End of the world is not nigh, but still...

It's that time of the year again when doomsday predictions gain traction, and best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, is again counselling Boomers to sell everything they own and pile into gold. Or bitcoin. He has unspecified AI backing his claim that the cryptocurrency will hit $500,000 next year. Granted, physical assets that central banks can't 'print' are doing well in an inflationary environment. But is the wealthiest generation ever about to lose its shirt? Bestseller writers with billion-dollar bank accounts are not exactly the most Nostradamus-est of economic forecasters. But Kiyosaki's recent predictions on bullion and cryptos have been spot on. He may be pointing in the right direction. Yet, his warnings of imminent financial apocalypse are, like the casserole for tonight you need to immediately take out of your oven, overdone.

The US administration is hurtling towards a budget crisis. But it has displayed amazing powers of resuscitation. Bond holders - many of them foreigners - have brought US presidents into the fiscal straight and narrow on earlier occasions. Trump's not going to turn his back on the deal of a lifetime to fix the US Treasury if he can push through decades of Republican agenda in the bargain. China, too, has the firepower to put money in the hands of its citizens to go out and start buying Western luxury again. Europe is looking a bit wobbly, but not enough for anything to topple over.

Kiyosaki's prognostication needs to be read correctly though. The world has ended a long honeymoon with inflation. Overspending governments do pose risks to the financial system. Central banks have delivered on bringing runaway prices to heel. But now the ball is with governments to rein in spending without stalling their economies. This will be a tough act of figuring the heightened security of physical assets in an inflationary environment. Family offices of HNIs are sitting on loads of cash. Warren Buffett is holding on to a record amount of it. Doom may not be nigh. But you've been warned.