My first reaction when I read an article* on this site by Arnold Bock - articulating why gold would go to $10,000 – by 2012 no less - was amazement. Who in their right mind would suggest that gold would eventually reach $2,500, let alone $5,000 or even $10,000? Words: 2097

There is an ongoing debate among global policymakers about when and how fast to exit from the strong monetary and fiscal stimulus that prevented the Great Recession of 2008-2009 from turning into a new Great Depression. Germany and the European Central Bank are pushing aggressively for early fiscal austerity; the United States is worried about the risks of excessively early fiscal consolidation. Words: 957

Don't be waylaid by the clueless conformists. Talk of a gold bubble is coming from those who made the same assertions when gold broke $400 an ounce. Except for its justifiable 4X price rise over the previous decade, there is no evidence of the typical bubble characteristics attached to gold yet. Words: 846

The fundamentals for gold are impeccable, the long term technical picture is exceptional and gold remains very inexpensive when compared to almost every other alternative. [I have 17 reasons why] I expect gold to trade at several multiples of the current price before this bull market breathes its last breath. Words: 2101

I am worried about the possibility of a second dip - of a new recession beginning sometime in the next year or so - before the current recovery has had a chance to produce much improvement. Verbally-intuitively, the case for a second dip still seems pretty overwhelming to me. I take comfort in the knowledge that I tend to have a pessimistic bias, and in the fact that sophisticated quantitative models are generally putting the odds of a second dip quite low. On the other hand, successfully forecasting recessions has not been a strong point of quantitative models. Words: 1433

The dividend approach isn't likely to make you a mint overnight - and holding dividend stocks can be about as exciting as watching grass grow - but if you've ever gone on vacation, you've likely been amazed by just how much your grass can grow in a week. In the end, I can assure you, the effort will be well worth it. Words: 1395

Imagine living in a country where the government suddenly decides to make it illegal to hold a certain type of asset, and goes on a systematic process to relieve its citizens of such an asset? Such actions happen in wartime and by politically-corrupt regimes but how about private-asset seizure in the good old U.S.A.? Well, it has happened before. [The 64 trillion (in keeping with the times) dollar question is: "Will it happen again?"] Words: 585

The market basically doesn't want a recovery right now. It loves high unemployment and a bad economy because it allows the Fed to keep rates at zero which is highly profitable for Wall St via the games that I described above. Of course our crippled economy is an absolute nightmare for the rest of us as we lose our jobs and our homes as Rome continues to burn. Words: 1248

Absolutely every currency in the world is going to reach its intrinsic value in the next few years. Basically all the governments are going to wind up destroying their national currencies. That won't be just an academic thing; it will have the consequence of destroying a lot of the middle classes around the world. That will likely create ugly political and sociological fallout. Words: 3299

A recently unearthed 2007 United States Geological Service survey appears to have discovered nearly $1 trillion in mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself. Words: 1291