This new article by Ken Rogoff has three ideas to steal your money. The first is negative interest rates. The second is the elimination of cash (governments can do this by declaring the $100 bill worthless, just as India did last week with the 500- and 1,000-rupee notes). The third way is to set higher inflation targets. Rogoff wants to raise the Fed’s inflation target from 2% to 4% per year. At a 4% rate, the value of a dollar is cut 75% between the time you’re 30 years old until a normal retirement age of 65. The money you save in your younger years is nearly worthless by the time you need it.
Why should we care what Ken Rogoff thinks? Because Rogoff is not just another big brain. He’s a professor of economics at Harvard University and the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. More importantly, his name is frequently mentioned as a possible nominee for a seat on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. If Rogoff were on the Fed board, he’d be in a position to turn his confiscatory ideas into policy. But even if Rogoff remains at Harvard, his views are highly influential on economic policy in general. Rogoff is not alone in his views.
If you do not already have a 10% allocation of investible assets to gold, it’s time to make that allocation. Click here to see why gold is almost the only way to avoid the plans for confiscation that Rogoff and others have in mind.
– Jim Rickards, Meraglim™ Chief Global Strategist