When in doubt, win the war!

I have been remiss from writing this blog, but I have a good excuse.  I have put the time to good use, and finished revising my third novel, which I call "When in Doubt, Win the War."  I shipped the manuscript to the publisher this week, and I will still have to review the galley proofs, but it is finally finished.  Only took me four years, too.  But in my defense, life kind of got in the way for a couple of those years.

Anyway, I meant to get back to writing about the economy, but so much has happened that I don't know where to start.  We are in the middle of a credit crunch that has knocked the stuffing out of silver, gold, and the related mining stocks.  Oil has gone down as well, but that was because of me.  I organized a one-man boycott and did not buy any gasoline in June, July, or August.  You can do stuff like that when you're retired.  The resulting demand destruction caused the oil price to collapse from near 150 to less than 100.

However, we are still in the midst of a secular bull market in commodities, and it is only government intervention on a scale the old Soviet Politburo would have been proud of that is restraining asset values.  The distortions in the market have become so blatant that even Hitler is angry about it.  Really, he is.  Just watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVB-SSkkLnY

That's what you get when you use margin.  Ol' Adolf didn't know that der trend iss your friend!  If only he had been able to hold on for a few more days, gold went up $85 on Wednesday.  Such are the fortunes of war.  Speaking of war, the lesson to be learned in times like these is that the time to buy is now, when there is blood in the streets.  Here is a lesson from history.

In 211 BC, Rome was at war with its ancient enemy, Carthage.  The great Carthaginian general Hannibal had already defeated the Romans in battle several times, and had slaughtered their armies.  In 211 he marched his army to the gates of Rome itself, throwing the city into a panic.  As luck would have it, the land outside the city happened to be up for sale.

Someone bought the property despite the fact that it was encumbered by having the entire Carthginian army camped on it.  The buyer must have been confident that Rome would eventually drive off the enemy.  And in the end, the Romans would sack Carthage, burn the city to the ground, and then dump salt in the earth so that nothing would ever grow there again.  The Romans took their wars seriously; no Marshall Plans for them.

But my point is that when things look bleak, that is the time to buy, not sell, as Fortune favors the bold.