Meet the Editor Jim Rickards is the editor of Jim Rickards’ Strategic Intelligence. He’s an American lawyer, economist, and investment banker with 35 years of experience working in capital markets on Wall Street. Rickards advised clients of the impending 2008 financial collapse, of a decline in the dollar and a sharp rise in the price of gold, all years in advance. Rickards is the author of The New York Times bestseller Currency Wars, published in 2011 and The Death of Money, published in 2014. View More Peter Coyne is the managing editor of the Daily Reckoning and Jim Rickards' Strategic Intelligence. He received his degree in economics and political science from Loyola University Maryland where he studied under the Austrian economist, Tom DiLorenzo. Before joining Agora Financial, Peter worked in Congress for Dr. Ron Paul until he retired in 2012. View More 
 
 Publication Schedule Published online during the third week of every month, issue mailed the fourth week of the month and via email on Fridays. 
 
 The goal of Jim Rickards’ Strategic Intelligence is simple — help you prepare and profit from the coming collapse of the dollar. Your editor will be Jim Rickards. According to him, “the end of the international monetary system is imminent and it will wipe out millions of unprepared Americans.” 
 
 He’s uniquely qualified to help you too — spending over 35 years in investment banking, international economics and politics and national intelligence advisory roles. His contacts and experience will allow you to hear the most crucial strategic market intelligence first, so you can profit before anyone else. 
 
 To safely guide your investments, Jim has developed a revolutionary way of looking at the financial system and stock markets. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen. 
 
 It gives him insight on exactly how the dollar’s collapse could play out, what stocks might fall, and what assets could rocket up in price. His predictive tool – something he calls “complexity theory” – will warn you well in advance of the coming collapse. In the financial world, this tool is entirely new and unparalleled. 
 
 Jim will use this theory to help you build safe investment positions in stocks, bonds, cash, art, land, precious metals and other hard assets. 
 
 In fact, it’s estimated there are less than 10 people in the entire world who know how to apply “complexity theory” to the financial markets. Jim is one of them… a recognized thought-leader who pioneers its’ use to help you profit ahead of turmoil. 
 
 In this monthly publication, Jim Rickards will be writing directly to you, keeping you up to date on how the dollar’s collapse and replacement is unfolding. 
 
 He’ll warn you about the potential triggers that may set off the coming crisis. And he’ll give you specific investment recommendations and wealth protection strategies that will help you grow your wealth even during the meltdown. 
 
 Until now, Rickards has only provided this kind of service to his high net-worth clients and members of the U.S. intelligence community. 
 
 But with Rickards’ Strategic Intelligence, you too will have the opportunity to hear his best ideas on an ongoing basis. ||||| CIA Insider Warns: "25-Year Great Depression is About to Strike America" 
 
 You will want to remember this date . 
 
 According to one of the top minds in the U.S. Intelligence Community, that is when the United States will enter the darkest economic period in our nation's history. 
 
 A 25-year Great Depression. 
 
 Does This Signal 
 
 the End of the Dollar? 
 
 An alarming pattern has caused many in the Intelligence Community to secretly prepare for a "worst-case scenario." 
 
 Click here to see it.... An alarming pattern has caused many in the Intelligence Community to secretly prepare for a "worst-case scenario." 
 
 And alarmingly, he and his colleagues believe the evidence they've uncovered proves this outcome is impossible to avoid. 
 
 In an exclusive interview with Money Morning, Jim Rickards, the CIA's Financial Threat and Asymmetric Warfare Advisor, has stepped forward to warn the American people that time is running out to prepare for this $100 trillion meltdown. 
 
 "Everybody knows we have a dangerous level of debt. Everybody knows the Fed has recklessly printed trillions of dollars. These are secrets to no one," he said. 
 
 "But all signs are now flashing bright red that our chickens are about to come home to roost." 
 
 During the discussion, Rickards shared a series of dangerous signals he fears reveals an economy that has reached a super critical state. 
 
 One of the signals the CIA is most concerned with is the Misery Index. 
 
 Decades back this unique warning sign was created for determining how close our country was to a social collapse. It simply adds the true inflation rate with the true unemployment rate. 
 
 However, the Federal Reserve has repeatedly changed the way the Misery Index has been calculated over the years. Which Rickards believes is now being used to cover up the true scope of the problem. 
 
 
 
 "Today you rarely hear the government talk about the Misery Index with the public," Rickards said. "The reason is they may not want you to know the truth. And the truth is, the Misery Index has reached more dangerous levels than we saw prior to the Great Depression. This is a signal of a complex system that's about to collapse." 
 
 Frightening: Single chart reveals which banks could collapse (and how soon). If your life savings is in a major bank, please look at this now. 
 
 During the shocking interview Rickards revealed the 5 dangerous "flashpoints" the Intelligence Community is closely monitoring that they believe will unleash this catastrophe. 
 
 And he also described how it would all unfold. 
 
 "I expect the first phase will appear as a nearly instantaneous 70% stock market crash. From the outside, nobody will see it coming." Rickards explained. 
 
 "Once it becomes clear that it's not a flash crash - it's a systemic meltdown in the economy itself, that's when the gravity of the situation will sink in. And there will be no digging out from it. 
 
 "$100 trillion is a conservative estimate for the damage. A lot can happen over 25-years as our country struggles to recover from this." 
 
 Editor's Note: Money Morning has released their exclusive interview with Jim Rickards to the public. And it's a must-see for every American who is concerned about our country and their financial security. Click here to view it. 
 
 Along with his CIA responsibilities, Jim Rickards has spent more than 3 decades on Wall Street as a leading international investment banker, hedge fund manager, and as the architect behind the technology nicknamed “the brains” of the NASDAQ. 
 
 This unique skillset has placed him at the center of some of the most important events in recent history. 
 
 For instance, Rickards helped negotiate an end to the Iranian Hostage Crisis in the early 1980s. 
 
 Then, in the late 1990s, despite being one of its most outspoken critics, the Federal Reserve called on him to step in to prevent a $1.25 trillion Wall Street meltdown during the Long Term Capital Management crisis. 
 
 And after 9-11, the CIA tasked him with tracking down potential terrorist insider trading that took place prior to the attacks. 
 
 Over 2X More Dangerous 
 
 Than The Great Depression 
 
 Does this chart prove a 70% stock market crash is imminent? 
 
 Click here to continue.... Does this chart prove a 70% stock market crash is imminent? 
 
 This led to him helping lead a sensitive operation called Project Prophecy. 
 
 The mission was to use the financial markets to predict pending national security threats from terrorists, rival nations, and from internal weaknesses lurking inside our economy. 
 
 The system he built through Project Prophecy proved its accuracy on August 7, 2006, when it detected the warning signs of an impending terrorist attack. 
 
 Three days later, in London, a plot to blow up 10 U.S. passenger jets was thwarted. And 24 Pakistani extremists were arrested. 
 
 However, Rickards now warns that the next attack is going to come from within. And he is not alone in his fears. 
 
 Recently, a sensitive report containing the consensus view of all 16 branches of the U.S. Intelligence Committee surfaced. 
 
 It revealed that these agencies have already begun to jointly estimate the impact of "The fall of the dollar as the global reserve currency." 
 
 Details of Government's 
 
 "Day After Plan" Emerge 
 
 Warning: Emergency measures have already been put "in play" for this 25-year Great Depression. 
 
 Click here to continue.... Emergency measures have already been put "in play" for this 25-year Great Depression. 
 
 And our reign as the leading superpower being annihilated in a way "equivalent to the end of the British Empire in the post-World War II period." 
 
 The nightmarish endgame presented in this report involved "a worldwide economic breakdown and an extended period of global anarchy." 
 
 And Jim Rickards believes we can no longer stop this, we can only prepare for it. 
 
 "Look at it this way. Americans are standing at the bottom of a very tall mountain - Mt. Everest, Mt. Kilimanjaro...they look up and see an avalanche barreling down. 
 
 Determining the one snowflake that started this chaos shouldn't be our focus. Recognizing the severity of the situation and moving to safety should be," Rickards explained. 
 
 The question we should all be asking ourselves now is "what if he's right?" 
 
 ||||| NEW YORK Ever wondered when the next financial crisis will be? Possibly in just a couple of years with the "coming collapse of the international monetary system." 
 
 That is the not-so-subtle subtitle of Jim Rickards' bestselling book, "The Death of Money". As you might gather, the portfolio manager at investment-management firm West Shore Group doesn't foresee a smooth ride ahead for investors. Think 2008, but worse. 
 
 Reuters sat down with Rickards recently, to chat about how much we should be trusting the numbers in our bank accounts. 
 
 Q: Most people assume that the money in their wallets is safe and secure. But is it really? 
 
 A: No, for two reasons. First, as we saw in the 1970s when we had a period of high inflation, the dollar's value was cut in half in only five years. So that can happen very, very quickly. 
 
 The second vulnerability is that the dollar is actually a digital currency. People look at Bitcoin and call it that, but so is the dollar. An overwhelming percentage of transactions these days are digital, starting with the trillions of dollars in the Treasury market. The last time people had actual paper bonds in safe deposit boxes was in the 1970s. 
 
 In the old days, the government had ways of shutting things down entirely in times of crisis, like arranging bank holidays or closing stock exchanges. With a digital currency, we could all be very vulnerable during the next financial panic. 
 
 Q: Your book is called "The Death of Money". What does that mean to you? 
 
 A: What that means is a potential loss of confidence. There is always going to be some kind of money in the world, whether it is clamshells or Bitcoins. Anything can be money as long as people have confidence in it. But the minute that confidence is lost, it ceases to function as money. 
 
 And once it is lost, it is very difficult to regain. Money is money up until the moment it isn't. So the real question is, what dynamics are at play that could cause people to lose confidence in the dollar? That's why when the Federal Reserve is printing money in order to stimulate the economy, it is playing a dangerous game. 
 
 Q: What kind of time frame are we looking at, for a potential loss of confidence in the dollar? 
 
 A: A lot of people are focused on the single snowflake that causes the avalanche. They want to know when it's going to happen and what it's going to look like. Of course, I don't know that any more than anybody else. But what you can be certain of, is that there is going to be an avalanche. 
 
 Another good metaphor is the earthquake. The other day I stood on the San Andreas Fault, and nothing was moving. That doesn't mean everything is stable; it is just a matter of time. That is what I believe about the financial system. I would say it is a matter of a couple of years [until a major crisis], not 10 years or more. 
 
 Q: And what will be the size of the next crisis, in your opinion? 
 
 A: The next financial panic will be the largest in history. I was involved in the Long-Term Capital Management affair, as a general counsel - and even then, we were hours away from taking down every market in the world. That time, Wall Street bailed out a hedge fund. 
 
 Fast forward to 2008, and this time it was the Feds who bailed out Wall Street. Each bailout is bigger than the last. When the next panic happens, it will be bigger than the Fed. And then what are we going to do? Just keep printing trillions of dollars? 
 
 Q: So what should individual investors do, as a result? 
 
 A: I would advise that people look at what Warren Buffett is doing. For one of his most recent deals, he went out and bought a railroad - a hard asset that makes money moving other hard assets, like coal and wheat. 
 
 Of course, individual investors can't go out and buy railroads, but they can invest in the same spirit, and look at hard assets. You can buy gold, maybe with a 10 percent portfolio allocation, which will give you some protection. You can buy land, or fine art, or stocks with a focus on energy, transportation, natural resources, water and agriculture. A portfolio like that will help preserve your wealth in this current climate. 
 
 Q: Where might the next panic begin? 
 
 A: It could begin in a lot of different places. But one place to keep a close eye on is China, which is on the verge of a major credit collapse. That could be the one snowflake that starts the global avalanche. 
 
 (Follow us @ReutersMoney or here Editing by Lauren Young and Andrew Hay) ||||| -- Published: Sunday, 19 October 2014 | Print | Disqus 
 
 By Peter Cooper 
 
 In what pretends to be a history looking back from the future ‘Currency Wars’ author and fund manager Jim Rickards argues that by 2020 all the gold of the G-20 nations will be confiscated and buried in a former nuclear bunker under a mountain in Switzerland to take it out of the global financial system. 
 
 This is the conclusion to the astonishing tour de force article that kicks off his new monthly newsletter ‘Rickards’ Strategic Intelligence’ for Agora Financial, publisher of highly successful financial newsletters like Chris Mayers’ ‘Capital & Crisis’. Has the normally sober and thoughful Mr. Rickards lost his marbles? 
 
 Ad absurdum 
 
 I must confess to having my doubts on reading his first issue with one absurd conclusion leading to another and then to a totally unrealistic world gold confiscation scenario. How would that happen? The G-20 meetings struggle to agree on a final communique. How could they agree something like that? 
 
 Mr. Rickards does not stop there. In his world not only does money die and cease to exist but there is a sort of death of capitalism that Marx prescribed and Stalin tried to implement without notable success. There are no markets, bonds nor money by 2024 and equality rules. 
 
 Strangely the real survivors of this apocalypse to end all apocalypses are the investors who bought gold, fine art and land, and who cashed out of gold when Mr. Rickards’ newsletter told them. Somehow fine art and land still has a value in the future without money or markets, and illegal gold too. How would that work? 
 
 Indeed how seriously are we supposed to take Mr. Rickards’ vision of the future? His subsequent articles basically feed off its central insight and so you have to believe it is a scenario that he thinks not only has some weight but actually is very plausible. We preferred his ‘Currency Wars’ conclusion of a new dollar backed by gold in an economic reset. 
 
 Just too whacky 
 
 The next ArabianMoney monthly newsletter ( subscribe here ) will offer our detailed riposte. However, suffice to say we think Mr. Rickards is way off in his political if not economic analysis. 
 
 We note that governments would collapse and social unrest grow massively under such circumstances and that such coordinated central bank or G-20 responses would just not be politically possible. Nationalism not nationalization of assets would prevail. 
 
 Sadly chaos, anarchy, revolutions and wars are a more likely outcome, although we hope commonsense prevails and the world muddles through and yet another version of financial armageddon proves to be alarmist nonsense. However, within all these visionary tales there is usually more than a grain or truth, or a few grams of real gold.
– A CIA analyst known for his dire economic predictions is speaking up again, warning that the next Great Depression may be right around the corner. Jim Rickards, a "financial threat and asymmetric warfare adviser" for the CIA, tells Money Morning that Americans should be preparing for a $100 trillion financial catastrophe. "Everybody knows we have a dangerous level of debt," he says. "Everybody knows the Fed has recklessly printed trillions of dollars. ... But all signs are now flashing bright red that our chickens are about to come home to roost." Another reason for gloom: According to Rickards, the so-called Misery Index maintained by the Federal Reserve contains far worse data than most people believe. The Misery Index adds the true unemployment rate with the true inflation rate, but Rickards contends that the Fed has altered the index's calculations in order to hide the truth—that "the Misery Index has reached more dangerous levels than we saw prior to the Great Depression," he says. "This is a signal of a complex system that's about to collapse." His prediction? A "70% stock market crash" followed by a 25-year depression, possibly sparked by a "major credit collapse" in China, he tells Reuters. His advice? Invest in "hard assets" like railroads, coal, wheat, or gold. Again, he's not known for mild predictions: In a recent monthly newsletter, Rickards claimed that by 2020, all G-20 gold will be hidden under a Swiss mountain to keep it away from the world's economic system, Goldseek reports.