GoldAntiBug

Gold in a Credit Crisis

PaulTaut's comment is interesting - of course, timing is everything. In the long run the world will get back to trying to become like America and eventually it will succeed - so increasingly the wealthier world will have more and more money to spend on limited menu of goods - so inflation should result as almost unlimited wealth chases whatever few goods and assets and resources we have. So owning land and other assets will be a good thing. Resource ownership will be a key chokepoint also. Still, that's in the long run ... we have to survive and prosper until then.

Right now the USA is the only game in town - the world must see must make certain that USA succeeds so that the dollars they hold don't become worthless, or if they sell their dollars they will appreciate their own currencies and kill their own exports. So the world needs to keep exporting their oil or their plastic toys etc to the only place buying it - USA - if US consumers don't buy the world's goods, or if US businesses don't pick up the slack of any decrease in spending by US consumers, the tranquility in China and monopoly on power both Putin and the Communist Party in China enjoy may end sooner than later. The dollars have to come back here. The World will have to keep financing its Engine of Growth. That is true for the short term and the medium term - at least for the next 3-5 years. It will be even longer than that probably before anyone/anything approaches the size of the USA consumer sector. What is the number? 72% or so of annual GDP which is $13 trillion so $9 trillion or so? I don't know exactly ... until the world truly de-couples or at least hugely reduces its appetite of exporting to USA than USA is in no danger of world slitting its own throat and not financing our trade deficit and savings/investment gap ....

Probably we are better trying to buy US equities at the bottom ... wherever you think that is (another discussion).

Having worked for years for Louis Dreyfus Corp I think that an individual buying individual commodities is almost ridiculous as a non-institution with no deep knowledge of the fundamentals and/or no heads up of a complex and constanly evolving supply and demand picture puts you at such a huge disadvantage. Every major exporter/trader/produc... has major informational advantages over us. Once the bubble in the farm belt pops and land out there drops massively in value, it may make sense for those of us who like to tour farmland and can lease it out at a 5 to 10 percent yield when wheat or whatever prices are low (once they get there) or to buy stocks that represent the same play. Anyway ...