Jim Rickards joined the BBC’s Gordon Brewer on Radio Scotland to discuss globalism and his latest best seller The Road to Ruin. During the conversation Rickards outlines exactly what he believes is a strategy by global elites’ to disguise a looming financial collapse.
When asked about the Donald Trump positioning he responded, “Donald Trump is not a conservative. He is a populist. He is a nationalist. He is a bit of a “Trumpist.” His policies are mercurial, subject to change. He ran as a “champion of working people.” That’s why he got those votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that broke up Hillary Clinton’s “blue wall.” So I could very well imagine Trump adopting pro-labor policies to help the working man.”
Jim Rickards is a lawyer and financial analyst who just released his New York Times best selling book, The Road to Ruin. Rickards has advised the U.S intelligence community and has also worked in the world of Wall Street for decades.
When asked about the big thesis of his latest book, The Road to Ruin, he is asked to explain what Ice 9 and the premise of his book relates to when examining the next financial crisis. “I look at three crises. I look at 1998, 2008 and 2018 – which is obviously hypothetical. But the point is it could be tomorrow. Each crisis is bigger than the one before it. Each response is bigger than the one before.”
“We are now at the point where central banks no longer have the ability to respond because they have not normalized their balance sheets or interest rates following the crisis of 2008. All of the money that was printed is still there, those near-zero interest rates are still there. The ability to print more money and lower rates is highly constrained.”
“The question is, where will the money come from? How will we reliquify the system in the next global liquidity crisis, which is – as I have said – just a matter of time? The answer is the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF can print world money. They call it the Special Drawing Rights, or SDR, which is a rather technical name designed to throw people off. It is world money, printed by a world printing press and run by the IMF.”
“(But when the crisis happens) it will take three to six months to gather some consensus… so what will happen when the entire world wants their money back but there is no money? The answer is, they will lock down the system. Money market funds will suspend redemptions, ATMs will be reprogrammed to only allow a certain amount of money.”
James Rickards sees threats in many places. In his latest book, “The Road to Ruin: The Global Elites’ Secret Plan for the Next Financial Crisis,” he paints a picture of how that crisis will unfold. He argues that rather than pumping the financial system with liquidity, as happened in 2008, “elites” will freeze the financial plumbing until the crisis has passed.
That means banks will close, as will exchanges. Money-market funds will be inaccessible. Forget trying to get your hands on money.
Rickards, who was the principal negotiator of the 1998 bailout of Long-Term Capital Management as the hedge fund’s general counsel, calls this new world “ice-nine,” after a fictitious substance in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle.” Freezing customer funds in bank accounts is what happened in Cyprus is 2012 and Greece in 2015, he says. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted a rule in 2014 that lets money-market funds suspend redemptions.
Prefer stockpiling cash? Governments are eliminating high-denomination bills, and Kenneth Rogoff, a former IMF chief economist, has written a book that Rickards describes as “an elite step-by-step plan to eliminate cash entirely.”
Then, Rickards says, there are rules on banks and other institutions. Capital controls could be imposed to keep money from fleeing across borders. And the U.S. is still under the state of emergency declared by President George W. Bush days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and renewed annually since then. Rickards argues that such measures can be applied in any emergency, “including money riots in the event of a financial system breakdown and ice-nine asset freeze.”
Rickards, who now advises the Defense Department and U.S. intelligence community on international economics and financial threats, discussed his latest book with MarketWatch.
Speaking to CNBC's Squawk Box, the director of The James Rickards Project said a stock market correction is coming as President-elect Donald Trump's economic stimulus plans will not pan out, causing a "head-on collision" between perception and reality.
"When the reality of no stimulus catches up with the perception of stimulus plus the Fed tightening: that's the train wreck. Either we're going to have a recession or a stock market correction," he said.
The markets have been rallying on the back of Trump's win as investors bet on tax cuts and fiscal spending under the new administration.
However, "the stimulus is not going to come" as Trump's proposed tax cuts will hit government revenue while the Congress is likely to block his stimulus plans as the U.S. is already $20 trillion in debt, Rickards added.
This will lead to a recession or a "very severe correction" in the stock market, prompting rate cuts later next year, he said, prompting the Fed to cut rates.
"They will raise (rates) in March and then something will hit the wall, either the economy or the stock market or both. Then the Fed will backpedal from there, starting with a forward guidance then perhaps a rate cut later in the year," said Rickards, who recommends holding gold and U.S. 10-year Treasurys.
Economist Jim Rickards appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” outlining his 2017 predictions for rate hikes, Trump stimulus, and the coming US recession. Rickards believes the markets are unwittingly pricing in a stimulus plan that will never materialize.
“Trump wants to cut taxes. Steve Bannon is talking to his advisors about a trillion dollars of infrastructure spending, cutting regulations. All of these things are viewed to be highly stimulative. That’s why the market is going up. Pharmaceuticals are going up on the repeal of Obamacare, banks going up on the repeal of Dodd-Frank.”
The markets and the Fed have the perception that tax cuts and spending will continue despite the realities of a fiscally conservative congress, a $20 trillion of debt and a 104% debt-to-GDP ratio.
“But here’s the point,” Rickards states, “the stimulus is not going to come… Congress has already said tax cuts have to be revenue neutral. That’s going to take away the simulative effect. They’re going to balk at more spending.”
While a March rate hike is likely, according to Rickards, the Fed will backpedal when the market corrects or when the next recession hits. “Then the Fed will backpedal from there, starting with forward guidance and perhaps a rate cut later in the year.”
In such a situation, the scramble to move assets into wealth-preserving instruments like physical gold and silver will begin again. 2016 saw this movement many times by investors looking for safe havens. If Rickards is correct in his predictions, 2017 is likely to be a repeat of the same.
We're always excited to get the biggest name in alternative investing news, Mr. James G. Rickards, and this time comes most opportune with the election around the corner. Jim gives his stunning prediction for a Trump victory and subsequent unavoidable world fiat currency crisis where the elite's agenda will be to implement the IMF SDR as the new world reserve currency. Don't miss this time sensitive info and how to protect yourself (gold to $10,000!) from it!
If you hold the keys-to-the-kingdom and someone comes along and request that you share those keys what are the odds you are going to honor such a request? Let's say you posses the power, financially and militarily, to bully whoever you would like, along with the keys-to-the-kingdom.
Why would you even entertain the idea of sharing? If you already hold all the power why would you even entertain any such idea? Odds are, not going to happen.
This week, seasoned financier, risk manager and author Jim Rickards returns to the program to share the predictions from his new book The Road To Ruin: The Global Elite's Secret Plan For The Next Financial Crisis.
Rickards warns of a coming confidence boundary in central bank omnipotence. Once breached, trust and belief in the central banking cartel quickly vaporizes. Rickards predicts that boundary will be crossed by 2018 or sooner; and when it is, the entire financial system will go into lockdown, freezing access to our money.
