In the past few decades, the concept of home ownership has been completely turned on its head. Previously, homes were considered a very long-term consumption good...[No one] ever considered tripling the value of their homes by retirement time and selling them to move beachside yet, somehow along the way, this became a reasonable investment expectation. Even today, home buyers still make their purchases with the hopes of escalating prices. [It begs answers to these questions: Is a house just a home? Should a house be expected to behave like an investment? Is the housing game nothing more than a Ponzi scheme where the end buyer before the market corrects becomes the "greater fool"? Let's try and answer those questions.] Words: 935

I will prove in this piece, the people who believe in the “low inflation” myth are being fooled by the fact that inflation in this unusual, central bank-driven economic cycle is concentrated in asset prices rather than in consumer prices...

It now looks that inflationary pressures are starting in earnest...In the last two years, inflation has gone from 0% to 2.5% which is a 5-year high...and could easily reach 10% in the next couple of years and ultimately a lot higher as inflation turns into hyperinflation. That will have an explosive effect on metal prices.

As more and more investor education and information is freely available online... investors now have an important choice to make. Should you go it alone, stick with your financial advisor, or fire him and find another, perhaps this time a fee-only planner? Words: 740

This short video - on the sustainability of government spending - should be watched by everyone, including those not yet old enough to vote. It should be shown in every high school and college classroom.

History clearly shows that when it comes to currencies black swans do happen as the average lifespan of a currency is just 27 years. As such, investors should study currency history and, as part of a smart portfolio, they should protect their hard earned wealth and savings in a defensive fashion. The infographic below documents the history of currency in 10 different countries of significance.

The Web is crawling with technical analysis (TA)...[and,] given its popularity, [begs the questions as to whether or not there] really is something to it. [Based on our research,] the short answer is no, not really, at least not in developed markets like the US or the UK... Furthermore, most of the popular TA indicators that are bandied around are nonsense jargon and should be ignored as useless noise. [Let us explain our position.] Words: 2143

The debate over deflation/inflation continues as some of our most astute economic observers take sides. Frankly, I think that both sides are missing part of the picture. The debate concentrates on the after shocks of inflation/deflation: prices instead of the money supply and the demand for it. Words: 721

Bollinger bands are one of the most popular and widely used technical indicators. They can help you find excellent entry and exit points and, as such, many successful trading strategies are based on just Bollinger bands and a few complementary indicators. Below are a number of such trading strategies.

Many have speculated that the U.S. government could once again turn to gold confiscation/nationalization if it became desperate enough. These fears are not unfounded given the abysmal financial situation of the U.S. government that only continues to get worse, coupled with a total lack of political will to cut spending but would the U.S. government really turn to a 1933-style grab again? I would argue that they wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean the threat to your gold has diminished. Quite the opposite. [This articles identifies what they might well do.]