Dana H.

The Problem of Where to Invest

"We proceed at our peril."

Well, that's life. Unless you plan to kill yourself, there's no option not to proceed. There never was such a thing as a risk-free existence, and this is true more than ever, thanks to the artificially created risks due to irrational government action over the past decades (and especially over the past two years).

Unless you're a day or swing trader, or have great faith in your powers of prognostication, the rational approach is to diversify and hedge against the various risks. Keep some assets in cash, some in precious metals, some in U.S. stocks, some in international stocks, etc. Adjust the weighting of each asset class according to your best judgment of the relative risks of inflation, deflation, collapsing dollar, collapsing U.S. economy, etc.

National Health Insurance, 'Cap and Trade': Two Steps in the Wrong Direction

"But without such a plan, the financial recklessness of the behavior of our leaders makes no sense to me, as they are so clearly self destructive."

To understand this, read *Atlas Shrugged*. In short, there is no exit-plan, no plan at all beyond short-range expediency.

Dagny Taggart, the novel's heroine, was also baffled by this self-destructive behavior and kept asking herself, "Don't they want to live?" In the end, she discovered the answer: No, they don't want to live. They want you to die.

Economic Decapitation via Cap and Trade

"Economic Decapitation via Cap and Trade"

An excellent and accurate title.

As for some people's pipe dream that green energy will bail us out, see here: www.aynrand.org/site/N...

Preventing the Depression of 2009

This has got to be one of the worst ideas I have heard for dealing with the financial crisis. The author points out the numerous problems with a target for a stock market index to be determined by government bureaucrats. But more fundamentally, it was government intervention in markets at multiple levels, from money manipulation to the CRA to SarBox, that got us into this mess. The solution is less, not more, government in the markets.

If you're going to target an asset price (which is not in itself unreasonable), then target the price of gold, for Pete's sake! In other words, turn our fiat money into real money.