Offshore Bullion Storage or 3 Eggs?

What does one hundred trillion dollars buy you?

How about a mansion in every country, an airplane at every airport and a private island in every ocean?

How about 3 eggs?

When Zimbabwe issued its infamous 100 000 000 000 000 dollar bill, it could buy 3 eggs on the day it was issued. A few days later, it could only buy one egg.

Hyperinflating Currencies

Unbacked fiat/paper/credit, and nowadays electronic currency, has a poor track record. After studying this list of 609 defunct currencies, out of which 153 died due to hyperinflation, it’s obvious that every time fiat currencies are tried, they die through hyperinflation, war or political decrees.

Using the debt-based US Dollar as a store of value creates massive imbalances and misallocations globally. With an unprecedented debt bubble fuelling paper markets such as stocks and bonds, we stand on the cliff edge of a vertical drop.

Since the Nixon era, we have suffered under a fiat currency ponzi scheme wiping out most of the purchasing power of our currencies.

In MLM schemes, the idea is to recruit naive participants downstream to generate compensation for the recruiter.

This is exactly how the US Dollar and other fiat currencies work.

Early receivers of the MLM scheme such as the government, the banks and the central bank gain purchasing power whereas late receivers, such as us normal people, lose purchasing power.

Fiat paper currency is nothing but a cleverly designed MLM scheme to slowly over time steal and redistribute your private wealth.

Defend Your Assets

With the massive redistribution of wealth taking place through taxation and inflation, you have to defend your assets. Key self-defensive tactics include:

– Protect yourself by keeping your assets out of reach for the government and banks
– Minimize counter-party risks
– Ensure you are protected against currency collapses and bank runs
– Hold your assets in such a way that there’s no reporting required to government
– Protect yourself against exchange and capital controls

Crooks can’t help steal whether it’s directly in broad daylight through a bail-in like in Cyprus in 2013, through taxation, through inflation or through confiscation such as the gold confiscation in the 1930’s when the US president Roosevelt took the United States off the gold standard and confiscated private gold holdings.

How can you protect yourself? Gold is the natural answer as it resists inflation, maintains purchasing power and can be held confidentially.

Buying gold isn’t enough though. What if your gold purchase is within reach of the government? If you buy gold in your home country, a tax agency such as the IRS in the United States can easily audit the bullion dealer to find out about your purchases. In addition, there’s also reporting requirements for certain bullion transactions.

When it comes to bullion storage, diversification is key. It’s certainly wise to keep some of your bullion in your own possession but don’t put all your gold eggs in one basket.

Offshore Bullion Storage

With the financial repression we are witnessing in the West expressing itself through taxation, inflation, bail-ins and confiscations, it’s important to store some of your bullion offshore in a safe jurisdiction favoring confidentiality and security.

Gold has traditionally been stored in financial hubs such as in London, New York and Zurich. With doubts whether there is any gold left in the London and New York vaults which isn’t already encumbered, Singapore is emerging as the strongest alternative for offshore bullion storage. Singapore clearly distinguishes itself as the best jurisdiction in the world to buy and store gold:

Singapore has no taxes on bullion
Singapore has no reporting requirements when you buy/sell/store bullion
Singapore has a stable pro-gold government creating a gold trading hub
Singapore has a strong rule of law and is one of the safest countries in the world
Singapore is a centre for wealth and asset preservation
Singapore consistently ranks top 3 in the world for business friendliness
Singapore strongly protects property ownership rights

Although we don’t recommend holding wealth with banks, other than what you need for short-term expenses, Singapore is host to some of the best capitalized banks in the world such as DBS, UOB and OCBC.

With banks and international institutions pushing for a cashless society so as to be able to impose negative interest rates, surveil your transactions, and impose restrictions on your wealth, Singapore continues to be a cash-friendly jurisdiction. Although Singapore in 2014 stopped printing the world’s most valuable banknote, the SGD 10000 dollar note, it’s possible to use cash for all purchases including purchasing bullion. The SGD 10000 dollar note will continue to be valid indefinitely and the SGD 1000 note is still one of the most valuable worldwide.