"First Step Towards Total Chaos?"

The wild stock market swings of recent days have left investors gasping and with good cause.

Does the age-old "Buy & Hold" mantra still apply?

Based on historical performance the answer is 'Yes'...however some see things differently:

Financial expert Bill Holter says the "ability to prevent a crash no longer exists."

"The system has gotten too big...there's too much debt. Too many sovereign governments have bumped up against debt saturation. In the U.S., we are over 100% debt to GDP."

"You can't fix debt with more debt--but that's what they keep trying to do," he said. "What we need is a complete reset."

Holter's advice? If we get a bounce in the market, use it to get out.

Chris Martenson, of Peak Prosperity, has these words of wisdom: "What goes up must come down--and that's especially true for the world's many poorly-constructed financial bubbles, built out of nothing more than gauzy narratives and inflated with "hopium".

"Markets are quite possibly in crash mode right now, although events are unfolding so quickly--currency spikes, equity sell-offs, emerging markets routs and dislocations and commodity declines--that it's hard to tell for sure. However, that's usually the case right before and during big market declines," say Martenson.

'Further, most of the gains in financial assets engineered by the central banks were false and destined to burst because the were based on bubble technology, not actual returns."

Jim Rickards, author of The Death of Money, explains why China was unable to keep their limited free market under control: "...markets have a mind of their own," he says. "But the 'Empire' will strike back, they have an enormous arsenal of tools they can use to try to fight the bubble."

Good to know somebody is trying to fight the bubble, because according to Rickards, the U.S. Federal Reserve is now out of ammo and on a "Kamikaze Mission."

Nick Barisheff, CEO of Bullion Management Group (BMG) contends: 

"We are living in an age of records in the financial world. The stock market is in its longest bull market in history and near all-time highs. The world has more debt than ever before while interest rates are near record lows, and some are negative in many countries for the first time ever. I have been in the business for 40 years, and this is the first time we have had a simultaneous triple bubble, a bubble in real estate, stocks and bonds all at the same time. So when we have a correction, it's going to be massive. The big problem is this triple bubble is sitting on a mountain of debt like never before."

So, should we 'buy & hold' or jump out & run? 

Your guess is as good as ours.

A wise man once said:  "The central banks are panicking. They don't know what to do anymore...but it's nothing compared to what is coming. The panic that started in the summer was the first step towards total chaos in the world that we will be seeing in the months and years to come. Central bankers see it clearly. They know the banking system is absolutely on the verge of collapse." -- Egon von Greyerz, financial expert

"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." Mark 8:36-38

HOW TO GO TO HEAVEN

News:

• The Wall Street Journal: Wild Swings In Repo Rates Raise Concerns About Bond Market; rates for overnight loans surged amid cash crunch in financial system
• Market Watch: GE to freeze pensions for about 20,000 employees; stock surges
• CNBC: Ex-NASDAQ CEO warns that this year's IPO boom feels similar to late 1990's dot-com bubble