European Gold Forum 2013

In his talk Alex presents a highly visual and tangible review and display of the monetary decisions and political events that took place in Germany over fifty years, and which led to the spectacular hyperinflationary conclusion now widely known as the Weimar Inflation. He outlines the remarkable parallels with policies and events as they have unfolded in the United States during the last century and as they continue to unfold today.

He demonstrates that the destruction of currency through inflation is a long process that is based on good, even noble intentions. Because it takes place over several generations very few people understand it in its entirety. He shows how the general public refuses to believe that currency is not money and that the result is considerable or total loss of wealth.

The presentation poses the question “Will history be repeated?”

With eighteen years of financial experience, McGuire has managed a $2 billion European equity portfolio and was ranked among the best Latin American analysts by Institutional Investor in the late 1990s.

An avid gold investor, he has in recent years worked closely with Austin Rare Coins, one of the country’s leading precious metals companies. McGuire graduated from Fordham University and holds a master’s in history and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

He has written Hard Money: Taking Gold to a Higher Investment Level, published by Wiley.  Hard Money also details how to invest in physical gold without getting ripped off, and why rare gold coins are an attractive investment option inaccessible to fund managers. Hard Money is not a book about a financial crash, or about the end of civilization, about storing up food and a mysterious form of wealth for a long, dark financial winter. Rather, it offers an investment strategy to deal with the reality of present financial conditions, conditions that could lead to a dramatic rise in the price of gold.

He lives in Austin, Texas, with his family.

Martin Murenbeeld is the Chief Economist of DundeeWealth Inc. and head of DundeeWealth Economics, a division of DundeeWealth Inc. that provides independent analysis and advice on economic and financial developments to both retail and institutional interests across North America and abroad.

Marcus Grubb joined the World Gold Council in June 2008. His key role is to be the gold strategist for the World Gold Council, responsible for the organisation’s view of all aspects of the gold market and to articulate it to investors of all types, from private wealth to institutional and sovereign investors worldwide. Marcus also acts as the global spokesperson, speaking at high profile forums and events worldwide. Lastly, he is responsible for managing partner relationships in investment, such as ETF Securities and BullionVault.

Marcus has worked in investment banking and capital markets for 20 years with experience in management, sales, trading, research and product origination. He was the Global Head of Equities at Rabobank and a Board member, where he built and managed the global equities and equity derivatives business. Marcus was the founder Chief Executive of Swapstream, the largest inter-bank exchange for interest rate swaps, sold to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 2006. During the mid-1990s, Marcus was a top-rated Senior Investment Strategist running part of research at Union Bank of Switzerland and Salomon Brothers and began his career in Eurobond and swap origination at JP Morgan in the 1980’s. Marcus graduated in 1983 from Oxford University with top first class honours in Modern History & Economics.

Philip Klapwijk has almost a quarter century of experience analyzing the gold, silver and PGMs markets, most of this time working for GFMS (since August 2011 part of Thomson Reuters), which is the leading specialist research consultancy on the global precious metals markets.  (Thomson Reuters GFMS, for example, is the prime source of statistics on gold and silver markets worldwide.)  Philip is responsible for all precious and base metals markets analysis and research at Thomson Reuters GFMS. He is a frequent speaker at conferences on precious metals and commodities and the print and electronic media regularly quote his views on the gold, silver and PGMs markets.  He holds degrees in economics from the London School of Economics and the College d’Europe, Bruges.

The advantage of linking national currencies to gold is that it disciplines central banks and Governments.  The disadvantage is the difficulty of overcoming social resistance to such discipline.  Also the central banks’ oligopoly makes the market for gold very imperfect.  What about making gold & gold notes a parallel currency?

Dr. Pedro Schwartz is Chairman of the Economic and Social Council of the Madrid Autonomous Community. Since 1970 he has been a Professor of Economics at three Spanish Universities. At present he is Professor Extraordinary in the Department of Economics of the University San Pablo CEU in Madrid, where he teaches the History of Economic Thought and directs the Centre for Political Economy and Regulation. Other activities include being a member of the Advisory Committee of Capgemini Consulting, member of the Board of Directors of CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels), a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society, a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Liberales Institut Zurich; and in the US, an Adjunct Scholar of the Cato Institute. He is secretary of the Think Tank Civismo and trustee of the Foundation Pro Libertate.

From 2006 to 2008 he was one of the experts writing briefing papers for the Committee Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament.

In September 1990, H.M. Queen Elisabeth II made him an Honorary Officer of the British Empire. In February 2003, he was awarded the Rey Jaime I Prize for contributions to economics in Spain. In February 2005 he became a member of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of Spain. In November 2010 H.M. the King of Spain handed him the Rey Juan Carlos Prize for Economics.

He writes a weekly column in Expansión of Madrid and every Monday features on Radio Intereconomía.. He often speaks on the Spanish financial and corporate scene for the BBC and has contributed to the Financial Times. He is a frequent lecturer on economics and on company strategy.

The City of Madrid has awarded him the 2008 Jose Ortega y Gasset Prize for . the second edition of his book En busca de Montesquieu. La democracia en peligro (Ediciones Encuentro, Madrid).

He is a native Spanish speaker, is fluent in English, French and Italian and speaks Portuguese.