[quote=SD Realtor]
Tell you what, you go ahead and shut down your 401k, like you urged everyone to do back in your original post, and convert all your cash to precious metals.[/quote]
I did this 3 years ago and thank God every night. Instead of praying to get back to Dow 14,000 so I can recover 25% losses to my portfolio, I sleep like a baby, which is a lot more than I can say for anyone who is still in these markets.
[quote=SD Realtor]Find any and every link you can calling for imminent collapse, and hide in the bunker every night watching and waiting. I will go on taking my kids to the park, not convert every asset to gold, continue to take advantage of what I see are strong opportunities to make money, and pretty much enjoy my life as best I can.[/quote]
It’s curious that you would presume that I live in a bunker simply because I chose to exit the fiat game. That sounds like brainwashing by the Establishment at its best! No SD, I *emerge* from my lair every day around 9:30 AM and head to a multimedia company where I oversee a department of people who share your *clarity* of unfolding events. I sit in meetings, participate in conference calls, training sessions and all of the other *trappings* of a life I’m sure you would consider to be *normal*. But I don’t buy into The Lie that freedom and prosperity are still available to even most in this country and that riding the stock market for the long term is the best way to ensure my financial independence.
[quote=SD Realtor]Perhaps getting so obsessed with something may cause you to miss out on other things. You see what I am saying.[/quote]
SD, in the entire time that I have been posting here, I have followed one of my greatest passions: travelling. When the subprime market was cratering, I took a trip to Vienna. A few months later I spent a week in Hawaii. Shortly after the markets collapsed last Fall I went to Paris and enjoyed what was hands-down the best cuisine I have sampled in my entire life. This past summer my partner and I tool a 2-1/2 week road trip across the Western U.S. with our son. We have “Rock Band” parties on a semi-regular basis (if you’ve never rocked out to this game, then YOU’RE the one who’s missing out on some fun, SD!), and we are planning a cruise to Alaska this Christmas. And more importantly, I am enjoying the hell out of my 6 month old, delighting in his every developmental milestone and teaching him to read. Have you ever read Dr. Seuss’ “The Places You’ll Go?” You can’t know the meaning of life until you’ve cradled your child in your arms and read this most excellent summary of Life to the most important little person in your life.
So you’ll forgive me when I say this: I don’t think I’m missing out on a damn thing. If there’s more to life than what I’m currently enjoying, then it will simply have to be enjoyed without me.
[quote=SD Realtor]What you really need to think about is not what happens if you are wrong, but what happens if you are right. Once upon a time a president ordered that all private citizens holding gold needed to surrender it. Don’t think that that cannot happen again. [/quote]
SD, I HAVE thought about this, which is why I have taken the actions that I have. Silver has never been confiscated, and I doubt a new precedent will be set here. My gold is safely out of the country. You are very much mistaken if you think I haven’t extensively researched not only what I expect to happen, but also what to do when it happens.
[quote=SD Realtor]As far as the USA goes with respect to things like humanitarian aid and things like that. If you think the world will be a better place without any country doing it then so be it. I do not. What we do agree on is if the US doesn’t do it, nobody will.
I know Judeo/Christian religions believe helping out less fortunate fellow men is a very high priorities. I don’t know about eastern religions or muslim but it would surprise me if they didn’t. So yeah I guess we differ on the importance of helping others out.[/quote]
I don’t think the rest of the world will shed a tear if the U.S. simply drifts away and neglects its “peace-keeping” activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I’m quite certain there is a village or two in Pakistan that will be relieved not to experience weekly drone attacks that kill or maim their friends and families. You and I may agree that no one will fill the U.S.’ role anytime soon, but we clearly disagree about how productive and helpful to the rest of the world that role has been. Have you ever read “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man?’??
Any country that invades another based on a pretext that doesn’t exist has simply lost is way and forfeited the right to any role of leadership it may have once deserved. Any country that floods the global financial system with toxic debt that it knows will cause lethal economic harm to others has lost its way and has forfeited its right to leadership. I’m not saying that the U.S. did not once fill a vital geopolitical role. What I am saying is that it no longer does. And I think it’s naive and nostalgic in the extreme to believe that our Judeo/Christian principles still guide a country that is presently run by an egregious criminal banking syndicate that determines who we *help* and don’t help.
We don’t disagree on the importance of helping others out. What we really disagree on is what constitutes *help*. Because in my mind it does no good to drop food into the Sudan if we are simultaneously spreading a financial cancer throughout the world that will ultimately lead it into a global depression and causing much misery and suffering to those we have pledged to *help*.
