by Egon Von Greyerz, Gold Switzerland:
Egon von Greyerz joins his dear friends and Matterhorn Asset Management advisors, Grant Williams and Ronnie Stoeferle, to address the unique risks—economic, geopolitical, military—making headlines at an alarming rate.
This timely and highly important conversation opens with the financial, political and trade moves from West to East as evidenced by the growing BRICS momentum and its near and longer-term impact on the price of gold as prosperity moves from West to East. Consumer gold demand from India and China, increased central bank demand in the East and rising gold premiums on the Shanghai Exchange suggest that the LBMA hegemony over gold pricing is shifting, as Ronnie discusses.
We are witnessing an old-fashioned standoff in the Middle East right now. The IDF was supposed to have sent thousands of troops storming into Gaza by now, but threats from Hezbollah and Iran have caused Israeli officials to pause. Do the Israelis really want to fight an extremely bloody two front war? Iran has actually brought up the possibility of “pre-emptive action”, but that would inevitably spark a military response from the United States. Do the Iranians really want to fight the U.S. military? There are some that are hoping that this standoff will ultimately allow cooler heads to prevail, but I see it as the calm before the storm. 
Those who called Hamas’s attack on Israel “Israel’s 9/11” were more accurate than they realized. Just as the US reacted to 9/11 by fulfilling Osama bin Laden’s wish that the US would get bogged down in no-win wars, Israel’s reaction to the Hamas attack fulfills Hamas’s likely goal of radicalizing more Palestinians. The result of Hamas’s attack will be to strengthen the most extreme elements on both sides of the conflict.
