Okay, well not the current President, but If you listen to our President from three decades ago, he would tell you that we are in a bear market rally that is going to come to an end very soon. It’s irrelevant to me even should US markets rally for several more days or several more weeks because the fundamentals behind this rally are lousy. Though the speech from below is more than three decades old, history does have a way of repeating itself and one can use many of President Nixon’s points to illustrate what will happen in the future with our current economic crisis. Interestingly enough, given the comments in his speech, US President Richard Nixon, also known as Tricky Dick for his deceitful ways, could have easily spotted the fundamental flaws in this current global stock market rally led by US markets.
President Nixon hit the nail on the head with almost all of his observations in this particular speech save one huge deception. In this speech which dates back to 1971, the President repeatedly referred to international money speculators as the ones that caused great harm to the US dollar, the American economy and the wealth of American families with the clear implication that these international money speculators were not American, but foreign elements. When I critically evaluate specific facets of his speech below, I’ll reveal exactly why President Nixon earned the moniker of “Tricky Dick”.
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRzr1QU6K1o]
Here are what I believe to be the most relevant comments from Nixon’s speech to our current global monetary and financial crisis:
“We must protect the position of the American dollar as a pillar of monetary stability around the world. In the past 7 years, there has been an average of one international monetary crisis every year. Now who gains from these crises? Not the workingman; not the investor; not the real producers of wealth. The gainers are the international money speculators. Because they thrive on crises, they help to create them.”
In this case, President Nixon was correct that the international money speculators deliberately create crises for personal gain against the best interests of their fellow countrymen and also as a means to consolidate and increase their power. However, Tricky Dick failed to reveal that the biggest element of the “international monetary speculators” was (1) a domestic threat, the owners of the US Federal Reserve; and (2) an allied threat, the owners of the Bank of England. Thus, he convinced the American people in 1971 that ending the Bretton Woods agreement was beneficial. Time has clearly proven this not to be the case.
“One of the cruelest legacies of the artificial prosperity produced by war is inflation. Inflation robs every American, every one of you. The 20 million who are retired and living on fixed incomes — they are particularly hard hit. Homemakers find it harder than ever to balance the family budget. And 80 million American wage earners have been on a treadmill. For example, in the 4 war years between 1965 and 1969, your wage increases were completely eaten up by price increases. Your paychecks were higher, but you were no better off.”
Again, very true. Everyone that understands how our fiat monetary system operates would never debate this point. In fact, the very same situation that manifested itself in 1979 will soon come true in the US. The hardest hit by the monetary fraud imposed upon the world by the international money speculators will be the segment of the global population that is retired and living on fixed incomes unless they appropriately protect themselves now by utilizing insightful wealth creation strategies that incorporate a hedge against inflation. But let’s examine other parts of his speech in which Nixon was less than forthright in his revelations to the American public about his plans and intentions.
“America today has the best opportunity in this century to achieve two of its greatest ideals: to bring about a full generation of peace, and to create a new prosperity without war. This not only requires bold leadership ready to take bold action — it calls forth the greatness in a great people. Prosperity without war requires action on three fronts: We must create more and better jobs; we must stop the rise in the cost of living; we must protect the dollar from the attacks of international money speculators.”
“In full cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and those who trade with us, we will press for the necessary reforms to set up an urgently needed new international monetary system. Stability and equal treatment is in everybody’s best interest. I am determined that the American dollar must never again be a hostage in the hands of international speculators.”
Again, there is much truth in these above declarations by President Nixon. I 100% agree with President Nixon’s statement that with the implementation of a sound monetary system, America would have undoubtedly created a new global prosperity that fostered global economic stability and thus, much less incentive for war. I also 100% agree that prosperity is created by increasing sustainable economic growth and increasing real wealth, not by creating an illusion of wealth through inflation. But this is not what happened. Instead, President Nixon morphed into his “Tricky Dick” persona with the following two statements — “We will press for the necessary reforms to set up an urgently needed new international monetary system” that will “protect the dollar from the attacks of international monetary speculators” .
Back then, in 1971, President Nixon, under the guidance of then Undersecretary of the US Treasury Paul Volcker (and present Chairman of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board), stripped all Americans of the last remnants of a global monetary system that could protect them. Instead, when he ended the Bretton Woods agreement and the US dollar’s link to gold, he deceitfully turned over absolute control of the global monetary system to the very “international money speculators” he continually attacked in his speech. Though Nixon deliberately conjured up images of shady, backroom-dealing foreign interests attacking the strength of the US dollar by coining the term “international money speculators”, in reality, his refusal to specifically identify these parties was due to the fact that the most powerful members of the “international money speculators” were the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England.
One of the most relevant statements in President Nixon’s above speech that every leading government economic adviser should heed in determining the monetary policies for their respective countries is the following – “the strength of a nation’s currency is based on the strength of that nation’s economy.” This is true. Given the huge fundamental weakness of the US dollar, if one believes Nixon’s comment, then one can dismiss all the comments made by US government and financial pundits that this crisis has finally bottomed.
Again, one of the clearest indicators of whether or not one should trust such public comments is to examine the ulterior motives of such people against the backdrop of their previous predictions. For example, when US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently stated that the economy was turning around, given that he has been grossly wrong innumerable times in his economic predictions within the past two years, why continue to assign any merit to his comments?
Remember, I warned that a big correction would likely be on the way in May in this article where I stated, it “would be best to heed the old investor cliché of Sell in May, Go Away.” If you still believe this is the start of a new bull market, then listen again to Tricky Dick’s good advice from three decades ago. If you understand Nixon’s comments about inflation, and somehow this rally continues for 6 more months, the gains in the stock markets, if induced by serious inflation, can still leave an investor with no gains in real wealth and will merely be a bigger bubble waiting to pop. This is precisely why it is imperative to incorporate a deep understanding of today’s monetary system in any of your wealth creation strategies going forward. Since banks need more time to recapitalize with public secondary offerings at their artificially inflated share prices, it is more likely now that the end of this rally is a couple of weeks away rather than just days away. Sadly enough, in the end, history seems destined to repeat itself once again.
