Manias and Ferguson
Still no Charter Internet service. I'm getting close to playing "mean lawyer" and sending out the demand letter, but I'm not there yet.
But just this for today:
Last Saturday, I mentioned that Niall Ferguson doesn't think gold can ever re-assert itself as money. Thankfully, I admitted that I wasn't sure about Ferguson's position. He has either changed it or I was wrong last Saturday: "Maybe one of the lessons of history is that periodically paper currency loses credibility so much that we have to revert to commodity standards, and I think that may well be happening."
I fear gold is over-priced right now, but it might be terribly under-priced. It's a crazy situation: I'm inclined to believe a mania for gold has developed, so you should stay clear, but if it's a mania, it probably has a long way to run before it burns out and crashes. And it doesn't matter if it's a mania, if Ferguson's (and Schiff's and Faber's and post-mortem Mises') concern about fiat money is legitimate. If we're in the last days of the current experiment with fiat money, you're gonna want gold and silver. My advice (I'm ignorant, but in the grand scale of today's financial crisis, I have as much a chance of being right as an economist): if you're not holding onto at least a few kopeks of metal, get some. Maybe 100 ounces of silver for about $2,000 (virtually nobody thinks silver is very over-priced right now). The peace of mind alone is worth it, and you won't have to spend a lot of money. If you're already holding onto a lot of metal exposure, I don't have any advice.
