Peaches - I have many ideas as to what one could do in an ideal world (vis-a-vis the welfare state, Islam, Russia/China and the other world powers currently allied with each other and Islam and economics in general), but given the political impracticalities at this particular moment and the national sentiment, my best piece of advice would be to position yourself so you and your loved ones can profit during a major collapse, and work to educate your fellow citizens so that when the time comes the people with the right ideas can rise to lead us out of the abyss. Put another way, I believe I could offer the proper antidotes, but I do not have the political acumen to effectuate them, so I believe that the best thing one can do is sit and wait it out (and of course fight tooth and nail the whole way even if it is a losing effort at least temporarily) while trying to protect oneself and one's family.

The color choice was not a coincidence.

FYI, I was going based upon this Playboy Interview, in which he identifies as being Jewish: http://www.progress.org/2003/alinsky4.htm.

Austrians would argue that during the Depression we were not on a strict gold standard anymore. We are largely talking pre-Federal Reserve de facto bank cartelization.

For an excellent book on the development of our monetary system, I would suggest Murray Rothbard's History of Money and Banking In the United States: mises.org/books/historyofmoney.pdf

Just a few things on gold. True, gold isn't practical in the sense that it is something you will use daily, but historically (i.e. for hundreds of years), it has been used as a store of value. Gold has always been worth approximately 300 loaves of bread, regardless of the time period.

As for the price being manipulated, if anything the manipulation is downward. On an inflation-adjusted basis, the high of gold in the 80s was over $2200 in today's terms, and we are in much much worse shape than we were back in the late 70s and early 80s today. Also, in Asia people do buy things including real estate in gold.

The whole point is that gold will help you retain your purchasing power. You wouldn't want to put all of your dollars into it (just like you wouldn't want to solely invest in any asset), and gold should not be thought of as an investment (as it does not generate cash flow) but rather as a way to preserve your wealth. It will hold its value against tangible items while all paper money will go to 0.

Silver also historically has done well when the price of gold has gone ballistic, and because it exists in smaller denominations it would probably be more practical for every day trade.

Again, I want to emphasize that money is merely a means of exchange, and gold just happens to be one of the most stable means of doing so because most of it has been mined, and because it holds certain physical properties and karmic value that have made it the de facto world currency throughout the history of mankind.

Also might I add that they even kill the most peaceful Buddhists -http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/03/fitzgerald-do-b...