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“Gold rose from $35 to $197.50 between 1970 and the end of 1974, an increase of more than four times. During that period, as mentioned above, the Bank of England’s base rate rose from 5% to 13%. The Fed’s discount rate was 4.5% in 1972 and rose to 8% in August 1974. So, a rising gold price was accompanied by a rising interest rate, contradicting the conventional wisdom of today. Gold went on to hit a peak price of $850 at the afternoon fix of 21 January 1980, when the Fed’s discount rate was at an elevated 12%.
The current belief that rising interest rates are bad for gold was disproved by those events. The reason gold rose had little to do with interest rates, and everything to do with accelerating price inflation. The only way a rising gold price could be halted was to raise interest rates high enough and sharply enough to collapse economic activity, which is what Paul Volcker did in 1980-81. In other words, until the Fed abandons all pretentions to supporting economic growth, people will continue to increase their preferences for owning goods over holding dollars, thereby continuingly reducing its purchasing power.
Another way of looking at the prospective gold price is to think of it in terms of raw material prices, which tend in the long run to be more stable when measured in gold, than when measured in fiat currencies. Given the outlook for commodity prices, as both China and America compete for raw materials and expand the quantity of money to pay for them, the gold price is more likely to maintain a level of purchasing power against rising commodity prices, instead of it declining with paper currencies. China has prepared herself for this event, having embarked on a longstanding policy of stockpiling gold since 1983. The amount she has accumulated in addition to declared reserves is a state secret, but my estimate is at least 20,000 tonnes. In 2002, the State had presumably secured enough physical gold for itself to allow its own citizens to join in, because that is the year the Peoples Bank established the Shanghai Gold Exchange, and the ban on private ownership of gold in China was lifted.
Over the last fourteen years, private individuals and businesses in China have accumulated at least another 10,000 tonnes, and China has become the largest producer and refiner of gold by far. We can truly say that China has prepared herself and her citizens well in advance for the collapse in purchasing power of the paper currencies that her demand for commodities is likely to engender. The only thing she must do is to get rid of her accumulation of US Treasuries before they become worthless, which she is now doing.
America, by contrast, is wholly unprepared for higher commodity prices. Her gold reserves, assuming they are as stated, are insufficient to underwrite a declining dollar, and in any event conversion into gold is not on offer to holders of dollars. In terms of commodity demand, America will be playing second fiddle to China in the coming years anyway, only making a bad price situation potentially worse.
Because of continuing non-cyclical Chinese demand for commodities, there is a significant risk that not even a debt-liquidating slump brought about by significantly higher interest rates will kill price inflation in western currencies. Unlike the 1970s, when the dollar was the tune to which all the others danced, China, Russia and all nations tied to them by trade no longer dance exclusively to the dollar’s tune. Consequently, US monetary policy no longer exercises absolute control over global price inflation, measured in fiat currencies.
Price inflation pressures could therefore persist, despite a US debt-liquidating slump. The possibility that the price environment for the dollar will continue to be inflationary in a US economic slump, despite the Fed’s monetary policy, cannot be ruled out. But before that possibility is put to the test, the likelihood of a systemic collapse in the Eurozone is a more immediate and threatening risk.
Conclusion
We currently face the prospect of a reallocation of capital from America’s financial sector into government and non-financial activities, driven by President-elect Trump’s expansionary plans. These plans, if pursued, will lead to money flowing from purely financial activities and will have a profoundly negative effect on asset prices. Furthermore, price inflation, the result of fiscal expansion, will raise consumer prices to unanticipated levels, forcing the Fed to raise interest rates more than expected today. This article has pointed out why rising interest rates in the expansionary phase of the credit cycle do not undermine the gold price, unless, and this is no longer certain, interest rates are raised to the point where the US economy is driven into a slump. However, the world is no longer dependant solely on US economic and monetary factors, because Asian demand for industrial materials has become the principal engine of commodity demand. We can therefore no longer be sure a Volcker-style shock from the Fed will kill price inflation at the end of the upcoming expansionary credit cycle.
As all experience from the past clearly demonstrates, it is a mistake to believe that the gold price is set solely by dollar interest rates, or its relative strength in other currencies. This being the case, the current weakness of the gold price is simply a reflection of temporary dollar shortages, and nothing more.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-03/trump-vs-china-credit-cycles-gold