DC: It’s very hard to be an investor in today’s world, because an investor is someone who allocates capital in a way to create new wealth. Inflation, taxation and regulation make investing very problematic—and all three are becoming much more severe. That said, it’s late in the day but not too late to buy gold, silver and some other commodities. Productive assets of several types are good to own. Of course, the easiest way to buy most productive assets is through the shares of publicly traded companies, but since the stock market is overvalued in my opinion, that’s not the best option right now.
In addition to trying to build personal holdings of gold, and to a lesser degree silver, I think people should learn to be speculators. That’s not to be confused with gamblers, who rely on random chance. Speculators position themselves to take advantage of politically caused distortions in the marketplace, and we’ll be seeing lots of those. In a true free market society, you’d see very few speculators because there’d be very few such distortions. But compounding regulations, taxes and currency inflations are likely to keep markets very volatile. Good speculators will position themselves to both capitalize on inflating bubbles, and identify bubbles that already have been blown to their maximum and are about to pop.
Increasing government involvement in the economy is going to literally force people to become speculators.
TER: What bubbles might speculators look to exploit?
DC: As I mentioned earlier, most forms of real estate in the U.S. are problematic because the U.S. bubble hasn’t completely deflated yet, and real estate bubbles are just starting to deflate in places such as Australia and Canada. Probably the world’s biggest real estate bubble is in China. It’s relatively hard to short real estate, of course. But shorting banks there might work well. . .
Bonds are another story. I’d say bonds are the short sale of the century. They’re going to be destroyed. Bonds pose a triple threat to capital:
- Interest rates are artificially low, and as interest rates rise—which they must—bonds will fall.
- The currencies that bonds are denominated in, let’s say dollars, will depreciate radically.
- The credit risk presented by many issuers—certainly including governments—very high.
On the long side, mining stocks are very cheap relative to the price of gold right now. There’s an excellent chance of a bubble being ignited in gold mining stocks, especially the small ones; in fact, I’d put my finger on that as likely being the easiest way to make a killing—although there’s plenty of risk.
TER: How about technology? Do you see a bubble forming there?
DC: You have a point, but I’m not sure you can talk about technology stocks as a whole; technology is too variegated, too vast a field. I must say, however, that I’ve always been a huge fan of nanotech—that is an area that will change the nature of life itself. The market will see that, and so it’s a definite candidate for a mania. With gold stocks, however, you can jump into a discrete universe.
TER: Any others?
DC: Just talking about the things that seem most obvious to me, like gold. . .well, oil isn’t cheap, but a lot of oil stocks are. Natural gas, as we said, impresses me as being cheap relative to other commodities. A favorite of mine is cattle—the downside is de minimus and the upside is huge.
TER: Well, Doug, thank you so much for your time and this preview of your October event. I imagine you look forward to it for many reasons, including the fact that it’s sometimes nice to be with other intelligent people who want to broaden their horizons.
DC: It is. It’s nice to spend time with others who see things the way you do, and with whom you have some philosophical principles in common. The people who come to our conferences share what I believe to be a sound view of the world. They’re not statists; they’re not collectivists; they’re not misguided, ignorant or wrong-headed. They’re an enjoyable company.
Learn from Doug Casey, Rick Rule, Rich Dad advisor Mike Maloney, investment pros John Hathaway and Richard L. Hanley, and many more, what you should expect to happen next in the ongoing economic crisis and how to survive it with your wealth intact. Listen to more than 20 hours of audio recordings of the recent Casey/Sprott Summit When Money Dies, on CD or MP3… including specific stock recommendations by the summit’s all-star cast. More details.
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