12
June
Important Books
The ABCs of Gold Investing - Protecting Your Wealth Through Private Gold Ownership
by Michael J. Kosares
Now for the first time under one cover, novice investors will find thorough guidelines for making good decisions about private gold ownership. In The ABC's Of Gold Investing, gold investment expert Michael J. Kosares (with 25 years experience in the field) emphasizes the asset preservation qualities of gold at a time when investor uncertainty about the economy has led many to seek asset diversification. The ABCs Of Gold Investing covers a range of topics, from understanding gold's role in combating inflation and deflation to how to select a gold firm. Kosares also examines reasons why gold has become an essential in many portfolios globally and why that trend is likely to continue and accelerate. The author gives you a basic history about gold, the changing political and monetary climate concerning it, how gold was viewed before by people and governments around the world as compared to now, why you should view gold not just as an investment but, more importantly, as a kind of financial insurance policy. One does not buy car insurance in the expectation of crashing one's car. Similarly one does not save or invest in gold or silver bullion in the expectation of economic or financial crisis. It is simply a precautionary financial measure to ensure that should one arise one is in a position to be able to manage materially.
The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession
by Peter Bernstein
King Ferdinand of Spain once declared "Get gold, humanely if possible, but at all hazards -get gold." As this fascinating book reveals, man's obsession with finding, keeping, selling, and evaluating gold has rarely been a humane adventure and has always been a hazardous one. Digging deeply into history's treasury of torrid tales and complicated deals, Bernstein examines gold's lure with an economist's passion for quantification, a historian's eye for detail, and a sociologist's feel for its consequence.
Before gold was used as money and later became the foundation of the world's monetary system (until Nixon did away with the Gold Standard in 1971 ushering in our present fiat paper money monetary system), gold held value as decoration and adornment for the wealthy ancients. Later, it was minted and used as coins by the Lydians in 635 B.C. That, Bernstein goes on to reveal, put gold on it's path to becoming the money of choice of all stable and prosperous civilisations, from evidence of wealth to the ultimate standard of wealth. Bernstein recalls De Gaulle's famous words "There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence".
Along the way lie wild stories of lives destroyed, fortunes won and quickly lost, and values transformed. It recounts how men's insatiable greed for valuable commodities has led to brutal atrocities and war often cloaked in noble language of bringing religion or civilisation to the natives: the massacre by the Spanish invader Pizarro, whose small band of men decimated the formidable army of Emperor Atahualpa, "the Inca," through duplicity and lies rather than military skill. From Pizarro to the roller-coaster ride of the 1890s, when the rippling impact of the Baring Brothers bank crisis in Britain sent the isolated United States into an economic meltdown.
"The story of gold-in all its splendor and mythology, its fascination for individuals and nations alike. . . . Peter Bernstein is up to the challenge. His spritely exposition is a fine read even as it makes us think and reflect." - Paul A. Volcker, Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve."
"Admirably written...a wonderfully interesting view; not alone of gold but of the greater economic history. Like other of his work, it is assured of a wide readership." --John Kenneth Galbraith Professor of Economics Emeritus, Harvard University
Portable Wealth -The Complete Guide to Precious Metals Investment
by Adam Starchild
None of us wants to watch our hard-earned money go up like paper in the wind. Open this book and discover how precious metals can add weight and substance to your investment portfolio in a time when very little is considered solid or certain. It could be worth its weight in gold.
"I found this book to be very helpful in understanding the historical context, and then in learning how to use gold as an asset allocation tool to help diversify and protect my stock portfolio, but best of all was the direct practical advice on how, who and where to go to get things done in making gold investments economically." Anonymous Amazon reviewer.
The Gold Book: A Guide to Commonly Traded Gold Bullion Coins and Bars
by M.A. Olsen
The book covers over 100 popular gold issues, including weight, purity, actual gold content, fineness, diameter, thickness, edge, mint, strike, legal tender status, mintage period, and designer. It is illustrated with over 230 photographs.
It is a comprehensive, authoritative gold guide for professional and novice alike. It follows a systematic, easy to follow format in its description of more than 100 popular gold issues. Life-sized pictures of both the obverse and reverse of most coins appear on the outer edges of each page to assist readers in quickly identifying a particular gold bullion piece.
Included in the specifications of each coin are the following: Total Weight, Purity, Gold Content, Fineness, Diameter, Thickness, Edge, Mint, Strike, whether or not the piece is Legal Tender, the Mintage Period, and the Designer (when available). There are also descriptions of the designs which appear on the obverse and the reverse of each piece.
The Gold Book is intended for use by appraisers, attorneys, bankers, coin dealers, investors, jewellers and anyone else buying, selling, appraising, inheriting, or accepting gold as collateral. It answers many common questions about gold coins and bars.
Got Gold? Get Gold!
by Jerry Western
The U.S. Dollar is no longer backed by gold. In fact, it is not backed by anything except legal tender laws. New dollars are simply created as needed. This is known as inflation of the money supply and has the effect of devaluing every other dollar already in existence. This over-issuance of dollars causes prices to rise. Gold is money. Gold has always been money throughout recorded history. Periodically, gold is not recognized as money. It becomes recognized as money again when currencies falter. The U.S. Dollar is currently faltering and its devaluation is accelerating.
Gold is the anti-dollar and the dollar is the anti-gold. As the value of the dollar erodes, it takes more of them to purchase a set amount of gold. It is clear that both gold and silver have been in a bull market since the turn of the century and will continue to be unless the devaluation of the dollar ceases.
We must protect ourselves from this rapid debasement of our currency with tangible assets. The most conservative of all commodities and assets are precious metals.
This book explains why you must have gold and silver to protect your wealth and provides ample advice for doing so.
Financial Reckoning Day: Surviving the Soft Depression of the 21st Century
by Bill Bonner
This provocative and timely book, which is already a bestseller, warns how the media and particularly the financial media should come with a warning that they are hazardous to one's wealth. 'Bubblevision' is what Bonner calls financial television stations like CNBC. Financial Reckoning Day warns that depressions are not necessarily a thing of the past, as it studies the hazards of modern capitalism and the financial follies of history. And that's why it's so vital to have an essential, wide-angle resource like this on hand . . . to get you through the current uncertain economic times.
"History shows that people who save and invest grow and prosper, and the others deteriorate and collapse. As Financial Reckoning Day demonstrates, artificially low interest rates and rapid credit creation policies set by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve caused the bubble in U.S. stocks of the late '90s. . . . Now, policies being pursued at the Fed are making the bubble worse. They are changing it from a stock market bubble to a consumption and housing bubble." - Jim Rogers, author of the bestseller Adventure Capitalist, from the Foreword to Financial Reckoning Day
"I have read 421 books in the last 11 years. And since 1996, I have read 59 books about economics and investing. Of all those books, Financial Reckoning Day is the most important book I have ever read about economics, investing and the most likely future of the US and world economies." - Private Futures and Stock Trader, Ken Wilson
The Gold Wars
by Ferdinand Lips
Gold Wars deals with the history of gold, and especially the abandonment of gold-as-money under the gold standard and the creation of the modern welfare/warfare state. The G-7 nations have been trying to artificially suppress the price of gold for years, ever since these nations went off the gold standard and elected, under U.S. pressure, to rely solely on fiat money. The problems that we are currently seeing with the global economy are a direct result of this short-sighted, ignorant policy that destroys the economies of many developing nations especially in Africa, many of which are gold producers, and threatens the stability of the economic structure of the entire planet. Massive credit creation has led to a world of large asset bubbles and unsustainable structural economic imbalances. Ferdinand Lips does a remarkable job of explaining a complex subject in an interesting and lucid manner.
Gold Wars goes a long way towards explaining the root of unfolding financial crises in international finance today. Authorities in the field of investing are saying this book is going to be remembered as a classic that explains the old gold standard, the gradual collapse of fiat currencies, and what the future may hold....
The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences and Cure
by Richard Duncan
During the three decades since the collapse of Bretton Woods, the United States has incurred a cumulative current account deficit of more than $3 trillion. As that amount of dollars entered the banking systems of the those countries with a current account surplus against the United States, it set in motion a process of credit creation just as if the world had discovered an enormous new supply of gold. That credit creation backed only by paper reserves has generated a worldwide credit bubble characterized by economic overheating and severe asset price inflation.
That credit bubble is now precariously close to imploding, because much of that credit cannot be repaid. The economic house of cards built with paper dollars has begun to wobble. Its fall will once again teach the world why gold -- not paper -- has been the preferred store of value for thousands of years. . . . . . Current account deficits like economic bubbles are inherently unsustainable. The collapse of the dollar is a matter of when, rather than if.
Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's Age Of Discovery
by Marc Faber
Dr Marc Faber is a contrarian. To be a good contrarian, you need to know what you are contrary about. It helps to be a world class economic historian, to have been a trader and managing director of Drexel Burnham Lambert when the firm was the junk bond king of Wall Street, to have lived in Hong Kong for a quarter of a century, and to have a contact book crammed with the home numbers of many of the movers and shakers in the financial world.
Famous for his approach to investing, Marc Faber does not run with the bulls or bait the bears but steers his own course through the maelstrom of international finance markets. In 1987 he warned his clients to cash out before Black Monday on Wall Street. He made them handsome profits by forecasting the burst in the Japanese Bubble in 1990. He correctly predicted the collapse in US gaming stocks in 1993; and he foresaw the Asia-Pacific financial crisis of 1997/98 and the resulting global volatility.
Faber sets out to find tomorrow's gold - the outperforming asset classes of the future. Far from being a sensational reading of the runes, this book delves deep into the past, to chart how old investor trends developed and assess how new patterns might emerge..... Faber believes one should invest in tangibles such as commodities and gold and the countries which produce them. He also believes India, China and Asia are going through the early stages of economic advancement experienced by America at the turn of the century.
Conquer the Crash
by Bob Prechter
In Conquer the Crash, Robert Prechter explains why he thinks the boom times are behind us. Based on his interpretation of the Elliott Wave principle (an idea premised on the notion that mass investor psychology is what really drives markets), Prechter believes that the U.S. economy is about to enter into a deflationary depression that few investors are prepared to deal with.
In making his case, Prechter assembles an impressive array of data that in essence suggests that the bill for the last 10 years of market excess is about to come due. The second half of the book shows how to avoid becoming "a zombie-eyed victim of the depression" and offers advice on protecting one's assets in a deflationary environment (cash is king). If there's any good news in the future that Prechter sees coming (other than how to avoid it), it's that all-out depressions don't last very long. Conquer the Crash should to those desperately looking for a safe haven from the uncertainties of today's markets.
Running On Empty: How The Democrats & Republicans Are Bankrupting Our Future...
by Peter G. Peterson
For years, Peterson, secretary of commerce under Nixon and author of Gray Down, has been a compelling Cassandra, warning that the mix of growing debt, an aging population, and deficits in Social Security and Medicare portend disaster. Now, he laments, Republicans pursue reckless supply-side economics and Democrats, assuming a repeal of Bush's tax cuts would enable new government spending, are unwilling to consider limits on entitlements. Citing study after study, the author shows that it is a failure of leadership, not knowledge, that has let deficits loom. Beyond that, add the new burdens imposed by September 11-and the fact that European countries, aging like us, likely will have less money for security and international aid.
Peterson attacks 10 partisan myths, among them that means-testing federal benefits will shred the safety net; that the elderly are poorer than children, that Americans are overtaxed and that using tax cuts to shrink government can work. What went wrong? He blames interest groups, individualism, short-termitis and generational change. Peterson offers concrete solutions: among them: index Social Security to prices, not wages; use the federal employees' health plan as a model; force Congress to include unfunded retirement obligations in its balance sheet; and pursue more nonpartisan politics, such as free TV time during campaigns. A self-described "fat cat," Peterson is willing to bear an "affluence test" for Social Security; he challenges leaders to revive JFK's call for civic responsibility.
The Coming Oil Crisis
by C. J. Campbell
If ever the precisely appropriate book turned up at exactly the opportune moment, this is it. During 1997, an academic debate of immense significance for the future of civilization began to surface in a remarkably diverse array of media. The debate concerns the question, is there enough crude oil left in the world to get us to 2010 without a historically unprecedented discontinuity. The whole character of society in the 20th Century, and of its history, economics and politics is more a product of oil than of any other factor.
Campbell's book is the most interdisciplinary and broadly informed book available on a wide range of these issues. He has about four decades of experience in every aspect of the oil business, from finding the stuff in the field, to analysis, management, finance and consulting. It simply drips with honesty, frankness, realism and wisdom. He penetrates the maze of conflicting information and disinformation, as well as imprecise and confusing definitions, noting that there are colossal vested interests with motives to distort and confuse: oil is money and money is power. Campbell does not pretend that he knows what will happen but gives us a range of plausible scenarios. These events will produce a major change in thinking and our perceptions of reality. Campbell notes linkages between all kinds of systems components: for example, the politics of the Middle East. The book is very well written. It is replete with tables, discussions of the principal personalities in this issue area, and organized tables of explanation of important concepts and terms. WJ George, Petroleum Economist, London
The Oil Factor: How Oil Controls the Economy and Your Financial Future
by Donna Leeb, Stephen Leeb
Stephen Leeb, editor of the "Complete Investor" newsletter, believes the U.S. economy is headed for a significant fall because of a severe shortage of oil, which has been inextricably tied to the economy for the past 30 years. Leeb, author of several books including Getting In on the Ground Floor (also co-written with wife Donna), believes the country must become less dependent on oil imports over the long term.
Meanwhile, though, Leeb advises individuals to choose investments based on the longstanding relationship between oil prices and the stock market. He has a number of solid observations based on an examination of the past 30 years of stock performance and oil prices: "Since 1973, the economy and stock market have danced to oil's tune. Sharp rises in oil prices have led to recession/stagflation and plummeting stocks, while declining prices or prices that are just mildly uptrended have led to good times." Leeb provides a great deal of historic context and analyzes industries, selected companies, and other investment choices such as bonds and Treasury notes. Leeb's thesis is well researched, and the book offers a solid, concise overview of the economy and stock trends.
Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage
by Kenneth S. Deffeyes
In Hubbert's Peak, Deffeyes writes with good humor about the oil business, but he delivers a sobering message: the 100-year petroleum era is nearly over. Global oil production will peak sometime between 2004 and 2008, and the world's production of crude oil "will fall, never to rise again." If Deffeyes is right--and if nothing is done to reduce the increasing global thirst for oil--energy prices will soar and economies will be plunged into recession as they desperately search for alternatives.
It's tempting to dismiss Deffeyes as just another of the doomsayers who have been predicting, almost since oil was discovered, that we are running out of it. But Deffeyes makes a persuasive case that this time it's for real. This is an oilman and geologist's assessment of the future, grounded in cold mathematics. And it's frightening. Deffeyes's prediction is based on the work of M. King Hubbert, a Shell geologist who in 1956 predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s and then begin to decline. Hubbert was dismissed by many experts inside and outside the oil industry. Pro-Hubbert and anti-Hubbert factions arose and persisted until 1970, when U.S. oil production peaked and started its long decline.
The Hubbert method is based on the observation that oil production in any region follows a bell-shaped curve. Production increases rapidly at first, as the cheapest and most readily accessible oil is recovered. As the difficulty of extracting the oil increases, it becomes more expensive and less competitive with other fuels. Production slows, levels off and begins to fall.
The petroleum era is coming to a close. "Fossil fuels are a one-time gift that lifted us up from subsistence agriculture and eventually should lead us to a future based on renewable resources," Deffeyes writes. Those are strong words for a man raised in the oil patch. For the rest of us, the end of the world's dependence on oil means we need to make some tough political and economic choices.
Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict
by Michael T. Klare
From the oilfields of Saudi Arabia to the Nile delta, from the shipping lanes of the South China Sea to the pipelines of Central Asia, Resource Wars looks at the growing impact of resource scarcity on the military policies of nations.
International security expert Michael T. Klare argues that in the early decades of the new millennium, wars will be fought not over ideology but over access to dwindling supplies of precious natural commodities. The political divisions of the Cold War, Klare asserts, have given way to a global scramble for oil, natural gas, minerals, and water. And as armies throughout the world define resource security as a primary objective, widespread instability is bound to follow, especially in those areas where competition for essential materials overlaps with long-standing territorial and religious disputes. In this clarifying view, the recent explosive conflict between the United States and Islamic extremism stands revealed as the predictable consequence of consumer nations seeking to protect the vital resources they depend on.
A much-needed assessment of a changed world, Resource Wars is a compelling look at warfare in an era of rampant globalization and intense economic competition.
The Great Bu$T Ahead
by Daniel Arnold
The Great Bust Ahead is a concise, straight to the point book laying out in stark terms the case for a coming depression of historically unprecedented magnitude. It may be as bad as the 1930s in some ways, beginning perhaps as early as 2008-2010, and last up to thirteen years. Centered on hard fact demographics, the book boldly claims that the data presented are so irrefutable, that the outcome predicted by the book is equally as irrefutable.
The compelling evidence presented may accurately account for the detailed trend of the economy from 1920 to today , and projects out to 2030 in detail. The book is very easy to read and understand, and requires no prior knowledge of economics. Down to earth things the average person can do to prepare for what is coming are covered. A summary of the profound domestic social and international consequences is offered.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments & Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
by Peter G. Peterson
Adam Smith (1723-1790), economist, moralist and philosopher great works are more important today than ever before. His theory of the market economy has been wrongly criticised by ideologues of the statist Left and hijacked by charlatan 'free marketeers' of the corporatist Right.
Smith advocated the free working of individual enterprise, and especially the necessity of a genuine 'free trade' rather than the protectionism of the mercantile sysytem. Smith was wary of large private monopolies believing their influence and power would be used to dominate and harm stakeholders in society such as farmers, labourers and small and medium sized enterprises.
Modern economics has largely rejected Smith's focus on injustice and the individual and state's responsibility to restrain unaccountable private power and focused on a theory of the 'invisible hand' as if it were a central tenet of Smith's philosophy. In fact, he only makes a fleeting reference to the 'invisible hand' once in a 900 page text in only one of his works- 'The Wealth of Nations'. Modern proponents of so called 'free markets' have embraced the Hobbesian philosophy of materialism and the mantra that greed is good and the false assumption that human behaviour is motivated solely by material self-interest and thus any attempt to restrain man's or corporations activities in the market are futile. Unlike Hobbes, Smith believed that there could be no justification for "hurting or disturbing in any respect the happiness of our neighbour. To do so . . . . is itself a violation of the laws of justice, which force ought to be employed either to restrain or to punish." Thus Smith believed in a healthy ethical free market which was not based solely on maximisation of profit but on a moral, ethical, life affirming market brought about by some necessary public policy and regulation.
Smith was a man of deep ethical conviction and an intellectual crusader against any concentration of unaccountable power in order that a fair free market would ultimately lead to the wealth of nations and to the wealth of the citizens of those nations.
A Calendar of Wisdom
by Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy considered this his most important contribution to humanity, "a wise thought for every day of the year, from the greatest philosophers of all times and all people." In this the culmination of the work of his later years, his late spiritual awakening is given voice and his empathy with the oppressed and downtrodden, his distrust and rejection of any form of religious or civil authority and his profound belief in passive non-violent, but active, resistance to evil. Widely read in pre-revolutionary Russia, banned and censored and forgotten under Stalin and the totalitarian U.S.S.R. , it has only recently been rediscovered.
PIt is a triumph of the human spirit and shows how humanity is able to preserve the truth despite totalitarianism of whatever form. It deserves a place among the few books in our history that will never cease teaching us the essence of what is important in this world and how mankind can transcend all differences and difficulties. Tolstoy collected "the wisdom of the centuries in one book", for "what can be more precious than to communicate with the wisest men of the world". Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, Seneca, The New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Mohammed, Rousseau, Ruskin, Thoreau, Emerson and many, many more. A truly great synthesis of our ancestors most important works of literature, philosophy, religion and spirituality.
A profound, moving and inspiring work of genius and love whose beauty and wisdom has never been more needed by humanity.
