One of the striking ironies of our modern economy is that government bonds are considered safe-haven investments, while gold is a barbarous relic to be avoided at all costs. Since the 2008 financial collapse, the bond market has been on a tear, thanks to the Federal Reserves endless interest rate suppression. This has only served to reinforce the traditional notion that government bonds are safe.

Last week, on July 30, the Republic of Argentina was declared to be in default for the third time in 30 years. Let's put that into perspective. If you were a bank officer who offered a 30-year mortgage to the Government of Argentina in the early '90s you would have spent nearly the entire life of the loan in a perpetual nightmare of refinancing. You would likely be not only fired from your job, but a pariah in the entire industry. This is what Argentina's international creditors and domestic citizens have faced in real life.

The European Central Bank's (ECB) decision to charge a negative interest on overnight deposits is not going to lead to a higher targeted inflation rate, despite ECB President Mario Draghi's insistence that it will. Like all cases of central planning, this decision will have unintended and costly consequences - some of which are already starting to play out. In this particular case, instead of stimulating business lending or higher prices, the decision will only stimulate the increased buying of insolvent government debt - leading us all one step closer to the economy's eventual unravelling.