lance sjogren

The Best Safe-Haven Investments, and Some Potential Threats

1). Comparing the relative merits of gold and toilet paper as an investment should include the cost of warehousing the toilet paper. I don't think I have room in my apartment to put $100,000's of investment dollars worth of toilet paper.

2). Gold cannot be evaluated as another commodity. Gold is the most fundamental form of MONEY, a status it has gained from thousands of years of history.

Since gold is a form of money, its relative scarcity needs to be judged by comparing the quantity of gold to the quantity of paper and electronic currency.

General Cable: Poised for a Good Run

Expanding and rehabilitating the electrical grid I believe is going to be a huge growth area.

However, I seem to have pretty much talked myself out of trying to invest to participate in this coming boom.

1). As someone on another post commented- commodity business. Do these guys have any unique capabilities? Or can a lot of cable companies make the same stuff?

2). Those companies that DO have some sort of unique position in these new technologies I suspect tend to already be pretty pricey. Those are the kind of stocks that Jim Cramer likes.


On the other hand, as a value investor, a company like these guys is not a bad buy just on value basis.

On the other hand, the fact is that even though the oil boom may be due for a correction, the notion that the petro stocks are booming is just plain wrong. Yes some natural gas stocks and oil infrastructure stocks have seen huge runups, but stocks of the integrated oil companies have sat there like beached whales during this oil boom.

Because oil stocks are so dirt cheap and I am a value investor, I am hanging on to mine, namely Conoco and Petro Canada. Did you know that Petro Canada has a projected PE ratio of 5?

Not to mention the oil refining stocks which have been plummeting during this oil boom. I picked up some Valero in the hope that they will see some recovery.

Stocks to Buy Before the Oil Bubble Bursts

By the way, if you guys think the oils are down just take a look at the junior gold stocks, they were already at firesale prices and they have gotten a further clobbering the last couple of weeks.

Stocks to Buy Before the Oil Bubble Bursts

I bought 2000 shares of VLO today. Just figured it is so low at this point it is liable to be a good buy.

Funny- oil is way down today but the refiners are down nevertheless.

10 Signs of a Recession

As for my message to Barack:

Just don't give us this BS that a program to develop renewables constitutes an energy policy.

People complain that drilling will take 10 years to get oil. Yes. And R & D on renewables will take at least 50 years before they can realistically be expected to provide most of our energy.

What do we do until then? The things that might address that are:

1). Aggressive production of conventional energy sources
2). Aggressive pursuit of conservation. Some may not be fun. We may have to give up automobiles. Still, it beats alternative 3.
3). Our society simply dies off for lack of energy. Problem solved.

10 Signs of a Recession

Whoops, got so carried away with my frozen nuts concept that I forgot the rest of the energy program:

3). more nuclear plants

4). Drill, drill, drill for oil

5). As far as questionable future sources such as biofuels and hydrogen- their shortcomings will probably mean they never amount to much but we should still do a little bit of research, who knows we might come up with something. Biofuels will probably have a small role in the future to power military jets and air travel for rich people.

10 Signs of a Recession

The closest thing that anyone can come up with as far as an energy policy:


1). Aggressive development of Electric Vehicles.

2). Manhattan project to develop renewables (wind/solar). And don't forget that wind and solar are intermittent. We either are going to need to develop giant energy storage devices or we need to develop a global "monster grid" for electricity so that when the wind is blowing in Timbuktu we can send the wind energy to people freezing their nuts off in Inuvik Canada.

10 Signs of a Recession

The political situation:

1). George Bush doesn't have a clue (about energy or the economy in general. That is pretty clear from his so-called "strong dollar" policy)

2). John McCain doesn't have a clue. He admits he doesn't understand the economy. Hey, give a guy a break, the other politicians don't understand the economy either.

3). Barack Obama doesn't have a clue. He thinks the US is a prospoerous nation that he is going to steer slightly in the direction of welfare state at the expense of prosperity.


Earth to Barack: The US economy is a bankrupt pile of rubble and you can forget about expanding any programs because we will be hard pressed to be able to continue to fund the ones already on the books. And as far as the "moon shot" for alternative energy.

Yes we need a Manhattan type project. Hopefully it won't be a corrupt program like ethanol where we starve third world people in order to put money in the pockets of ethanol hucksters.

And if we have a Manhattan project on renewables and if we do it right, then MAYBE 50-75 years from now we will be getting over 50% of our energy from renewables.

What do we do in the next 50-75 years?

I don't think Barack has an answer. But, hey, don't feel bad, Barack. Nobody else has an answer either.

10 Signs of a Recession

quetzalcoatl said:

"I am a liberal and progressive, but I can't see any good coming of an ever weakening dollar."


Yes, no good will come from it. The only reason we have been devaluing the dollar is that if we tried to strengthen the dollar we would go into an economic depression.

Of course, as we devalue the dollar our economy continues to decline, just in slow-motion instead of in one giant crash.


Ultimately, which would lead us to a deeper depression- a strong dollar or a weak dollar? Probably a weak dollar, because our economy is basically a pyramid scheme built on debt, and the longer we go trying to keep the economy afloat by building up the pyramid, the bigger a crash we will have when it finally comes down.

Keeping Metals In May, Not Going Away

As to the rise in production cost versus metals prices:

That's why you want to own high grade deposits. In my view, stocks like Novagold whose assets consist of gargantuan mineral deposits of low-grade ore are the riskiest because those deposits are on the hairy edge as far as whether they are profitable.

In contrast, I think companies with high grade underground deposits of gold e.g. in Quebec and Ontario are more certain to be profitable in the face of high costs. I am assuming that energy is the biggest driver. Of course, labor is also an issue. Hopefully the labor supply isn't so tight you have to pay CEO wages to hire a gold miner.