約翰‧威廉斯是
Shadowstats.com的創始人，
也是財星500大公司的顧問；
他專門利用最早期的通貨膨脹計算方式
（而不是政府這幾年來一直在改良的方式）
來算出當今的通貨膨脹嚴重程度
幾乎所有重視實際購買力的個人或單位
（羅伯特‧清崎、麥克‧馬隆尼、
各大基金、公司與中小銀行等）
都拿他網站的數據作為改變投資組合的依據。
約翰‧威廉斯專訪
惡性通膨式的經濟大蕭條即將來臨
你覺得這則新聞重要嗎？
若您覺得對您身邊的親朋好友也很重要，
那麼請盡速將這則新聞轉寄給您身邊的人
讓愛你的人和你愛的人也能儘早做好準備，
免於不必要的金融侵襲！
John Williams: A
Hyper-Inflationary Great Depression Is Coming
Source: Tim McLaughlin and Karen Roche of The Gold Report 04/30/2010
ShadowStats' John Williams has done his math
and believes his numbers tell the truth. He explains why the U.S. is in a
depression and why a "Hyper-Inflationary Great Depression" is now
unavoidable. John also shares why he selects gold as a metal for asset
conversion in this exclusive interview with The Gold Report.
The Gold
Report: John, last December you stated, "The U.S. economic and
systemic crisis of the past of the past two years are just precursors to a
great collapse," or what you call a "hyper-inflationary great
depression." Is this prediction unique to the U.S., or do you feel that other
economies face the same fate?
John Williams: The
hyper-inflationary portion largely will be unique to the U.S. If the U.S. falls into
a great depression, there's no way the rest of the world cannot have some
negative economic impact.
TGR: How will the United States'
decreased economic power impact global economies? Will the rest of the world
survive?
JW: People will find to their
happy surprise that they'll be able to survive. Most businesses are pretty
creative. The thing is, the U.S.
economic activity accounts for roughly half that of the globe. There's no way
that the U.S. economy can
turn down severely without there being an equivalent, at least a parallel
downturn outside the U.S.
with its major trading partners.
When I talk about a great depression in the United States, it is coincident
with a hyper-inflation. We're already in the deepest and longest economic
contraction seen since the Great Depression. If you look at the timing as set
by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is the arbiter of U.S.
recessions, as to whether or not we have one, they've refused to call an end to
this one, so far. But assuming you called an end to it back in the middle of
2009, it would still be the longest recession seen since the first down-leg of
the Great Depression.
In terms of depth, year-to-year decline in the gross domestic product, or GDP,
as reported in the third quarter of 2009, was the steepest annual decline ever
reported in that series, which goes back to the late '40s on a quarterly basis.
Other than for the shutdown of war production at the end of World War II, which
usually is not counted as a normal business cycle, the full annual decline in
2009 GDP was the deepest since the Great Depression. There's strong evidence
that we're going to see an intensified downturn ahead, but it won't become a
great depression until a hyper-inflation kicks in. That is because
hyper-inflation will be very disruptive to the normal flow of commerce and will
take you to really low levels of activity that we haven't seen probably in the
history of the Republic.
Let me define what I mean by depression and great depression, because there's
no formal definition out there that matches the common expectation. Before
World War II, economic downturns commonly were referred to as depressions. If
you drew a graph of the level of activity in a depression over time, it would
show a dip in the economy, and you'd go down and then up. The down part was
referred to as recession and the up part as recovery. The Great Depression was
one that was so severe that in the post-World War II era, those looking at
economic cycles tried to come up with a euphemism for "depression."
They didn't want to create the image of or remind people of the 1930s.
Basically, they called economic downturns recessions, and most people think of
a depression now as a severe recession.
I've talked with people in the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National
Bureau of Economic Research in terms of developing a formal depression
definition. The traditional definition of recession—that of two consecutive
quarters of inflation-adjusted contraction in GDP—still is a solid one, despite
recent refinements. Although there's no official consensus on this, generally,
a depression would be considered a recession where peak-to-trough contraction
in the economy was more than 10%; a great depression would be a recession where
the peak-to-trough contraction was more than 25%.
On a global basis, where the dollar is the world's reserve currency, 80% of
currency transactions involve the U.S. dollar. There's going to have to be an
overhaul of the global currency system. To gain credibility with the public,
the powers that be likely will design a system that has some kind of a tie to
gold, but that's purely speculative.
TGR: From a personal investment
point of view, you emphasized that this is a time to conserve assets, including
gold and other currencies. How else can investors protect themselves?
JW: I like physical gold and
silver. I look to gold as a primary hedge. If you can come out of this holding
gold, you'll be in a position where you'll be able to take advantage of some
extraordinary investment opportunities that will follow. With inflation, real
estate is usually a pretty good bet. It tends to hold its value over time.
There may be periods of illiquidity, though, and it's not portable. Neither of
those limitations is an issue with gold. Maybe gold will become the black
market to support U.S.
economic activity. It certainly would be the area that people will try to
transfer their assets to as time goes along.
You see people now as gold gets to a new high saying, "Oh my goodness, I
bought at $200, and I can sell out at $1,100 making a good profit." What
people don't realize is that they haven't made a real profit. What they've done
is retained the purchasing power of the dollars that they invested in gold, and
they've lost proportionately the purchasing power of the amounts left in
dollar-denominated paper assets over the same time. Gold is a long-term wealth
preserver. Again, where many people are used to an investment environment where
they can buy a stock, make a quick profit and then sell, with gold you need to
hold on for the long haul as an insurance policy, not as a quick investment.
TGR: Thank you very much for
your time.
Walter J. "John" Williams
was born in 1949. He received an A.B. in Economics, cum laude, from Dartmouth College
in 1971, and was awarded a M.B.A. from Dartmouth's
Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in 1972, where he was named an Edward
Tuck Scholar. During his career as a consulting economist, John has worked with
individuals as well as Fortune 500 companies. For more than 25 years he has
been a private consulting economist and a specialist in government economic
reporting. His analysis and commentary have been featured widely in the popular
media both in the U.S.
and globally. Mr. Williams provides insight and analysis on his website, www.shadowstats.com.
原文（全）連結：
http://www.theaureport.com/pub/na/6199
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