Survival Investing

My latest read on financial planning is: Survival Investing: How to Prosper Amid Thieving Banks and Corrupt Governments by John R. Talbott. It is very entertaining. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

The US debt stands at approximately $14 trillion….As a matter of fact, although the US government spends $3.5 trillion each year, it brings in only $2.1 or $2.2 trillion in tax revenues….

Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve have printed or wired to their banks an additional $2 trillion of currency or excess reserves. This has dramatically inflated the existing currency base of approximately $1 trillion. In essence, Bernanke has tripled the amount of currency and reserves outstanding….If the United States prints more currency and produces the same amount of goods and services, by definition the price of those goods and services…will have to increase, there will be price inflation

So our current and projected debts are one reason that you should greatly fear unanticipated inflation in the future, and you need to protect your investments from it.

What’s causing our deficits and driving us to bankruptcy? It’s the corporations and banks that are looting our government and paying Congress to stand down.

Was no one else shocked to see that in a world of huge government deficits, the government’s response was to increase stimulus spending and to propose tax cuts?....the United States and Europe arrived at the silliest conclusion of all. In a world overwhelmed by debt, the governments of the world decided what was needed was more debt. They lent more money to the banks…to troubled countries…even to individuals who were upside down and underwater….

I think it is time for smart investor s to move from securities, stocks and bonds into real assets. By real assets I mean gold and other commodities:  land, houses, office buildings, apartment buildings and even small businesses. There are many advantages in moving your assets from financial securities to real assets….[primarily because] you’ll free yourself…from dependence on corrupt bankers and self-interested stockbrokers and financial advisers….It makes no sense to spend your productive time analyzing stocks and bonds….regardless of how much time and effort you expend, you can never match the effort of the thousands of Wall Street analysts and traders who do this full time.