Examining the Long-Term Benefits of Gold Investing

Dow down, but only by a bit. Gold off, but only by a touch. Oil lower too, but just by a smidge.

We don’t go in for daily numbers, Fellow Reckoner. They’re too volatile. Too capricious. Too whimsical. One minute, stocks are on an upward tear. The next they’re crashing down again. Then you take a step back and realize the chart you’re looking at tracks movements by the fractions of a point. It’s like watching footage from a tiny camera, strapped to the back of an ant…at an IMAX theatre. Comfortably navigable ground suddenly becomes a terrifying terrain of Himalayan proportions. Who needs the headache, the vertigo or the motion sickness?

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Examining the Long-Term Benefits of Gold Investing

Dow down, but only by a bit. Gold off, but only by a touch. Oil lower too, but just by a smidge.

We don’t go in for daily numbers, Fellow Reckoner. They’re too volatile. Too capricious. Too whimsical. One minute, stocks are on an upward tear. The next they’re crashing down again. Then you take a step back and realize the chart you’re looking at tracks movements by the fractions of a point. It’s like watching footage from a tiny camera, strapped to the back of an ant…at an IMAX theatre. Comfortably navigable ground suddenly becomes a terrifying terrain of Himalayan proportions. Who needs the headache, the vertigo or the motion sickness?

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Lest We Repeat

War doesn’t determine who is right — only who is left.

— Bertrand Russell

Is the world marching off to battle, Fellow Reckoner? If history is any guide, the answer would seem to be a categorical, “always.”

“US may have to strike Iran: Republican VP prospect” read a headline from the wires yesterday afternoon.

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A Caveman’s Account of “Civilized Society”

Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe’er contented, never know.

— William Cowper, Table Talk

Emblazoned across the lucre-basted exterior of the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington DC, reads one of the most intellectually polluted quotes any free mind is ever likely to encounter:

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The Peaks and Valleys of a Changing World Economy

“The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences. It seemed out of place to think of consequences during the fiesta.”

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

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Misguided Faith in an Economic Recovery

We watched last night the rows of cars below our balcony, snaking their way out of the pollution and congestion of South America’s second largest metropolis, out into the peace and calm of the surrounding campos and estancias.

The usual rabble and riff-raff have left for the long weekend. The city is empty. And quiet.

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How the Speed of Information Has Affected Human Progress

Imagine receiving today’s Daily Reckoning…and then discovering our meandering correspondence postmarked for March 24, 2012. Or, to switch directions, imagine sending an email this afternoon…only to learn it won’t arrive until next Friday, April 13; a ten day delivery time.

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Heralding the Unsung Benefits of Frontier Markets

An allegory for you today, Fellow Reckoner. A story within a story. This one was inspired by a presentation your editor saw last week while attending the inaugural Rancho Santana Sessions. The speaker was Douglas Clayton, founder of Leopard Capital. His topic, as we reported from Nicaragua at the time, was Frontier Markets.

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What Does “the Market” Mean to You?

What’s new in the markets? More importantly, what kind of market are we talking about…and why does it matter to you?

We’ll get to that in a second. First, here’s a conventional response to the question, one you’d expect to find in your morning paper or on the evening news:

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