Investing...is dead! It died when markets became dominated by political rather than economic events. Investing principles that worked for most of the last 150 years are irrelevant in today’s politicized world. Investors, whether they know it or not, have been forced into a gigantic game of financial chicken....We are all forced to play this game whether we consider ourselves investors or not. [Let me explain.] Words: 848

Analyst after analyst (in excess of 170 at last count) has been forecasting what the parabolic peak price for gold will eventually be. That being said, however, only 43 have been bold enough to include the year in which they think their peak price estimate will occur and they are listed below. Take a look at who is projecting what, by when and why. Words: 400

History shows that when investors experience a rapid decline in the amount of available cash in their brokerage account to spend/invest quickly such "negative net worth" leads to major corrections in the stock market. Currently such is the case so can we expect another such decline or will it be different this time?

The Dow has surpassed its all-time record high - set in October 2007 - and the S&P 500 is not far behind? Is this the early stage of another great bull market? Let's look back at the two previous times when the S&P 500 set new all-time highs and see if we can learn something. Wait...first put your "this time it's different" glasses on. OK, let's go. Words: 430; Charts: 1

The United States is one of the few countries to have experienced two currency collapses during its history (1812-1814 and 1861-1865). Is it about to happen again? Words: 1450

The breakdown after the QE4 announcement, and now the extreme move into a yearly cycle low has, I daresay, convinced everyone that the gold bull is over. I would argue that it is impossible for the gold bull to be over as long as central banks around the world continue to debase their currencies [and that] gold is just creating the conditions - a T-1 pattern - necessary for its next leg up to what I expect to be...around $3200 sometime in late 2014 or early 2015. [Let me explain.] Words: 560; Charts: 3

I read many hundreds of articles every week looking for writers who have an in-depth understanding of our economy and who are not reticent to tell it like it is. Monty Pelerin (a pseudonym) does just that week after week, year after year. This post includes introductory paragraphs and links to 25 of his most enlightening and current articles. Take a look. There are bound to be several that will grab your interest.

The last several decades of governmental economic policy has seen wealth destruction. Such policies are analogous to the government heating its home by burning the furniture. Burning furniture might get you through a few winters, but unless it is replaced eventually there is nowhere to sit and no fuel for next winter. Fortunately our ancestors were industrious and frugal, creating a lot of furniture. We stayed warm for a long time as a result, but the furniture is disappearing. Words: 970

On the surface, policy settings around the world look very inflationary with large fiscal deficits and aggressively easy monetary policies yet it is hard to see inflation gaining any traction [with] global activity so weak and the monetary transmission process so impaired in many countries. There is more of a deflationary than inflationary tone to the economic environment and it does not look as if this will change any time soon.

The US Treasury Bond market is the longest unbroken bull market known to the financial world [thanks in large part to the Fed who is] buying up every penny of newly issued government debt. [In doing so] this issuance of debt is following the exact path of the Jean-Paul Rodrigue' "bubble model". Words: 290; Charts: 4; Tables 1