Gold News

Crisis? What Crisis?

Britain is suffering its worst Sterling Crisis since the IMF rescue of 1976...

THE BRITISH POUND is now suffering its worst crisis since the near-bankruptcy of 1976 required emergency aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Not only has the Pound reached new record lows against the rest of the world's currencies – down below 80 on its trade-weighted index – but it's fallen by more than 20% in the last 12 months, sinking as the Bank of England slashed interest rates to all-time lows of just 2.0%.

Amid the Sterling Crisis of three decades ago, and after begging for $3.9 billion in IMF aid, the Labour government set about "a package of deflationary measures...public expenditure cuts and tax increases," as a secret memo of November 1976 put it.

Thus Thatcherism began early, even under the left-leaning Callaghan administration. Whereas today, the New Labour Treasury says the public budget deficit will leap to 8% of the national economy in 2009, by far the greatest debt owed by any major world government.

Any wonder that ever-more British investors and savers are choosing to Buy Gold for defence...?

Adrian Ash

Adrian Ash, BullionVault Gold News

Adrian Ash is director of research at BullionVault, the world-leading physical gold, silver and platinum market for private investors online. Formerly head of editorial at London's top publisher of private-investment advice, he was City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning from 2003 to 2008, and he has now been researching and writing daily analysis of precious metals and the wider financial markets for over 20 years. A frequent guest on BBC radio and television, Adrian is regularly quoted by the Financial Times, MarketWatch and many other respected news outlets, and his views from inside the bullion market have been sought by the Economist magazine, CNBC, Bloomberg, Germany's Handelsblatt and FAZ, plus Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore.

See the full archive of Adrian Ash articles on GoldNews.

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