The following is an edited version of an article by Peter Macfarlane and a special offer that was published this weekend in our free weekly newsletter, Q Bytes. If you would like to receive Q Bytes every week (no obligation, and of course you can unsubscribe at any time) be sure to sign up here.

Yesterday I had a very interesting meeting with a personal consulting client at which we discussed physical gold and silver, the dollar and the euro. Particularly, how to buy physical gold and silver offshore. I think it will be very relevant to Q Wealth readers, so I’m going to tell you a bit about this meeting, and then offer you an ‘insider’ recommendation on physical precious metals free of charge.

This client, we’ll call him Jim, was in a great mood and treated me to a nice lunch. We talked about a recommendation we made in a Q Bytes free conference call earlier this year with Q Wealth Expert Linda Dixon, to get into silver: not only did Jim follow this advice and buy silver at around the $17.00 spot mark, but when he did so, he bought it at a 20% discount direct from the mining company. Now, with silver well above $23.00, he’s about to start taking physical delivery, something he’s keenly looking forward to. The best part is that all this was done without involving the banking system at all.

Buying silver and gold direct from the mine is something we’ve certainly heard about before, but Jim told me Q Wealth was the only place he had received the practical instructions and direct contact information necessary to make the purchase. In fact, this particular silver deal was a relatively small affair designed to test the system. I don’t quite know how much Jim put in, but the minimum was only $10,000. So this is really accessible to almost every reader.

But the story gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective.) Jim also told me about one of his buddies, Fred, an ultra high net worth investor who deals in millions and billions, who had tried contacted larger mining companies trying to buy gold direct – rather than through middlemen. He had been told that yes, they would be happy to sell him some of their production…. but he would have to join the line, behind the big buyers like JP Morgan and HSBC.

The same day, a new article by Jeff Clark of Casey Research arrived in my inbox, touching on the very same subject. “We’ve got it easy right now,” comments Jeff. “Click or call, and you can quickly and conveniently own a gold coin or bar. But if global concerns cause another panic or the dollar breaks down, you could find yourself standing in a line at the local coin shop or getting a busy signal. Simply … you may find it very difficult to get your hands on physical gold when that time comes.”

Don’t believe it could happen? Back in the 1980s it did. There were no precious metal ETFs in 1980, and the demand for physical gold was so great that you literally had to wait in line at a coin shop to buy, with plenty of occasions when you would have been turned away due to lack of inventory. And it happened again in 2008… you may recall we saw serious shortages, unexpected delays, and soaring premiums on gold coins towards the end of that year.

Jeff asks a simple question: “Given the fragile state of global affairs and the waiting-in-the-wings crisis for the U.S. dollar, I’ll be surprised if we don’t see another panic into physical gold. And the question is, will there be enough metal to go around when the public – 95% of which own none – wakes up and wants to buy it? Answer: No.” I do recommend you read Jeff’s full analysis here. And just skip ahead now if you want to get something we’ve never offered before – a copy of a presentation about physical gold and ETFs given to our delegates at the recent Q Wealth event in Ireland.

First, however, I should comment on the euro. Probably if you’re reading this, you are not surprised that gold is hitting new records and silver is shooting up even faster. What might have surprised you, though, is the Euro’s strength over recent days. Conventional wisdom, especially on US-based libertarian websites, is that the euro is doomed. So why is it getting stronger?

Here’s something else I learned in Cork. This is not analysis – it’s practical, on the ground experience. There we heard a presentation by real estate millionaire Thomas Bolther, who started investing into the German real estate market in 2006. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is doing just great according to Thomas. Property prices have increased, interest rates are low, and there’s plenty of money floating around in the banking system.

An American delegate at our conference later commented to me that he was shocked. Shocked to hear that banks in Germany were financing 80-90% LTV on multi-family real estate units. Shocked to hear that the Euro zone was doing well, despite the dismal picture portrayed in the media that focuses on Greece and Ireland – two bankrupt economies that are tiny even by European standards.

The US dollar, however, continues to devalue. Some people say it will hold its value until after the 2012 elections. Personally I doubt that. The US continues to meddle in world currency markets and support quantitative easing – ie, printing more money. The opposition to this is growing in the rest of the world, most recently in the BRIC countries. (See for example BusinessWeek: Russia’s Kudrin Says ‘Too Early’ for World Currency Decision)

Now I’m not saying you should rush to put your money in the euro. Far from it. Paradoxically, the reason German real estate is doing so well is that Germans don’t want to keep their money in the euro. They too are worried it will collapse. Real estate in good locations in big cities is a safe haven for them. So, of course, is gold. Demand for both has skyrocketed in Germany.

In fact I’m not going to give you any advice here. I just wanted to present a few nuggets of information, based on personal experience of the last few weeks, that you probably won’t hear elsewhere.

Here’s something else you might be interested in too…

Our Q Wealth events are strictly ‘closed door.’ As a matter of policy, we don’t sell CDs and videos. We don’t even allow recording devices into the room. This is so our experts can speak freely. However, we’ve decided to make a single exception…

Frank Suess of Global Gold gave a very important presentation in Cork, explaining not just the benefits of his physical precious metals program (besides gold, they also handle physical silver, palladium, and platinum) In a specially prepared presentation, Frank also explained exactly why investing in Gold ETFs is an extremely bad idea, although he mentioned one, ZGLD, that is the best of the bunch.

I believe that Global Gold represents the single best way you can get into physical precious metals today.

After talking to Frank, we agreed that this is important information that we should get out to all Q Wealth members. Good honest people are being misled by Wall Street into investing in products like GLD, where the weight of the evidence suggests that the gold doesn’t exist at all. These structured products are brought to you by the very same financiers who brought you sub-prime mortgage securities a few years back. Now they are cashing in on folks seeking the safe haven on gold, by offering virtual gold – a numbers game.

Therefore, Frank has agreed to let us send you a copy of his presentation, converted to pdf format. You will be able to read through this presentation in about 20 minutes. After reading it, tell me if you still want to invest in gold ETFs!

If you are a Q Wealth member, you’ll find that we have just uploaded it to the Members Section. If you are not yet a member, I am so keen that you should see this that we are offering you an additional incentive – an extra $10 off membership if you sign up over this weekend (by Monday night). Just enter the discount code OCT10 in the box on the Q Wealth signup form here.

Legendary Swiss market pundit Marc Faber recently advised a group of high flying investment managers to ‘buy farmland and gold,’ reports the Times of London.

Dr Marc Faber is an interesting and often controversial commentator. His greatest claim to fame is having advised investors to pull out of the stock market a week before the 1987 crash. Now his belief, he reportedly told an assembled group of pension and sovereign wealth fund members in Tokyo the US is going to go bankrupt. The best way to achieve international asset protection and diversification is to buy physical gold and farmland, he believes.

So who is Dr Marc Faber? Dr Faber moved to Hong Kong in 1973 and – although he still keeps an office there – he resides in Chiang Mai, Thailand, along with a number of our subscribers and friends. As well as having penned several books, Faber has his own monthly investment newsletter The Gloom Boom & Doom Report.  Faber has been long term bearish about the American economy for a number of years and continues to be so.

According to Wikipedia, he concluded his June 2008 newsletter with the following:

The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China. If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. If we buy a computer it will go to India. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. I’ve been doing my part.

The reporting in the Times also offers insight into Faber’s way of thinking:

His investment advice, which was the first keynote speech of CLSA’s annual investment forum in Tokyo, included a suggestion that fund managers buy houses in the countryside because it was more likely that violence, biological attack and other acts of a “dirty war” would happen in cities.

He also said that they should consider holding part of their wealth in the form of precious metals “because they can be carried”.

One London-based hedge fund manager described Mr Faber’s address as “excellent, chilling stuff: good at putting you off lunch, but not something I can tell clients asking me about quarterly returns at the end of March”.

Needless to say, we agree with Dr Faber’s predictions. We have been telling people for several years to get out of the financial system by buying physical gold, as well as diversifying with multi-currency offshore bank accounts.

We also recommend purchase of productive and useful real estate, as opposed to real estate held for speculation. Farmland in countries like Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, for example, has proven to be an excellent investment over the past few years, but will only show its true value in the future. Our planned Paraguay Citizenship and Real Estate Investment Tour has been delayed somewhat due to pressure of work, but we are still planning to go ahead with it, now probably in early May. Anyone interested in coming along is more than welcome to contact us.

In this article: a quick preview of a way to profit from economic turmoil… Canada’s largest ever gold discovery. This is something our Q Bytes subscribers already received details of today. If you are not yet on the Q Bytes list (and remember it’s FREE!) you have a second chance, because we will send out this link again on Saturday. Read on for more details…

The $787 billion approved in February was not enough, it seems! For example Laura Tyson, an  adviser to President Barack Obama, is quoted by Bloomberg as saying it was “a bit too small.” See also this link about Gold Price Speculation.

As I seem to remember there have been quite a few stimulus deals already…  so where somebody got the idea that this is only the second, I don’t know. But anyway, the chatterers are asking for a “Second Stimulus.” Whether this craziness actually goes ahead or not, it is once again highlighting the potential for decline of the dollar – and the consequent rise in Gold.

I see inflation as the most imminent threat to your capital. Allow me to explain. The Monetary Base is made up of currency in circulation, reserves that banks have on deposit with the Fed, and (last but not least) Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs)  stashed away in bank vaults. This is themoney used in our daily transactions, and as such is the most accurate indicator of inflation.

Between 1960 and 2008, the Monetary Base grew at roughly 6% annually, with a spike around 15% just before the turn of the century. But get this: Between September 2008 and April 2009, the Monetary Base exploded to a 110% growth rate. That means cash available to do business more than doubled in the space of just eight months. And since April… well, you get the idea!

With this level of liquidity, prices have to start rising in a big way. In fact, market guru Marc Faber says he is sure that U.S. will soon go into hyperinflation. Meanwhile other experts suggest that the UK is equally on the edge of a serious currency crisis.

What does all this mean? One short, four letter word:  G O L D ! We’ve written many times about Gold and Precious Metals Investing generally, and more specifically in our Members Section about how to buy and hold gold bullion offshore for the ultimate privacy, hedging and completely legal non-reportability.

But today I am not writing about Gold Bullion. While gold is slow, steady and relatively conservative… there is a way to leverage gold investments and make a lot of money very quickly when the gold price soars. I’m talking of course about gold mining stocks. And right now there is a very interesting opportunity that has come my way, from a couple of highly reputable people, both industry insiders, that has a very high potential upside. It’s interesting because it has two upsides… not just the leverage on the soaring gold price, but the fact that it’s currently undervalued and this is a chance to get in on a new gold find at the ground floor.

It’s not every day that the biggest gold find in Canadian history goes on record! But that’s what’s about to happen.

So I believe the time is right to introduce you to a contact who has all the inside information on it… an veteran ‘hands on’ investor of the Canadian mining business. I named him to Q Bytes readers in an email this morning, but will decline to name him in public here.  Suffice to say, if you missed out you still have a chance. Get on our Q Bytes list by midnight Friday, and I’ll make sure you get this information on Saturday.

He is going to tell you a great story… about a “renegade geologist” and his “mom-and-pop” company who are right now sitting on a mother lode of 10.6 million ounces of gold on their mining property. It’s soon going to go on record as the biggest gold find in Canada… the seventh largest in all of North America.

Now I’d like to point out, to those people out there who want everything for free, that good, hands-on type research costs money (just look at my travel bills each year…) So I’m not saying I’m going to give you all the insider research and contact information you need to take advantage of this deal for free. But Q Bytes readers will have the opportunity to read this story and get full information and insight on how this could work,  and very importantly how you could make money in short order. We mailed some info to our readers today, and we will repeat the relevant links on Saturday, to anyone whois a current Q Bytes reader as of midnight tomorrow Friday.  And Q Bytes is completely free and without any obligation whatsoever. You can sign up to Q Bytes here. Don’t miss out!

The bailout of General Motors is another nail in the coffin of the US dollar. But still, most people haven’t even noticed the real ‘stealth’ devaluation being imposed by the United States government. And yet all of us, Americans or not, are affected by this in a big way, due to the dollar’s status as a reserve currency (and also due to China’s effective control of the dollar, that I have previously touched on…)

Is the dollar “collapsing” or merely “declining”? I believe it is collapsing, but some people might misunderstand this. The dollar is not just going to crash one day, or even one week. It’s an ongoing thing, that started many years ago but has substantially speeded up in the last five years or so (yes, even during the times when the US economy was supposedly booming, that too was based on scams by the financial services sector)

Geithner, Bernanke, Obama and the whole crew are involved in a constant battle to patch over the dollar collapse.  Yet in spite of their attempts, the cracks have widened. The greenback continues its inexorable march downward. This week’s events at G.M. have accelerated the collapse a little more. And I believe that the collapse of the dollar will continue to accelerate with time. What will happen when it hits the bottom is anybody’s guess, but I certainly want to be well prepared when it happens. You should be too. And the Q Wealth website is about helping you do just that – protecting your assets from this stealth devaluation.

The US is not going to crash like Mexico did in 1995, or like Argentina and Brazil have done since with overnight currency devaluations. Neither will go bankrupt in one day like Iceland. The US government still has way too much influence and political power for that to happen. It’s a stealth devaluation because your portfolio will appear to be going higher. You will have more dollars. The stock market will be up. But in real terms, you are losing money faster than ever before. This is what some people have a hard time getting their head around – but it’s very important. The government will try to persuade you that things are going well, when really they are not. Bottom line? It’s a scam being perpetrated on you by government. If you care about protecting your assets and creating new wealth, you have to understand this.

So where can you actually put your money to protect against the stealth devaluation and collapse of the dollar? What about other currencies? Well, necessity dictates that we need to use currencies like dollars, euros and pounds to carry on business. And common investing sense dictates that you should diversify assets, so at least having a proportion of euros is better than having all dollars. It’s a start.

But unfortunately none of these currencies look good. Every other major central bank is participating in the very same scam, meaning that their currencies are equally doomed. So it would not be safe to assume that buying, say, euros, will give you any serious protection against the loss of your assets.

My number one mantra to clients is diversification, diversification and diversification. If you have a portfolio above six figures, it should be in different currencies, in different banks, on different continents. Opening overseas personal accounts, while having no tax consequences, can certainly help asset protection…the geographic diversification protects against the threat called government, while the mere fact that the assets are offshore significantly reduces the risk of you being sued in the first place, especially if you live in a litigious place like the USA or increasingly the UK.

Generally, private international banks are also a whole lot more flexible and service minded too. They offer Swiss-style wealth management banking facilities. For example, I noticed the other day that one of my European private offshore banks (not in Switzerland in this case) had quietly added gold ounces to the list of currencies I could hold in my multi-currency checking account. I guess that means I can even write cheques denominated in gold ounces, though I haven’t tried that yet. I see some of the larger European clearing banks like RAIFFEISEN ZENTRALBANK OESTERREICH AG in Austria are now maintaining gold correspondent accounts for their institutional clients. Interesting, huh?

Which are the best offshore banks for this kind of wealth management? For the answer to that question you need to be a member of The Q Wealth Report. Download the Practical Offshore Banking Guide (available instantly as soon as your payment is approved) and you will find ten of them for starters, with impartial comments on each… together with the form for a free e-mail consultation if you would like to discuss your individual circumstances with me directly.

Gold, probably is number one on my list of recommendations as a hedge against dollar decline. There are ways you should buy gold, and ways you shouldn’t. One way you should not invest in gold is by following typical mainstream advice and investing in ETFs, the most famous of which is GLD the SPDR Gold ETF. Ther are significant concerns about whether you could really get your gold out, or even your money back in dollars (which is not what you would want anyway at that stage) in the case of an economic meltdown.

For example, what do you think of this quote directly from the GLD prospectus?

The Trust’s gold may be subject to loss, damage, theft or restriction on access.

There is a risk that part or all of the Trust’s gold could be lost, damaged or stolen. Access to the Trust’s gold could also be restricted by natural events (such as an earthquake) or human actions (such as a terrorist attack). Any of these events may adversely affect the operations of the Trust and, consequently, an investment in the Shares.

The Trust may not have adequate sources of recovery if its gold is lost, damaged, stolen or destroyed and recovery may be limited, even in the event of fraud, to the market value of the gold at the time the fraud is discovered.

If you would like to know about better ways to invest in Gold offshore, you need my Gold Report – How to Buy and Hide Gold Bullion Offshore which is likewise available free of charge for immediate download to our paid up members.

Not a member yet? Sign up to Q Wealth Report here.

Peter Macfarlane’s long-awaited Gold Report is now available for download in the Members’ Area here at Q Wealth Report.

If you have been looking into options for buying physical gold bullion but have been put off by the difficulty or the extra costs involved in buying gold bullion through local gold dealers, this report was written for you, by Q Wealth’s Offshore Banking and Asset Protection expert Peter Macfarlane.

As the gold holdings of the Barclays Gold Trust (Gold Exchange Traded Funds or ETFs for short) and the World Gold Council across the globe grew larger than the gold holdings of Switzerland this week, in this 11,000 word report Peter looks at the outlook for Gold during 2009 and beyond. Peter explains why in his view investing in anything other than real physical gold bullion is unsafe because of exposure to the global banking system. The importance of this cannot be stressed enough in the current climate. He explains why the whole point of gold is a safe haven and why owning gold through an ETF or through substitutes like Perth Mint Certificates is just not the same as owning real gold bullion! (Not that it’s necessarily bad, says Peter… but nobody should mislead you into believing you are really buying gold)

Many people, however, are mystified when it comes to buying gold bullion offshore. Gold bullion kept in an offshore safe deposit box does not trigger any reporting requirements, but if you want to keep your gold ownership secret, then there are certain do’s and don’ts you need to know about before you buy a single ounce of gold. Peter explains in detail three strategies for buying gold offshore, privately and even anonymously if you wish. Whether you want to invest just a few thousand dollars or a few million, one of these three techniques will probably work for you.

Peter also talks about buying gold direct from the producers who own the gold mining assets. This is a way of cutting out the middleman – the gold and banking cartel. He touches too on how the Federal Reserve might be manipulating the gold price. Gold Price Manipulation is a big issue for all gold bugs to be aware of – and yet another reason why real physical bullion is the way to go!

Finally, where can you store your gold safely? Peter looks at different options in depth and reviews the pluses and minuses of each, from storing gold in a safe at home or a local bank, to storing bullion in tax free vaults at Zurich Airport in Switzerland. Little known secure safe deposit storage options where you can hide your gold safely in Austria, Switzerland and the Caribbean are also reviewed – and there’s a dire warning about why you should not hide your gold in the United Kingdom!

The Gold Report is essential reading for anyone interested in buying gold offshore or overseas. Best of all, The Gold Report is yours FREE! If you are a Q Wealth member, you can simply log in right now and download your copy. If you haven’t yet joined, take advantage of the opportunity to join online right now and download not just The Gold Report but also Peter’s Practical Offshore Banking Guide 2009 and a host of other goodies available exclusively for members!

For Press Enquiries or Interviews with Peter Macfarlane, please contact Q Wealth Limited in London, preferably by e-mail.