The risk of holding cash or gold in a bank is increasing continuously. Later on, I discuss the difficulties bank clients encounter in taking money or gold out of their bank.

The word risk can be traced back to Greek via Latin to root or cliff. These were the dangers that Odysseus encountered when he sailed between Scylla and Charybdis (a rock and a hard place). So root and cliff were the “risks” that sailors encountered in the sea. A more modern interpretation of risk is “Identification and evaluation of dangers that could prevent us from reaching our objectives”.

Very few have the ability to identify the enormous risks that we are all facing, on a global scale. And for the very few who can identify the risks, not many have the ability to evaluate them or to take protective measures.

THE WORLD IS UNPREPARED FOR WHAT IS COMING NEXT

Maximum risk requires maximum protection. But if most people don’t even see the risks, it follows that very few take any protection. Thus the world is totally unprepared for the coming calamities in the world. Even at the highest level, governments focus on the usual political problems rather than the most urgent issue of the world economy. Relative to a potential collapse of the financial system and the world economy, the domestic problems in for example the US, UK, France, and Germany are insignificant but these internal problems clearly occupy the leaders minds totally, probably because they have no understanding of the massive dark cloud that is hanging over the world economy.

BREXIT – A FAILURE

In the UK there is Brexit, which Theresa May has made a total mess of. The British people voted to leave the EU but all Mrs. May has achieved after two years is an agreement which leaves the UK with almost all of EU’s obligations and laws but without any say or influence. On top of that, the UK is paying Brussels £39 billion for the pleasure. Will May survive, will Brexit not happen? Nobody knows at this stage. But what we do know is that Brussels, as well as France and Germany, are desperate to hold this artificial edifice together. With problems all around and opposition growing within the EU, it will only be a matter of time before the EU breaks up. The coming economic downturn will see to that.