The French bond spread, now at 1.69 percentage points, is rapidly approaching the peak reached at the height of the Eurozone debt crisis. So, are we in a crisis? Will France default? The answer to the second question is no, assuming the ECB prints money and cuts interest rates when things get really ugly. Are we in a crisis? Well, that depends. Not the kind of turmoil we witnessed during the Eurozone debt crisis, when it was unclear whether Greece and Italy could remain in the eurozone. Many years and countless ECB bond-buying programs later, we know governments and central banks will work together to keep things from falling apart. Yet I would call this a bond crisis. Because after nearly six years of negative nominal returns (and an even worse picture after inflation), we now have another painful reminder that bonds are no longer the asset class they once were. Not only have bonds delivered negative returns, but their risk profile has also deteriorated significantly, while their diversification benefits have largely evaporated. Bond returns have become positively correlated with equity returns. And I expect that relationship to persist for one simple reason: bonds themselves have become a risky asset. To be clear, at current yields, bonds could certainly deliver positive returns once interest rates decline. But that doesn't mean bonds will magically return to being a low-risk asset class offering decent positive returns and meaningful diversification. Quite the contrary. Pension funds and other investors abandoning French government bonds further confirm that the nature of bonds has fundamentally changed. And when yields eventually decline, as I expect they will, won't the reason be yet another reminder that bonds need central bank support to prevent actual defaults? I think so. And in that environment, can you think of other asset classes that would benefit even more from that support than the bonds themselves? We can! That's why we build robust, long-term investment portfolios without traditional bonds, but with scarce assets such as gold. Because governments and aging economies cannot survive their enormous debt burdens without monetary support, investors need to rethink and rebuild their portfolios. That's why we created the Blokland Smart Multi-Asset Fund and the Blokland Sound Money Fund!