Happy New Year Everyone:First things first, so I’ll wish you all the very best of 2007 and I sincerely hope we’ll make it a great year.
Now, to begin, this piece is going to be the first part in a trilogy. This first section is going cover a good deal of ground and we may bounce around a bit. Think of us as setting the table for 2007.I honestly didn’t know whether to title this piece Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks or Nothing Occurs in a Vacuum; but we chose the former because it is a New Year.
This first part will be titled:
- Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks; the second part is the
- 2007 Gift to the Gold Community; and the third part will highlight some of the
- Exciting Junior Mining Companies for the New Year.
Introduction
I’ve wrestled with this first article for 2007 because I know what I want to say but have to be rather circumspect in how I say it.
This is the year that an older demographic is going to have to learn how to learn new techniques of investing in order to make up for lost time. Hence, the title: Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks.
This year I’d like for us to all become even more successful as investors in the resource sector. I’d like for all of us to find a way to get out of debt if suits our purposes. I’d like for us to all participate in doing something positive for the planet and its inhabitants, our Country, and our community. I’d like us to learn new ways of doing things with the idea of opening our minds to success; and success is not always defined in financial terms. Would it not be constructive to forgive old grievances, many of them rather inconsequential, and discover methodologies that allow us to forge universal paths towards peace?
I’d like to think that we can rehabilitate the Republic of these United States and restore its shining light as the beacon it once was to the world. Admittedly, this is a huge undertaking. When you consider the Patriot Act and some of the other political shenanigans that have usurped the freedoms of honest Americans as this nation’s politicians preach those same ideals to the rest of the world, it leaves one breathless.
Your Participation is Cordially Requested
As we collectively explore these topics this year I invite your participation. I invite you to Email me with your name and address and any of your ideas on any topic or company that we are discussing. Perhaps you have a company of which we should be aware? How can we better serve you? We are making changes ourselves this year with the idea of expanding our list of contacts.
I’m requesting that the companies with which I am personally involved create informational CD’s. Those CD’s will be sent out to you directly with an accompanying letter as to why I think the company has an opportunity to be successful. Hopefully, we’ll make some money, but we also hope that it isn’t just about the money. Whereas the financial realm in our daily lives is incredibly important, so is the maintenance of our entire geopolitical-financial equation.
Nothing Occurs in a Vacuum
I will repeatedly state that nothing occurs in a vacuum and it is in our collective best interests to remember that going forward. I simply want to reinforce that Newton’s third law of Motion can operate in the metaphysical realm as well as the physical one:
“For every action, there is an equal (in size) and opposite (in direction) reaction.”
The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object. The direction of the force on the first object is opposite to the direction of the force on the second object. Forces always come in pairs - equal and opposite action-reaction force pairs.
In terms of ideas, we can think of pros and cons. Different people have different ideas just as different nations and religions have different concepts and ideas. When those ideas collide, there can be severe repercussions. In our daily lives, it happens on a smaller, but often times no less important scale.
And finally, it is not by coincidence that we find ourselves in our current National Dilemma.
From a global perspective, the political dilemmas in the US are affecting our financial well being and these two categories are not adequately being addressed by the mainstream media. This means that we will personally have to initiate our own paths of discovery.
One of the things we need to understand above all others is the idea that most concepts dealing with politics and money are interconnected and that again, nothing occurs in a vacuum. It we don’t have some degree of truth to which we can refer, to which we can anchor, how can we expect to be successful investors or even successful citizens? The truth is ever more disguised and it takes considerable effort to find—even on the Sunday morning talk political talk shows; a topic which I’ve covered below.
A Priority in 2007—debt—and learning how to eliminate it.
Debt is insidious and if we as a nation or as individuals are in debt, we need to learn ways to eliminate it. It is absolutely one of the biggest issues facing the US today on every level: Personal, Business, and Government. For those negatively affected by debt, eliminating it or beginning the process might be an excellent goal for us to set in 2007.
This Country is currently going into debt at the rate of a thousand million dollars per day—every day of the year and some say it is considerably higher that that. Nancy Pelosi, newly elected Speaker of the House, suggested that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the US over one trillion dollars by the end of this year. That’s a lot of debt; that’s a lot of money. Where is it coming from?
On another front, government statistics are stating that personal bankruptcies and mortgage delinquencies are edging higher and with a housing crisis in the making, the situation is only going to get worse.
Frequently, it is necessary to learn new models of how to eliminate debt. Part of this model is learning how to learn to make more money; learning how to become more successful investors. These are topics of which books have been written so only the most superficial coverage of them can be initiated in this short piece. But it is a New Year and many of us are looking for fresh beginnings. Hence, I’ve adopted the title that old dogs can learn new tricks.
Additionally, we each have our own particular dragons to slay so it is important that we all learn to discover ways to extricate ourselves from the mazes we have created. No one else is going to do it for us and we should not allow brokers or brokerage houses to tell us otherwise. Only our clear and independent thinking combined with sufficient financial and geo-political knowledge will get us home free. I simply cannot overstate the idea that it is important to take the information gleaned from a myriad of bright minds and blend it into a unique and idiosyncratic formula that will work for each of us on very personal levels.
What does all of this have to do with Junior Mining Companies and making money? I’ll go into more detail in a moment but suffice to say, making money and investing is a process. Frequently, any number of antiquated and dysfunctional personal patterns are best eliminated only to be replaced by newer more constructive ones. It truly is about the concept of teaching old dogs new tricks; and there is nothing negative about old dogs or new tricks.
Gurus, Old friends, and New Mind Sets
I think we would all like a “golden guru” to tell us what to buy, when to buy it, and why we’re going to make a fortune with a particular company or investment vehicle. But does it really work that way in the real world? What we should be seeking are ideas that we can evaluate with our own predetermined set of criteria in order to ascertain if these ideas might work. For example, the first set of criteria I seek to measure in a junior mining company has to do with people, projects, the ability to fund, the willingness to promote, and integrity. We all need to create our sets of investing criteria and go from there. I’m not saying that when I offer up ideas, they should be ignored; I’m simply saying that we all need the intellectual tools to be able to take ideas and evaluate them in our own comfort zone.
I have some old friends that are facing some economic hardships and I came to realize that there are millions of us in the same boat. Risk versus reward, especially when it comes to old friends, is a difficult topic to teach or to quantify because one doesn’t want to make the situation worse. However, money and wealth are two different things and we need to understand the difference. Sometimes we need to take a new approach, acquire a new mindset, and if it’s about making money, then lets get on with it.
Let’s shake off the old patterns that don’t work and create new ones that do.
Once we do make the money we need, then it’s about how we can do some good with the extra lying about. We also need to understand that if we are a bit older and deeper in debt, we have to find ways to play catch up. The problem with this scenario is that risk-reward ratio and how we turn it to our advantage.
We also need to understand that making money is a process and a mindset and that money and wealth are dynamic entities. It’s a difficult task to make money; it’s an even more difficult task to hold onto it and not allow it to become our identity. What I discuss in articles such as these, is more important than the specific investment ideas. “Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a person to fish and you feed them for a lifetime”.
I firmly believe that the quality junior mining companies are going to reestablish themselves in the next several years after a year of going sideways. People are going to make fortunes in this sector over the next several years and I’d like you to be one of them. At the very least, I’d like to see you double your money. Again, it’s up to you and how you approach the topic. It is but one way, out of many, to make a few dollars, but it is also a way to begin changing arthritic mindsets that have calcified our thinking into petrified debt.
A Positive Year that Appears to be Getting off to a Shaky Start
January 5, 2007, gold was down $20.00US give or take, and I’m thinking it’s a great buying opportunity. Remember, it’s all about the dollar, and most of the action in gold and silver will be defined by the dollar and the economic picture of the US. I hate to say it but I think the dollar is toast and that the power elite will pull every trick out of their collective hats to keep the charade perpetuated for as long as they can. Actually, they have little choice. One of the reasons the dollar is in such bad shape is because our dear politicians have gotten the country into a maze of debt that is appalling and literally unfathomable.
It’s up to you and I to get ahead of the curve and realize that the power elite has been doing the same thing for the past 5-10-25 years, day in and day out. They’ve been systematically destroying our currency so now the dollar no longer represents wealth—it is money in the United States, but the rest of the world is no longer seeing it as wealth. Inflation may be the immediate problem, but sooner than later, deflation is going to be the larger problem. Inflation has become the problem because the power elite have tried to stave off deflation by creating more dollars. This has only exacerbated the problem because now we have two huge problems instead of one. And yes, we can argue the point that inflation will turn into deflation but I believe we are ultimately going to have both.
I believe this could be a very positive year for the resource sector, but I don’t want to make the mistake of being overly confident or too optimistic. When everyone is saying the same thing, I get nervous. Nevertheless, many factors point in the direction of a good year for the PM sector, especially silver, and it may very well come to pass. But there are so many things that could go wrong. We want to be prepared for all contingencies if possible.
However, in the final analysis, my belief is that gold and silver are going to do very well along with Uranium. I’m definitely in the bullish camp and Heaven knows we’ve all had a long wait for this particular time period. Jim Sinclair believes that we (gold bulls) “own these two years”. We may have a bumpy ride along the way, but I’d be comfortable having a significant portion of my assets in the precious metals sector. By all means, don’t neglect having some “physical” in your possession—but not in a safety deposit box.
As difficult as things may currently be in the world, remember that China is having an Olympic “coming out” party in a few years and we’ll have a US Presidential election around the same time. Bailing Wire, Duct Tape, and Bubble gum may well hold “it” together until then. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. But if America ever needed a knight in shining armor who is not afraid to stand up against the multinational corporations and special interest groups, she needs one now.
Again, please consider that there is really little difference between the Republicans and the Democrats because they all receive the enormous amounts of money necessary to run for office from the same special interest groups. Just as independents and swing voters were the story in the 2006 mid-terms elections, they will also be the story in 2008. America needs an independent thinker in the White House. You and I who are outside of the political mainstream and outside of the Washington Beltway need to understand that “United We Will Stand”.
This first article in the trilogy is once again focusing on success and how to achieve it. We want to create a positive reality for ourselves, our family, and ultimately for our Country. I know there are many seniors and some that aren’t so senior, looking for a path out of the current financial log jam. I’d like to try and offer a little help but we must understand that there are no easy avenues on the road to riches. We have to learn to think for ourselves and not be “Sheeples” as Roger Wiegand and others have so aptly put it. (www.traderrog@comcast.net)
We have to reinvent ourselves and we must learn to think—especially outside the box as they say. In this case, we also need to think outside of the Washington Beltway.
Independent Thinking and the Sunday Morning Political Talk Shows
Or…How can they talk so much and say so little?
Personally, I don’t believe half of what I hear from the mainstream media and the other half is marginal at best. For example, we listen to four or five of the Sunday Morning Political Talk Shows and have never heard such drivel—no one seems to be addressing the difficult economic issues of the day. They’ll talk about the War in Iraq and how most Americans are against it; they’ll talk about who might be running for President in the next election but they don’t talk about the dire straits the US dollar is facing and how it is quickly losing its reserve currency status around the globe. They don’t talk about inflation and the Federal Reserve or how this country has lost most of its manufacturing capacity. They don’t talk about how some of the military planes are older than the pilots flying them. They skirt the edges of the real issues and circumvent reality whenever possible.
My problem with these shows is that millions of people take them seriously! Along that same line:
From Richard Russell’s commentary on December 27, 2006: {No one says it like RR (Dow Theory Letters Inc)}
“I get a kick out of all these central bank governors, here and overseas, constantly warning us about the “terrible danger of inflation.” What a bunch of snake-oil salesmen these guys are. It’s the central banks, themselves, who are pumping out all that extra fiat money that is creating the inflation. It’s like an AIDS carrier indulging in all the sex he can handle while simultaneously warning about the spread of the disease.
So what’s it all about with these central bankers? Simple, they like their cushy jobs along with the perks, and the only thing they’re worried about is that the world will get wise to the central bank/fiat money racket, and maybe kill the beast. In other words, the central banks are afraid that voters will finally move to get rid of the whole private money business along with its nonstop production of intrinsically worthless fiat money.
You see, a real headwind of inflation would anger the public, in which case a few intelligent journalists might start putting the blame where it belongs — on the central banks, not the least of which is our own Federal Reserve. No, too much inflation, surging inflation, would be dangerous — it might expose the Fed and the central banks for what they are — engines of inflation. When you’ve got a great racket going, like taking control of a nation’s money, you want to protect that racket.”
The Sunday Morning talk shows have senators and congress people participating in them but no one wants to offer painful news or deal with real issues because most of them have an agenda—and it’s all about getting reelected. Bad news doesn’t “sell”.
A Weapon of Mass Distraction
Most importantly, politicians don’t ever mention that the War in Iraq is a huge weapon of mass distraction. I, like most of you, detest what is occurring in the Middle East. It is ruining the lives of countess thousands of American families (and Iraqi ones) while running down our military and destroying the international prestige of America. It is sucking up huge amounts of US resources that should be going into our Country.
Our national infrastructure is crumbling while our politicians are talking about rebuilding another one in Iraq that the US military just blew up in their “shock and awe” campaign. The American taxpayer is supposed to pay for two huge reconstruction programs? There is not enough money to pay for one. Ladies and Gentlemen, America is broke. If it wasn’t, we would not be 60 trillion dollars in debt. We would not be going into debt at the rate of one billion dollars a day. Americans would be afforded adequate health insurance and New Orleans would not have gone through the nightmare it did. A little common sense goes a long way here.
This is not a war endorsed by the American Public so I don’t think we need to put the blame of them. They were bamboozled right from the beginning.
I think that “Shock and Awe” and “bring it on” were two arrogant phrases that personify the futility of that entire disaster. Of course, our kids, many who just wanted to go to college or foreign nationals, who just wanted to become American citizens, have born the brunt of that arrogance but the entire Country is paying the price and will pay the price for years to come We are referring to hundreds of billions of dollars. The National Guard is also paying the price—I don’t recall it being called the Foreign Guard; so what happened? Men and Women in their 40’s and 50’s are paying the ultimate price.
It’s all about Painting and Positioning.
Politicians paint a rosy scenario, or one that is inaccurate, or one that is nonsensical, or one that blames someone else for the mess we’re in. How many of our politicians do you see accepting responsibility? Then they position themselves to take advantage of whichever way was most advantageous to them personally. Mostly that entails positioning themselves to get reelected. I believe that more than any other area, the political arena is where one needs to understand that nothing occurs in a vacuum. Whatever happened to TERM LIMITS? I thought that Congress was only allowed two terms and then back to the farm—Hmmm; that must have been ruled unconstitutional or the farm was foreclosed upon. Perhaps term limits don’t begin until 2050?
Americans need to Position themselves!
This is the year that we Americans need to position ourselves so that we’re in better shape to deal with a frightfully uncertain future. Of course the first thing to do is to get out of debt but that’s easier said than done. I believe that most of us would, if we could. It is even more difficult for people over fifty or sixty because their prime earning years are behind them and paying down debt in a world where inflation and prices are moving up while salaries remain the same is difficult at best. One medical mishap can do you in if you’re without adequate insurance.
We’ve dug ourselves some pretty deep holes out there, and we’re going to have to fill them in and quickly. One way to accomplish this is to become better investors in a shorter period of time. That of course, entails more risk. And yes there is risk and a lot of it is in the junior mining sector. However, well chosen companies with experienced management can help to minimize that risk and still offer amazing returns.
Last year was good; this year could be better—but we had best understand a constantly changing financial and political landscape and what that can mean on a personal and national level. I believe that precious metals will do well but I feel the jury is still out on the base metals. We shall see if the Asian boom continues. If the huge gas pipelines continue under construction, molybdenum should do well.
In the last section of this trilogy, I am going to offer up some personal opinions as to what companies I believe may do very well this year. But these are opinions and we all have to perform our own due diligence and make our own determinations.
The good news is that the primary trend in Precious Metals is up and the general public on balance is still unaware of the potential of this sector.
Best Wishes for 2007
I’ve had some opportunity to be quiet and to contemplate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness over the Holidays. I believe that there is power in numbers and that there is a real opportunity to accomplish some positive and constructive goals this year. How we do that as a group is still being carefully considered. More of these ideas, financial and personal, will be relayed via our ever expanding database. Please do consider sending us a quick Email along with your ideas and your address. I’m keeping it very informal for a reason and that reason is that I want this to be low key arrangement. Your information will be kept totally confidential and you won’t be inundated with Spam. I’m after quality more than quantity.
Attached is a song I wrote several years back with hopes that it might find its way to Bette Midler. Musically, I thought it was perfect for her because that girl can sing. Lyrically, allow me to offer the sentiment to you, your family, and loved ones with all good wishes for a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2007.
Let your light shine through—especially when you are financially successful.
Until next time, when I’ll be posting The 2007 Gift to the Gold Community,
D. Stewart Armstrong
“Light”
D. Stewart Armstrong
Verse
In everything living thing there is a light
Sometimes shining faintly, sometimes burning bright
Sometimes it may flicker, it may even fade
But it glows within the heart, another fire to be made
In every loving heart there is a plan
To brighten up the darkness in any way we can
Our need to keep on growing, is to reach a higher plane
Find our balance in the light and do it all again
Chorus
Let your light shine through
Let it show the best in you
In every single thought and thing you do
Let your light shine through
Bridge:
Can we really make a difference?
Can we live in harmony?
We must cultivate each glimmer
Of light we ever see…
Verse
In every single mind there is a seed,
Sometimes buried deeply or growing like a weed
It needs to be attended, nurtured and believed
When showered with the light, Love will be conceived
Let your light shine through
Let it show the best in you
In ever single thought and thing you do
Let your light shine through
In every single thought and thing you do
Let your light shine through
Posted by D.Stewart Armstrong in Articles