Sharky:

Not disagreeing with you at all. As I have been saying, the issue is getting through the next year. It is my hope that Dick and staff have calculated not only carefully, but well. As for the uncertainity, it is exactly that, uncertainty. If we knew the future, then we would know what to do. In fact, I am certain that if all here knew six months ago what we know today, this message board would be a pretty lonely place. We would have all sold.

At this point, all we can do is hope that the inflationary tools of monetary expansion currently being put in place by virtually every major nation, will in fact accomplish their intended purpose. But, even if they do, then we will have to worry about the inflationary pressures which will have saved us. That is where hard assets come in.

My real concern is, if inflation does not kick in, then we will truly be in trouble. Judging from what we witnessed in the 1970's (for those of us born before 1960) then we will have stagflation where prices go up but not incomes commensurately. Even if deflation is avoided, there are going to be a lot of bills to be paid downstream.

One thing is for sure. A lot of people that contributed to the underlying problems, (bankers, politicans, monetary authorities, people who speculated on highly leveraged real estate) deserve to be taken out and shot. Their greed, lack of doing their job and plain sloth and stupid risk taking, has put the totality of humanity at severe economic and life risk. It seems that we never learn!

So much for this rant! Got gold?

Brian