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Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

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  • edited June 2013
    You mean this?:)

    Whether one agrees or not, interesting, melancholy little documentary worth a viewing.

  • Perhaps Uncle Rono will let us come swim in his pool.
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  • edited June 2013
    Afraid I didn't get much out of video. Seems to be a blend of conspiratorial theory and resource scarcity.
    Hmm ... not much into the conspiratorial stuff - though the need to be ever vigilant is important. Lotta slime out there ("Little Bernies" - if you will ). ... On the scarcity issue - I feel science is out-pacing here and will continue to. Fracking, solar, vertical farming - all in their infancy now - but expect much more to come. Our cars will be driving themselves in 20 years & are sure to go easier on the throttle than most of us do now. No fuel wastage from making wrong turns and "backtracking" either. And asteroid mining isn't just a pipe dream from what I've seen. Yes - there will be pain, as new technologies aren't cheap - initially anyway. And I understand this optimistic scenario doesn't make "good copy." ... Folks in general would rather emphasize the dark side - for whatever reason. (Most of us prefer a Alfred Hitchcock flick to one out of Disney:-)
  • Peter Schiff has been saying this for a while. That article is 1 year old. Gold has tanked.

    Economic Theory is not 2 + 2 = 4. People confuse finance with economics. Economics is a + b = c, the problem being there are outside forces that can change c to d to e to whatever.

    I own TGLDX. I buy a little on extreme down days. Yesterday however I did NOT buy. Clearly something else is going on. We could have a deflation before the next hyper inflation.

    Finally, what a career choice. One can be wrong forever and still make living. The rest of us are simply in the wrong profession.
  • Scrooge McDuck! And you just know that the Beagle Boys are out there right now digging a hole under the vault!
  • Reply to @VintageFreak:

    Hi VintageFreak,

    Thank you for your fantastically precise and concise post. I completely concur with your assessment, but could never express it in such a clear and cogent manner. Good work.

    Peter Schiff has been a committed economic collapse protagonist for such a long time that his credibility, if it ever existed, has greatly eroded. He is a hard money, limited government man who subscribes to the Austrian school of economics in contrast to a Keynesian approach. Most likely, a mix of both economic schools works best, dependent upon specific circumstances.

    It seems as if the airwaves and the Internet are always saturated with forecasts of economic Armageddon. Wild forecasts are dramatic and capture attention and eyeballs.

    Niall Ferguson might be a more respected alternate source (he teaches at Harvard) to the ravings of Schiff. He basically shares many of Schiff’s worries. Ferguson has just issued a new book titled “The Great Degeneration”. He had a pertinent column in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago. Here is a Link to that article:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324021104578551291160259734.html

    I have not read Ferguson’s current book, but I have enjoyed his earlier efforts. A few weeks ago I referenced a 4-part video series that nicely summarized his views on money matters. It is called “The Ascent of Money”. Here is a Link to a complete presentation of that well produced work:



    Enjoy. You can also access individual segments of this excellent work.

    I do not subscribe to the “collapse” dark-side worldview. The US is a gigantic economy that has demonstrated its robustness, its resilience, and its survival instincts when confronted with a diverse set of daunting challenges.

    Depressions and recessions happen. The capitalistic system seems to have an embedded cyclic character to it that causes periodic downturns. The overall system is complex, highly interactive, non-linear, with incompletely understood feedback loops.

    Forecasting is more guesswork than science, but we will survive these uncertain threats.

    Best Wishes.
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