“Gold should also have modern appeal in a world increasingly suspicious of central planning. The gold standard is an automatic mechanism, operated in a decentralized manner that coordinates the self-interest of all market participants. As such, gold is uniquely equipped to accommodate the greater sophistication and complexity that come with globally integrated markets. In contrast, […]

The next time you encounter a “talking head” pontificating about “where investors should be during this phase of the business cycle,” reach for the remote. During recessions the financial media invariably fixate on whether recovery has begun and what that portends for investors. However, economic indicators in fact provide no information that is useful with

From time to time it falls upon us to pull away the punch bowl just when the party is in full swing. To that end we remind our readers that gold, now at an all time high, is by far the most volatile of our recommended asset classes. Our target allocations exist to ensure discipline,

“Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the central bank is already developing plans for a world without Treasury securities and gave members of the bond industry something of a nudge to begin their own planning. . . . Mr. Greenspan expressed confidence that worker-productivity gains will continue, enabling the nation’s debts to be paid off

Not so long ago, the consensus of the economics profession was that economic growth above some “sustainable” level (typically given as 2 1/2%), would create shortages and bottlenecks that would lead to price inflation. Accelerating price increases would then, it was believed, force the Federal Reserve to choke off growth with tight money and high

Most individuals do not begin to think about accumulating, or are unable to set aside, funds for retirement until they reach their late 40s or 50s. Starting much sooner can be astonishingly rewarding. In the instances of an IRA, which has a $2,000 limit on annual contributions, the annual earnings an account receiving $2,000 annually

Despite the rapid deterioration of the leading indicators during recent months, the prevailing view on Wall Street and in Washington D.C. seems to be that economic growth will slow from the pace of recent years, but that there will be no recession. When President-elect Bush visited the White House on December 19, President Clinton noted