survive with any savings of value through the current devaluation of our currency, read this book, listen to them, and get gold & silver!