all get together, and if our people in all these countries can figure out how to do that, it will be a massive undertaking and maybe it happens through civil unrest. It’s hard to say. But I think there’s going to have to be some kind of jubilee. To protect my portfolio, I’m still a big believer in gold. I’m a believer that gold and silver are money, and I’m also a believer in income- producing assets. So I think a portion of your portfolio can be allocated to this “Melt Up” theory that Steve Sjuggerud has. ( Read more about that in our August issue of American Consequences .) And I also love the Big Trade investment idea about how implied volatilities have been knocked down so low as an unintended consequence of all the zero-interest rates... People are looking for yield, and there are all these put sellers out there that are creating unrealistically low prices for puts, and therefore you can buy puts for protection. It’s a great thing for people who understand the risk. I think a person should have some money offshore. They should all do this legally obviously, but you should have it outside the banking system. I think you have to protect yourself from the big five banks. There’s been talk about how some of the big banks have said that if you have gold coins in your safety deposit box, they can’t protect you. I’m not a big confiscation guy, but I think you better not have your gold coins in the safety deposit box of JPMorgan. But we have to live our life, enjoy every day as much as we can, enjoy our kids, try to make the world a better place, and pray a lot. That’s kind of my view.
David Tice, fund manager and founder of the Prudent Bear Fund
I’ve been thinking a lot about jubilees... I really think that’s the way it’s going to come down.
We can’t seem to get inflation because there’s all these deflationary trends. We know all this debt is not going to get paid back, and frankly, defaults are going to be a big, big problem. I think there’s going to likely be some reconfiguration of the financial system. I mean we had Bretton Woods some 60-70 years ago... We had Nixon take us off from gold convertibility in the early ‘70s. I think there’s just too much debt in the world, and the wealthy people, including us, have made a lot of money and we don’t want to part with any of it. I mean we shouldn’t have to part with any of it. I’m not in a Warren Buffett school that says that we should part with it, but I worry about civil unrest in the future. I’m not exactly sure how it plays out, but maybe it’s a Bernie Sanders-type coming in and saying, “ This is what’s going to happen .” I think there’s likely to be some kind of a reconfiguration of the system, and I hope it gets back to a gold standard. Frankly, I think so many great things are happening in the world in terms of technology, biotech, and an exponential rate of change that we just need to get the money system figured out and we have to get this largess at the central banks. If we reset, then I think we could potentially have a boom again. Now, if our leaders can
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