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Daily Pfennig 3/12/10: Traders fear Chinese 'bubbles'....
03/12/2010Good morning, Chuck headed out the door with a huge smile on his face yesterday as he heads down to spring training. With Chuck down in Florida, he handed the keyboard over to me for the rest of March. I am excited to be able to bring you the Pfennig over the next few weeks, and appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts on the currency markets with all the loyal readers. For those of you who are new to the Pfennig, I have been told my style is a bit more 'dry' than Chuck's (I can't even come close to his encyclopedic knowledge of lyrics); and I typically get the Pfennig sent out a bit later than Chuck. But I will try my best to keep everyone informed and get this out in a timely manner. Lets get started.
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Pool Accounts: Why You Should 'Get Physical' Instead
03/12/2010I wouldn't read a thing into Thursday's trading activity in the gold market anywhere on planet earth yesterday. The high of the day, if you wish to dignify it with that name, occurred shortly before 10:00 a.m. in Hong Kong yesterday morning. The price was around $1,112 spot. There were some reasonably wild gyrations in the gold price starting at 8:30 a.m. in New York... but, if you check the dollar chart further down, you'll see that this action was almost entirely dollar related. Gold's low for Thursday [$1,099.50 spot] was at the London p.m. gold fix which occurred around 10:00 a.m. Eastern time [3:00 p.m. in London]. Then, from the London p.m. fix onward, gold gained back about $10 as the dollar drifted gently lower.
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Doug Casey on Surviving Financial Apocalypse Now
03/11/2010Doug, last time we spoke, you said quite a bit about debt, in the context of your expectation that the euro is on its way out. At the end of that conversation, you mentioned, of course, that the problem is not limited to Greece, nor the eurozone. America as a country has become a world-class debtor, and many Americans seem to think a maxed-out credit card is a reason to get a higher credit limit, not to economize. It’s like a global epidemic. Let’s talk about debt.
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Competition for the IMF’s Gold?
03/10/2010On February 24, Reuters reported that the Reserve Bank of India was “set to be a buyer” of the 191.3 tonnes (6.74 million ounces) of gold the IMF is selling. Although the bank wouldn’t comment directly on the possibility, they did say, “We are closely looking at the gold market... gold is a safe bet.”
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Entropy – Why the World as We Know It Is Dying
03/09/2010The concept of entropy is one of the most useful terms for understanding just about everything. While it has its origins in natural law – thermodynamics, specifically – the concept holds true pretty much across all closed systems.
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Economist on Outlook for U.S. Debt
03/08/2010Casey Research Chief Economist Bud Conrad argues interest rates will rise as the U.S. fails to pay down debt.
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Technically Precious with Merv
03/08/2010For week ending 05 March 2010 : Little by little gold is creeping higher. It still has a way to go before new highs are reached but that may only be a matter of time.
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Marin Katusa: Winning the Game with Zero-Risk Capital
03/05/2010"In this game," according to Marin Katusa, senior editor of Casey's Energy Report, "you only get profits when you sell." The zero-capital investing philosophy he advocates wins the hearts and lines the pockets of investors. At the same time, though, it often puts him in the doghouse with some the companies and people he admires most. That's because following this strategy, you a) recoup your original investment once your stock rises, b) pull your original investment out, and then c) return for more when the price dips to the point that the company becomes an undervalued bargain. In addition to learning more about the Casey Free Ride approach and Marin's current energy sector views, get an early glimpse of the European shale plays that have captured his fancy in this exclusive Energy Report interview.
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What’s More Important: Price Per Ounce or Ounces Owned?
03/05/2010In a recent conversation with a fellow gold analyst, he was emphatic that the price one pays for physical gold should be ignored. “What’s far more important,” he insisted, “is how many ounces I own in relation to the total value of my assets.”
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All's Quiet on the Eastern Front
03/05/2010Thursday was another day when the precious metals basically followed the dollar's lead. Trading in Hong Kong was quiet up until 4:00 p.m. in their afternoon when the dollar began a gentle decline while gold went the other way. The high price of the day for gold [around $1,42 spot] was shortly before lunch in London... when the dollar hit its nadir. From there, the dollar once again headed north while the gold price headed south... with the low for gold [$1,124.90 spot] occurring at 10:45 a.m. in New York... and shortly before London closed for the day. Although the price recovered a few dollars off its low, gold basically did nothing for the rest of the New York trading session.
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COLOMBIA: A NEW GOLD RUSH?
03/03/2010For many investors, Colombia remains a grey spot on their mental maps of South America. La Violencia, the 50-year dark age in its recent past, came to an end with the close of the 20th century. But the memories are fresh, and the impact on the local economy and international perceptions of the country lingers. This reputation still prevents most foreigners from investigating Colombia’s potential – and that spells opportunity.
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Paul Ryan -- the Man Who Could Save America
03/02/2010Since the stunning result of the Massachusetts senatorial race, President Obama has softened his tone quite a bit, essentially saying to Republicans that if they have any good ideas, “Bring ’em on.”
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Snow-cialism
02/26/2010There is a silver lining to every snowstorm – getting to know your neighbors both good and bad. With forty inches on my block this week, I’ve learned a lot about my neighbors and, strangely enough, socialism.
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Gold, the IMF, and Dirty Jokes
02/25/2010How many IMF officials does it take to change a light bulb?
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Is Ben Bernanke Smart Enough to Be a CEO?
02/24/2010Ben Bernanke has got to be laughing it up after being reappointed to another term as Federal Reserve chairman. What else could we expect from the ex-lawyers and lifetime Beltway bandits voting on global monetary policy?
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The ABCs of ETFs
02/19/2010Why invest in a fund, a cluster of stocks, rather than the stocks themselves? The reasons are twofold. First, a fund provides cheaper diversification for those investors with smaller amounts of capital. Buying each component of a fund spreads out your risk in the same way, but you can rack up significant brokerage fees in the process.
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1001 Reasons to Own Gold
02/18/2010Tracking the numerous ongoing bullish factors for gold is quite a chore. There are, quite literally, so many compelling arguments for holding our favorite metal that I used to catalog them each month in our letter. The reason there are so many “reasons” is because gold is unlike any other asset. It...
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Colombia is Open for Business
02/16/2010Oddly enough, where the mountains were once the guerillas' strongholds, now they are relatively safe. Basically, where there's good infrastructure, the army can deploy easily and the rebels don't stand a chance. Up by Ventana and Greystar, I'm told, some 300 guerillas were cornered and wiped out to the last man. No prisoners in this war. So, they have been pushed out into the most remote regions, which are out on the jungle plains where there are no roads. One project I wanted to see is on the edge of those plains to the west, and the company politely said it was not yet safe... but that there's a new army base nearby, so in time, the violence will move away.
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Sooner or Later, You’ll Invest Abroad
02/12/2010Many conventional U.S. brokers are relatively clueless when it comes to gold stocks. If you asked them to name one, chances are it would be a domestic producer, one with assets located primarily in North America. But that’s not where the big money will be made over the next decade.
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Will Obama Destroy Any Hope of U.S. Energy Independence?
02/11/2010The U.S. consumes nearly three times the amount of oil that it produces domestically on a daily basis. How can this statistic get any worse, you might ask?
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An Insider’s View of the Real Estate Train Wreck
02/09/2010The first time I spoke with real estate entrepreneur Andy Miller was in late 2007, when I asked him to serve on the faculty of a Casey Research Summit. There was no one in the nation I wanted more than Andy to address the critical topic of real estate.
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Euro - Anchor of Stability?
02/09/2010The world’s attention is on the fiscal malaise in Greece and Portugal. Just a few months ago, policy makers told banks to shore up their balance sheets with more sovereign debt. However, policy makers around the world have since raced to spend money in an attempt to reinvigorate their respective economies, leading to record deficits. Now everyone appears surprised that weaker countries are having difficulty financing their largesse.
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Greenscapes - a true triple bottom line proposition
02/08/2010As we become a bit more environmentally conscious and start to recognize and acknowledge the negative effects on our environment caused by our overly consumptive, energy inefficient lifestyles and business practices, a number of businesses - based on an environmental sustainability model - have responded to our new found social responsibility.
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Daily Pfennig 2/8/10: Our pledge to you: high yields forever
02/08/2010Good day... Chuck spent an extra day in Florida, so he stayed home to recuperate today. I made it home Saturday night, and was a bit shocked by all of the ice and snow which covered my truck at the airport. I heard so much about the winter storm which rocked the east coast that I forgot to check the weather here at home. I am a bit behind this morning, as I stayed up a bit celebrating the Saints victory with friends.
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Vintage Wine Turns Sour for Financiers
02/05/2010The world of private equity financing doesn’t have high visibility, but it is big business behind the scenes. Unlike venture capital outfits – which provide startup money to very early-stage companies – those who play this game grab existing private companies, often through leveraged buyouts (LBOs). Each year’s investments are referred to as vintages, with some being more highly drinkable than others.
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Gold To Hit $1,350 By Late Spring - John Embry
02/04/2010As I mentioned in my closing comments yesterday, the two price rises in both gold and silver in the wee hours of Wednesday morning... one in the Hong Kong afternoon, and the other shortly after the London open... were quietly squashed. I didn't know it at the time, but the spike up in early London trading, turned out to be the high of the day...
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How to Talk to a Nincompoop
02/02/2010My Grandmother’s favorite word for politely describing the obtuse among us aptly characterizes a recent attack on gold. And that it comes from an investment magazine that commands front-of-the-rack prominence in waiting rooms across our great land is reassuring evidence we have a long way to go in this gold bull market.
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The China Controversy, Gold and the Stock Market
02/02/2010The news spotlight recently was stolen by Google, the Internet search engine giant. A statement issued by Google a couple of weeks ago was greeted by dismay on Wall Street as shares retreated in response to the company's announcement that it no longer supports China's censoring of searches that take place on the Google platform. China has defended its extensive censorship after Google threatened to withdraw from the country.
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What’s next for the Dollar?
02/02/2010The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) is sticking to its course for phasing out the additional purchases of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). Notably however, in its statement released January 27th, reference to an improving housing market was omitted after recent bad news about the sector.
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Technically Precious with Merv
02/01/2010For week ending 29 January 2010 : The week has seen no major moves in gold, either way. However, the price is sitting right on top of a support area and a move either way would be telling. We can have all sorts of fun with charts one view is a move to $1140 could project to $1600, a number very much in vogue.
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The Precarious State of Our Union
02/01/2010In this week's much anticipated State of the Union address, President Obama again demonstrated his poor understanding of the fundamental problems that confront our nation. By following the advice of the same people who helped guide our economy to the precipice of total collapse, Obama now threatens to push it over the edge.
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What’s a Company's Gold Worth?
01/29/2010At any given time, there's a single international spot price for an ounce of refined gold. Gold is priced in U.S. dollars: $1,076.50 per ounce as we go to press. But what about the gold an exploration or mining company has in the ground – how do we value that?
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The Other Oil Play You Simply Can't Ignore
01/27/2010The biggest economic shift of our time is under way. Cheap and easy oil is gone for good. And given our addiction to low-cost oil, the results are about to put the squeeze on your pocket book.
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Tom MacNeill: Saskatchewan's Resources Enriching the World
01/26/2010As if the fairy godmother flicked her magic wand, once drab and droopy Saskatchewan has blossomed into the belle of the ball—and the healthiest economy in Canada. According to Tom MacNeill, undeniably one the province's most ardent fans, the transformed province will keep heads turning for the next century.
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Why I Hope Gold Falls to $1,000
01/25/2010As a self-professed gold bug, why would I possibly want my favorite investment to fall in value? Have the long hours finally caught up with me?
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Congress Sacks Samoan Economy
01/25/2010Like many football fans around the country, I recently tuned into a heavily promoted 60 Minutes segment on the uncanny ability of tiny American Samoa to produce a steady stream of NFL players. Although it was certainly interesting to learn how Pacific island warrior culture translated seamlessly into the disciplines of American football, and how the island's players adapted to the hard-scrabble terrain and poorly funded athletic fields, the most interesting aspect of the piece concerned economics rather than sports.
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Mickey Fulp on Precious Metals after the "Decade of the Aughts"
01/25/2010Itchy money made 2009 one of the best years on record for the junior resource sector, according to Mickey Fulp, the Mercenary Geologist. In sector terms, it won't be so easy to prosper in 2010, but nevertheless he's confident about the prospects ahead for specific companies that remain undervalued with respect to their peers. Further, he tells The Gold Report in this exclusive interview, by careful consideration of three key criteria—share structure, people and projects—investors have a strong chance of picking up equities that could double within 12 months.
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Dude, Is That Gold Bar for Real?
01/22/2010As the 10-year gold bull continues its stunning run, rumors of fakery seem to be cropping up as fast as new Eagles can be minted. Should you be worried? Do you need to run to the coin shop for a home test kit?
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Doug Casey: 'Stock Market Set to Crash'
01/20/2010Is th Stock Market really set to crash? Read what Doug Casey has to say about it...
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Technically Precious with Merv: For week ending 15 January 2010
01/20/2010For week ending 15 January 2010: Unexpected events often have a shock effect on the markets. The shock may last for some time or go away quickly. As far as the precious metals market is concerned, the recent earthquake should have only a minor effect.
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World Gold Council To Launch New Paper Gold in India
01/20/2010Monday's trading activity [Martin Luther King Day in the U.S.A.] is shown in the blue and red trace on the graph below. It was a very quiet trading day. But yesterday's action [red and green trace] was a completely different animal, as gold shot up quickly [on huge volume] in early trading in the Far East... but by shortly after 9:00 a.m. in Hong Kong... the buying either stopped, or the price was capped.
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Craig Stanley: Focus on Fundamental Drivers for Gold and Copper
01/19/2010Pinetree Capital Resource Analyst Craig Stanley sheds some light for The Gold Report on how real interest rates are driving gold's rise. Although the 10-year real rate is positive now, he says if it goes negative, and stays negative, "Look out. The gold price could really spike." In this exclusive Gold Report interview, he discusses some of the junior exploration and development companies in Pinetree's portfolio.
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Yen’s Kamikaze Flight Trajectory
01/19/2010Forget about the flight to the dollar at the peak of the financial crisis: the yen was the ultimate beneficiary. The endlessly quoted unwinding of the carry trade was a factor, but there may have been a more important force at play. As that force may now be under increased pressure, the yen may be in trouble. The force we are talking about is the free market.
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Cheap Oil is Gone, and That's Good News
01/15/2010Over the next year or two, you will likely find yourself paying a LOT more at the gas pump. Big changes are taking place in the oil industry. With increased global demand and declining supply, easy oil is not so easy anymore.
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What the Deflationists Are Missing
01/13/2010An interesting article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard came my way the other day. It’s worth a read, if for no other reason than that he paints an appropriately dark picture of the current state of the U.S. economy. You can read it here.
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Japan Heads Down the Currency Debasement Highway
01/12/2010Both gold and silver blasted out of the chute the moment that Monday morning trading began on the Globex in the Far East. This buying spree ran into enormous selling almost immediately...
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The Utica – An Emerging Canadian Shale Gas Play
01/11/2010Shale gas is natural gas that has been generated and trapped within the natural pores and fractures of shale. This natural gas has been accumulating because of the breakdown of high levels of organic carbon or kerogen within the shale. The right temperature, pressure and a lot of time – over millions of years - is needed to produce gas. Shale plays can hold enormous amounts of gas and once production has been stabilized gas wells from shales tend to have low decline rates and long production lives.
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'Get Your Gold the Hell Outta Here!'
01/08/2010It seems that everyone these days wants gold. Real, physical gold coins that they can hold in their hands, or bars that they’re assured are resting safely in a well-guarded vault. HSBC’s New York vault, for example, buried deep below its 5th Avenue tower, where it has stored people’s gold since it inherited the facility from Republic Bank a decade ago.
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Gold Down... Gold Stocks Up???
01/06/2010The gold price rose about $10 during Far East trading on Tuesday... and was obviously headed higher... but it appeared that some entity stepped in and ended it at precisely 3:00 p.m. in Hong Kong at gold's high price of the day... around $1,128 spot. From there, and in fits and starts, the price 'fell' for the rest of the trading day, with the low [$1,114.10 spot] occurring around 2:00 p.m. Eastern time... just after Comex trading session ended. Gold finished down $3.70 on the day... closing at $1,117.20 spot.
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The Biggest Financial Deception of the Decade
01/06/2010Enron? Bear Stearns? Bernie Madoff? They’re all big stories about big losses and have hurt a lot of employees and investors. But none come close to getting my vote for the decade’s most dastardly deception...
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Annus Horribilis
01/05/2010Now that 2009 has passed into history, analysts have flooded the public with their opinions on how the events of the past year will impact the coming years. While most are optimistic, I feel that last year's developments have greatly exaggerated the imbalances in the U.S. economy. Although we may see a temporary respite from the turbulence, these mistakes will hinder our long-term viability. I fear that we have gone down a road that will destroy the value of the dollar and may even threaten the political stability of the United States.
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Brent Cook: Successful Exploration Investing
12/28/2009No drill results? No worries. Good geology, good management, a good cash position and a good stock price are good enough to coax renowned exploration analyst (and geologist) Brent Cook into buying junior prospect generators and explorers. He finds his sweet spot being near the top of the batting order. If he waits for drill results to confirm what he expects them to reveal, he may miss the best time to buy. With year-over-year returns on his Exploration Insights portfolio averaging 80%—and one superstar at 10 times that!—Brent's clearly hit a few homers with his strategy. But in this exclusive interview, he cautions Gold Report readers against believing everything you read and hear. He says, "It's really, really critical to evaluate what a company's telling you."
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Are We Missing Something?
12/22/2009Ben Bernanke is a dubious choice to be named “Person of the Year” by Time magazine. While Time’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel credits him with recognizing early and reacting appropriately to the ongoing financial crisis, in reality, he was wrong time and again with both his predictions and his remedies. Just remember these gems:
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#92 Electric Avenue
12/21/2009As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information. The Nuclear Age began on December 2, 1942 at the University of Chicago when Enrico Fermi created a chain reaction in a pile of uranium. Today, there are some 436 nuclear power reactors operating in 30 countries and nuclear energy provides approximately 15% of the world’s electricity.
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Porter Stansberry: Gold Is 'Nowhere Near the Top'
12/21/2009The U.S. dollar has reigned as the world's reserve currency for more than 30 years. That's a real anomaly in the history of paper money, according to Stansberry & Associates Investment Research founder Porter Stansberry, but the dollar's days on the throne are numbered. With a sea-change in the monetary system on the horizon—and drawing ever-nearer as more and more U.S. creditors turn toward hard assets and away from paper dollars—he tells The Gold Report in this exclusive interview that the world is approaching a return to "at least a de facto gold standard." Porter does not recommend bullion as "insurance" (because that suggests hope for the dollar when there is nothing to pin hope on) but rather as "the perfect natural money."
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The Eye of the Storm
12/18/2009At a recent Casey Research editors’ meeting, the team took on the question of whether the somewhat steady recovery since last February’s washout bottom in the broader markets had any of us thinking that the recession might be over. The gathering of minds included: Doug Casey, Managing Director David Galland, CEO Olivier Garret, Casey Chief Economist Bud Conrad, Senior Energy Analyst Marin Katusa (my counterpart on the energy side), myself heading the metals division, and several other editors.
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What Does Global Warming Have to Do with Energy Stocks?
12/16/2009Over the last couple of years, consideration of the effect of climate change has become increasingly important in analyzing a company or market trend — particularly in the energy sector. For example, our very bearish view on the thermal coal producers in North America is due exclusively to the high levels of carbon dioxide that coal-fired power plants generate, and the widely held belief that these emissions contribute to global warming.
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What Likely Lurks Around the Corner
12/15/2009In the short term, a catastrophic deflation is quite possible. But in the long term, extremely high levels of inflation are now inevitable. The situation is very serious. Gold is the best hedge against both of these things. The better part of your financial assets should be in gold, augmented by well-thought-out speculations. Doug Casey, November, 2009.
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Mission Not Accomplished
12/14/2009Although Barack Obama has refrained, at least for now, from delivering triumphant speeches in a naval flight suit, there is nevertheless a strong tone of accomplishment emanating from the President and his deputies. Over the weekend, top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers even pronounced that the recession is now over. Without hedging his bets, Summers declared that thanks to the Obama Administration's wise stewardship, economic stimuli, and emergency bailouts, another Great Depression, set up by the prior Administration, had been narrowly averted. Summers saw no impediments to the return of sustainable growth. He may as well have delivered these remarks from the deck of an aircraft carrier.
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A Hot Future for Geothermal
12/11/2009Capturing energy from the earth’s heat is pretty easy pickin’s for geologically-active areas of the world like Iceland, Indonesia, and Chile. In some locations, hot fluids are so near the earth’s surface that heat from naturally-occurring hot fluids can be directly circulated through buildings for heating. Iceland, in particular, takes advantage of this low-hanging energy fruit.
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How to Predict the Price of Gold
12/10/2009Long-term readers know that gold moves inversely to the dollar, meaning if the dollar drops, gold tends to rise (and vice versa). This happens with about 80% regularity. But what many gold writers haven’t acknowledged is the leveraged movement our favorite metal has demonstrated this year to the world’s reserve currency.
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Canadian Gold Juniors Soar – Should You Buy Now?
12/08/2009For years, gold bugs like Doug Casey and his team have been saying that once gold takes off to stratospheric heights, it will take the gold mining stocks with it. It’s called the “Mania phase” of the commodity bull market.
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The Future of America’s Natural Gas
12/04/2009What You Need to Know About Natural Gas: Natural gas prices have plummeted. Natural gas storage is at a maximum. Producible gas reserves are up 35% in the United States. Demand for natural gas is down because of the economy.
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Buy Gold, Be Smart, Diversify
12/03/2009After a relaxing Thanksgiving break, I anticipated to return to work in a lighter frame of mind. However, the following item from FOX News crushed that hope right away...
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How and Why China Will Flood the Gold Market
11/25/2009As you read this, the Chinese government is doing an extraordinary thing... something nearly unheard of in the modern world...
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The Best Energy Investments in the World
11/24/2009In the past three years, Marin Katusa, senior energy analyst at Casey Research, has become one of the most respected and listened-to authorities in the investment advisory business. He spends the bulk of his time on airplanes and in far-off places studying the future of energy... and the best ways to make money from it.
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What If They Stop Buying Our Debt?
11/19/2009“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” said Blanche DuBois, in the final words of the play A Streetcar Named Desire. Well, don’t we all...
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Strong Dollar Policy: What??
11/18/2009“I believe deeply that it’s very important to the United States, to the economic health of the United States, that we maintain a strong dollar,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner recently told reporters. Indeed, it seems to be a pre-requisite to apply for the position of U.S. Treasury Secretary to be able to utter these words. In the meantime, the greenback seems to be falling further and further; the ‘strong dollar commitment’ appears to have become a farce. Just what, then, would be a strong dollar policy?
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Louis James Shares Some of the 'Best of the Best'
11/17/2009In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Louis James, Senior Editor of Doug Casey's International Speculator, reiterates his conviction that the dollar is on death row with no one prepared to grant a stay of execution. Dismal as it is, this situation gives rise to increasingly positive prospects for gold and other commodities that may ultimately stand in as the world's reserve currency. And there are some pretty hot speculative prospects—Louis' "best of the best"—waiting in the wings for the market's next big leg down that he's been forecasting.
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Slow Down… or Else
11/13/2009On a whim following our Denver Summit – and despite truly abysmal weather – Casey Research CEO Olivier Garret and I cabbed it down to a local public golf course for a quick nine holes...
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How Will Niagara Falls Fit Through a Garden Hose?
11/12/2009Elmer Sutton’s eyebrows shot up when he saw the ad proclaiming gold stocks might make you wealthy. It sounded like the perfect solution for his stock portfolio, loaded with investments going nowhere. He vaguely recalled hearing a little about gold, but if what the ad said was true, he thought he could make a killing.
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If You Thought the Housing Meltdown Was Bad…
11/10/2009The next train wreck will be in commercial real estate. Couldn’t be worse than last year’s residential market crash? That remains to be seen. But it’s coming soon, probably as early as the second quarter of next year, and there’s nothing that can prevent it. The government will intervene, trying desperately to delay the day of reckoning, and may even succeed. For a while. But make no mistake about it, that train is going off the tracks no matter what.
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Why Gold Has a LONG Way to Go
11/04/2009A couple weeks ago, I had my TV tuned to a business show that loves to give predictions on the markets and the economy. On that day, one of the program’s regular guests declared it was time to “short” gold, that it had reached its top, and that the precious metals bull market was over. I’ll try to be nice in my rebuttal.
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HITECH – Your Medical History in the Machine
10/27/2009In the future, a visit to your family physician, or any specialist, will begin with a quick scan of the computer screen, where a few keystrokes will tell the doctor everything he or she needs to know about you – all the way from how much you weighed at birth, to X-rays of that bone you broke when you flipped your motorcycle thirty years ago, to how much you spent on blood work last year, right up to the hypertension pills you took after dinner yesterday (and maybe even what you ate, although hopefully not).
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When Will Inflation Really Hit Us?
10/23/2009Most of us are gathered at the station, watching for the Inflation Express to come rumbling in. But we've been waiting for a while now. Just when should we expect the big locomotive to arrive and start pushing the prices of most things uphill?
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Black Gold... Green Oil
10/19/2009This summer, there's been a flurry of new green announcements from the world's major oil firms. ExxonMobil, Chevron, Valero, Statoil, Marathon, and Sunoco have all thrown their hats into the green ring...
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The Dollar in Your Wallet Is Only Worth 18¢
10/15/2009It was the mid-‘70s. I was helping my Dad build a dirt road to our barn and he wasn’t happy. Not about the hard work or humidity, but from what was happening to the dollar. Inflation was starting to kick into high gear, grabbing headlines that even a girl-chasing teenager could understand...
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P2P – It’s More than Just Sharing Songs
10/09/2009You know that house down the street that’s for sale? The gigantic castle of a house, with an uncut lawn, a few weeks away from foreclosure? That’s your fault. After all, it was you who loaned the former owners the money for the house they could never afford.
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Into the Fourth Turning
10/08/2009The Fourth Turning is an amazingly prescient book Neil Howe wrote with the late William Strauss in 1997. The work, which describes generational archetypes and the cyclical patterns created by these archetypes, has been an eye-opener to anyone able to entertain the notion that history may repeat itself. At the time the book was published, the Boston Globe stated, “If Howe and Strauss are right, they will take their place among the great American prophets.” Read this visionary interview published in The Casey Report, and see for yourself.
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Why All the Fuss over Rare Earths?
10/03/2009Rare earth elements (REEs) have been the mystery metals of the mining world for years. Now, suddenly, everyone’s heard about them. Before we delve into the reasons behind all the publicity, here’s the basic skinny on REEs: One, they are rare, at least sort of. Two, they are indispensable to modern technology. Three, the number of active, dedicated producers is tiny, with more than 90% of the world’s supply coming from China.
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Could China Push Gold to the Moon?
09/18/2009Some analysts now contend that China can no longer afford to let the gold or silver price slump. The rationale behind that contention is that with the Chinese government now telling the general populace to buy precious metals, it would be highly problematic should gold and silver subsequently take a nose dive...
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