On Inflation: Inflation is a state of affairs in which there is too much money. It's not too much money chasing too few goods. It's too much money, the thing that this money chases is variable. And in this particular cycle and for some time, it has chased commercial real estate, bonds, stocks, financial assets of all kinds. Iowa farm land. There is a huge excess of liquidity in the world. Central banks furnish this, they stuff us with it. In the interest of levitating markets that will, they think On the Equity rally: Yes there are terrific companies generating terrific cash flows. That is certainly true. But beneath the surface of things or not so far beneath the surface of things, as far as central banks, practicing not original policies but original sin. This is these policies are not so original. They go back to the time of Revolutionary France. You know the idea of creating currency with which to create human happiness is as old as the hills. On Gold: Gold has been in a bull market for 12 years. Gold is this rare thing in which you can be bullish and yet contrary and also with the trend. There is I think a general fatigue animus towards gold. The gold prices are reciprocal of the world's view of the competence of central banks. The greater the world's confidence in the Ben Bernanke's of the world, the weaker the gold market. The less the world holds confidence in the institution of managed currencies, the stronger the gold market. And to me the confidence is utterly misplaced.
James Grant originated the "Current Yield" column in Barron's before founding Grant's Interest Rate Observer in 1983. He is the author of five books, one of which is Mr. Market Miscalculates (Axios Press, 2008).
