Robert Nabloid

Will We See a Big Upward Move in Gold?

I take a longer term view and prefer not to use leverage (though I have done so a few times).

Please look back in history and show me a good fiat currency. Why was gold at one time $42?

I don't consider gold an investment, but a store of wealth. Is it the best store of wealth? I don't know, but it works a lot better than stuffing fiat dollars under the mattress or in a bank account.

"I firmly believe that there will be a trading range for all the better commodity stocks and ETFs that will give us several chances to buy low and sell high over the months directly ahead. Your comments on that will be appreciated. Happy holidays to you all."

I don't see the price of gold crashing anytime soon if that's what your asking, so if you are a trader looking to get in and out, perhaps after December 31 I would expect the dollar to get weaker. I'm not 100% sure but I was under the impression that many companies that are based in the US but have international operations like to repatriate some of their foreign dollars into USD's for end of year accounting purposes? I could be way off and maybe they just use the exchange rate on last day of their corporate year end. Either way, I'm expecting some bad layoffs in January with most of that data about January to be coming out sometime in February. So Between Jan 1 and March 1, I think gold should get stronger? I'm only guessing and I'm not good at such short time frames. That's why I don't do short-term trading.

Commodities: Future ETFs Worth Investing In

When the people controlling the monetary system warn you of deflation and use that as an excuse to PROMISE they will drive inflation instead - you better listen up - inflation is what you will get and you'll get plenty of it. Commodities might be a good area to keep an eye on.

Food: Against Self-Sufficiency

I think one of the ways we can increase agricultural efficiencies is by embracing and understanding the ecosystem better. I do agree that we need more "free market" economics in the agriculture system and that could allow this to occur quicker.

Just an example: You can grow Sorghum or fodder beats or buffalo gourd or Jerusalem artichokes, or any crop that will has lots of starches or sugars (even corn if you really want). You can then use the crop to produce ethanol. A byproduct of ethanol production is DDG or DDGS. The byproduct of the crop can still be used to feed cattle and is actually VERY efficient - it still contains all the vitamins/nutrients, just less of the starch which is hard to digest for a cow. Or, if you don't want to grow cattle, you can use the byproduct and feed it to fish, and get 10x more protein than you could with cattle (fish can be grown more efficiently). You can then use aquaponics (aquaculture + hydroponics) in combination with a greenhouse to grow other highly profitable crops. The fish effluent (waste) can be used by plants in a greenhouse system to grow (it's free liquid fertilizer!). The plants clean the water of the waste (effluent) and the water can be recycled back to the fish pond/holding tank and is now safe. You now have cleaned and recycled water for the aquaculture system and reduced the amount of water needed to grow fish. You now have plenty of fish (highly profitable), greenhouse grown vegetables/herbs/fruit (highly profitable) and ethanol, all from a relatively small parcel of land. You can feed more people and answer our energy needs. Plants are solar collectors.

Food: Against Self-Sufficiency

@ legmaker: The US had a massive excess of corn grown over the last year. The reason price went up was due to speculators buying corn on the futures market at a high price. There are actually some investigations going on right now surrounding certain oil companies that had been purchasing the corn futures at a high price and selling them for a loss (on purpose). We'll let that investigation unfold and see what comes of it.

I must also make something clear - There is a byproduct of corn ethanol called DDGS, which results in a superior cattle feed and 17% more meat on a cow, not less. The only thing removed is the starch/sugars - all nutrients/vitamins are still contained in the mash byproduct. But corn is by no means an efficient crop to use for ethanol - and many other crops should be used and make much more sense. The ethanol industry in the US began using corn because there was a surplus that nobody knew what to do with due to the government subsidies that are meant to encourage and help cattle farmers with low corn prices (ironic?).

Yes, you can grow protein (meat) and use a crop for ethanol, due to the byproduct still containing all the good stuff - and less of that starch - which is hard for most animals to digest in large quantities. That is one reason the byproduct is often more efficient and effective than most realize.

Great Expectations for Obama, But Not the Markets

Society has went toward one that begs government to solve it's problems as if government has all the answers. So government politicians are pressured to "do something". With Obama entering the Whitehouse, it's no wonder corporations are lining up for cash... they can smell some free money - and if enough of them cry loud enough - they might just get some. I hope it doesn't happen - but Obama was in favour of the bail-out... so why wouldn't he be in favour of more? That's the answer government has - bailouts... so we just need more bailouts if they are correct, pepper in some stimulus packages and some tax increases to give the government more money to spread around to solve all these pesty economy problems. It's so wrong!! Bailouts don't solve the underlying problems.

Bail-outs, Stimulus packages, reduced interest rates, etc, etc... All of these proposals only deal with masking the symptom - that spending in the economy is declining - but fail to address the underlying problem that has created the symptom - The economy isn't competitive and is unsustainable. We've taken on too much debt! We hid our problems for decades by taking on debt and spending it, as if it was already earned - but consumers have realized they need to pay some of these debts off...

No politician that promotes bailouts or picking and choosing winners with unearned money, will solve the problem. The economy is not sustainable nor is it competitive. Unless these issues are addressed (and I don't expect them to be), I really can't see what it is people hope can be accomplished by "spreading the wealth" through more stimulus packages and increased taxes. Those only further mask the true problems. But I have no fear - in the fight of Government Vs. Economics - Economics will win in the end. We will, eventually (might take decades), realize that we need to be more competitive (and innovative/inventive) and less reliant on consumers spending debt dollars if we want to be sustainable.