Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of September 6, 2011?

Article Excerpt

One of our Inner Circle members recently asked a question that’s too broad for a simple answer: “With its large and cheap labour force, China has been exporting deflation to the rest of the world. It seems that this trend is now reversing and China will be exporting inflation. Chinese workers are demanding higher wages and are becoming consumers. What strategy can you suggest to prepare for this eventuality?” It seems to me that the biggest sources of world inflation and deflation are much broader than China’s contribution. On the one hand, the major source of inflation is today’s fiat money system. Governments around the world can create new money whenever it suits them. They can do that directly, by printing banknotes. Or they can do it indirectly, by allowing central banks to expand their credit by writing cheques on bank accounts whose only asset is the government’s borrowing capacity. (That’s what the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank did in its two…