That’s the advice of Kyle Bass, a Dallas hedge fund manager who foresaw the crisis of European sovereign debt. Michael Lewis writes about him in “Boomerang,” his latest book. It’s a fascinating story. A few years ago, Bass started crunching the numbers on Euro sovereign debt, when nobody was paying attention to it. He took his findings to Harvard’s Ken Rogoff, who was reportedly gobsmacked by them. Bass told Lewis that when he observed that Ken Rogoff, who’s one of the world’s great experts on sovereign indebtedness, didn’t see this coming, he was unnerved by the veil of ignorance surrounding something so important. Anyway, Bass began investing with an eye toward coming sovereign defaults in Europe … and has done very well for himself and his clients.

Bass is a fascinating figure. He advises people to get guns and gold, because it’s all coming crashing down. As he explains in the 24-minute BBC interview I’ve embedded below — well worth your time — he’s not being quite literal here, but he’s saying that it’s all going to come crashing down — Japan’s demise is on the horizon, for reasons he explains below — and people should be aware that cash is not going to be worth anything, and that we’re going to see a lot of social unrest in the years to come. On the Judgment Day thing, Bass says he’s using a theological concept to convey the sense that we cannot escape the judgment of the markets for our years of debt-fueled profligacy. “Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell.” says Bass. “There has to be atonement.”

Judgment Day, in Bass’s terms, just got a lot closer today: a sale of German bonds fell flat, a sign that Eurozone contagion has now reached, yes, Germany. As Bass explains, people have the wrong idea about Germany, thinking that it’s an unassailable citadel of wealth. Bass says that unlike the US and the UK, the German government hasn’t recapitalized its banks. When it does so, its debt situation will put it on part with the United States. Tyler Durden, commenting on the German situation this morning, predicts: “As for next steps: first the UK, then Japan, and finally the US…”.

Set some time aside and watch this Bass interview with the BBC.

UPDATE: Ryan Avent, in the Economist, writing about today’s disastrous German bond auction. Excerpt:

The good news, such as it is, is that the stunning German bond-market failure may shock leaders their into recognising their own great vulnerability and pushing for bold initiatives to slow the crisis. The problem is that matters rapidly seem to be spinning out of the control of fiscally-limited governments. It will take the power of the printing press to stop the panic. But the ECB seems if anything more reluctant to save the situation than the German government. As Martin Wolf quips today, “the ECB risks being remembered by historians as the magnificently orthodox central bank of a failed currency union”.

The world can give thanks that a new Depression is not yet upon it. Enjoy the sentiment now, while it lasts.