No one willing to bite? And no I'm not trolling! :D
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article54889.html
Listening to the podcast but reading it at the same time, the change that happens towards the end when Chris speaks about getting through to people beyond words… I felt more and more - what is the word? - excited? enthralled? - all I can say is that an increased heart rate told me that something really very, very important had suddenly come into the conversation. I loved Dave's realisation of this.
It all goes way beyond interest in gold, in the markets, concern about manipulation, the growing malaise in civilisation, peak oil, the symptoms of sad decline such as the loss of insects and so on - important though all these things are, of course. What came across to me with sudden clarity was that to have the "right conversations" a shift really does need to happen, a jolt that goes beyond words.
How fascinating that a conversation about movement in precious metals etc could meander, in such an un-solemn and invigorating way, to looking at how we're going to have to find a way through to change both our ingrained prejudices and mindsets if we're to have any chance at all of bringing good changes to the world.
Here in our small corner of the Laurentians (Quebec, south-west), this year has few mosquitoes, but plenty of flies, deer flies, wasps, hornets, spiders, grass hoppers, butterflies, caterpillars, dragonflies, night butterflies, etc…
We have four hives now and they are doing well (No ag in the area, so no pesticides).
Other fragile animals: amphibians. They seem to do well as we hear them every night.
Forest around the house is full of sound. Day and night. We will never tire…
Deers, skunks, porcupines and raccoons stay far from the house (They are not gone). I think they got a good year. Plenty of food. At least this saves our garden.
Snapping turtles went out of the lake to lay their eggs in the sand of our entrance and the skunks got their yearly omelette the following night.
There are four hummingbirds around the house (at least the ones we have seen at the same time).
Our lake got a bloom of blue-green algae. The cause is higher water temperature as well as less rain. They should be gone by the fall as there is no ag upstream.
Field mice are not doing very well. No worry, it's just a cat's issue… for them. 
2009 was a terrible year (for us!): mosquitoes and deer flies everywhere. You could not walk outside without a net over your body. Since then, we have seen variability year over year.
Overall, 2016 looks like an average year.
I can't say that we have less insects here. Need to observe for a longer period.
I blame Hitlery
Where I think Dent is wrong on gold, is that he views it purely as a commodity, and as such it would go down in a big deflation.
However, since 2006 gold has been outperforming commodities, which indicates it is actually behaving more like money than a commodity. As it is increasingly re-monitised in the eyes of investors (and eventually the public), gold should do well in any future crisis, whether inflationary or deflationary. The next crisis will bring us closer to a loss of confidence in central banks and their confetti money, and this can only be good for gold.
Also, for what it's worth, Stan Druckenmiller said recently that he is 30% in gold.
While Dent seems to be a good guy with good insights, I'm becoming increasingly wary of anyone making predictions with 100% certainty. The fact is, that nobody knows the future, and it's important to have the humility to recognise that. We can only deal in probabilities of future outcomes.
if i recall, druckenmiller didn't actually buy gold, he bought GLD, an important distinction.
i wonder what goes on in the rarified air up there - surely he's aware of systemic risks on multiple fronts? maybe a heavy hitter like SD has a way to ensure that he does get the gold if it comes down to it, i'm sure he's done his homework. the rest of us would probably not be so lucky following in his GLD footsteps.
as far as dent, i think you are correct, he views gold as a commodity that will crash just like other commodities during the next deflationary downdraft, just like in 2008. and i think there will be some correction, though i'm skeptical of anything much under $1000 at worst case. i don't think dent is really considering capital flows and how they would gravitate towards and boost gold in the event of financial catastrophe.
bill holter has been writing about how comex has had many more customers standing for delivery than normal, and how comex appears to be tardy coughing up about 20 tons of gold for delivery last couple months, and how it wouldn't make sense for them financially to drag their feet on the delivery if they actually had possession of the gold for delivery.
lo and behold, steve st angelo (srsrocco) reports all of a sudden there has been 20 tons of gold imported INTO the usa FROM switzerland, very unusual, and just the amount the comex needs to fulfill their delivery requirements:
Dent sees things through the lens of both demographics and a debt bubble pop. Both of those two factors point directly to deflation. All else being held constant, he'd probably be right; in a strong commodity downdraft, gold will lose. We saw that in 2012-2015. [Cue argument from the goldbugs insisting the cartel is all powerful…whenever the price drops…]
Problem is that along the way towards our date with deflation, we will have a sovereign debt crisis, and the big money won't just sit there waiting to be bailed-in or defaulted upon. It will go somewhere - other currencies, other asset classes, and gold counts as a currency in this regard.
And then there is the helicopter money aspect. No central banker could have even mentioned helicopter money during the 1930s in one of the main economies of the world - it was blasphemy. Now its a topic of conversation, widely viewed as "the next step", so much so that central bankers feel they have to announce "they aren't going to do it now" (but that it is a "tool in the toolbox.")
So I don't think we'll have the standard Depression ending. And we'll have a huge amount of big money racing hither and yon looking for a place to hide prior to the default/bail-in. And when nations are threatening to leave the EU, that chaos will drive people to buy gold too. Look at what happened during BRExit: gold went nuts, so much so they had to print 50k COMEX contracts to mute the ascent, and all it did was slow things down.
If you lived in Spain, and Spain was about to leave the Eurozone, how would you protect yourself?
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Spanish government debt = defaulted upon + denominated in pesetas
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Spanish bank deposits = possibly bailed in, denominated in pesetas
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Spanish real estate = subject to taxation, not mobile - but ok.
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gold = protects you from devaluation, cannot be defaulted upon, mobile if you have to leave.
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USD = protects you from devaluation, mobile if you have to leave, but subject to US government policy.
Again, deflation may be the logical end point if nature takes its course, but the experience you go through (say in Spain) might look a whole lot like a one-shot inflation via currency devaluation, COMBINED with a default. And there is always helicopter money where the question is, how many helicopters, and how much money are we talking about.
The CIO of TD asset management layed out his position on gold this morning.The strategy and job one for him is wealth preservation.It really is no longer about making fistfulls of dollars,but,about holding on to what people have.His largest position gold.His anticipation of global and political events is one of protection for his clients.This is true.We now live in a world were we have to protect ourselves from monetary extraction.At the peak many have positioned themselves accordingly.When money runners confirm suspicions,it is even more alarming…
A really enjoyable interview. Thank you Dave for asking a good question and eliciting the book referral - I was mentally asking the same thing and I've just ordered "Healing Emotional Trauma' by Laurence Heller.
I must be extremely odd as I seem to be able to take on board new information and integrate it into my world view even when it runs against my previous understanding.
I thought that was a very telling move by the TD CIO, and one that confirms my recent experience at the wealth conference. Suddenly, people in the west are 'beginning to care' about gold.
Speaking of TD reminds me of Canada, of course, poor Canada:
And then there was none: Canada sells its goldFun Fact: I have more gold in my personal possession than a G7 central bank.Bullion Management Group Inc. | Mar. 10, 2016
Canada, bucking an international trend that has seen central banks become net buyers of gold since 2010, has sold off all its official gold holdings. Canada’s official international reserves last released by the Bank of Canada (BofC) on February 23, 2016 showed gold reserves at zero (0).
This is unprecedented. Canada now stands as the only G7 nation that does not hold at least 100 tonnes of gold in its official reserves. According to statistics from the World Gold Council (WGC), Canada’s current holdings would now rank it dead last out of 100 central banks, behind Albania at number 99.
A footnote says that the BofC still holds 77 ounces of gold, primarily in gold coins.
Somehow I don't believe I'll be able to say that for very long, and not because I'll be selling any, but for now it stands as a fact.
Canada has made a very odd choice here, and one that I don't fully understand. When (not if but when) Canada's extreme over-indebtedness strikes and wobbles the banking system to its knees, Canada is going to wish very much that it had some stabilizing gold reserves.
Would they get desperate enough to nationalize their gold mines? I hadn't thought of that before, but perhaps the assumed geopolitical risk of Canadian gold miners needs to be nudged up to something higher than zero?
David - this is one of the defining features of the audience assembled here. While far from perfect in this regard myself, I find that I am head-and-shoulders above the average person in this regard.
I love new frameworks an routinely shake up pretty big world views for myself.
Recent biggies have been utterly upending my belief systems about nutrition and health, the complete dismantling of time as an arrow, as well as my understanding of human psychology and development.
Side note: if I could be a parent of young children all over again, man, I would do things very differently. I guess that's what eventual grandparenting will allow.
If your mind has been carefully observing humans and been curious about your own inner construction, Healing Developmental Trauma will be a real eye opener. I am still integrating that book some months later, and will be re-reading it again soon to go another layer deeper.
It is this restless curiosity that makes life wicked fun. The more I learn, the less I know, and the more astonished I become.
This is my thinking as well. If all things were held constant I think Dent has a defensible view. But everything is in motion.
There's $180 billion of new money coming into just the western financial system alone per month. Who knows how much more into China's through the front and back doors of their banking and shadow banking systems, respectively.
Huge pools of increasingly worried money are parked in places they can and will flee from at a moment's notice.
Sovereign defaults are a mathematical certainty under the 'all things equal' model. Which means printing "whatever it takes" is all but guaranteed too. At least for a while.
Under all of that uncertainty I cannot get my brain to logically make a case for gold just being another commodity ready to get sucked under as big money sits around watching its fantasy wealth evaporate under the heat of a searing deflationary event.
The thought experiment I conduct is to imagine I have a billion dollars that I am fiduciarily responsible for, and upon which my paycheck also depends.
The questions are, where would I deploy it today, and where would I deploy it in a panic? Who would I actually really trust to not steal my money? Euro banks? Nope. US banks? Only slightly less of a 'nope.' Emerging markets? Hell nope. Japan? Hahahahahaha!!
Cash and or cash equivalents to start, and tangible assets when the currency-on-fire part of this story gets going. Gold is top of that list because there's an international system of transfer and settlements for gold so I could jurisdiction hop if I thought that necessary. Real estate is too illiquid and utterly immobile for the big part of my holdings, so that would have to remain a reasonable but small percentage. Ultra high grade corporate bonds make sense, as do core sovereign bonds (at first).
After sifting through all of the possible real asset holdings, gold floats to the top, at least for a while, after which we'll have to reassess, but having direct control of the means of production and primary wealth (water, food, minerals, energy) will re-emerge in people's minds at some point as the original form of true wealth.
Here's a chart of the monthly change in China's M2, converted to USD, and run through a 12 point moving average to "roughly" seasonally adjust it.
As loan growth goes, so goes overall economic growth. Although the series is choppy, you can see in the past 12 months, it has been falling off a cliff. I think this is a big deal. If growth in China goes, then the ability of all those debtors in China to pay off their debts falters too. That would be China's "2008 moment" - possibly to be met by a massive swapping of debt for cash and also some equity. No way China just lets the defaults happen.
And note the series is an "absolute number" - its not relative to size of the economy. If it were a relative number, it would look even worse.
I'm claiming M2 is a proxy for their bank loan growth - since a new bank loan appears as a deposit somewhere in the banking system relatively soon after the new loan is made. (I don't have their bank loan data - all I have is M2). Original series (in RMB) here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MYAGM2CNM189N?cid=32329
Appreciate all of the views on Dent & Gold, I believe seeing an alternative view allows approaching the subject with a new fresh perspective.
I particularly like Chris'es thought experiment, in a similar theme to some simulations I can imagine Jim Rickards would suggest.
As Grant Williams said during the minor financial wobbles of Brexit, Gold was a pretty good safe haven for those in the UK.
My own view is that Gold will be viewed as a mixture of a commodity, currency hedge, insurance and actual money. How that changes will vary on the individuals circumstances and the level of collective awareness of the situation that the worlds finances are in.
ps I also didn't mean to hijack a thread that was a very thought provoking wide ranging podcast, thanks Chris and Dave! 
Dave,
having watched the Kyle Bass interview on RealVision TV, your chart seems to tie in with his current thesis; that a debt crisis has started to unfold in China, the scale of which may be greater than the 2008 debt crisis in the USA. China will be forced to recapitalise their banking system, and the yuan/renminbi will be devalued. This will export deflation around the world one last time.
I don't know what the knock-on effects of this will be or how best to play it, but Bass is bullish on Asia after the crisis.
Cheers, E.
Edit: Dave, I just noticed you covered this in another thread. You raised a really interesting prospect:
"China may export deflation in terms of product prices, but a whole lot of asset inflation will take place as a side effect as money flees the country. Not everything will deflate in price. Its just possible US equities would actually rise as a result of the capital flows. Gold too. A wave of money pouring into gold might well overwhelm the currency effect from the rising dollar."
Why is nothing ever straightforward?! Perhaps diversification is the only solution!? (across all asset bubbles!!)
So I had a good chuckle to myself today. I wanted to avoid studying last minute for my exam this morning, so I pulled up a 5 day chart of the DJIA on my phone. Those are some nice V-bottoms. Volume seems to be screaming out of the gates on the morning sell-offs then the volume drops and the chart goes back up. I'm sure other have more insight into this sort of thing than I do, but that just seems like an ugly 5 day chart. But hey, ALL TIME HIGHS BABY! BTFD!
