You Work Hard, You Save Regularly BUT What Guarantees Your Money is Safe?

The other day I heard someone say that in 1990 there were 9 million (American) people in “the market.” A loose term encompassing all the private “investment” markets. The NYSE. Nasdaq. OTC. Stocks. Bonds. Mutual funds. Retirement funds. Private retirement accounts. Add to that what we call HEDGE funds and now the newest, SOVEREIGN WEALTH funds. George W Bush - known to his friends as DUMBYA - tried to add the $3 trillion Social Security Trust funds to that MIX. Fortunately for ALL Americans he failed.

The speaker went on to say in 2005 there were 96 million Americans in "the market." A 10 fold increase in just 25 years. And I’d wager 99.44% of those GOOD Americans think - hope - believe - trust - that someone, somewhere is "watching over" their money and the money-handlers on whose corporate honesty and personal integrity the security of their retirement depends. But you who read me much at ATS know already what I am about to say:

NOPE, there’s not ONE dam agency assigned the responsibility of keeping your BROKER honest. Or fair. Or reasonable. Or are requiring insurance to cover YOUR loses should your broker or his boss decide to take your money and go off to Costa Rica. Like the swindler Robert Vesco. (He died November 23, 2007 in Cuba at age 72. He stole about $125 million).

But that is the fault of the 96 million savers who think they are investing. There is a big difference. But personal greed, ignorance of the laws and unrealistic hope all work to put their money at risk. What was once called "selling the blue sky" in the 1890s when we had a similar rush to buy anything labeled a bond is here again. Here on ATS there is an ad "34 stocks that doubled." Of course, the ad never tells you about the 68 stocks that HALVED. Remember for every buyer there must be a seller. One guy who thinks his stock has peaked and the other guy who thinks it has further to go.

Oh sure, it is still against the law to steal another’s money. But “stealing” in mutual funds is not easy to prove. Insider trading is rampant - IMO - and who is to say your losses were not just due to the vicissitudes of the market place? After all, for every winner there must perforce be a loser. Or to be blunt: Prove it!

Mutual funds. Load or no-load. Upside: Been around for years. Downside: The fund managers are paid based on "TRANSACTIONS." 2 years ago the fund managers recommended a buy GM. So they sold their Chrysler stock and bought GM. TWO transactions! Now $4 gasoline in 2008 makes GM look bad. Too many SUVs. SELL GM and BUY Toyota and Honda. TWO more TRANSACTIONS. Shucks, YOU lose but I WIN every time! Aside: I have known one fellow who made a lot in the "market." He had this rule: Buy only good stocks and NEVER sell. After 30 years all his mistakes had fixed themselves.

Sweet Jesus, how do I get one of those manager jobs? What tests must I pass? What must I know? What background vetting do I get? Do I have to agree to take a polygraph every 6 months like the CIA or NSA workers? Do I have to buy a personal BOND?

Answer: NONE of the above.

I really hope you are not disappointed when you reach 62 years of age and expect to "chuck it in" for the sunshine and clean beaches of the Virgin Islands and to live life on the easy side. We KNOW how to cure this open gapping sore, this invitation to commit fraud. On a scale never before imagined. But will we?

Maybe GOD will protect us?


[edit on 6/16/2008 by donwhite]

Have you ever thought of investing your money into something more secure like gold? In my opinion it is and has been the way to go.

Atlanta. Kirk Wright lived fast but died alone in a Union City jail cell Saturday night. Wright, the Harvard-educated fund manager convicted last week in a fraud scheme that bilked investors out of tens of millions of dollars, hanged himself, the Fulton County medical examiner's office said Sunday. 05/25/08
www.ajc.com...

Mother admits helping son run hedge fund scam. A Greenwich CT mortgage broker admitted Thursday that she helped her college-age son recruit investors in a multimillion-dollar hedge fund scam. Ayferafet Yalincak, 51, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a charge that could send her to prison for up to five years. Her 22-year-old son, Hakan, faces up to 50 years in prison for managing the scheme. Associated Press July 13, 200

Reuters June 15. Boston. A former hedge fund manager convicted of fraud is alive and on the run a week after staging a suicide on a bridge above New York's Hudson River,
US Marshals Service confirmed that Samuel Israel III, who engineered the $2 trillion hedge fund industry's most brazen and LONG RUNNING fraud did not leap to his death last Monday when his GMC Envoy was found on a bridge above the Hudson River, its engine idling and the words "suicide is painless" etched in dust on its hood. Israel, 48, had been due to begin serving a 20-year prison term in Ayer, Massachusetts a week ago.

In April, Israel was sentenced for fabricating investment returns, making up an accounting firm to sign off on documents and ultimately stealing $450 million from investors, including Indiana's DePauw University. He fabricated investment returns. He invented his own accounting firm to sign off on annual reports. He stole $450 in a LONG RUNNING scam. The operative words here are LONG RUNNING

There is no one to watch the fox!

reply to post by Critical_Mass

Have you ever thought of investing your money into something more secure like gold? In my opinion it is and has been the way to go.

Gold? The most beautiful metal. Indestructible. It can be hammered into the thinnest sheet known to man. A perfect electric conductor. It will never rust. IE, oxidize. There are at least two common ways to “own” gold. You can buy the metal itself and hide it away from burglars or store it in a rented bank vault. Owning the metal is expensive. I’m sure you’d want to insure it against theft of embezzlement. Depending on the form it takes - well known coins - or Credit Suisse gold tabs of varying amounts - it should be easy to spend if necessity make that necessary. Owning large bars OTOH might prove not only unwieldy to move about, but your buyers could insist on a chemical assay to verify the gold had not been compromised by adding lead or depleted uranium. I’m not sure anyone can call buying gold an investment. See historic prices here: goldinfo.net...

The other way to own gold is to buy stock in a mine or a company that holds gold some far off place. In every case, the price you will pay to buy will be very close to the FIX at the London Gold Exchange. Personally I don’t like the way it is organized. Read this: The London Gold Exchange is a digital currency exchanger founded in 2001. The London Gold Exchange is owned by LGE International LTD., an offshore company registered in Belize, with offices in London, England and Hong Kong.

London Gold Exchange operate 2 franchises, one in the UK and one 'International' which covers everywhere other than the UK. The UK administration office is in Central London, with staff based in locations around the UK. The International administration office is in Hong Kong, with staff also operating from mainland China. en.wikipedia.org... but see also for prices, goldprices.com/

So if you get bilked, where to you go to sue to get your money back? Be wary of how you can recoup your losses. Worst case scenario must be taken into account.

I’d recommend keeping no more than 5% of your savings fund in gold coins preferably of the smallest denominations.

I don't argue wit hthat at all. It's actually possible to buy quarter ounce gold coins, which means you're able to pay out of pocket. For that mattter, I like silver for the purposes of wealth hoarding. Here in Anchorage, we have the luxury of being able to walk in and buy from an assay company.

It may be wise to have 1-3 months of operating capitol tied up in precious metals. then again, as Don has mentioned before, its never a bad idea to have some cash on hand. Most people can't manage to put aside 1-3 months of cash, gold, or silver.

posted by Justin Oldham
It's actually possible to buy quarter ounce gold coins, which means you're able to pay out of pocket. For that mattter, I like silver for the purposes of wealth hoarding. Here in Anchorage, we have the luxury of being able to walk in and buy from an assay company. It may be wise to have 1-3 months of operating capitol tied up in precious metals.

Lead. If conditions get so bad that paper or plastic is no longer accepted, you will need some lead to protect your silver and gold. In fact, if those conditions prevail, I'd rathe have lead than gold. l have a Star PD45 which will go far to getting needed food and water. You don't have to bargain over the price either. You just take what you can carry.



[edit on 6/19/2008 by donwhite]

I agree with your assessment of the need for lead. Last year, I wrote extensively on this very subject here on ATS. We are facing a period in our history that could result in a lot of social chaos. We're not as "hearty" as we used to be. A modern day "Depression" would hit much harder than it did in the 1930's.

reply to post by Justin Oldham

I agree with your assessment of the need for lead. Last year, I wrote extensively on this very subject here on ATS. We are facing a period in our history that could result in a lot of social chaos. We're not as "hearty" as we used to be. A modern day "Depression" would hit much harder than it did in the 1930's.

As I have written here before in 1959 and 1960, I was a part-time Civil Defense Radiological Instrument Operating and Repair instructor. Along with others on a team, 2 or 3 of us would go to places where we had been invited to explain the general civil defense plan. It was centered around fall out shelters. Many people built one into the basement of their houses. Others dug holes in the backyard to install a shelter. Every large building in downtown Louisville had an area marked off as a “Fall Out Shelter” and a posted sign set the number of occupants that shelter was equipped to serve.

Louisville had one ultra large shelter equipped to serve as many as 200,000 people. It was an underground gravel mine that had been abandoned. It is used today as a large low temperature warehouse. The underground temperature is 58 deg. F. year around. It’s easier (say cheaper) to reach minus 30 deg. F. when you start from a constant 58 deg F.

As I look back, I’m surprised no one raised the 2 most pertinent questions: 1) How long do we plan to stay underground? And 2) how do we keep out people who are either contaminated or who will overcrowd the shelter? Neither of which category would be welcome.

The answer to the first was 14 days, 2 weeks. The second was left to your imagination. Each shelter had a certain number of police offiicers assigned to it. If they order shoot to kill for looters, then you can be sure they would order shoot to kill EXCESS over capacity intruders and anyone who was radio actively contaminated. “Sorry about that fellow!” Where I could gain access I have explored past the old signs still on the walls in the basements of some buildings. Once bottled water, canned food, portable toilets, minimal first aid supplies, bedding and some decontamination showers was stored in the shelters. In the 1990s I found the areas were empty.

[edit on 6/21/2008 by donwhite]

I think it's sort of like the classic line said by the computer in war games [about thermonuclear war]: "Interesting game. The only winning move is not to play."

We got out of the stock market. We invested in ourselves, in a lifestyle that has a higher probability of being sustainable. Precious metals, I favor silver more than gold.... it has uses beyond that of just monetary exchange, such as colloidal silver production. I value stainless steel most of all, for it's shiny and durable fasteners, and aluminum, our protector, for its durable screening. May we never get below two 36" rolls.

At least funds in the U.S. are insured. Our economy is directly tied to that of the U.S., and even government-mandated retirement schemes [and yes, they actually CALL them that ] are uninsured.

Insurance remains the primary trapping by which we throw money away. I just can't seem to let go of it. Air ambulance insurance, medical, house, life...... it's like betting against yourself; a loosing game. I am 50 years old, and I work my tail off. I like work. I will retire when there is no more work, and settle into a more gentle lifestyle of kissin' my Bride, peeling coconuts, watering vegetables, cleaning fish, filtering water, and strummin' de ol' guitar. A braver man than I would just leap into that existance, not looking back for an instant.

[edit for yet more philosophical waxing]

[edit again for quirky spelling]

[edit on 21-6-2008 by argentus]

reply to post by donwhite


Interesting what you wrote about the fallout shelters Don, especially the hints at the mood of folks at that time, and the "uncomfortable" questions that are seldom answered until the moment they are present.

We have deep caves for those worries, which currently are used for hurricanes. Hopefully that's all we will use them for, but it's comforting somehow to know that they are there to flee to should one see a bright and foreboding flash on the horizon.

I gotta say too, your signature is one of the best I've seen.

In regard to lead..... I fancy a more sustainable projectile of SS-tipped wood, should the need for protection of my family ensue. I think the nearly lost art of bow, and/or atlatyl fabrication should be explored by folks who fear the times. These days, lead for me is a sinker. While I'd be a fool to take a bow and arrow to a gunfight, if one factors in the stealth and sneakiness of experience, I think those are good odds. Ditto for traps and snares, and, of course, the wonder of chemistry.


Cheers


[edit on 21-6-2008 by argentus]

Ah, yes. the Cold War. "The good old days." Funny how it seems that thoe 'preparatons' are comng back in to vogue. I will have more to say on this later.

Excellent thread, BTW. I read George Ure's writings every day, which serves to reinforce to me that we were wise (at least for our situation) to cob together our duckets and flee our former rat race.

Now that we've gotten past that pesky crap about missing Morel mushrooms and concerts and the symphony and shopping and all that other stuff....... well, y'know it all seems so far away to me. We live really simply, and to fall from here...... well, it wouldn't be nearly as hard of a drop as it used to be.

There's a scam around every corner isn't there? Myself, I have four cases of toilet paper, all sealing in huge ziplocks. Yah, that's right. I'll be the TP czar when the SHTF. One has to have goals.

posted by argentus
I gotta say too, your signature is one of the best I've seen. In regard to lead..... I fancy a more sustainable projectile of SS-tipped wood, should the need for protection of my family ensue. I think the nearly lost art of bow, and/or atlatyl fabrication should be explored by folks who fear the times. These days, lead for me is a sinker. While I'd be a fool to take a bow and arrow to a gunfight, if one factors in the stealth and sneakiness of experience, I think those are good odds. Ditto for traps and snares . .

Thanks on the signature line. I got it from the YouTube linked below. (Anyone who can watch and listen to this one without getting teary eyed is but half a person).

I'm also attaching another selection from my favorite guitarist. He must do it differently every time he does it. I prefer the version - not this one - that includes the following verse - more or less accurately quoted. As Stagger Lee and his partner left the coal mine with the money, his partner asked "Stagger Lee, why are you crying? Are you sorry you killed that man?" To which Stagger Lee said "No. I'm crying because I missed my shot." The other man said, "But you hit him right between the eyes?" Stagger Lee said, "Yes, but I was aiming at his right eye!" Mississippi John Hurt

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

Lavender IS my favorite color YouTube
www.youtube.com...


Post Script.
Did you know the US Cavalry that engaged at the Battle of Wounded Knee was the reconstituted 7th Cavalry? This battle is considered to be the last battle of the Indian Wars. Did you know the American (white) people hated the Indians so much that Congress awarded 20 Medals of Honor to the Army; more than in any other "battle" before or since! en.wikipedia.org...

America the Beautiful! Land of the Free and Home of the Brave!

God Bless America. Or is it, In God We Trust?


[edit on 6/22/2008 by donwhite]

reply to post by argentus

There's a scam around every corner isn't there? Myself, I have four cases of toilet paper, all sealing in huge ziplocks. Yah, that's right. I'll be the TP czar when the SHTF. One has to have goals.

Here’s what worries me. From Michael Milken and his erstwhile brother, David, we learned how easy it was to scam a couple billion off the GULLIBLE and the GREEDY. My father’s advice was “Never accept anything that’s free.” To which I can add, “And don’t’ expect to get rich quick or without hard work.”

When I was young utilities were regulated. That is, the price they charged their customers was set by a public agency. In exchange the utility was granted a monopoly to serve a certain area. This arrangement keep the value of utility stocks stable and fairly low. But the stocks were well secured so that pension funds and careful investors - not speculators - bought utility stocks for their old age - before social security. A 3% return was regarded as “normal.” Now we have no serious regulation of utilities. Any so-called regulators that exist today are mostly mere rubber stamps. Maybe NY and CA excepted.

But look what a NON energy company ENRON from Texas did to the people of California! This is happening today to the WHOLE WROLD. The prices of our FOOD and our ENERGY is being set in far off places by people whose names we do not know and who have NO effective regulation. WHO IS THE SUCKER? Do not tell me 6 billion people do not have the inherent power to FIX this problem in a heartbeat! Robespierre where are you when we need you? We cannot even get a STRAIGHT answer WHY the price of gasoline has doubled in 12 months. That nincompoop of a president we have just shrugs his shoulders and mumbles some platitude he heard another nincompoop say. Sweet Jesus! Come Quick!

In that paradise Milton Friedman calls the “Free Market” every economic question can find its answer. He says. As in mortgage meltdowns? Perhaps that's the most visible and best example of the Free Market at work in REAL life? In the old days we called that selling the “Blue Sky.” An operating paradigm where schemers could sell the gullible public even the blue sky! A Free Market! Caveat emptor was the guide line. Does any adult with an IQ over 80 believe Annual Reports are reliable? And we learned a decade or two ago that the BIG accounting firms had SOLD out to the management.

But, I argue we cannot indulge such frivolity in the modern world of instant communications. Where once the NYSE closed at 4 PM and all day Saturday and Sunday plus holidays, people had time to reflect either on what they had done or what they meant to do. Today's internet stock trading is worldwide and 24/7.

You can go to sleep with your “portfolio” UP and wake up with it DOWN! I can tell you from having been there and done that, it is not of much consequence for people up to about age 40. But when you pass the big Four Oh you need to begin to think smart and not BOLD. Otherwise you will find yourself sixty-ish and short!

There are 96 million Americans investing in the whole shebang. There are probably NOT a half a hundred ACTUAL Federal investigators watching out for scams. Even the HONEST brokers - isn’t that really an oxymoron? - are paid on commission based on sales or activity.

Five years ago, it was good to recommend GM or even Chrysler-Benz. Today, C-B has gone belly up for all intents and purposes, and GM is a SELL item. Too many SUVs. Ford remains problematical. But the mutual fund managers can justify short term buying and selling on the grounds the “market is volatile.” The only man I knew personally who made millions in the stock market had this rule: “Buy only good stocks and never sell.”

I strongly suspect ever-trusting Americans are being duped out of 100s of millions every year by so-called fund managers who are no smarter than the people they work for. More clever? Yes. More shrewd? Yes. But not one of them can tell you what tomorrow will bring. Yet the industry is UNREGULATED and left to its own devices. Wow! Those guys actually get paid for guessing with OUR money. Man, I’d like one of those jobs!

Yes, it is against all state's laws to steal. But these guys operate interstate and even internationally. Look at Halliburton. It has moved its HQ to Dubai, UAE. I say to avoid the subpoenas likely to be forthcoming in 2009.


[edit on 6/22/2008 by donwhite]

Wow. I am in awe. Very well said, and you encompass many of the woes that gave us "de ol' hinky feelin'" which caused us to get out of the market. Who could we trust to trade for us, especially from here, a wee island close only to another wee island. What we saw when we left the US was WAY too many loans being made, monopolies being forged without causive regulation, and basically the whole fabric of trust that we'd come to rely upon being rent. Well, granted what I just said was a tweak flow'ry, but it still stands.

Do we count on our social security that we paid into for 40 years? No way. I encouraged my Mom to take all she could, because it was the last generational run. She actually felt guilty for taking her earned social security.

Here in the Cayman Islands, we are required by law to pay into a government-mandated retirement whose funds are uninsured. Sure, I'd LIKE to count on it, but do I? No way. Stockpile cash, precious metals? Will that do the job? Unlikely.

We are currently less than 400 kwh away from being off the grid. Now there's a fund I can believe in. The us-fund. Let it be so written. Selah.

posted by argentus
Here in the Cayman Islands, we are required by law to pay into a government-mandated retirement whose funds are uninsured. Sure, I'd LIKE to count on it, but do I? No way. Stockpile cash, precious metals? Will that do the job? Unlikely.

Uninsured retirement plans. A huge nation like the US cannot afford to buy insurance from the commercial market. The US Govt has access to more money that all the insurance companies combined. After all, the Govt owns the printing presses! And it writes the RULES of the game. Which mens up here we are also UNINSURED. But we have the Full Faith and Credit of the US. Plus a lot of political clout.

The CIA World Factbook says the Caymans have 47,862 people. 2008. It says the GDP per person is $43, 800. St. Kitts and Nevis OTOH, have exactly thee same land area and 39,619 people. The GDP per person however is $13,900. I've never been to either but this wide variation is likely due to the former being white and the latter being black. The US GDP per person is given as $45,800.

As a dependency of the UK the Cayman's have the Full Faith and Credit of the UK behind it so I would not worry about collecting when the time comes. High finance at that level is for Secretaries of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to worry about. For us lesser mortals it is as Alfred Lord Tennyson put it, "Ours is not to reason why. Ours is but to do and die." We do our part, they do theirs.

[edit on 6/23/2008 by donwhite]

reply to post by donwhite



Talk about Wow. The same people who complain about how unsecure social security is, are the same people who are against letting people manage it themselves. There has never been any proposal that would have forced anyone to put their money in the market. That would have just been an option.

I invest in mutual funds as a living. I put my clients in no load funds and they pay me a quarterly fee to help them mange the portfolio's. I also provide them planning and advice services for that fee. I make no money for simply changing someone's investments. I am called an Investment Advisor.

Most stock funds that have been around for 25+ years have average returns of greater than 8% annually. Many exceed 10%. This is nothing to sneeze at and I think the compensation they get for providng these type returns is very reasonable. Your friend is wise, but investing in great companies and holding isn't neccesary a winning strategy. Just look at the GM and F you keep crowing about. I think you need to invest in 5-6 great funds of varying styles, rebalance to your original allocation annually, and hold on forever except for negative management and style changes that may occur. Most people cannot do this without a quality investment advisor. Sooner or later the gold, housing or bond bugs will be able to get to them and change their strategy ultimately costing them multiples of their money before and during retirement.

The risk of owning stocks is much lower than the risk of not owning them and the financial advice business is not nearly as bad as you make them out to be. Gold goes no where over time, cd's and bonds end up purging you of purchasing power slowly but surely, real estate historically does not go up much more than inflation and is very illiquid. You see old people struggling now and more than likely those are the ones that thought the market was too risky too invest in and like with social security, ended up entrusting their savings to the goverment, banks and insurance companies.
You have to be an owner and not a loaner.

As I noted on another thread the Reserve Bank doesn't guarantee any banks in the event they get into trouble . So if the worst comes to the worst even if you don't have any money in the stock market and you have saved your penny's in a responsible manner you could still lose everything . Even if you stash some cash in a safe place it may no longer hold any value.

One thing that stands out in my mind is the photos that I have seen in books of kids using currency like blocks and people taking there pay home in wheelbarrows in Post WW1 Germany .

reply to post by xpert11

As I noted on another thread the Reserve Bank doesn't guarantee any banks in the event they get into trouble . . if the worst comes to the worst even if you don't have any money in the stock market and you have saved your penny's in a responsible manner you could still lose everything .

The Federal Reserve oversees banks day to day operations. The Fed performs audits. And of course the Fed is the source of US currency which they “loan” to banks at the discount or overnight rate. This is the percentage Chairman Bernacke is always talking about. “Discount” means the interest is deducted up front. So a bank that borrows $1,000,000 at 3%, gets a credit of $970,000 but owes $1 million.

Deposits are insured by the FDIC - Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. I think the current limit is $100,000. You can have one insured account, your wife can have an insured account and you and her together can have an insured account, so with not much trouble at all you can provide yourself with $300,000 of coverage.

Despite the posted limit - it started at $2,500 in 1933 - the FDIC has never failed to pay 100% of depositors money in the case of a bank failure. The cost of this wonderful New Deal item - say thank you FDR - is borne by banks voluntarily participating in the FDIC and paying a monthly assessment of say, 0.25% of deposits until a certain reserve has been met - most banks have met their reserves - at which time the assessment is suspended. The reciprocal of this is that banks are allowed to use 25% of your checking account balance as collateral for loans from the Fed. Is this 'one hand washes the other' or have we finally found something that really is FREE?

This same system is available as FSLIC - Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation. Wannabe president Senator John McCain barely escaped criminal charges because of his intimacy with the Keating Five in the 1980s. I think his war hero status saved him. I’d guess today 100% of S&Ls are participating. Another example of your tax dollars at work.

These 3 systems I describe above are a wonderful example of how private banks and the Federal government worked out a way to minimize Federal interference in banking yet protected the depositors from the vissitudes of banking not to mention outright embezzlement.

Yet so many uninformed people lament - bad mouth - the Fed and FDIC. Amazing!

One thing that stands out in my mind is the photos that I have seen in books of kids using currency like blocks and people taking there pay home in wheelbarrows in Post WW1 Germany.

Yes, that happened. Historians say you can draw a straight line from the 1920s collapse of the Weimar Republic to 1933 Adolph Hitler. That condition was called hyper-inflation. Every government can tinker with the amount of currency in circulation, and it’s at their peril.

Of course the underlying facts of the very harsh and unrealistic terms of the Treaty that ended World War 1 at Versailles brought all that on. Primarily the French but for sure supported by the British, it was the victors intent to make the losers - including Austria and Hungary and what was left of the Ottoman Empire - pay their bills. So a Serb - call him a patriot or a terrorist, your choice - shoots an Austrian arch-duke in Sarajevo the capital of Bosnia and herzegovina and we end up with Adolph Hitler? Hmm? I do believe that is about right.

In hyper-inflation everybody loses everything. The German people were desperate. The too old von Hindenburg (say John McCain) who was the president of the Weimar Republic could not cope. By 1933 the German people were beyond desperate to hopelessness. And here comes this spell binding talking Jew baiting Austrian who says he can bring back the glory days of Bismark! Some people say WW2 was the last battle of WW1. But regardless, it was just 21 years from 1918 to 1939.

[edit on 6/24/2008 by donwhite]

Wealth hoarding would be useless in an inflationary spiral. It would be hard to wait out the hard times you lives through. Things change, f you can see the downturn coming. then, you've got a shot at hoarding enough assets to help ameliorate/lessen your discomfort.