Greed is the selfish and excessive desire to possess more than needed of something, and greedy personalities get blinded by this desire to an extent that they ignore everything else around them—even if the result is their downfall.
So is the fate of monkeys in Africa, where for over a thousand years trappers have relied on the monkeys’ greed to trap them: The trapper displays acorns to the monkey, making sure the monkey is watching. He then digs a hole in the ground just big enough to hold the acorns and to fit the monkey’s empty hand. He slowly walks away and hides from the monkey, who rushes to the hole and sticks his hand in to grab the bounty. Once the monkey holds the acorns, the hole is too small for his fist to fit through while grasping the acorns. Now, the trapper approaches, and although the monkey understands the danger he’s in and screams desperately, he refuses to let go and thus becomes an easy catch. The monkey’s greed gets the better of him.
Monkey Investors
This chain of events is an allegory of stock investors and the financial elite. In today’s stock market, investors are the monkeys, and the financial elite is the trapper. The stock market is not only on a historic bull run, it has also reached new heights, creating a bubble fueled by printed money and by interest rates at their lowest point since 1929 (right before the market collapse that triggered the Great Depression).
“Monkey investors” are lured by a market that seems to be on a never-ending rise. They don’t care why the market is frothy—they only care that it’s going up because, well, up is great! Meanwhile, the financial elite is making sure that financial policies are in place that blocks the investors from protecting their investments and withdrawing them once the crisis hits.
Bail-Ins are Now Legal
The gigantic bubble is the trap, which, when a crisis hits, will let the Federal Reserve use your money to prop up the markets and rescue failing banks via bail-ins, under laws passed in recent years. While this may sound dramatic, it’s not taken out of our imagination. In the US, bail-ins are now legal. A bail-in means that your bank is allowed to use your deposits in your checking and savings accounts to rescue itself when it’s collapsing. As consideration for your funds, they give you shares in the bank. This process was made possible by the Dodd-Frank regulations after the Great Recession, and it will be our banks’ preferred tool the next time they begin to collapse. If you want to learn more about bail-ins, reach out to us and ask for a special report we created just for our investors, including ways to protect your funds from the bail-in process.
The nightmare doesn’t end here, however. Since 2016, many money-market funds have been allowed to prevent you from withdrawing and protecting your money in times of extreme volatility—despite the fact that these funds are supposed to be as safe as sitting on cash.
We See the Signs
We are already seeing the signs. At Gold Alliance, we deal with IRA custodians on behalf of our clients every day, and, across the board, these custodians are delaying transfers or actively trying to discourage clients from withdrawing funds. These clients’ only fault was trying to withdraw a small portion of their stock market IRA in order to diversity and protecting their retirement accounts with precious metals.
This is especially alarming because the financial industry is now flourishing! Just picture what will happen if you want to withdraw your funds when everyone else is trying to do the same—when financial institutions replace your savings with their failing shares and deny transfers. Anyone holding on to their “stock market acorns” will be screaming like monkeys at the grinning financial-elite trappers approaching to take their wealth away.
But here’s the thing: I’m not worried, and you shouldn’t be either. For the last 15 years, I have helped my clients protect their money and avoid being trapped like monkeys by diversifying into physical gold and silver and having peace of mind knowing that this portion of their wealth is completely under their control. The history is very clear: when the stock market or the dollar crashes, the price of gold and silver skyrockets. When you own physical precious metals, you can always cash out. Nobody but you controls your money.
If you want to read our special Bail-In report to learn how to protect your funds held by your bank, reach out to us and we’ll send you a free copy. If you want to protect a portion of your funds from the stock market bubble trap, schedule a free consultation with me by calling 818-200-0139, or send me an email to [email protected] and I’ll help you understand if this is the right investment for you.
About Fred Abadi
In his over 15 years in the financial industry, Fred has focused on commodities and precious metals as investment assets. He has penned several articles on topics such as the commodities markets and investing in precious metals for retirement accounts. Fred has helped thousands of clients safe-guard their investments with gold and other precious metals. He has been with Gold Alliance for over two years as a leading Sr. Portfolio Manager.