Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of October 16, 2019

Article Excerpt

Here’s the text of the most-recent letter I sent to our Portfolio Management clients in August. “In recent years, I’ve mentioned that the world is going through a gigantic monetary experiment. At first, I was referring to the “quantitative easing” that the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks began in 2008/2009, to offset the financial crisis. But the more I look at it, the more I see a process that’s been going on for a century. A change in standards Up till about a century ago, the world pretty much ran on the gold standard. Governments defined their currencies by how much gold each unit of the currency was equal to. (The U.S. dollar, for one, was defined as equal to a little less than 0.05 ounces of gold.) Countries stood ready to defend their currency, up to a point, by exchanging it for gold, and vice-versa, at the official rate. National treasuries minted gold coins for use in trade. Commercial banks issued…