One of the most important investment pod-casts today!

If you think that what I am ‘spouting on this blog” is my own original thinking than I have a bridge for sale, just for you, in Manhattan. 😊 I don’t only think about investing, but I read a fair bit about it as well (books and investment research newsletters) and every weekend I listen over an enjoyable breakfast to investor pod casts such as Frank Curzio’s and Stansberry Investor hour. BTW. If you see the ‘not-so-skinny guy’ on the Investor Hour webpage, that is Porter Stansberry, founder of Stansberry Research.  I saw him in real life on last year’s Stansberry Investor Conference in Las Vegas and that is his typical appearance as far as I know. Don’t under estimate this very down to earth person who is the founder and co-owner of one of the world’s largest on-line investment newsletter conglomerates.  He is closely affiliated with Agora, the digital investment news letter publishing company owned by another financial rebel: Bill Bonner.

Sometimes, I think the two are dooms-day prognosticators. But anyone who analyses the debt existing in today’s nations; in many corporations; and with the consumer has to become convinced that this cannot end well. We thought this in the 1980s, but if you thought that debt was bad then; or if it was bad during the financial crisis then think again!  Canada in the 1990s had a close call.  Now U.S. debt has grown tenfold and there will be a day of reckoning.  Will that mean mayhem in the streets? Will that mean a federal government's army surrounding your neighborhood? A federal government that is bankrupt and uses violence more open than ever to maintain ‘order’  or is it a gradual build-up to something more scary than the crash in 2008? 

How and when will it happen is anyone's guess.  Jim Rogers, in an interview with Porter, says (I paraphrase): I am sure it will happen; I just don’t know when…..   Japan with its enormous debt along with the West, in particular the United States, come to mind as the centers of crisis.  If I was a young Japanese adult, I would buy an AK47 right now, because I am sure that young adult would experience this debt crisis in his lifetime.  Porter believes in a ‘Jubilee’ a term brought forward by a former Blackrock executive at Jim Grant's fall conference on interest rates.  The term is (I believe) based on a Jewish tradition to forgive all debts that cannot be repaid every 50 years. We may, according to this Wall-street insider, and Porter agrees, get a worldwide Jubilee any moment now and it won’t be pretty. The insider foresees a Jubilee in Japan within 3 years!

As Jim Rogers points out, a lot has to do with having confidence in government and central banks; but that confidence has been eroding. When that confidence fails watch out. Here is a link to the interview: Episode 24: JimRogers and Porter Stansberry . I promise you, it is not all doomsday; in fact it is a lot fun. It is one of the best interviews I heard on this topic.  It is soo good, I made a permanent link at the top of this webpage along with other videos that are my favorites.

As said before. We want to diversify our investment portfolio and that portfolio includes our total net worth; including our career(s). We also need a series of investment scenarios, good and bad. Determine the odds of them happening and be prepared for them financially and in our overall life expectation. In investment, typically the optimists win. But surviving the (financial) flue days is critical for a long-lasting future. Why else do we take a flue shot?