I respect Bob Boye's work because I am a history buff myself and I know he bases most of his work on historical examples. Yet, the issue I have with his macro outlook is that he does not believe that any amount of quantative easing or dollar printing by the Fed can lower the value of the dollar, since the dollar is the world's reserve currency. Rather, he prefers to use the "real" value of gold, saying that it is gold's relative value against commodities that determines its worth, and that this is increasing.

The problem I have with his thesis is that he is basically saying, "actions have no consequences." He is refuting one of the basic laws of the universe: for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Now, the reaction may not be as the authorities intend, but there will be a reaction. Using Bob's mantra, that the Fed's actions have no consequences for the value of the dollar, they could essentially print a million dollars for every person in the country, eliminate poverty, and it would have no impact on inflation. Because, after all, "in a post-bubble contraction, the senior currency tends to get chronically strong."

I will admit that the Fed's actions cannot have the exact result they desire. But to say that they would have no unintended results just strikes me as illogical.

If gold is only going to rise in real terms in the next few years, and not in US dollar terms, meaning the US dollar gets increasingly strong, should not we then be investing in US dollar "miners" (i.e. banks), as opposed to gold miners?

Hysteria