Currency Devaluation

— Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger

Here I am fidgeting & fussing over 1% or 1.7% moves in silver & gold, and then I get slapped in the face by a currency devaluation in Venezuela. Last Friday, without much warning, Venezuela devalued the bolivar from 4.3 to the dollar to 6.3 to the dollar, a 31.75% loss overnight. Remember that the Nice Government Men give you no warning about these Surprise Parties, because they want the maximum catch of victims in their trap.

: FRN – US Dollar Purchasing Power (Photo credit: fbobolas)

Let me give y’all that in terms that you can grasp easily. If the Fed devalued the US dollar 31.75% overnight (and I am NOT saying Ben the Benevolent & Beneficient is about to do that), and you went to bed with silver at $31/oz and gold at $1,660, you would wake up to silver at $40.84 and gold at $2,187.05.

In the good ol’ US of A, of course, our rulers steal our money less crudely as the Venezuelans. Rather, our Nice Government men spread the devaluation out over several years, so you go to sleep in 2001 with gold at $252 and silver at $4.01, and wake up in 2013 to $1,660 gold and $31 silver. None of them overnight devaluations for us, no sirree. We’re civilized. AND democratic. All our banks are equal.

Folks, when you buy silver & gold, don’t ever lose sight of what you are protecting yourself from: the insidious, sudden or slow, theft of your wealth by monetary manipulation. That’s why it doesn’t pay to let your mind fix too narrowly on daily, weekly, or even yearly moves. You have to ride that primary trend.