The Great Taking Isn’t Coming — It May Already Be Here

If your portfolio is doing well in a currency that’s quietly collapsing, are you gaining — or being fooled?

Denomination Defines the Illusion

A remark worth remembering: you must define your common denominator. What currency do you measure wealth in?

For investors in Argentina, Venezuela or Zimbabwe, markets once looked strong — until their currencies collapsed. Local stock portfolios soared. But purchasing power disappeared.

What happens when the denominator itself loses credibility — not just in emerging markets, but at the core of the global system?

Record Highs, Measured in Confetti

From London to New York, markets are printing new highs.

• The FTSE 100, Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq — all at records.

• Mainstream headlines are jubilant.

But gold is rising faster. Quietly, persistently.The price of gold has reached historic highs not only in dollars but in pounds, euros, yen and yuan.

If everything is up — gold and equities alike — what is really being measured?

Gold doesn’t rise because of growth. It rises because trust erodes. And if it rises alongside stocks, it might not be inflation alone — but a flight from fiat.

The Great Taking: Not a Theory, a Process

David Rogers Webb’s The Great Taking presents a stark vision:That in a deflationary collapse, digitalised financial assets — stocks, bonds, ETFs — may be legally seized, or reclassified, by those in control of the financial plumbing.

His thesis relies on systemic failure, and the legal groundwork already in place to convert ownership into claims.

We do not endorse his entire argument.But the deeper point is harder to ignore:

Do you own what you think you own? And even if you do — what is it worth, really?

When Gains Disappear in Gold Terms

Investors often rely on the classic 60/40 portfolio:

• 60% equities

• 40% bonds

On paper, it performs. In gold, it erodes.

Dow-to-Gold Ratio

• Peaked at over 44 in 1999

• Has been in a downtrend since

• Now drifting toward single digits

FTSE 100-to-Gold Ratio

• Also breaking down — gold outpacing UK equities

Gold-to-Bonds Ratio

• In 2000, 1 ounce of gold = ~2 units of 10-year U.S. Treasuries

• Today: ~36

In real terms, investors are losing wealth while their portfolios appear healthy.

This is not a crisis of price. It’s a crisis of measurement.

The Quiet Exodus of Real Capital

Wealth isn’t rotating sectors. It’s rotating out of the system.

• Central banks are the largest buyers of gold

• High-net-worth individuals are buying real assets: land, private companies, vintage goods, fine art

• Private equity is replacing public markets

• Storage is moving off-grid — into vaults, into Switzerland, into structures not visible in Bloomberg terminals

Why? Because when promises are measured in paper, real value hides where paper can’t reach.

Redefining Risk, Rethinking Value

This isn’t investment advice. It’s an invitation to shift perspective.

• Do you value your wealth in numbers? Or in purchasing power?

• Are you invested in assets that can be redefined, reclassified — or remeasured?

The most powerful wealth preservation often isn’t reactive. It’s structural.

At Clarus Orbis, we focus on predefined outcomes — because clarity matters more when confidence fades.

Final Thought

Perhaps The Great Taking won’t come through confiscation. Perhaps it already arrived — through dilution.

If so, then the real wealth transfer isn’t happening on a single day.It’s happening every day, through every chart that looks “up” but measures “down”.

The hardest things to detect are the ones that happen slowly — until they don’t.