......MONEY...MONEY.....MONEY...????... MONEY GAME...?? PLAY MONEY..?? >>> The International Monetary Fund is expected to a new reserve currency alternative to the US Dollar. The dollar’s role as the world’s primary reserve currency helps all of us Americans by keeping interest rates low. Foreign countries buy United States Treasury debt not just as an investment, but because dollar-denominated assets are the best way to hold foreign exchange reserves. And on Oct 20th of this year, the IMF is expected to announce a reserve currency alternative to the U.S. dollar, which will send hundreds of billions of dollars moving around the world, literally overnight.....>>>... What is dollar collapse? The dollar collapse is no longer a secret. Almost everyone seems to know of this. The collapse of any given currency generally implies the absolute devaluation of a given currency in relation to others in the world. The collapse of the dollar, however, means this and much, much more. This is owed to the fact of the US Dollar’s unofficial status as world currency, alongside the Euro since the Bretton Woods agreement. Numerous nations around the world have since pegged their currencies to the dollar as it has provided them with a hard currency they could base their reserves on. Most even use it to settle trade transactions internationally. This means that a greater percentage of the world’s commodities are priced and traded in US dollars, and thus, dollars must come in play at some point. What The Dollar’s Collapse. Will Mean To The World Over the last few days, there has been a number of articles in the media about the steady decline of the $US against the Euro. While many economists have forecasted the possiblity of the dollar declining against the Euro for sometime, most do not comprehend the significance of this. Some believe that the decline of the dollar against the currencies of American’s trading partners will help correct the USA’s trade deficit, and the dollar will stop falling when the trade imbalance is corrected. However, the evidence is that the opposite is happening – the $US has declined 40% against the Euro over the last 2 years, and during this time America’s trade deficit has continues to deteriorate...>>My name is Steve Meyers. And I want to thank you for taking part in this exclusive Money Morning interview with Jim Rickards, the Financial Threat and Asymmetric Warfare Advisor for both the Pentagon and CIA....???? ....JIM RICKARDS: That's exactly right. The problem was the CIA didn't have any capital markets expertise. And why should they? Prior to the beginning of globalization, capital markets weren't really part of the battle space. So the CIA engaged in some outreach, they recruited certain people, myself included, to bring the Wall Street expertise to the agency.....???? >>> ........JIM RICKARDS: It has become fashionable in recent years to invest in gold ETFs. The GLD ticker is the headliner. The logic on the surface makes sense, you can secure gold without having to acquire it physically and store it. You can even, theoretically – at least, they tell you – you can cash in your ETF shares for physical gold if you so choose in the future. This is the problem – that's not true. The everyday American does not have that ability. Here's how to think about the gold market. Imagine it's a pyramid, but it's inverted. The point is down at the bottom and wide base is at the top. There's a little tiny bit of physical gold at the bottom. On top you have all these forms of paper gold. What are they? Gold leasing Unallocated gold forwards Gold futures Gold options Gold ETFs These are all what I call paper gold. They give you contractual rights but there's no assurance you'll ever get your hands on physical gold. Now, what's happening is this whole pyramid is getting larger and larger, but the amount of physical gold, the floating supply, is disappearing. When gold moves from the GLD warehouse to the Chinese warehouses in Shanghai, which it is… It's been moving from west to east in very large quantities… Once it goes to Shanghai it's no longer a part of the floating supply. That gold is never going to see the light of day, at least not for several hundred years. So, the total supply may be unchanged, but the floating supply is dropping. That means this little brick at the bottom of the pyramid is getting smaller and smaller. ...>>> ...... JIM RICKARDS: Steve, during the original Project Prophecy for the CIA we built a tracking system, a watch list of the 400 stocks most likely to signal a coming attack on America. But, in the years that followed, we kept modifying its capabilities so it could identify the companies that were in danger of collapsing. This intelligence briefing reveals the 30 stocks that are now at the top of that list. Now, when folks see these stocks, it may shock them. These aren't micro caps or small caps, because they don't have the capability to do widespread damage. These are 30 of the most widely held stocks in the retirement accounts and 401ks of everyday Americans. Most are large blue chip. That means everybody watching today is probably holding one, two, or more of them. And they are vulnerable to complete annihilation. Now, inside this list of 30 I've singled out the 10 that are currently at a red alert status. This means if you were holding them today you need to not be holding them tomorrow, because the clock is running out on them. They're already at risk of failure before the worst of what's coming appears...??? >> ....JIM RICKARDS: Directive #3: Invest in What People Can't Live Without When America experiences this worst case scenario we are predicting in the Intelligence Community, people won't stop needing food. They won't stop using energy. They won't stop using essential goods and services. This is where folks should be looking now. So in the briefing I'm recommending water investments, because you can't live without water. And we're already seeing water investments begin to take off. This sector has been surging since 2009. It's up about 200%...>> ...Is a monetary apocalypse imminent? James Rickards, bestselling author of Currency Wars, has a new New York Times bestseller out, about the possible imminent collapse of the dollar: The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System (Portfolio/Penguin). More interestingly, he writes about what could come next: a golden age. Advance praise (“A terrifically interesting and useful book….”) from Brookings’s senior fellow Kenneth W. Dam, former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and author of The Rules of the Game: Reform and Evolution in the International Monetary System, is an attention getter. Rickard’s Currency Wars was a hot best seller on the New York Times list, and also, more significantly, in the United States Senate...??

 

“New World Dollar” Coming Oct. 20, 2015?

Monday, April 27, 2015 11:34

http://beforeitsnews.com/self-sufficiency/2015/04/new-world-dollar-coming-oct-20-2015-2489412.html

 

Get FREE private and secure Email and Messaging click now!

<a href="http://ox-d.beforeitsnews.com/w/1.0/rc?cs=5125e7a33c8bf&cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE" ><img src="http://ox-d.beforeitsnews.com/w/1.0/ai?auid=326914&cs=5125e7a33c8bf&cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE" border="0" alt=""></a>

(Before It's News)

“New World Dollar” On October 20th , 2015

The International Monetary Fund is expected to a new reserve currency alternative to the US Dollar.
The dollar’s role as the world’s primary reserve currency helps all of us Americans by keeping interest rates low. Foreign countries buy United States Treasury debt not just as an investment, but because dollar-denominated assets are the best way to hold foreign exchange reserves.

And on Oct 20th of this year, the IMF is expected to announce a reserve currency alternative to the U.S. dollar, which will send hundreds of billions of dollars moving around the world, literally overnight.

As China moves up the economic pecking order, it has been trying to promote the yuan as an alternative to the U.S. dollar, which has been the dominant global reserve currency since the 1944 Bretton Woods conference.

Currently, China represents around 11 percent of global gross domestic product, more than 10 percent of world trade and nearly 9 percent of total foreign direct investment.

China may have prompted some interest in the subject: “. . . it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world,” wrote Liu Chang for China’s official news agency Xinhua.

Robert Kiyosaki: Why An Economic Crash Is Coming

https://youtu.be/ASOfrk2df4g

https://youtu.be/ASOfrk2df4g

 

 

Look What Will Happen After The Dollar Collapse

Look What Will Happen After The Dollar Collapse

Monday, May 4, 2015 7:57

Get FREE private and secure Email and Messaging click now!

<a href="http://ox-d.beforeitsnews.com/w/1.0/rc?cs=5125e7a33c8bf&cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE" ><img src="http://ox-d.beforeitsnews.com/w/1.0/ai?auid=326914&cs=5125e7a33c8bf&cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE" border="0" alt=""></a>

(Before It's News)

Look What Will Happen After The Dollar Collapse

What is dollar collapse?

The dollar collapse is no longer a secret. Almost everyone seems to know of this. The collapse of any given currency generally implies the absolute devaluation of a given currency in relation to others in the world. The collapse of the dollar, however, means this and much, much more. This is owed to the fact of the US Dollar’s unofficial status as world currency, alongside the Euro since the Bretton Woods agreement.
Numerous nations around the world have since pegged their currencies to the dollar as it has provided them with a hard currency they could base their reserves on. Most even use it to settle trade transactions internationally. This means that a greater percentage of the world’s commodities are priced and traded in US dollars, and thus, dollars must come in play at some point.

What The Dollar’s Collapse. Will Mean To The World

Over the last few days, there has been a number of articles in the media about the steady decline of the $US against the Euro. While many economists have forecasted the possiblity of the dollar declining against the Euro for sometime, most do not comprehend the significance of this. Some believe that the decline of the dollar against the currencies of American’s trading partners will help correct the USA’s trade deficit, and the dollar will stop falling when the trade imbalance is corrected. However, the evidence is that the opposite is happening – the $US has declined 40% against the Euro over the last 2 years, and during this time America’s trade deficit has continues to deteriorate.

There is now nothing the USA can do to prevent the collapse of its currency, and its economy. It has no reserves to support its value, and has the most indebted country in the world, is dependant of the credit from America’s former enemies. Over the last couple of days, both Russia and China have said they will be switching their considerable dollar reserves into Euro. This will only hasten the lack of confidence in the dollar, creating a global lack of confidence in the currency, and setting into free-fall. It will soon bring about the total collapse of the dollar, and the American economy.

The collapse of the dollar will throw the world into a global depression. Those nations with large external debts will not be able to trade sufficiently to earn the income to service their debts, and will slide into bankruptcy. The economies of New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK will also totally collapse, as a result of their indebtedness and not being able to service their borrowings. It will result in the Anglo-Saxon nations facing abject poverty, our people facing starvation, and a total break-down in society. Crime will become rampant. Law and order will cease to exist. Disease will become widespread.(rense)

We know a collapse is coming… If you’re paying attention you probably have the distinct feeling that we are in the middle of it right now. And guess what? The government and military know it’s coming too, as evidenced by large-scale simulations of exactly such an event and its fallout.

But the collapse of our financial system, or hyperinflation of our currency, or a meltdown in US Treasuries is only the beginning. We know some or all of these events are all but a foregone conclusion.

What we don’t know is the timing of the trigger event that causes the global panic to ensue and what will happen after these primary events take hold.

According to Jeff Thomas, while we can’t know for sure, the following “secondary events” are the most likely outcomes when the system as we have come to know it destabilizes.(Mac Slavo SHTFplan.com)

An imminent $100 Trillion dollar collapse

What could happen after the dollar collapse. Look What Will Happen After The Dollar Collapse

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
This is a good motto to live by, despite how you think about things.
Individuals can still hope for the best (that things can and will eventually work out), but what good is your prosperity going to do if you don’t have anything to eat or a safe place to hang out for an extended period of time?
Why not prepare while you still can — when things are readily available and can still be purchased at cheap prices? The coming hyper-inflation will make any such purchases beforehand look veryintelligent…
To prepare for the worst, you need a plan. Why are most people so against doing basic preparations that could be the difference on how they survive — or whether they survive?
History shows time and again that those who prepare always fare better than those who did not.
Having a plan and being determined to act on that plan will always be the best way to handle any contingencies, should they occur.
After disaster strikes, your mind is going to be racing around like a car on a race track. Preplanning and having a written set of measures to take will make someone’s life go much smoother when the SHTF.
Your own personal plan is ONLY what best fits what you are going to do during and after a disaster.

That You Should Do To Get Prepared For The Coming Economic Collapse

EVERYONE NEEDS FOOD STORAGE FOR THE TIMES AHEAD

SOURCE
http://www.prepperfortress.com/look-what-will-happen-after-the-dollar-collapse/

 

SOURCE
http://www.prepperfortress.com/?p=5939&preview=true

FORGET IRAN, IRAQ, UKRAINE

This is where WWIII starts...

http://pro.moneymappress.com/MMRBSSH39PPM3/LMMRRA62/?h=true

STEVE MEYERS:

My name is Steve Meyers.

And I want to thank you for taking part in this exclusive Money Morning interview with Jim Rickards, the Financial Threat and Asymmetric Warfare Advisor for both the Pentagon and CIA.

Recently, all 16 branches of our Intelligence Community have come together to release a shocking report.

These agencies, that include the CIA, FBI, Army, and Navy, they've already begun to estimate the impact of the fall of the dollar as the global reserve currency.

And our reign as the world's leading super power being annihilated in a way equivalent to the end of the British Empire, post-World War II.

And the end game could be a nightmarish scenario, where the world falls into an extended period of global anarchy.

Jim Rickards fears he and his colleagues' warnings are being ignored by our political leaders and the Federal Reserve, and we're on the verge of entering the darkest economic period in our nation's history.

One that will ignite a 25-year Great Depression.

Today, we're going to examine everything he's uncovered because the bedlam could begin within the next six months.

Which is why every American should hear his warnings before it's too late.

Jim Rickards, thank you for joining us.

JIM RICKARDS:

It's my pleasure, Steve. Glad to be with you.

STEVE MEYERS:

In the early '80s, you were a member of the team that helped negotiate an end to the Iran hostage crisis.

In the late '90s, when it was discovered that the Wall Street firm Long-Term Capital Management was about to cause a total collapse of the financial markets, the Federal Reserve had to turn to you in order to stop this catastrophe from plunging America into a recession.

And then, after 9/11, you were tasked by the CIA with investigating potential insider trading that took place prior to the terrorist attacks.

JIM RICKARDS:

That's exactly right.

The problem was the CIA didn't have any capital markets expertise.

And why should they?

Prior to the beginning of globalization, capital markets weren't really part of the battle space.

So the CIA engaged in some outreach, they recruited certain people, myself included, to bring the Wall Street expertise to the agency.

This Led to Project Prophecy

So, what the CIA said was, well, if there's going to be another spectacular attack…

Using price signals to determine the actions of participants in the market, whether it be terrorists, or strategic rivals of the United States…

Could you spot it?

Could you get the information, and actually break up the plot, and save American lives?

STEVE MEYERS:

This system you built with Project Prophecy actually predicted a terrorist attack that was thwarted in 2006.

JIM RICKARDS:

On August 7, 2006, I got an email from my partner.

She said, "Jim, we've got a bright signal on American Airlines.

It looks like a possible terrorist attack."

We documented that.

I was up at 2:00 in the morning in my study, watching CNN, and all of a sudden MI-5 and New Scotland Yard emerged to break up this terrorist attack.

They were arresting suspects and removing files.

So this showed that the system worked.

However, it's not just good for predicting terrorist attacks, but also strategic attacks by rivals and enemies of the United States.

STEVE MEYERS:

For years now, you've been helping the Pentagon and CIA prepare for a rise in asymmetric warfare and financial threats, because today there are immense fears we'll be struck by – as you've described it before – a financial Pearl Harbor.

JIM RICKARDS:

There's now concern in different branches of the U.S. government…

Historically in Washington, the Treasury and the Fed take care of the dollar.

The Pentagon and the Intelligence Community take care of other threats, but what happens when the dollar IS the threat?

Americans generally know that:

• The Fed has increased the money supply by $3.1 trillion.
• We have $17.5 trillion of debt.
• We have $127 trillion of unfunded liabilities.

What are those?

Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, student loans, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA.
You go through the whole list and it goes on and on and on.
There's no way to pay it.

Debt can no longer be used to artificially grow our economy.

During the boom years of the 1950s and 1960s, every dollar of debt that was created, we got $2.41 worth of economic growth.

So that was pretty good bang for the buck.

But by the "stagflation" of the late 1970s that relationship had actually collapsed.

So now for a dollar of debt in the late 1970s, we were only getting $.41 in growth, so, obviously, that's a huge drop-off.

You know what that number is today? Today, we only get $.03 in growth for every $1 of debt.

So we're piling on the debt, but we're getting less and less growth.

As the trend goes from $2.41 to $.41 to $.03…

It's soon going to go negative.

This is a signal of a complex system about to collapse.

STEVE MEYERS:

This really speaks to what you wrote about in your new book, The Death of Money, the title strongly alludes to this, the hourglass is now empty.

You warn we're about to fall into a 25-year Great Depression…

That the stock market could plunge overnight 70%.

JIM RICKARDS:

(Interrupts)

You know, when I use the phrase 25-year depression, it sounds a little extreme, but historically it's not.

We had a 30-year depression in the United States from about 1870 to 1900. Economists actually call it the Long Depression.

That was before the Great Depression. The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1940, so that was quite long.

The U.S. is in a Depression Today

STEVE MEYERS:

A lot of folks might disagree with you that we're currently in a depression.

That word brings to mind images of the 1930s and soup kitchens.

JIM RICKARDS:

Well, we have soup kitchens today…

They're just at Whole Foods and your local supermarket, because 50 million Americans are on food stamps.

It's not that we don't have distress.

We have enormous distress, but it's being hidden in different ways.

The unemployment rate today is actually 23% when you calculate it the right way.

STEVE MEYERS:

And you point the finger right at the Fed, Congress, and the White House.

JIM RICKARDS:

(Interrupts)

I was in a meeting in the Treasury and I said:
"The Fed and the Treasury are the greatest threats to national security, not Al- Qaeda."

Right here in this building with this group…

You people are destroying the dollar and it's just a matter of time before it collapses.

And I testified before the United States Senate about this.

I warned the Senate, maybe we can't stop earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault…

But nobody thinks it's a good idea to send the Army Corps of Engineers out there to make the San Andreas Fault bigger.

But by money printing, credit creation, and reckless monetary policy by the Fed, we're making the San Andreas Fault bigger every day.

And when you make a complex system bigger - the risk doesn't go up a little bit - it goes up exponentially. So the risk is unimaginable at this time.

The collapse hasn't happened yet, but the forces are building up and it's just about to snap.

Editor's Note: Because the revelations in Jim Rickard's book are so important to the everyday lives of Americans, Money Morning is sending free copies of The Death of Money to people who want to get this intelligence in their hands.

Click here to have The Death of Money rushed to you.

STEVE MEYERS:

Jim, your take, and that of many in the Intelligence Community…

Is much different than what we're hearing out of Capitol Hill.

Which is why the allegations you make in this book are causing quite a controversy in Washington.

JIM RICKARDS:

I was at a recent conclave in the Rocky Mountains with a couple central bankers, one from the Federal Reserve and one from the Bank of England.
They'll say things privately that they won't say publicly.
And I was handed a copy of Janet Yellen's playbook.

The Fed is trying to kind of use propaganda…

Lie to us about economic prospects, talk about green shoots, use happy talk to try to get us to spend our money.

The Fed doesn't know what they're doing.

Don't ever think that they know what they're doing.

You can print all the money you want, but if people are not borrowing it, if they're not spending it, then your economy is collapsing, even with money printing.

So you can understand it this way…

Let's say I go out to dinner and I tip the waiter.

And the waiter takes my tip and he takes a taxicab home.

And the taxi driver takes the fare and puts some gas in her taxicab.

Well, in that example, my dollar had the velocity of three.

$1 supported $3 of goods and services: the tip, the taxi ride, and the gasoline.

But, what if I don't feel great? I stay home, and watch television.

I don't spend any money.

Well, that money now has a velocity of zero.

I leave my money in the bank, but I don't spend it.

Let's look at what's actually happening with the velocity of money.

It's plunging… It's going down very rapidly.

But compare this decline of velocity today to what we saw leading up the Great Depression.

Now, in the depths of the Great Depression velocity was even lower…

But…

If you compare what's going on today to what happened in the late 1920s just prior to the Great Depression, there's a very striking resemblance.

So, it doesn't matter how much money the Fed prints.

Think of it as an airplane that's coming in for a nosedive.
It's crashing… crashing… getting closer to the ground.
The Fed is trying to grab the joystick and pull the plane up out of the nosedive and get it back in the air...
But, unfortunately, it's not working, we're heading for a crash.

STEVE MEYERS:

We've just covered a lot of these startling numbers, these signals of this coming Great Depression.

Let me see if I can quickly put it all together.

Nobody denies that we have a debt crisis in this country, but you're saying we can no longer grow our debt without causing our economy to aggressively slow down.

We're barely above water now.

So that's signal number one.

Signal number two is this dangerous slowdown in our velocity of money.

It's already plummeting to levels not witnessed since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Are there any other signals the Intelligence Community is monitoring that suggest this collapse is right around the corner?

Editor's Note: Jim Rickards reveals the early warning signs the U.S. Intelligence Community is tracking in advance of this coming 25-year Great Depression in his book, The Death of Money.
Money Morning believes this is a must-read for every American. So you can have a copy rushed to you for free.
Click here to claim your free copy of The Death of Money.

JIM RICKARDS:

There are, Steve.

There are a lot of signals out there and they're very, very troubling.

One of the ones I'm watching closely, and I know people in the Intelligence Community focus on also, because it covers so much ground, is called the Misery Index.

The Misery Index = Real Inflation Rate + Real Unemployment Rate

If you look at the Misery Index today compared to the period of stagflation in the late 1970s and early '80s that Americans remember so well…

It's actually worse.

This can lead to social instability…

Take this back to the Great Depression... The Misery Index in the Great Depression was 27.

Today it's 32.89.

Believe it or not, it's worse today than it was during the Great Depression.

What happens as a depression worsens?

Businesses can't pay their debts. The bad losses fall on the banks. The banks ultimately fail.

That's happened before.

The Fed has had to bail out the banks.

But what happens when the Fed, itself, is in jeopardy?

STEVE MEYERS:

Based on these signals you've been tracking, the Federal Reserve is going to fail?

JIM RICKARDS:

The Federal Reserve actually, in some ways, already has failed.

I spoke to a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and I said, "I think the Fed is insolvent."
This Governor first resisted and said, "No, we're not."
But, I pressed her a little bit harder and she said, "Well, maybe."
And, then, I just looked at her and she said, "Well, we are, but it doesn't matter."

In other words, here's a Governor of the Federal Reserve admitting to me, privately, that the Federal Reserve is insolvent, but said, it doesn't matter, because central banks don't need capital.

Well, I'm going to suggest that central banks do need capital.

Look at this chart.

What it shows you is that the Fed has increased its capital they currently have about $56 billion.

That sounds good.

You say, "gee, $56 billion is a lot of money, that's a pretty good capital base."

But That's Not the Whole Story

You have to compare the capital to the balance sheet.

How much in the way of assets and liabilities is that amount of capital supporting.

When you look at that it's a much scarier picture, because the actual liabilities, or debt, if you will, on the Fed's books is $4.3 trillion.

So you've got $4.3 trillion sitting on this little skinny capital base of $56 billion…

That's very unstable.

Prior to 2008, the Fed's leverage was about 22 to 1.

Meaning they had $22 in debt on their books for every $1 of capital.

Today, that leverage is 77 to 1.

So, yes, the capital has increased, but the debt and the liability has increased much more.

STEVE MEYERS:

Your warnings haven't gone completely ignored.

In the budget he presented this year, Senator Rand Paul cited your work and how we've driven our economy to the edge of a Roman Empire-like collapse.

In fact, we have footage of Senator Paul instructing Americans to listen to your warnings.
SENATOR RAND PAUL:
Jim Rickards notes the Fed is insolvent on a mark-to-market basis.
The Fed has wiped out its capital on a mark-to-market basis.
Of course, the Fed carries these notes on its balance sheet at cost and does not mark them down to market.
But if they did, they would be broke.
JIM RICKARDS:
First of all, I give Senator Rand Paul credit.
He's one of the few people who understand the dangers here.

But, the problem is not limited to the Fed.
It's infecting the private banking system as well.

There's about $60 trillion of debt on the balance sheets of our banking system.
For a long time, debt and the banks grew at about two times the rate of growth in the economy.
But lately, this has exploded.
Today it's up to 30 to 1.

In other words, for every dollar of economic growth, there's $30 of credit being created by the banking system.

The Whole Thing is Unstable

I can give you a very good example of this and this actually comes from physics.

If you had, let's say, a 35-pound block of uranium shaped like a cube, it would actually be fairly harmless.

It's what we call sub-critical. It's radioactive, but it's kind of tame.

But now imagine you engineer it.

You take that 35-pound block.

You take one piece and shape it into something about the size of a grapefruit.

Take another piece, shape it into something like a bat.

Put the ball and the bat in a tube and fire them together with high explosives.

That sets off a nuclear detonation.

That destroys a city.

The way it's been shaped and configured is what takes it from what we call sub-critical to super-critical.

STEVE MEYERS:

Jim, are you seeing any signs that our stock market has reached a super-critical state?

JIM RICKARDS:

Well, unfortunately, yes.

We're seeing a lot of signs of this.

One of the signs that's really fundamental, and really important, is the ratio of stock market capitalization to GDP.

Because, remember, the value of all the stocks in the stock market, that's supposed to represent the fundamental economy.

It's not supposed to be off in a world of its own.

But if you look at what's been happening to that ratio recently, it's going sky-high.

It's 203%.

Just prior to the recession…
That number was 183%.

Go back to the famous tech bubble, the dot com implosion of 2000.
At that time, it was 204%.

And if you want the scariest news of all…
Just prior to the Great Depression that number was 87%.

In other words…

The stock market capitalization, as a percentage of GDP, is twice as high as it was just prior to the Great Depression.

So, that's a really good metric for saying, "Hey, is the stock market heading for a crash?"

All the data says, "Yes, we are."

But there's another metric, another warning sign, if you will, that's even more frightening, which is the Gross Notional Value of Derivatives.

There are a certain number of shares of IBM that are outstanding, but we know what that number is.

But there's no limit on the derivatives.

I can write options and futures on IBM stock all day long and all the other stocks on the stock market.

And that's what's been going on.

Now, the Gross Notional Value of Derivatives in the world today is over $700 trillion. Not billion.

$700 trillion.

That's ten times the global GDP.

This collapse is unavoidable.

So, we ask ourselves, how bad can this be?

Well, what happened in 2007, 2008 when the markets collapsed…

We all remember the value of stocks going down…

Real estate going down, housing going down…

All that lost wealth was $60 trillion.

The problem is now the system is bigger, so I would expect the lost wealth this time to be $100 Trillion  – possibly a lot more.

We're in this critical state, getting close to the super-critical state where the system implodes.

But it takes a catalyst, it takes a flashpoint.

There are a number of potential flashpoints I've investigated.

Editor's Note: Jim Rickards' book, The Death of Money, provides specific guidance that can protect your wealth from this coming collapse.

Click here to claim your free copy of The Death of Money.

STEVE MEYERS:

Jim, in a few moments I want to discuss the steps Americans need to take with their investments and personal finances to prepare for everything you and your colleagues are predicting.

But now let's quickly focus on some of these major flashpoints.

JIM RICKARDS:

One of the key flashpoints we're looking at is foreign ownership of U.S. government debt.

Now, this is a very important thing to understand.

We all know that the Treasury has issued over $17 trillion worth of debt, the question is who buys it?

A lot of U.S. debt is owned by foreigners. Who owns it?

China, Russia, other countries…

Countries that are not necessarily our friends.

But they can dump it when they want to.

Well, guess what, that's actually what's been going on.

Recently, foreign holdings of U.S. government debt have been plummeting.

But it gets even more interesting than that.

We talked earlier about the project I did for the CIA…

Project Prophecy.

And we said, you can see not only market action, but rivals, enemies, terrorists and others, operating in financial markets.

So, we all know that Russia invaded Crimea in the spring of 2014.
Let's say you're Putin. You know you're going to invade Crimea. You can expect U.S. financial sanctions.
So what do you do?

You basically mitigate the impact of the sanctions, start dumping treasuries in advance so that when you make your move and the Treasury tries to come against you, you've insulated yourself.

So go back and look at October 2013, here's Russia dumping Treasuries month after month.

That was a clear signal that they were getting ready to do something…

To engage in financial warfare against the United States.

But guess what? It's worse than that.

We know the Russians and Chinese are working together.

So is it any surprise that when the Russians started dumping…

The Chinese started dumping also?

STEVE MEYERS:

Does the Intelligence Community have the ability to defend our country in the event that this escalates even further?

JIM RICKARDS:

Believe it or not, there's an intelligence unit inside the Treasury.

And they actually have a war room.

That tells you that financial warfare is here and it's real.

So if the Russians are dumping…

The Chinese are dumping…

Who is going to buy all this debt?

Well, a mystery buyer has shown up.

Recently, Belgium has bought enormous amounts…

In the hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. government securities.

STEVE MEYERS:

So Belgium started loading up on treasuries, coincidentally at the exact same time Russia and China began dumping theirs?

JIM RICKARDS:
(Interrupts)
It's not the Belgians.
These amounts are bigger than the Belgian current account surplus.
These are not Belgian dentists who are buying these things.

Belgium is a Front

You know, could it be the Fed itself?
That's the point.

Maybe the public doesn't know who the mystery buyer is, but the national security community does.

Now, the Treasury, operating through this war room, and the Fed – the mystery buyer in Belgium…

For now, they have managed to prop up the treasury market.

It hasn't collapsed yet.

But they're not going to be able to keep pulling these rabbits out of a hat, there's a limit.

This should be very scary, because if the Fed is tapped out – we talked earlier about how the Fed is leveraged 77 to 1.

So the Fed is at the limit of what they can do.

The foreigners are now dumping treasuries and if no one buys it, guess what, interest rates go up.

That'll sink the stock market, that'll sink the housing market.

Higher interest rates mean the debt gets higher, so interest rates go up some more.

So you start a death spiral and there's no way out of it.

STEVE MEYERS:

An attack on our treasury market is obviously a very serious flashpoint that could ignite this Great Depression you predict in your book.

Let's talk about another flashpoint.

JIM RICKARDS:

What I call flashpoint number two has to do with the petrodollar.

STEVE MEYERS:

Can you explain what you mean by the petrodollar?

JIM RICKARDS:

It's basically a system whereby oil exports are priced in dollars.

Oil doesn't have to be priced in dollars.

It could be priced in euros, Japanese yen, Swiss francs, gold.

It could be priced in a lot of things.

But, in fact, the whole global oil market is priced in dollars.

I was actually very close to the birth of the petrodollar system.

My first visit to the White House on official business was in 1974, with a small group, about five of us.

We met with Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who was the Deputy National Security Advisor at the time.

He was the number two to Henry Kissinger.

And, this was at a time  you have to remember…

At the beginning of the '70s oil was $2 a barrel.

At the end of the '70s, oil was $12 a barrel.

This Was an Oil Shock

The price of oil was skyrocketing.

Inflation was getting out of control.

There were gas lines.

You know, a certain generation of Americans remembers this very well.

We were in the White House talking about what to do about this.
One of the scenarios we discussed was the U.S. military would invade Saudi Arabia.
We would secure the oil fields and create a military perimeter around them.

We would pump the oil and set it at a price that was favorable to us.

Now, we would give the money to the Saudis.

We didn't want to steal their money.

We didn't want to steal their oil.

We just wanted to set the price.

Now, fortunately, that plan was not carried out.
But it shows you how desperate things were at the time.

But what did happen?

Why did we not invade Saudi Arabia?

Well, the answer is Kissinger and the Saudis worked out a deal.

And the Saudis said, "Okay, we'll price oil in dollars, so that secures the role of the dollar as the global reserve currency."

But there was a quid pro quo.

We agreed to guarantee the continuation of the House of Saud, the royal family of Saudi Arabia.

And by extension, the national security of Saudi Arabia.

Because they're a relatively weak military power.

And it's a bad neighborhood - a lot of enemies in the region starting with Iran and others.

So the question would be, obviously, did this petrodollar deal work?

And it ABSOLUTELY did work.

Once it kicked in, the dollar roared.

This was the period – sometimes people call it the king dollar period, the strong dollar period.

This was after Volcker and Reagan in the 1980s.

But this only continued up to a certain period of time…

Up until around 2000.

And since then, the dollar has been in a decline.

STEVE MEYERS:

So what could cause the fall of the petrodollar?

JIM RICKARDS:

Well, we're seeing it in real time.

Think of the petrodollar, or the dollar as the global reserve currency…

Think of it as a three-legged stool.

So, here's the stool and it's got three legs.

As long as the legs are standing, the foundation is firm and the dollar will remain as a global reserve currency.

But, one by one, those legs are being pulled out.

What are the legs?

Well, the first one is Saudi Arabia.

That was where the petrodollar deal began.

Our side of the deal was we would guarantee the national security of Saudi Arabia.

But lately – going back to December of 2013… 

President Obama stabbed the Saudis in the back by anointing Iran as the regional-hegemonic power.

You know, the President has been withdrawing American power from around the world and his view is, well, we'll leave a friendly cop on the beat.

Every sort of bad neighborhood around the world will have a cop on the beat.

The President has decided that Iran is going to be the cop on the beat in the Middle East.

They're going to be the heavyweight regional power.

Where does that leave Saudi Arabia? Out in the cold.

So now Saudi Arabia is saying…

"Wait a second, you've undermined our national security, you've reneged on your side of the petrodollar deal, why should we hold up our end?

Maybe we'll start pricing oil in gold or euros or maybe Chinese yuan."

Because now, increasingly, Saudi Arabia is selling more and more oil to China.

So, the first leg of the stool has been pulled out.

The Saudis are going to back away from the petrodollar, because we are no longer guaranteeing their security - we're playing footsie with Iran.

The second leg of the stool is Russia.

Now, Russia is not a member of OPEC, but they are the world's largest oil exporter, one of the world's largest energy exporters, actually bigger than Saudi Arabia.

So even though they're not a member of OPEC, they also price oil in dollars.

So, they've signed onto the petrodollar deal in their own way.

But, we're now engaged in financial warfare, Russia is ready to fight back.

And this is not classified information.

This is being said publicly.

Andrei Kostin, President and Chairman of Russia's VTB Bank, it's one of the largest banks in Russia, he recently said…

"It's time to change the entire international financial system that considers the dollar the key reserve currency. The world has changed."

A member of the Russian Parliament, he said…

"The dollar is evil.

We will sell rubles to consumers that rely on gas and later we'll exchange the rubles for gold.

If they don't like this, let them not do it.

Let them freeze to death."

So, two of the legs of the stool, Saudi Arabia and Russia, have already been pulled out.

The third leg is China.

And that is coming out too.

STEVE MEYERS:

As far as Russia and China's role in taking down the petrodollar…

This recent $400 billion energy alliance they signed, is that the purpose of it?

JIM RICKARDS:

Sure.

Russia is the world's largest energy exporter, China is the fastest growing economy in the world, they need energy.

So this is a natural partnership between the two. But the dollar is out in the cold.

And, China is actually putting these yuan bilateral trade agreements in place all over the world.

They're doing them one-by-one.

But once there's enough trade and enough volume in a certain currency, it can become a reserve currency.

These are all straws in the wind, leading to the collapse of the dollar as the global reserve currency.

STEVE MEYERS:

Jim, in your book, you investigate how nations are now using gold as a financial weapon.

Is this one of the most dangerous flashpoints?

JIM RICKARDS:

It's absolutely one of the most dangerous flashpoints and, here's why…

A lot of people look at the dollar and say, "Look, you may not like the dollar, you may worry about the dollar, but you've got nowhere else to go."

But there is another place to go, which is gold.

You don't have to buy treasuries, you can buy gold.

And countries are actually doing that.

So this is basically a global rebalancing of gold reserves.

This is one of the things that the Intelligence Community is watching most closely.
And China is our number one case.

Here's why: China has acquired more than 3,000 tons in the past four years.

Now they lie about this.

They officially say they have 1,054 tons.

The reason is, China is using their own military and their own intelligence assets to acquire some of this gold in stealth.

I recently ran into a senior officer of one of the major secure logistics firms in the world.

Secure logistics that means these are people who operate vaults and armored cars.

So they handle the physical metal.

They're not central banks.

They're not government agencies.

These are Brinks and G4S and ViaMat.

These are the big players in this field.

One of these officials said he recently brought gold into China at the head of an armored column of the People's Liberation Army.
In other words, he was in an armored car and they had Armored personnel vehicles bringing gold into China.
I guarantee that did not show up in the official Hong Kong import figures.

Now, why is China doing this?

A lot of people speculate that they want to launch their own gold-backed reserve currency, to take the Chinese yuan, back it with gold, make it a global reserve currency.

That's extremely unlikely.

That's not what China is doing.

What they are trying to do is hedge against the collapse of the dollar.

China can't prevent that from happening.

What they can do is build up the gold reserves.

This is known to the Intelligence Community.
This is NOT publicly revealed.
What if it were publicly revealed?

Here's what global gold reserves would look like if the amount that China owns were actually suddenly revealed.

This is a dagger aimed at the heart of the dollar.

Editor's Note: Jim Rickards' book, The Death of Money, will help you prepare for the frightening American economic collapse many in the U.S. Intelligence Community fear is at our doorstep.
Click here to claim your free copy of The Death of Money.

STEVE MEYERS:

Jim, so far all of these flashpoints have involved China.

Isn't this an economic suicide mission to attack America?

JIM RICKARDS:

There's something else here, another flashpoint that could meltdown the global financial system.

What if the U.S. doesn't bring the entire pyramid crashing down, what if it's China?

Well, it could very well be.

They have a highly leveraged banking system.

But the banking system is just the beginning.

There's also something called a shadow banking system.

This is now a $7.5 trillion industry and it's up 4,067% since 2005.

STEVE MEYERS:

This term shadow banking, it's starting to get play in the press.

How would you explain it?

JIM RICKARDS:

If you put your money in the bank in China, they – it's just like the United States.

They pay you nothing, zero maybe, one quarter of one percent, something pathetically small.

But, they're offering these wealth management products that pay five, six, seven percent.

Well, what are they?

Well, they're actually – they take the money and they buy mortgages on worthless assets, inflated assets and bubble assets that are going to crash.

Before the crash in the United States, before 2008, new construction, as a percentage of GDP growth, that was about 16%.

16% is a pretty big slice.

But, look at China.

In each of the last three years, construction has been 50% of GDP growth.

They're building white elephants, they're building trophy projects, they're building ghost cities.

I've been to China - I was with the Communist Party officials and provincial officials, they were trying to get me to bring some businesses there.

I went to one place near Nanjing.

They weren't building seven buildings, they were building seven cities.

Every city had a whole cluster of skyscrapers, luxury hotels, athletic facilities, housing facilities, high-end shopping, metro stops, highway access…

And an airport to service all seven of these cities.

This construction was going on as far as the eye can see.

It was all empty.

All of it.

Now, here's the point.

In the U.S. before the crash, it took about 4.3 years of income to buy the typical house .

In China, it takes 18 years of income.

If they're building apartments, co-ops and condos, and people can't afford them, you know their prices are going to collapse.

One of the senior banking officials in China said, "This is a Ponzi scheme."

Those are his words, not my words.

I happen to agree.

But, we all know what happens to Ponzi schemes, eventually you run out of suckers and they collapse.

Once you have enough collapses, there's going to be a run on the banks.

The bankers are going to say sorry, we can't pay you, it's not our problem.

Well, that's not going to be good enough.

Riots are going to break out.

What does it mean when the world's second largest economy hits the brakes?

That's going to be disastrous to global growth; it's going to pull the rug out from under the sky-high valuations we're seeing in the U.S. stock market.

This is a set-up for an entire collapse of the global economy.

STEVE MEYERS:

Jim, there's one more flashpoint I'd like to talk about.

It has to do with a premeditated plan you believe exists inside the IMF, and it involves high-ranking U.S. officials…

To replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

JIM RICKARDS:

It's not just my belief.

This is actually documented.

It's a ten-year plan to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency.

The IMF released a report this year, it was called – and get this title – "The Dollar Reigns Supreme By Default."

And here's a direct quote…

"The aggressive use of unconventional monetary policies by the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, has increased the supply of dollars and created rifts in the financial system. The dollar status should be in peril."

Reserves are nothing more than a savings account for a country.

That's the amount of money they've saved.

But, the problem is, when you have it you have to decide what to do with it.

You can't just stick it under a mattress, so to speak.

A lot of people think that the dollar will prevail because there are no good alternatives.

That's not true.

The dollar is declining sharply, as a percentage of total global currency reserves.

Imagine if that continued.
The euro comes up.
Swiss franc comes up.
Some of the other currencies come up.
That's one outcome.
But, there's another outcome, that's probably coming a lot sooner.
We have a financial panic in the world.

If a central bank has to re-liquefy the world, where is that money going to come from?
It can't come from the Fed, they're leveraged 77-to-1.

There's only one clean balance sheet left in the world… the IMF's.

The IMF, believe it or not, is only leveraged 3-to-1.

When the next crisis comes, it's going to be bigger than the Fed.

The only source of liquidity in the world is going to be the IMF.

Think of it this way.

The Federal Reserve has a printing press, they can print dollars.

The European central bank has a printing press, they can print euros.

The IMF, the International Monetary Fund, has a printing press too.
They can print something called the Special Drawing Right, or the SDR for short.
These SDRs can come along as a new reserve currency.

The reason they came up with the name Special Drawing Right is because if they called it "world money" that would sound a little spooky and scary.

But that's exactly what it is.

Here's the point.

This may be a ten-year plan.

We're not going to make it ten years.

This collapse will happen a lot sooner than that.

So they're going to have to dust off this playbook and run out these SDRs and print trillions of them to prop up the system.

Now, if the Fed bailed out private credit in 2008…

And the IMF now bails out the Fed in the next financial panic…

Who runs the IMF? Who's really in charge?
Well, it's a nice crowd.
We've got kings, dictators, communists…
They're unelected, unaccountable.

And this is the next flashpoint, really, the IMF taking over the world monetary system and becoming the central bank of the world…

Printing "world money" called the SDR.

STEVE MEYERS:

Jim, these flashpoints… 

The attacks on our treasury market and petrodollar…

China's stealth gold run…

China's inevitable collapse…

Even this alarming inside job to take down our dollar that's escalating at the IMF…

You've only scratched the surface of what you reveal in your book.

However, the most important message I took away from The Death Of Money is:

Regardless of which flashpoint unleashes the 25-year Great Depression, folks need to understand it's coming, and coming quick.

JIM RICKARDS:

Steve, that's exactly right.

There is a mission in this book and it's urgent and it's important.

We're talking about:

A prolonged depression…

• Massive deflation
• Massive unemployment
• Rampant bank collapses
• A 70% best case scenario stock market drop

This could all start within the next six months.

Look at it this way.

Americans right now are standing at the very bottom of a tall mountain… Mt. Everest, Mt. Kilimanjaro.
About halfway up the mountain, there's a catastrophic avalanche barreling down towards us.

Determining the one snowflake…

The one flashpoint that's going to speed this chaos up shouldn't be our focus.

Recognizing the severity of the situation and moving to safety should be.

So, mission one is helping people hold on to what they've got.

That's going to be more than half the battle ahead.

STEVE MEYERS:

Jim, as you know, Money Morning believes so much in your book…
As well as your mission to warn the public…
That we'd like to send free copies of The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System, to everyone who is watching this interview.
Now, it's on bookshelves, it's being sold for about $28.
But, I want to point this out.
The version we're sending folks is different than the one being sold in stores.
JIM RICKARDS:
(Interrupts)
And the reason why is simple.
What we're talking about today is not light reading material.

The book investigates everything thoroughly, except for one part.
It's what our government calls – and to be clear, this is what they call it – "the Day After Plan".
This describes what America and our government will be like when our economy collapses.

Now, I have an unpublished chapter that does outline this situation, it's called The Day After Plan Declassified.

I didn't put it in the book that was originally released, because it is controversial.

The picture I paint is far from pretty.

But I am going to include this chapter here…

Because folks watching this interview are more prepared to see this intelligence and these scenarios.

STEVE MEYERS:

You also took another step with this version of the book…

You created a six-part video series you're calling, The Death of Money Digital Debriefing.

JIM RICKARDS:

Here's why I put that together.

It's impossible for anyone, me or anyone else in my line of work, to give you an exact day and time this collapse will begin.

We just know it's coming and coming soon.

However, there are crystal clear warning signs that will appear in our economy and in our markets.

This is certain.

So, across this video series I walk folks through the seven major signs.

I give you the exact signals to watch for.

I share the charts.

The announcements you'll hear from certain world governments and the Federal Reserve.

I examine, even further, the flashpoints that could ignite this nuclear meltdown in our economy.

I explore the secret bubbles nobody is talking about.

I share more findings from the Intelligence Community about Russian, Chinese, and Iranian activities against America.

This is very important…
Across this video series I help folks analyze their investment portfolios.
I show them how to adjust their allocations accordingly for numerous scenarios that could unfold, because this is a fluid situation – it's volatile.

So, I review how much of your portfolio should be in certain sectors of the stock market, precious metals, income opportunities…

Where folks should be looking overseas to invest. It's a point-by-point examination of each of these areas.

STEVE MEYERS:

Jim, we'd like to rush copies of your book, the unpublished chapter, and this six -art digital debriefing out to everyone watching.

It's part of a bold initiative you're taking on, what you're calling:

You helped lead a CIA mission called "Project Prophecy."

The goal was to identify the signals in the financial markets and economy that threatened our country.

With this re-launch of Project Prophecy here, you're applying this same methodology to helping everyday folks build this unbreakable wall around their wealth.

Let's talk about what you've created.

Editor's Note: Jim Rickards has prepared a comprehensive package that will give you the real story and real solutions for these troubling times ahead.
Click here to claim your free copy of The Project Prophecy 2.0 Action Plan.

JIM RICKARDS:

Steve, I realize much of what I've revealed today is a shock to the system.

America is facing one of its darkest periods.

There's no escaping that.

And some of the measures folks are going to need to take to protect themselves may be outside of their comfort zones.

So, I'm going to take a hands-on approach here.

My book, the unpublished chapter, and digital debriefing will give them the big picture.

But, folks also need to know the exact investments to target and the ones to avoid.

They need to rethink how they handle their personal finances.

To help them I've prepared a set of intelligence briefings.
The first is called, The Project Prophecy Wealth Defense Blueprint: The Four Directives.
And, with each directive, I have specific investments targeted.
STEVE MEYERS:
Let's examine each of them.
JIM RICKARDS:

Directive #1:
Seek Shelter From the Dollar's Fall

The next time the dollar falls – it won't be the first time.

The dollar almost collapsed completely in the late 1970s.

Between 1977 and 1981, a five-year period, cumulative inflation was 50%.

If you had insurance, annuities, any kind of fixed income, retirement income, savings in the bank, you lost half your wealth in a very short period of time.

What we're talking about now could be a 70 or 80% collapse, maybe even more.

The best way to handle the dollar's fall – and this is what I focus on in the briefing – is to invest in the euro.

What people have to understand is the euro is not an economic project.

It's a political project.

And if the political will is there, directed from Germany, the euro is going to hang together.

We have a chart actually showing the euro's rise against the dollar.

So just imagine all the talk about the collapse of the euro and yet the euro is actually getting stronger.

And, by the way, everyone knows that the United States has 8,000 tons of gold.

Well, Europe has 10,000 tons of gold.

Europe is the largest gold holder in the world.

So, they actually have the gold to back up the euro.

Now, you don't have to open a foreign bank account to invest in the euro.

In this Project Prophecy Wealth Defense Blueprint, I'm recommending a specific fund that rises twofold as the dollar falls against the euro.

This is a very strong defense play because you are getting twice the return from both the dollar's fall and the euro's rise.

STEVE MEYERS:

So walk us through this second directive in this briefing.

JIM RICKARDS:

Directive #2:
Always Have an Insurance Plan For a Market Collapse

The stock market is going to fall 70%.

Now, does that mean you shouldn't hold stocks?

Folks should make that decision for themselves.

But, there are ways to use the market itself as a safety net.

I'm recommending we target the sector that will experience the most severe consequences of this collapse, the financial sector.

The companies that are holding all these stock derivatives.

These are going to fall harder and faster than anything else.

So, I examine a specific fund in this briefing that is heavily weighted against the financial sector.

It rises 3% for every 1% the financial sector pulls back.

So, a 25% pull back, that's a 75% return from this fund.

If it falls 70%, now you're looking at a 210% return.

What this fund allows you to do is use a small amount of capital to multiply your protection against a market crash.

It's excellent insurance.

STEVE MEYERS:

So, take us through the third directive.

JIM RICKARDS:

Directive #3:
Invest in What People Can't Live Without

When America experiences this worst case scenario we are predicting in the Intelligence Community, people won't stop needing food.

They won't stop using energy.

They won't stop using essential goods and services.

This is where folks should be looking now.

So in the briefing I'm recommending water investments, because you can't live without water.

And we're already seeing water investments begin to take off.

This sector has been surging since 2009. It's up about 200%.

I'm targeting a water processing company that operates 47,000 miles of water pipelines across 16 states and 1500 communities.

Now, this is a sleeping giant income play.

This water processor's dividend has grown every year.

It's up 55% already.

And, income is something we can't live without either.

And, besides water, the briefing also focuses on a company that provides emergency medical supplies, because that's also a necessity.

STEVE MEYERS:
Jim, you have one more directive in this briefing.
JIM RICKARDS:
Yes, Warren Buffet's secret weapon.

Directive #4:
Target Companies Who Control Hard Assets

You know Warren Buffet has this reputation as the avuncular oracle of Omaha, the stock market investor's best friend.

But, I say when it comes to billionaires, don't listen to what they say, watch what they do.

Warren Buffet's recent acquisitions have been very revealing.

A few years ago he bought the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.

He bought the whole railroad.

He actually took it private.

But what is a railroad?

A railroad is nothing but hard assets.

They have right-of-ways, mining rights adjacent to the right-of-ways, rail rolling stock, yards, switches, signals; it's all hard assets.

How does a railroad make money?

It moves hard assets in the form of freight, coal, wheat, corn, steel, cattle, etc.

So a railroad is the ultimate hard asset play. It's hard assets making money moving hard assets.

What was Warren Buffet's next big acquisition? He bought oil and natural gas resources, another hard asset.

And by the way, he can move his oil on his own railroad.

He doesn't need the Keystone Pipeline.

When you line up 100 tanker cars on a railroad, that's a pipeline on wheels.

So Warren Buffet is a guy who's dumping paper money, getting hard assets in the form of railroads, oil, natural gas.

If it's good enough for Warren Buffet, it's good enough for everyday Americans.

This is the most important of the directives, so I have the top six companies who have built these hard asset escape plans into their business models.

STEVE MEYERS:

The second intelligence briefing you've created is called: The Project Prophecy Watch List: 30 Stocks That Will Soon Collapse.

Take us through this.

JIM RICKARDS:

Steve, during the original Project Prophecy for the CIA we built a tracking system, a watch list of the 400 stocks most likely to signal a coming attack on America.

But, in the years that followed, we kept modifying its capabilities so it could identify the companies that were in danger of collapsing.

This intelligence briefing reveals the 30 stocks that are now at the top of that list.

Now, when folks see these stocks, it may shock them.

These aren't micro caps or small caps, because they don't have the capability to do widespread damage.

These are 30 of the most widely held stocks in the retirement accounts and 401ks of everyday Americans.

Most are large blue chip.

That means everybody watching today is probably holding one, two, or more of them.

And they are vulnerable to complete annihilation.

Now, inside this list of 30 I've singled out the 10 that are currently at a red alert status.

This means if you were holding them today you need to not be holding them tomorrow, because the clock is running out on them.

They're already at risk of failure before the worst of what's coming appears.

STEVE MEYERS:

Now, let's talk about the final intelligence you've created: The Project Prophecy Hard Assets and Personal Finance Playbook.

JIM RICKARDS:

I'm advocating people – if they aren't already and they have the means to do so – to start exploring adding hard assets to their overall portfolio.

This intelligence briefing covers them all, from land, including farmland, to certain antiquities and art that holds value, as well as physical currencies and precious metals.

STEVE MEYERS:

I'd like to focus on one precious metal in particular, gold.

Now, in the book, you reveal how China has successfully manipulated gold's price to keep it low, while they stockpile it in their reserves.

But you're bullish on it moving forward.

However, you do write that people may be taking a dangerous approach to gold investing.

JIM RICKARDS:

It has become fashionable in recent years to invest in gold ETFs.

The GLD ticker is the headliner.

The logic on the surface makes sense, you can secure gold without having to acquire it physically and store it.

You can even, theoretically – at least, they tell you – you can cash in your ETF shares for physical gold if you so choose in the future.

This is the problem – that's not true.

The everyday American does not have that ability.

Here's how to think about the gold market.
Imagine it's a pyramid, but it's inverted.

The point is down at the bottom and wide base is at the top.

There's a little tiny bit of physical gold at the bottom.

On top you have all these forms of paper gold.

What are they?

• Gold leasing
• Unallocated gold forwards
• Gold futures
• Gold options
• Gold ETFs

These are all what I call paper gold. They give you contractual rights but there's no assurance you'll ever get your hands on physical gold.

Now, what's happening is this whole pyramid is getting larger and larger, but the amount of physical gold, the floating supply, is disappearing.

When gold moves from the GLD warehouse to the Chinese warehouses in Shanghai, which it is…

It's been moving from west to east in very large quantities…

Once it goes to Shanghai it's no longer a part of the floating supply. That gold is never going to see the light of day, at least not for several hundred years.

So, the total supply may be unchanged, but the floating supply is dropping.

That means this little brick at the bottom of the pyramid is getting smaller and smaller.

One of two things has to happen: either that paper pyramid has to shrink, or the whole thing is going to become wobbly and tip over.

So, if you have GLD, you only have shares and you will only ever have shares.

You cannot get your hands on the gold.

So, with this intelligence briefing, I tell folks to stay away from gold ETFs.

Instead, I talk about three specific precious metal coins they'll want to look into immediately.

STEVE MEYERS:

Now, let's examine how folks can fortify their personal finances from these dangerous times that are fast approaching.

JIM RICKARDS:

This is very important, because if you protect yourself with your investments, yet don't take the same measures with your personal finances, you'll experience the same outcome and it won't be a good one.

The bank you choose to keep your money in is now a critical decision, because that bank may not be around next year or the year after, as everything escalates.

So, I talk about the safest banks and credit unions, these will not collapse.

You should make sure your money is in one of them.

I show folks which CDs and conservative income opportunities are most shielded from risk.

I talk about the ten safest cities for the future.

These are the ones with the strongest local economies.

They have industries that will continue providing jobs, their crime rates are low now, and they have the best chance of staying that way, even in the darkest times.

Retirees should be looking near these areas.

Plus, I also examine which careers will be the safest, because real unemployment and underemployment is already an epidemic, but it's going to get much worse.

STEVE MEYERS:

Jim Rickards, what you revealed today in this interview is nothing short of a wake-up call. Thank you for joining us.

JIM RICKARDS:

It's my pleasure, Steve.

STEVE MEYERS:

Today, Jim Rickards stepped forward to warn you about a coming catastrophe the Intelligence Community fears is at our doorstep.

But, as you saw, he's also working to help everyday folks across the country prepare for it.

And we at Money Morning want to do our part as well.

That's why we'd like to send you a free copy of everything Jim has prepared.

What he's calling the Project Prophecy 2.0 Action Plan.

It includes:

• The New York Times best-selling book, The Death of Money: The Collapse of the International Monetary System
• The controversial unpublished chapter, The Day After Plan Declassified
• The six-part video series, The Death of Money Digital Debriefing
• The Project Prophecy Wealth Defense Blueprint
• The Project Prophecy Watch List
• The Project Prophecy Hard Assets and Personal Finance Playbook

You can click here to claim this Project Prophecy 2.0 Action Plan for free.

And I strongly suggest you do so.

Because if Jim and his colleagues at the Pentagon, the CIA, and across the entire Intelligence Community are right…

There isn't much time left to protect yourself.

If you'd prefer to claim your copy by phone...

Simply call 1.866.460.9039 or 1.443.353.4384 (for international callers) from 9 am to 5 pm (Eastern Time) – and be sure to mention Priority Code LMMRRA62.

I want to thank you for joining us today.

I'm Steve Meyers.

Stay safe.

August 2014

Copyright - 2014 Money Map Press, LLC. The Money Map Press is a publishing company that does not act as a personal investment advisor for any specific individual. Nor do we advocate the purchase or sale of any security or investment for any specific individual. The proprietary recommendations and analysis we present to readers is for the exclusive use of subscribers. Readers should be aware that although our track record is highly rated, and has been legally reviewed for presentation in this invitation, investment markets have inherent risks and there can be no guarantee of future profits. Likewise, our past performance does not assure the same future results. Warning: The past performance of any trade whether actual or hypothetical is not necessarily an indication of future results. Stocks, futures, currencies, commodities, CFDs, options and all types of investment trading can have large potential rewards, but also carry large potential risks. We make absolutely no representation that gains or losses demonstrated in services published by Money Map Press LLC are likely or achievable. Hypothetical trading examples also cannot possibly take into account the impact of liquidity or buyer and seller demand, and do not allow for slippage and associated trading costs and concerns. One must be aware of the risks and be willing to accept them in order to invest in the markets. One should never trade with money that one cannot afford to lose, and one must accept that there will be losses, and one must be able to sustain these losses, both from a financial as well as an emotional perspective. Recommendations are for the exclusive use of subscribers and can change at any time. This work is based on SEC filings, current events, interviews, corporate press releases, and what we've learned as financial journalists. It may contain errors and you shouldn't make any investment decision based solely on what you read here. It's your money and your responsibility.

Is James Rickards Right About A Coming Monetary Apocalypse?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2014/04/28/is-james-rickards-right-about-a-coming-monetary-apocalypse/

Ralph Benko ,

Contributor

On transformational humanitarian populist political leaders and ideas.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Is a monetary apocalypse imminent?
James Rickards, bestselling author of Currency Wars, has a new New York Times bestseller out, about the possible imminent collapse of the dollar: The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System (Portfolio/Penguin). More interestingly, he writes about what could come next: a golden age.
Advance praise (“A terrifically interesting and useful book….”) from Brookings’s senior fellow Kenneth W. Dam, former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and author of The Rules of the Game: Reform and Evolution in the International Monetary System, is an attention getter. Rickard’s Currency Wars was a hot best seller on the New York Times list, and also, more significantly, in the United States Senate.

James Rickards

The Death of Money is getting the attention of reviewers, James Mackintosh, investments editor of the FT, John Aziz at The Week, David Merkel at The Aleph Blog, as well as Kirkus, among the more prominent.  Reviewers are respectful… but not persuaded of his claim of “Nighness of the End.”  As David Merkel says, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.  There is evidence here, but not extraordinary proof.”
This columnist, too, is not persuaded that death of money is imminent.  Reuters recently reported that a senior official of the Bank for International Settlements — sometimes referred to as the central banks’ central bank — states that “The dollar’s share of central bank reserves may fall by as much as 10-15 percentage points in coming years without threatening its role as the world’s main reserve currency….”

Recommended by Forbes

But the reviewers’ skepticism as to imminence of death may be beside the point. Rickards states as reported by this blog:

a lot of people are running around talking doom and gloom, the end of the dollar and all that. I might even agree with that, but I don’t think it has a lot of content.
What I try to do is provide a more in-depth analysis describing what will come next, what the future international monetary system will look like.
I point out that the international monetary system has already collapsed three times within the last 100 years—1914, 1939, and 1971—and that another collapse would not be at all unusual. But it’s not the end of the world. It’s just that the major powers sit down and reform the system. I talk about what that reformation will look like.

And “what that reformation will look like” really does constitute the most interesting part of The Death of Money.
Sen. Nelson Aldrich (chairman of the National Monetary Commission, and called in his day America’s “general manager”) stated, before the New York Economics Club in 1909, that “[T]he study of monetary questions is one of the great causes of insanity.”  Rickards provides a wonderful antidote to some of the insanity too often evident around the study of monetary questions.
Rickards critiques hysterics, apparently Nouriel Roubini (who he does not name and shame but with whom he engaged in a spirited 16 hour Twitter war some time ago) for an indictment of gold investors as “paranoid, fear-based, far-right fringe and fanatics.”  Then Rickards berates reactionary hysterics for claims such as that Fort Knox surreptitiously has been emptied of gold.
Rickards observes that

Understanding gold’s real role in the monetary system requires reliance on history, not histrionics; analysis should be based on demonstrable data and reasonable inference rather than accusation and speculation.  When a refined view is taken on the subject of gold, the truth turns out to be more interesting than either the gold haters or the gold bugs might lead one to believe.

He goes on to strip the bark off of some of the criticisms of, and polemics surrounding, the gold standard.  First he disposes of the myth that “there’s not enough gold.” (This myth is even more persuasively demolished by George Mason Professor Lawrence White, elsewhere. Further refutations are welcome until the culture fully assimilates just how asinine is the myth of “not enough gold.”)
Rickards then disposes of the even more pernicious myth that the true gold standard caused and perpetuated the Great Depression.

The Great Depression, conventionally dated from 1929 to 1940, was preceded by the adoption of the “gold-exchange standard,” which emerged in stages from 1922 to 1925 and functioned with great difficulty until 1939.
…
The gold exchange standard was, at best, a pale imitation of a true gold standard and, at worst, a massive fraud. …
The sequence of events from 1922 to 1933 shows that the Great Depression was caused not by gold but rather by central bank discretionary policies.  The gold exchange standard was fatally flawed because it did not take gold’s free-market price into account. … The gold exchange standard did contribute to the Great Depression because it was not a true gold standard.  It was a poorly designed hybrid, manipulated and mismanaged by discretionary monetary policy conducted by central banks, particularly in the U.K. and the United States.

Central bank mismanagement as causing the Great Depression is in no way a fringe claim.  As then Federal Reserve Board governor Ben Bernanke stated, in a 2002 speech on the occasion of Milton Friedman’s 90^th birthday, “I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”

World's Most Discreet Investment Explained: 

http://www.angelnexus.com/o/web/85011

 

101 Companies Offer
A Secret $50 Retirement
Plan That Grows to
$1.1 Million in Benefits

Some Americans have collected millions from this plan that
could soon make 401(k)s, IRAs, or Social Security obsolete. But you
may have never heard of it because not all companies
can afford to offer this perk.

"The best-kept secret on Wall Street"
— Wall Street Journal

Dear Fellow Investor,
Just over 101 companies in America are offering an unheard-of, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for individual investors to make significant amounts of cash for retirement.
And there’s no telling how long this opportunity will last because Wall Street folks aren’t too happy about it...
Congress isn’t thrilled about it either. Even banks are quietly furious.
It's no surprise this opportunity is not widely known or used by many Americans. Information about it is not advertised, and the process of enrolling in such a profit-making plan is not well understood.
But it involves using just $50 — sometimes less, sometimes more — to build a hundred-thousand-dollar portfolio as part of an unusual retirement plan that has remained buried in the financial trenches for years.
Today, we’re digging it up and bringing everything we know to the surface.
In fact, I’ve seen instances where some individuals have used this plan to build over $1.1 million. I’ll show you scores of everyday folks who have made much more.
And they've done it completely out of the realm of the stock market, yet it's fully legal according to American law.
This unusual opportunity is so potentially lucrative for anyone trying to create a comfortable retirement that we've called it the $50 Retirement Plan.
The first thing you need to know is that not all companies can offer such a perk. Renowned companies such as Microsoft, Starbucks, Amgen, and Cisco Systems DO NOT offer $50 Retirement Plans.
Quite often, some of the companies that do offer this $50 Retirement Plan are ones you’d hardly hear about and that don’t make the news easily.
Yet behind the scenes, these companies are minting millionaires more than any retirement plan under the sun.
To enroll in this plan, all you have to do is send your small initial amount of money through the mail, along with the form to get started. Or you can do it online... and the rest is history.
It sounds a bit out there...
But it doesn’t involve Wall Street, and it has nothing to do with regular dividends, options, corporate bonds, or anything you’ve likely heard of.
And while you may have never heard of it before, financial guru Peter Schiff recently said that when you hold a $50 Retirement Plan, "You don't have to work anymore. You quit your job and retire."
Question is, which companies are offering these $50 Retirement Plans and why?
Let’s dig a bit deeper...

These Folks Could Retire Today if They Wanted To

In Corvallis, Oregon, a couple miles north of the Oregon State University campus, sits a WinCo Foods discount supermarket.
Now, unless you’re in need of groceries, you might drive by without noticing it. What’s so great about WinCo Foods?
I assure you it’s an extraordinary company that’s worthy of pilgrimages by the world’s great business schools and financial minds for one simple reason...
Thanks to its $50 Retirement Plan, WinCo has minted nearly 1,000 millionaires across America.
Just consider that this year alone, WinCo will pay out $200 million in total cash towards the plan. Some of these individual accounts will amount to nearly $1 million each in cash benefits, according to Forbes.
One of these folks is Cathy Burch, a typical worker from Oregon. At 42, she’s worked a variety of front-line jobs including checker, shelf stocker, and inventory.
These aren’t jobs we’d normally associate with robust retirement savings, right?


In fact, the Employee Benefit Research Institute would tell you that most Americans in Cathy’s situation either have no savings at all or an account such as a 401(k) containing less than $50,000.
But as Cathy told Forbes in her own words, "I have almost $1 million. If I wanted to, I could retire right now."
So what's different for folks like Cathy?
She is a direct beneficiary of WinCo’s $50 Retirement Plan. And she’s not the only one...

Millionaire Meat Cutter

James Lair works as a meat cutter in Nampa, Idaho. But there's something about him and his retirement account that you probably wouldn't expect..
.


"I'm going to retire pretty well," he says.
That's right; this unassuming meat cutter is pretty much a millionaire thanks to WinCo’s $50 Retirement Plan.
These are not hotshot Wall Street investors or day traders...
These are everyday working folks who were smart enough to take advantage of a little-known retirement perk offered by just a few American companies.
Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of "smarts" to leap forward. And many Americans are now taking that leap because Social Security and typical 401(k) plans just don’t cut it these days...
Never in the history of finance would a small amount of cash like $50 or $100 become the buck stop for a lavish retirement.
But thanks to an unadvertised plan endorsed by just over 100 unpopular and sometimes unheard-of companies, many everyday Americans are building thousand- and sometimes million-dollar portfolios in record time...
And all it takes is a small amount of money, along with your signature on a form that you send to the company.
Cathy Burch and James Lair are hardly the only ones making out with plenty of "green" for retirement.
Since I began researching this underground investment, I've discovered hundreds of stories that would make your hair stand on end...
Millionaires are being made out of folks who had no idea they would someday amass a fortune.

Some of These Millionaires Feel Guilty

I am sure you’ve never heard of a company called Central States Manufacturing Co. based in Lowell, Arkansas.
The company doesn’t have any conventional competitive advantage — no important patents or intellectual property, nor any exclusive technology or equipment. It’s not even listed on the S&P 500.
It’s just a steel-and-metal roofing company. Nothing "sexy" about it.
But the company’s approach to on-time delivery and service has made it cash rich. And it certainly has passed on the wealth to some Americans who are part of its $50 Retirement Plan.
Folks like 60-year-old Aaron King, who piled up a solid $1.25 million in cash benefits thanks to Central Sales’ $50 plan.
As Aaron puts it: "Most of the people who are my age, in my Sunday school at church... they’ve worked as hard as I have and most of them have nothing. I almost feel guilty."
Marcus Headrick is just 33 years old, but his retirement also looks brighter than that of most Americans. He’s amassed $250,000 and is well on his way to a solid retirement.
"Most of my friends don’t have anything for retirement," Marcus told Forbes.
Even Home Depot created an estimated 1,000-plus millionaires as a result of this underground retirement plan, according to the Florida Times.
The question is, why are these not-so-mainstream companies paying so much cash to sometimes-reclusive individuals?
Where is the money coming from? And why, for heaven’s sake, haven’t you heard of this before?
A couple things first...

The Secret Investment Plan That's
"None of Your Business"

When our investigations led to this moneymaking idea, we learned that it was one of the most discreet investments under the sun. Why?
For years, brokers have lobbied Washington to shut down America’s $50 Retirement Plan simply because too many folks are getting rich outside of Wall Street. Individuals who sign up for this plan deal directly with the company.
As the Wall Street Journal puts it: "Because brokers, fund managers and other middlemen can't make any fees or commissions, you won't hear about the secret from these middlemen."
We even spoke to one financial insider who admitted as much...
Tax and pension attorney Chris Egoville sat down with us to break down why brokers are so scared of those $50 Retirement Plans.

Financial brokers make their money by selling you a product... One of the unfortunate pieces of financial services is that it is really a sales-driven business.

A broker by definition is a salesperson. They're not going to be compensated the way that they want to be compensated if you invest in a $50 Retirement Plan.

Brokers are self-interested... it probably isn't appropriate for someone giving retirement or long term savings advice to be compensated the way brokers are. It's just not impartial.

The other weird thing I discovered is that the U.S. government has a chokehold on these $50 Retirement Plans.
Congress hates them enough to consider wiping them off the grid entirely, even if they're legal according to U.S. law.
That means companies who offer this plan cannot advertise it to the public. Put simply, SEC rules won't let them.
When this plan was approved by the SEC, the conditions prohibited the companies from advertising the plans, and usage was limited to people who worked with the companies and the ultra-wealthy.
But it gets even more bizarre, especially when you consider that this $50 Retirement Plan is doing better than 401(k)s or IRAs, regular dividends offered by blue chip companies, bonds, CDs, or anything remotely close.
Just last year, President Obama launched his new MyRA idea... another type of retirement plan with all the "benefits" for everyday Americans.
Well, it’s just another red herring to push for a full shutdown of $50 Retirement Plans, if you ask me.
Chris Egoville told us that not only is MyRA a "terrible idea," but it is also the "surest way to lose your money."
But until MyRA becomes a reality, anyone with the right information can legally open a $50 Retirement Plan and blissfully make hundreds of thousands of dollars, even a million, that can be used help you travel well, eat well, and take care of yourself in your golden years.

10 Times More Cash Than Social Security or Your 401(k)

The great thing is that there are no age or income restrictions whatsoever to open a $50 plan.
That’s why it’s a far better and more profitable way to collect steady income when you need it most.
It's something that could forever change the way people in America retire. The problem is, the average citizen just doesn't know it exists.
According to the Federal Reserve, the value of a typical 401(k) is about $120,000. That's almost nothing if you're looking to retire anytime soon.
And it's 10 times less than the $1.1 million you could collect through a basic $50 Retirement Plan.
If more Americans knew about this $50 Retirement Plan, we wouldn't be looking at a time when ordinary people are forced to work into their 70s (or even 80s).
The best part is, most plans allow you to start with as little as $50. You can also start as high as $100, $500, or with any amount you want to. It really comes down to what you can afford at the time.
You can hold multiple accounts if you're so inclined... and you can access the money you've saved anytime you want without any penalty whatsoever.
Now, normally, as a financial analyst with a journalism background and one who's used to writing about breakthrough investments most people have never heard of...
I'd be the first to be skeptical about something as secretive and financially rewarding as the $50 Retirement Plan.
After all, there are enough "get-rich-quick" schemes out there already.
But I learned that investors like Bill Gross endorsed $50 Retirement Plans over the years. Warren Buffett himself holds several of these accounts, too.
Of course, these are influential investors with a lot of capital at their disposal.
But plenty of everyday Americans with little money are secretly tapping into this plan as well and raking in over $1.1 million along the way... sometimes more. For instance...

A $10 million fortune
Kathleen Magowan, a first-grade teacher, built a $10 million fortune through her $50 plan. The funny thing is, her neighbors and family members never had any idea she was a millionaire.

$180 turned into $7 million
Then there's Grace Gray, who turned a small $180 investment into a whopping $7 million from her plan. She keeps quiet about her success, but she'll gladly tell you how thankful she is for her $50 Retirement Plan.

A millionaire in the making
Another gentleman, Mike Rogalski, is a millionaire in the making. He holds several $50 plans and will retire MUCH earlier than he ever thought possible.

But here's what's really mind-blowing...
We live in a world of information, right?
So why do so few people know about these investment plans?
Well, don't expect to hear Lowe's, WinCo, GE, Coca-Cola, Sempra Energy, Novartis, or any of those rich American companies advertise their $50 plans. It's against the law to do so.
You won't even see any mention of these plans in their financial statements sent to their other regular shareholders.
Many of the companies who offer this plan don’t say a word about them on mainstream publications like the Wall Street Journal or Forbes.
Plus, there are only about 100 companies that can offer you a shot at this plan.
Now can you see why practically no one knows this program even exists?
Well, I've created this presentation to show exactly how these plans work, who exactly is offering them, how much money you can make, and when you can expect to collect your payouts.

How I Discovered America's Safest and
Most Secretive Investment

My name is Jimmy Mengel.
You may have seen me hobnobbing with the financial elite on CNBC's Closing Bell...
Or you may have heard of me as the architect behind the wildly popular finance and investing website Wealth Wire, where I brought readers the story behind the mainstream financial news every single day.
I've spent my entire professional career researching and writing about little-known opportunities in the financial arena.
Today, because of my experience, I'm managing editor of one of the country's largest independent financial boutiques, filtering obscure moneymaking ideas to our followers.
I head the Outsider Club and our financial planning advisory, The Crow's Nest.
As a trained journalist, I've gained a reputation among my peers for digging like a sleuth to uncover under-the-radar moneymaking loopholes in financial back doors that most people never hear of...
In other words, I don't follow the crowd. The real money is always in the investments you've never heard of. That's how the rich play the game.
For instance, last year I discovered a greedy way to play silver that doubles your return compared to buying silver the regular way.
It's a very simple tool to maximize silver's inevitable returns over the coming years...
In short, this investment phenomenon allows you to earn 2% every time silver spikes 1%.
Another unconventional investment I discovered is a way to get into the collectables market.
Through hard research, we tapped the resources of a collectables company that has authenticated and graded more than 27 million coins — worth a total of $27 billion.
The company's card experts have certified more than 20 million trading cards, autographs, and other valuable memorabilia, exceeding $1 billion in worth.
It's already up 70% in just a few months, and to top it all, my followers are enjoying a juicy 7.4% dividend, a return that's almost unheard of in the regular market.
I've been furnishing my readers with these unorthodox — but incredibly safe — investment ideas that could have a huge impact on their financial goals.
I am not one to follow the mainstream when it comes to money. That's the route to the poorhouse.
Folks who want to stick to conventional investment ideas can buy a CD and be happy with a 2% return forever or follow the herd in the stock market.
But if you want to beat the market at its own game and stay ahead of everyone else — instead of playing "catch-up" — then this presentation is your gateway to financial freedom.
When I heard about the $50 Retirement Plan that has the potential to make Social Security, IRAs, and 401(k)s a thing of the past...
I went to work right away to uncover how you could open one today and possibly build a million-dollar fortune like the folks I told you about.
So what exactly are $50 Retirement Plans, and how can just $50, $100, or a small $180 multiply into as much as $7 million like it did for Grace Gray?
You see, a $50 Retirement Plan is a corporate perk that was once reserved only for the rich executives of companies...
And even though companies are forbidden from publicizing this safe and lucrative retirement plan, nowadays, anyone can start a plan with a company of their choice.
This plan is specifically designed for people who want to start out small but accumulate thousands — even hundreds of thousands — without risking ANY money.

$2,000 Multiplies into More Than $1 Million

There is no investment under the sun that is safer and more consistent than these plans. Not options, regular dividends, blue chip stocks, penny stocks, or anything else...
In short, a $50 Retirement Plan is an investment vehicle that multiplies small amounts of cash through what’s called the "Rule of 72."
It’s a mathematical phenomenon used in elite financial circles to determine, with amazing accuracy, your profit's doubling effect or compounding periods...
Or how many years it will take for a currency's buying power to be cut in half.



Words alone cannot do justice to the compounding force behind this rule...
But famed scientist Albert Einstein tried when he said, "Compound interest is the ninth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it... he who doesn't, pays it."
Well, the Rule of 72 is the secret booster behind $50 Retirement Plans. It's the compounding effect on your money that makes this plan trump IRAs and 401(k)s.
In fact, this force is so powerful that I think the government is deliberately keeping it from you.
I say that because if the masses actually knew of the income this multiplying effect could deliver, they would immediately demand an end to Ponzi schemes like Social Security.
While the rest of the investing public fights for the same pool of risky stocks and low-return 2% CDs, I discovered people from all walks of life who secretly own these safe $50 Retirement Plans.

• Curt Degerman, a man who collected bottles and cans to be recycled, built a net worth of $1.5 million. You can imagine how shocked people were to discover he was a millionaire.

• Pete Green was barely 30 years old when he got married, and he didn't want his kid to start with nothing. He set aside $325 and dumped it into Pepsi's $50 Retirement Plan. That tiny $300 has grown into $5,604.63.

• A man who wished to remain anonymous watched his account grow from $13,950 into $178,994.52 by putting his money into a $50 Retirement Plan with Colgate Palmolive.

And as I said before, unlike with 401(k)s, IRAs, or even Social Security, there's no age limit to owning a plan.

No Age or Income Limits

Consider the story of Alisha Brown.
She was a first grader when she was enrolled in the $50 Retirement Plan of Coca-Cola as a present for her sixth birthday. 
For Alisha's family, it was a giant first step towards securing her financial future.
When Coca-Cola sent her the certificate of ownership for her $50 Retirement Plan, so monumental was this moment that it was framed with an engraving of the first part of Deuteronomy 8:18: "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth."

It didn't take long before Coca-Cola mailed her documents to welcome her as a proud member of their retirement program.



Her plan was opened with less than $50. Today, it's worth nearly $8,000.
If the account continues undisturbed until she graduates college, Alisha will have roughly $15,400, which will be a great gift along with her college degree.
Just imagine if your child or grandchild had that privilege...
In a moment, I'll show you how you can open a $50 Retirement Plan that will generate $25,000... $50,000... $270,000... or even $1.1 million more than what you're getting today in your traditional IRA or 401(k).
You'll know which company to contact, and applying is as easy as filling out a form.
There's a line at the top for your name and address. You sign at the bottom... enclose a check for an initial payment, which could be as low as $50 or $100... then drop it into the mail.
From there on, you can expect your small payment — or whichever amount you decide to start with — to multiply as if on autopilot.
But here's the real question: How did a retirement plan so rewarding and so secretive get started in the first place... and how can you take advantage of it today?

A Look into the Most Secretive and
Safest Investment on Earth

More than 50 years ago, some of America's biggest companies started offering their executives and other employees a special perk.
In short, they were allowed to buy shares of the company DIRECTLY from the company, usually at a steep discount.
A few companies like General Electric, Kellogg's, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, and Procter & Gamble began offering these perks.
As you may have guessed, these shares became part of the company's $50 Retirement Plan.
Over time, that perk was extended to the wider public, allowing them to get in on the program.
It was a way for a company to grow a stable of loyal shareholders and raise money away from greedy brokers and the stock market.
You could only participate in this program by buying the shares directly from the companies offering the plan.
By now, you can see why brokers are furious about it and have dogged the government to shut down this $50 program... and leave Americans to rot with the likes of IRAs and 401(k)s.
Do you think they'll ever tell you about $50 Retirement Plans? Don't hold your breath.
But guess what? It's time to stop paying needless broker fees.
That's exactly what Anne Scheiber did.

Novice Investor Turned $5,000 Into
$22 Million Without a Broker

Scheiber was an IRS auditor, yet she didn't have much to rely on for retirement.
She was badly burned by brokers, so she resolved to never rely on anyone for her own financial future.
What happened next is shocking, for lack of a better word...
Using a measly $5,000 she had saved and a pension of roughly $3,150, she plowed it all into a $50 Retirement Plan and built a $22 million fortune from her tiny New York apartment.
Never before has any investment in this nation's history given so much investing freedom to average Americans like $50 Retirement Plans.
But there's one thing you must be mindful of: You can't wait one minute more to start a plan.
Obama is already on track to shut down every retirement plan that keeps your money from the government.
In fact, the government could decide one morning to shut down the $50 Retirement Plan for good.
So you must hurry to grab this ticket to a safe and worry-free retirement.
Here's how it works...

How to Use One Share of Stock to Make $1 Million

To open a $50 plan (and I'll show you exactly which companies offer the best plans), you must buy ONE share of stock. That's it.
Your ONE share of stock generates dividends. But here's where it gets really good...
"These plans permit shareholders to automatically plow their dividends into the buying of additional company shares. In some cases, there's a discount on the price of those shares," as the Chicago Tribune puts it.
The more shares you get, the greater your dividends multiply over time. Keep in mind, these are preferred dividends — they're not like the ordinary dividends regular investors get when they buy a stock.
These preferred dividends go straight into your $50 account, and they are like dividends on steroids. They multiply quickly without you doing any work whatsoever.
That's a great way to start preparing for retirement even if you don't have a lot of cash on hand.
But if you can afford it, you can begin your plan by buying more than one share.
For example...
Let's say you saved $3,000 and started a plan with one of my favorite dividend payers, Duke Energy Corp. (DUK).
That initial investment of $3,000 would have bought you 176 shares of DUK at the time, each one earning a dividend yield of 5.4%. That dividend would eventually multiply five times.
Your $50 plan would earn you a tidy $1 million payday as long as you simply let your dividend multiply in the plan and add a monthly contribution of just $80.
You could have earned a yearly dividend stream of $50,845 without lifting a finger.
This is way better than the returns you'd get from the S&P 500's measly 10.4% over the last three decades.
Remember, this is something you cannot do with regular dividends if you buy the stock via the stock market.
You can only get that "dividend multiplier" when you open a $50 Retirement Plan.

How Your Money Can Multiply on its Own

Let me show you how it works...
Some folks are happy with the 3% dividend advertised by Johnson & Johnson.
If you were to invest $5,000 into Johnson & Johnson the regular way — through your broker via the stock market — your profits would have been a measly $150 in annual dividends.
To some folks, that's a big deal.
But that's probably because they don't know about the company's $50 plan that allows you to collect 36%... from the exact same shares over the long haul.

This effectively translates into a whopping $1,950 in annual dividends that gets reinvested in your $50 plan to buy more shares directly from the company and build your retirement portfolio on solid ground.
And that's regardless of what happens to Social Security, IRAs, 401(k)s, the stock market, or the wider economy.
Your $50 plan must get paid by law.
The same thing could have happened had you tapped into the $50 plan of Pepsi Co.
Most Americans take home the company's 2.9% dividend and stash it away hoping to build something for rainy days.
Too bad many of those individuals don't know Pepsi — according to American law — is forbidden from advertising its $50 plan that could yield a sizzling dividend of 39% in a few years.

Another good example is AT&T's $50 plan, where your dividend would have been seven times more than the company's regular dividend.
While the company currently yields a 6.7% dividend, its $50 plan holders are bagging a whopping 43% instead.

Throughout my career as a financial analyst, I have seen my fair share of investment fads, and I can tell you there aren't many investments out there that are safe.
But $50 plans are just about the safest and most consistent way to multiply your money regardless of what happens in the market.

These Plans are Immune to Stock Market Crashes,
Falling Stock Prices, or Recessions

These plans are so solid that even if the company's stock price stumbles, your $50 plans remain untouched.
Remember the earlier story of 6-year-old Alisha Brown, who owns a $50 plan with Coca-Cola?
Well, her plan was opened with one share of Coca-Cola's stock, which cost less than $50 at the time. Today, the account is worth nearly $8,000.
Thing is, Coca-Cola still trades today at around the same price it did when the plan was started years ago. Nothing fantastic has happened to the stock price.
Not only that...
We've experienced the September 11th terrorist attacks... the rise and fall of the housing bubble... the stock market collapse of 2008... two wars waged halfway around the world... expanding federal deficits... and near double-digit unemployment.
Despite all of these woes, Alisha's plan grew at roughly 6% compounded. But this is not just a stroke of good luck.
A man named John Kayson bought 105 shares of U.S. Bancorp in one of his $50 Retirement Plans simply as an experiment.
He paid $27.29 per share and had a total cost of $2,865. The stock crashed (along with everything else) to $23.62 as of the close of the markets on November 19, 2008.
Folks who owned the stock via the stock market and through a broker saw a 13% drop in price and lost a huge chunk of their savings.
Yet John Kayson's $50 plan showed a 45% gain while everyone else got waxed in the market.

Could These Plans Make the Stock Market Obsolete?

This brings me to another point that highlights how these $50 plans are better than IRAs, 401(k)s, or any other retirement plans...
When you open a $50 plan, remember, you buy shares directly from the company.
If the stock price of the company falls, the multiplying dividends simply buy more shares on the cheap... accelerating higher percentage dividends for the future.
John Kayson originally bought 105 shares. When U.S. Bancorp shares fell, he automatically owned over 124 shares. That's nearly 20 shares more than he originally purchased.
Did he get more dividends on those extra shares? You bet. He might be a millionaire in the making as a result.
His interest begins to earn interest on itself.
Bottom line: Falling stock prices don't affect $50 plans in any negative way at all.
In fact, they allow you to add shares at the cheapest possible price.
From the looks of it, if too many Americans know about $50 plans, it could make the stock market obsolete. And that's true in a sense.
Maybe that's why the government is working overtime to keep this a secret.

It's like these companies are paying you to invest in them

Here's the thing: I've only begun to scratch the surface of how great these plans are at helping you accumulate wealth.
If at this point you want to fold in your IRA or your 401(k), I won't blame you, considering that $50 Retirement Plans outperform them by 10-fold in some cases.
And with retirement on the horizon, the earlier you start, the better you can let your dividends accumulate to hundreds of thousands or even a million dollars.
I don't know about your personal financial situation. But here's some shocking news when you think of it...
72% of Americans say they will have to work until they are at least 80 because they have not saved enough to retire, according to USA Today.
Bottom line: Now's the best time to open a $50 plan. And holding back a day longer is like throwing money away.
Plus, you never know when the government will shut down this program. Nothing this good can last forever.
Right now, you may even want to start one for your children or grandchildren.
It will give them a jump-started financial advantage most kids never have. And you can do this with as little as $10, $50, or $100. Heck, you could start with $500.
In fact, you can start a $50 plan today at a discount...
Because some companies secretly offer a 5% discount to begin a plan with them.
I'll reveal a full list of companies that allow this technique and a full list of companies that will "pay you to invest in them."
I've just written a special report with all the details, starting with three of those companies that offer the best $50 plans today:
$50 Dividend Booster #1
This rock-solid company allows you to take full advantage of a $50 Retirement Plan. Not only does it offer free dividend reinvestment on its 2.4% yield, but it also gives you a 5% discount on stock purchased directly this way.
That is a smooth 7.4% dividend that will multiply into over 20% over time. Not to mention the trading fees you'll save.
This company has raised its dividend every year for the past decade. And it plans to keep doing so.
When looking to buy any company for retirement profits, the key isn't to look at how large the dividend yield is but to examine how many years the company has raised the dividend and the future chances of it continuing to do so.
That's why my second $50 retirement company is a gem.
$50 Dividend Booster #2
This company is a fully integrated, self-administered, and self-managed real estate investment behemoth.
It could sound "boring" at first. But don't let it fool you...
It's the largest company of its kind in the country. It is flush with cash and has no problem passing a large chunk of it to investors like you.
First thing you have to know is that this company lets you in with a 2% discount when you buy into its plan.
You can enjoy a nice 3.3% dividend that will multiply more than five times once your retirement plan kicks in.
But you'll have to hurry — forget Wall Street and buy your shares directly from the company to get plugged in.
$50 Dividend Booster #3
While many energy companies are quite popular, this isn’t one you’ll hear about.
Yet it’s a company that’s followed by the Who’s Who of the financial world... firms like JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Morningstar, Inc.
What makes this company unusual is that it allows you to enroll in its plan with a 5% discount.
That means you can buy shares at a discount and reinvest your payments into the plan to grow your account at a faster rate.
You can get the full details on how to proceed with each of these companies in my new research report: "The Forbidden Secret to Retire a Millionaire."
Once you get this groundbreaking report, browse it. Take action. Get invested in a $50 plan, and watch your retirement plan sizzle to five, even 10 times the size of your traditional IRA or 401(k).
You won't have to worry about Social Security or the lagging retirement plans that send millions of Americans back to work well into their 70s.
Best of all, I'll be sending you this report FREE of charge. No strings attached.
You can claim your free report the minute you take a look at my research newsletter, The Crow's Nest.

Welcome to The Crow's Nest

What exactly is The Crow's Nest about... and where did it get its unusual name?
In the days of naval conquest, explorers were only as good as their lookout...
The best lookouts were built atop the highest point of a ship's mast, an area aptly named after the birds that would often perch there: the crow's nest.
While these were dangerous to climb, it was there that the lookout could see for miles out and identify any hazards, traps, or storms — well before they threatened the ship.
Not only did they spot potential threats and dangers, but a good lookout could also spy treasure, land, and opportunity to safely guide the captain to riches and prosperity.
It is for this reason that the success of most ships depended on the crow's nest.
Today's financial landscape has much in common with the high seas of pirate lore. The world of personal finance is filled with tricks, traps, fees, and scalawags...
But instead of Blackbeard coming for your booty, you have bankers, money managers, and government officials with their beady eyes fixed on emptying your pockets.
It's time to wake up and take matters into your own hands — not just with investments, but in every financial aspect of your life.
After all, you are the captain of your own ship.
But a captain is only as good as his crew... and that's why we at The Crow's Nest are ready to break our backs for you to help you reap the rewards of financial security.
The Crow's Nest will teach you how to completely take control of your finances — from buying stocks to plotting your retirement, taking advantage of tax breaks, and simply plugging the money leaks that threaten to sink you. 
We're not here to follow the crowd. You'll never find the super-rich glued to the TV screen like a bunch of lemmings.
The best investments are those you'll never hear about or think you could participate in.
But here at The Crow's Nest, no investment is off limits. That's why we dig like sleuths to unearth the most obscure and potentially rewarding ones.
That's how you'll get rich in this game.
Today, you're about to start with one of those investments that most Americans have NEVER heard about and that has created millionaires whose wealth outlived them.
Your free report, "The Forbidden Secret to Retire a Millionaire," is the gateway to taking back control of your financial future.
If you're ready to chart the course of your retirement, then $50 Retirement Plans are just the beginning.

Dividend Aristocrats

Increased Payments That Amount to $110,000

Over the last few months, I introduced my followers to another investment strategy that pays steady income no matter what happens in the market.
It started at an investment conference in Toronto, where I delivered a presentation and tossed out the term "Dividend Aristocrats" like everybody knew what I was talking about.
But after the talk, there was a crowd of people lined up with one major question...
"What are these fabled Dividend Aristocrats you speak of?"
I should have been smart enough to know that most investors have no idea what the best investments in the world are... and it's no fault of their own. After all, the best stuff is always kept under the radar.
You see, I’ve been compiling research about a unique brand of companies that are hailed in the financial world as the "Dividend Aristocrats."
These are not your average dividend players that everyone and their neighbor taps into.
These trailblazing companies have increased their payouts every year for the last 25 years. And they’re the only ones who could afford to do so.
The payouts are enormous, to say the least. Sometimes you could collect as much as 12 payouts a year.
If income amounts like $17,544 sound good to you, or if collecting checks for $14,143 sounds too good to be true, then this program is for you.
I have seen folks rake in as much as $110,000 in dividend payments over the last two years alone. And that can amount to a considerable account come retirement.
The strategy involves adding a few of these isolated companies to a portfolio that works like your own personal "mutual fund" of dividends on steroids.
While this strategy won’t make you rich overnight, it will let you sleep soundly knowing your money is growing and paying you constantly whether the stock goes up or down.
Bottom line: When you join the Dividend Aristocrat program, you’ll learn how to start collecting regular dividend payments at far better yields than those pulled in by average investors.
I’d like to invite you to become a "Dividend Aristocrat" — the rare breed of American investor who collects thousands of dollars in income every month — no matter what the overall market is doing.
You’ll know which companies are involved... how to begin collecting those higher-than-usual payouts... and how much you can expect to make.
Everything you need to know is in your free report: "Banking on Dividend Aristocrat Payouts."
And like your first report, "The Forbidden Secret to Retire a Millionaire," my dividend report is also yours free of charge as part of your trial subscription to The Crow's Nest.

How to Get Started and Earn Sizzling
Dividends for the Rest of Your Life

But that's hardly all you will get in your welcome package to The Crow's Nest.
You'll also receive 12 monthly issues of The Crow's Nest, including unbiased and obscure investment ideas that have made millions yet remain buried because "you're not supposed to know about them."
Get ready for a front-row seat to the best investment ideas available.
You'll get your very own password and username to The Crow's Nest platform, which gives you access to my Research Reports... Newsletter Archives... Portfolio... and Research Videos.
Most importantly, I will tell you what to buy and sell at the most opportune time. There is no guesswork on your behalf.
If there's a moneymaking move that requires immediate attention, you'll get a quick alert to take action.
Got questions? There's a support staff to deal with any queries you may have.
Another good thing is the super-low price I've asked my publisher to set in stone for you.
But before we get to that, there’s another investment idea you must know about.

Legally Contracted 17% Dividends, Tax Free

What if I told you there is a way to lock in 11.05%, 14.05%, or 17.33% annualized returns, and the company paying is legally obligated by a contract to send you monthly payments?
You see, I’ve discovered a very special type of bond that cuts out the greedy banking establishment and the tax-hungry U.S. government once and for all.
It’s perfectly legal, and it's sanctioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
And it pays interest every single month.
That interest adds up to as high as 17% annual yields. That’s almost five times more than the average yield of the S&P 500.
It’s an investment opportunity that became available in 2007, and many folks have no clue it exists — especially since it’s not available in every American state.
But your broker and banker will refuse to ever discuss this opportunity. They hate it.
Don’t let that stop you from making a bundle tax-free. The best part is, you can start with just $25 and watch it grow steadily into a solid account — better than most regular dividends.
It’s a perfect opportunity for folks who want to start out small with little risk and grow a sizable amount of money on autopilot.
If you want to up your stake... no problem. That option is available, too.
And while I can’t say much about it here, I can tell you that it’s a special kind of Private Note offered by one high-paying dividend company.
Everything you need to know to take advantage of this obscure investment is readily available in my new research report: "Profiting From LC-25 Contracts: The Easiest Passive Income You'll Ever Make."
And like your first two reports, it comes to you free of charge when you try The Crow's Nest risk-free.

12 Monthly Issues for Less Than $0.25 a Day

So how much does it cost, and how can you lock in your subscription today?
Today, you can get The Crow's Nest and everything I've mentioned for just $69 a year. That's less than $0.25 a day!
In other words, for less than the price of a stick of gum, you can begin to receive my Crow's Nest advisory to learn investment strategies like $50 Retirement Plans that can make you hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement cash.
Remember, as soon as you subscribe to The Crow's Nest, you will have immediate access to your three reports:

• Special Report #1: "The Forbidden Secret to Retire a Millionaire"

$50 Dividend Booster #1: This plan offers you the perk of "getting paid to invest," with an initial 5% discount to get started. You'll start off with a sizzling 7.4% dividend that will definitely multiply to over 20% over the long haul — a send-off to a golden retirement.

$50 Dividend Booster #2: Get in with a 2% discount and start off with a 3.3% dividend and watch it multiply five times as long as you hold onto this plan. This real estate company is flush with cash and is passing it along to folks like you.

$50 Dividend Booster #3: This is the one plan you must own right now before it's too late to get in. This company is rock solid and offers a huge benefit to your plan. You can get in at a 5% discount while you reinvest your payments for more cash.

• Bonus Report #1: "Banking on Dividend Aristocrat Payouts" — Learn about the cash-gusher of the rich that most people have no idea exists. This safe investment opportunity is offered by a unique brand of companies that have increased their payouts each year for the last 25 years. If collecting $110,000 on autopilot sounds good to you, then you want to become a Dividend Aristocrat right away. You’ll get full details in this report.

• Bonus Report #2: "Profiting From LC-25 Contracts: The Easiest Passive Income You’ll Ever Make" — While this investment is not available to everyone, many can take advantage of this new opportunity that lets you lock in between 9% and 17% in tax-free dividends by following one simple trick. Once you take this route, you’re legally entitled to this hefty payment regardless of what happens in the wider market. Full details in your free report.

Lock in your subscription to receive The Crow's Nest today. Your success is guaranteed.
Here's what I mean...
By subscribing today, you're only agreeing to try my research for the next three months.
If during that time you're not completely satisfied, you're free to ask for a full refund.
The last thing I want is for you to pay for something that can't help you get rich.
But I want to take it a step further...
Regardless of what you do, your free reports and any investment intelligence you receive during your time with us are yours to keep.
I can't be fairer than that.
You have to take a bold step to secure your retirement, and the best time to get started is today so you can see those dividends piling up in your new $50 Retirement Plan.
Remember, there is a lot of vested interest in seeing $50 Retirement Plans go away. You just never know when the government will cave in and ban those plans for good.
You must hurry to start your plan now... for yourself or for your children.
I'm giving you all you need to know to take back control of your finances.
To open your plan and get set on the right path to retire free of money worries...
Click here.
Godspeed,

Jimmy Mengel
Investment Director, The Crow's Nest