I just got done interviewing John Rubino, co-author of The Collapse of the Dollar – Make a Fortune by Investing in Gold & Other Hard Assets, and it was quite interesting. Rubino stated that:
Over the last 7 years the stock market has dropped [as significantly] as it did during the Great Depression.
“WHAAAT?!!” you say. He explains that our perception of this strong bear market has been softened by the declining value of the dollar. In the spirit of comparing apples to apples, we must first consider that in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s the dollar was fixed to gold. So, in essence, the stock market’s decline was measured in gold. According to Rubino, you would see a depression-like chart if you were to measure the past few years of the stock market in gold.
The most convincing thing about his perspective is that he accurately predicted the burst of the housing bubble… in 2003. He forecasted that those who would suffer the most from the popping bubble would be homebuilders’ stocks, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, and real estate prices in “hot” (at the time) areas. He even went on to explain that the contributing factions would spill over into other parts of the economy including financial services companies, and banks themselves. At that time, the idea of one of the country’s largest investment banks (Bear Sterns) becoming insolvent sounds crazy, but Rubino warned us all with How to Profit from the Coming Housing Bust: Money-Making Strategies for the End of the Housing Bubble. In fact, if you would have followed his advice to the “T”, you would have profited immensely , provided that you timed it right. “My predictions were early,” admits Rubino, but the astounding accuracy of them sure does lend credibility to his perspective.
In light of the Liberty Dollar Raid, John says, “[When money becomes weak] the government becomes coercive. They start forcing people to use the government’s money and levying all kinds of penalties… The government cracks down on competing forms of money [that] are run more soundly…”
Also discussed was how the currency changes are affecting our mortgage debt and where the true opportunities lie. When asked how long this window of investment opportunity will last, John responded, “A lot of it has happened, but we’re still at the early stages of this process… I can’t stress this strongly enough, we haven’t fixed any of the problems that have caused this. In fact the problems are getting worse. Government spending is up, deficits are up, the government is creating more money than it ever created before. So the forces that are making fiat currencies go down are actually intensifying.” Since the book was written, gold has doubled and silver has quadrupled.
Also expected by the author, is the detrimental impact the general economy will have on financial service companies… especially credit card, mortgage and other finance companies. The full interview is to be released near the month’s end on UNLIMITED RETIREMENT ACCOUNT® Radio.
