Setting the scene: The global economy is frozen in place. Production has stopped. It is becoming clearer now that the coronavirus is not nearly as deadly as initially reported. Frantic government-sponsored fear-mongers are now dialing back their Armageddon estimates of 1.2 million dead in the United States and 250,000 in the United Kingdom. Turns out that up to 2/3rd of fatalities are people who probably would have died within the year anyway. This is sad, but it it does not warrant shutting down everyone’s lives over it. I wonder how many people in their 80’s and 90’s die of the common cold.

As testing escalates and we find more asymptomatic carriers and people with mild symptoms, the fatality rate will continue to fall and we are going to be inundated with headlines about how COVID-19 is not really as bad as we thought it was. Pressure will build to open up the economy. Stock markets already seem to be anticipating this with an incredibly strong bounce off lows at the beginning of the week.

Here’s how things are likely to proceed from here and what you can do to make a few bucks off this before everything collapses again. First of all, we must accept that we are not headed back to where we were before. Everything is different now. The jig is up. Central banks are now printing infinite amounts of paper currency. The Fed’s balance sheet is now at $5.25 trillion, up over $1 trillion since March 4, by far no question the fastest rate of money printing ever. Mark my words – this rate will increase faster, and faster, and faster still. It will not stop until the dollar is dead. Central banks are locked in kamikaze mode now. BUT – there may be a few weeks to a few months before people realize this and come to terms with the terrible conclusion that the fiat dollar reserve standard, and with it every other unbacked paper currency in the world based on it, is now in its final days.

Consumers are now awaiting their stimulus checks, and pent up demand is going to mean sales skyrocket once people are let out into the world again. The euphoria in capital markets will be extreme but short-lived, as people suddenly realize that everything they need is much more expensive all the sudden. Inflation indexes are going to spike and talking heads will start to question monetary policy. At that point, stocks may continue to climb nominally, but they will lose value relative to hard assets. The best companies will eventually gain real value again on a sustained basis, but it’s going to take time and a reset before that happens.