Well I am not quite J6P nor a moron. I am a master of self-deprecation.
I didn't try to imply you were. You said you were average joe. Assuming that statement is accurate (I don't know) and that average joe and the rest of average j6p hears/reads/sees (ok maybe j6p doesn't read) on paper/internet/tv touting "BUY COMMODITIES NOW, GET RICH QUICK", to me that means that mainstream has caught up to this "next big thing", and that sooner or later prices are going to be driven up to insane levels and then fall.
Come on folks, don't you think that mass media has gotten hold of this next "big thing" and is now touting it? I can't count how many spam emails, junk snail mail, advertisements I'm seeing,hearing, watching touting "buy gold, buy silver, buy energy, get rich, beat inflation, beat blah blah blah.." It seems it's ominous of the next hype. There was even an cnn article about how folks/one should dig up old gold jewelry and try to sell them to capitalize on the recent run-up in gold prices (forgetting the fact that most accessory jewelry is like 14k and pretty useless).
As far as high oil prices. I think long term that might be a good thing. One thing that I think is that Americans are very creative, and if oil/gas is going to be insane, markets will bring the need for alternative energy.
echo, I think your analysis for buying gold/precious metals (in 20/20 hindsight :)) would have yielded you incredible gains 3 years ago. I'm not so sure if the runup will continue. But what do I know, I'm a lazy union worker j6p 🙂 Plus as someone once pointed out, opinions are like ….
So here's an idea (albeit terrible). Why not starting to move a (small) amount into REITS :)….Seriously, what do you have to lose? Things are so low across the board, not everything can be terrible. And no one is looking there these days…And if it is, it's just a small amount, who cares if it gets halved? (no I'm not doing this myself. Are you insane? 🙂 ) Or why not buy some low priced banks. Not every bank is going to default and end up like BSC.
