GoldWindow

Social Security for Whom?

The argument that GW Bush is running around the country stumping to help the youth of America retire comfortably is nice and all that, but it doesn't wash.  G-Fingerer suspects that the long standing connection between the Bush family and Wall Street going back to the 1920's is the real reason for offering to "privatize" the social security accounts of my fellow Americans. 

With billions flowing into Wall Street coffers from new SS pass-through accounts, George the 2nd will be delivering to his real "Base."  And if funny money created by the FED runs into funny SS accounts handled by New York, why wouldn't that inflate the currency beyond all recognition?  If this plan passes, it will destroy the currency even faster.  Buy gold.  If it doesn't pass, the death of the dollar by a thousand paper cuts will be slower, but just as lethal.  Buy gold.

Statement of Alleged Principles

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Who, what, where, when, how...and above all why do a gold blog?
This blog is about the topic of monetary metals - gold and silver, which used to be money.  I'm from California.  We stumbled over some giant gold discoveries 150 years ago, and it's part of our character...so why not talk about this stuff and bring people up to date?

Most people don't really know much about the activity of "managing their money."  I seem to know quite a bit.  I was raised in a family that had some. I remember being interested in money generally from about the age of 9.  Money stewardship was a topic that came up at dinner.  My family hired a financial planner during my late teens and the planner sat the kids down and we "discussed" this stuff over a nice lunch on the veranda. Get the picture?   

How about you?  Did you get an education in handling money?  Don't you think that it's slightly odd that the entire subject of money is ignored in school?  And ignored in the richest civilization in probably all of recorded history?

I've also been trained by some of Wall Street's best, and by more than 500 of the best books written on the subject. At one time I was a reviewer of financial books for a newspaper. I've been investing in the stock market  since 1957, starting with my paper route money. 

I've been teaching investing since I went to work for Dean Witter in June of 1982.  I've managed more than $150 million dollars of customers' money as a trust company portfolio manager.   Yes, I am a Certified Financial Planner(R).  During the last 5 years, I've spent a lot of time studying gold and silver investing.  I've gone to gold "Shows" around the country.  I've read all the books on the subject.  Most of them were published in the 1970's, but a couple of recent ones. I've hunted down other websites and absorbed what they had to say.  And I've listened to the drivel that comes out of Manhattan that passes for analysis on the subject of precious metals investing... and I figure I can't do any worse.

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Wall Street - the industry that allegedly sells you investment performance - doesn't teach.  Turns out they don't offer much performance either.  Stock brokering and managing a mutual fund are not really about managing money for you...they're about making money for the broker and the fund company. Did Wall Street analyists get you out at the top in the first quarter of 2000?  Thought not.  Did you notice the big brokers paid over $1.3 billion dollars to settle Eliot Spitzer's charges that Wall Street analysts were really just recommending the offerings of the Investment banking side of the house? Did you hear of any of the big Wall Street firms losing money in the bear market of 2000-2003?  They made money during the bear, you didn't.  And they've been dead wrong on gold and silver the last 5 years too. 

You'll get out of managing money pretty much what you put into it.   So, to make money there's a trade off:  you have to study.  You have to do your homework.  There's no point having an investment "strategy" until you have an understanding of markets and how they work.  Hopefully, I can provide information and intelligence on precious metals so you can understand and make some decisions that will make you some money.

John Maynard Keynes, the left-leaning British economist, has said, "A rational investment policy in an irrational world is suicide."  I disagree.  It is indeed a relatively irrational world, but we need all the rationality we can get.  (Keynes hated gold, but he's so quotable...)  And contrary to popular opinion, rationality can produce a few bucks along the way, just ask Warren Buffett. 

Suze Orman has said, "Truth creates money.  Lying destroys it."  This is a web site with some rational information and an attempt to tell the truth about gold and silver... so people can watch their money be destroyed with UNDERSTANDING! (Sorry...:-) 

All of the ranting here may amount to zilch, but at least I'll feel better for having said it. 

Goldfingerer