But the rich people made a lot of money. And I'm comparing it to the current time, where the middle class hasn't lost money per se, but because the rich people became so rich, the middle class has kind of been pushed down relative to the super rich people. That creates then an unfriendly environment.
The people that vote, they don't understand a lot. But it's very easy for a politician to go to people and say, "You know why you're not doing well? It's because of Jeff Bezos, he's got so much money, and because of Warren Buffet, he's got so much money, and Bill Gates, and so forth. And because of these hedge fund managers, they don't pay any tax or they don't pay much tax," which is actually true. The corporate world in America pays very little tax compared to individuals. If you look at the composition of tax revenues by the government, the bulk is paid by individuals, not by the corporate sector.
And so, through destroying wealth and income inequalities, the mood is in favor of taking money away from the wealthy people and distributing money to the ordinary people. And then they see, the ordinary people, how much is being spent on defense, in the case of the U.S., close to 750 billion dollars a year. And a lot of it is not accounted for. And they say, "Well, this money shouldn't be spent on defense. It should be spent on social programs," and so forth and so on. So the mood, towards socialism, especially we have surveys that showed the millennials, about 60% of the millennials, they are in favor of more government interventions.
The one thing I want to say, that everybody who lived through the monetary inflation of Germany - which ended up in kind of a hyperinflation, but I just want to explain - in the case of Germany, the hyperinflation was also made possible because the other countries didn't inflate. And so the mark depreciated against the foreign currencies, which then added to inflationary pressures. In the present state of monetary policy around the world, because everybody prints money, currencies don't collapse against each other, with very few exceptions like the Turkish lira and the Argentine peso and so forth. But basically, the major currencies, they trade against each other.
So where will the collapse of the currencies come from? In my opinion, they'll all collapse against precious metals. And it is conceivable, and this is something we just don't know, it is conceivable that they'll also collapse against some cryptocurrencies. Now, I think there is a chance, we're not sure - this is a kind of a theory - it is conceivable that Bitcoin becomes the standard, the gold standard of cryptos. But I'm not sure.
All I want to say, investors, in an environment such as we have of money printing, they need to diversify. They need to own some equities. We don't know whether these monetary inflations will end up with a deflationary bust, in which case you may want to own some U.S. Treasuries, or it could lead to high inflation, consumer price inflation, in which case you want to own maybe a farm or some properties overseas. Or you may wish to own some precious metals. I think in any scenario, you should own some precious metals. Or the question is, should you own 3% of your money in precious metals or 90%? That everybody has to decide for himself. I recommend about 20, 25% of your assets in precious metals.
And as to the question, which one is (likely to perform) best? I think platinum is the cheapest at the present time of the precious metals. And I think it has actually a favorable outlook. I think there will be a supply shortage, and that the price could significantly outperform gold and silver.
The people that vote, they don't understand a lot. But it's very easy for a politician to go to people and say, "You know why you're not doing well? It's because of Jeff Bezos, he's got so much money, and because of Warren Buffet, he's got so much money, and Bill Gates, and so forth. And because of these hedge fund managers, they don't pay any tax or they don't pay much tax," which is actually true. The corporate world in America pays very little tax compared to individuals. If you look at the composition of tax revenues by the government, the bulk is paid by individuals, not by the corporate sector.
And so, through destroying wealth and income inequalities, the mood is in favor of taking money away from the wealthy people and distributing money to the ordinary people. And then they see, the ordinary people, how much is being spent on defense, in the case of the U.S., close to 750 billion dollars a year. And a lot of it is not accounted for. And they say, "Well, this money shouldn't be spent on defense. It should be spent on social programs," and so forth and so on. So the mood, towards socialism, especially we have surveys that showed the millennials, about 60% of the millennials, they are in favor of more government interventions.
The one thing I want to say, that everybody who lived through the monetary inflation of Germany - which ended up in kind of a hyperinflation, but I just want to explain - in the case of Germany, the hyperinflation was also made possible because the other countries didn't inflate. And so the mark depreciated against the foreign currencies, which then added to inflationary pressures. In the present state of monetary policy around the world, because everybody prints money, currencies don't collapse against each other, with very few exceptions like the Turkish lira and the Argentine peso and so forth. But basically, the major currencies, they trade against each other.
So where will the collapse of the currencies come from? In my opinion, they'll all collapse against precious metals. And it is conceivable, and this is something we just don't know, it is conceivable that they'll also collapse against some cryptocurrencies. Now, I think there is a chance, we're not sure - this is a kind of a theory - it is conceivable that Bitcoin becomes the standard, the gold standard of cryptos. But I'm not sure.
All I want to say, investors, in an environment such as we have of money printing, they need to diversify. They need to own some equities. We don't know whether these monetary inflations will end up with a deflationary bust, in which case you may want to own some U.S. Treasuries, or it could lead to high inflation, consumer price inflation, in which case you want to own maybe a farm or some properties overseas. Or you may wish to own some precious metals. I think in any scenario, you should own some precious metals. Or the question is, should you own 3% of your money in precious metals or 90%? That everybody has to decide for himself. I recommend about 20, 25% of your assets in precious metals.
And as to the question, which one is (likely to perform) best? I think platinum is the cheapest at the present time of the precious metals. And I think it has actually a favorable outlook. I think there will be a supply shortage, and that the price could significantly outperform gold and silver.
- Source, Marc Faber
