Keeping it real with Dr Doom

A man after my own heart, fundementally sound, dull and boring Yes, but he who laughs last, loughs the loudest!

sounds like a 100% bet on interest rates staying at around 0% for a long time to come and people spending their savings on "stuff" because they have no income from savings to spend.

Just like to add that it could all turn into a castle built of sand if interest rates were to jump 0.25%or 0.5% never mind anything as unthinkable like 2%.

The only benchmark that has long term logic is to beat inflation anything else is speculation.

Investment is about monetary depreciation (government meddling) and highs and lows in the market, how you try and achieve a positive growth on capital amid this, is the name of the game.

Have great respect for Dr Faber and watch him on you tube often, but Mark, MARK!, ditch the ponytail man.

How on earth is gold considered a safe investment? It crashed in value around 1980 and then endured a 20-year bear market -- the same could very easily happen again now.

Gold crashed in 1980 because after a decade of stagflation the world's economy began to normalise. What followed was two decades of apparent stability, though the debt related problems which we face today started to build during this time. The lunatic policy of ultra low interest rates implemented in the west from 2000-2007 exacerbated our problems to the extent that we were staring down the barrels of a deflationary depression.

Western Govts initially tried to combat deflation by cutting interest rates to close to zero. Didn't work. Now we have the grandiosely named quantatitive easing- translated as desperately firing up the money printing presses because we don't know what to do.

And this is why, for the moment at least, gold is a logical investment. I hesitate to use the word safe, because in the current environment there is no such thing. Govts don't give a hoot about people's hard earned savings and the potential effects of inflation. They are trying to create inflation by printing money because they are terrified of debt deflation, and in an environment where Govts are clearly trying to debase the value of fiat currency, gold has a very decent chance to shine.

Even though my opinion is probably only worth a bucket of spit (LBJ had some lovely turns of phrase god love him) I think gold will hit 2500 US dollars before long, although when precisely is hard to say.

I like his 'tail' it sets him apart from the others and gives him a much more human edge.

Grow old gracefully!