Doug Casey on Profiting from Government Stupidity - Casey Research

Shortly after the conclusion of the Casey Research/Sprott, Inc. Navigating the Politicized Economy investor summit, Louis James sat down with Doug Casey to assess the conference and provide insights on how investors can win in today's distorted marketplace.

Here are some quotes from the interview.

On the USA and its military:

Americans love their military. It seems to be the only part of the government that at least has the façade of being competent and honest. Of course, it's actually not that competent – it's about as competent as a heavily armed version of the post office. And is it honest? Well, maybe the average soldier is, but once you get up to the supply-sergeant level, not very much; and once you get up to the Pentagon level, not at all.

On the current bond bubble:

They've driven interest rates to basically zero levels – actually negative levels in some European countries, which is pretty unbelievable. I learn something new every day; I thought that negative interest rates were almost cosmically impossible, but I've learned different in recent months. This is creating huge distortions in the way people react and so forth. And of course, the biggest one of all is the bond market, which is going to collapse at some point. The time to have bought bonds was in the early '80s, when they were yielding 12, even 15%. Now they are yielding 0%, and everybody's buying them. It's unbelievable.

And the future bubble in Gold and Silver: 

I'd say it's a certain gold bubble. Looking at the bright side of the government doing all these stupid things, they will create other bubbles. It seems inevitable to me that gold and silver are going to be among them, because they are the only financial assets – and that's what they are, financial assets – that are not simultaneously somebody else's liability.This is totally untrue of bonds. Bonds are a triple threat to your welfare. You've got the interest-rate threat. Interest rates could only go up at this point since they're at zero. You've got the credit-risk threat. Will they be able to pay back the dollars, or euros, or yen, or whatever that they are in? And you've got the currency threat. Will the yen or dollars or euros or whatever be worth anything, even if they pay them back to you? I don't see why, but everybody's buying bonds. Institutions are buying them, the average guy is buying them – trying to reach for 2% in yield when real inflation is probably running 5-6% per year. Who knows what it really is – the US is becoming like Argentina, where they disguise these numbers and don't admit the reality.

The whole interview can be seen here: Doug Casey on Profiting from Government Stupidity - Casey Research