Crisis Investing: Opportunities and Profits in the Coming Great Depression (Hardcover)

This book, written by a most public persona from the temple of gold-bug mania, one who has endured as a perma-bear over the last 30 years, should be a required afternoon's reading entertainment for those novice, hopeful, knock-a-homa, Joe-six-pack investors everywhere, who would entertain the acquisition of gold as a portfolio hedge or as a road to riches. Like the failed perfidies of socialism this errant advice is still proffered in the 21st century, and who is to say that the author might not ultimately by given his due? However, the repetitive spins of culture have a way of casting before us the prevailing evidence of continued farce so evident in so many facets of human behavior; why not once again?

To fully follow Doug's logic one would have to go to the nub of his theories and test for validity, something he has never done. In fact, if his blandishments were correct in 1975, when he first began writing on subjects as all-encompassing as "the bankruptcy of the world's financial systems", and on the idea that "gold will continue to be the lynchpin of modern economics", then a back casting of his theories, from 2002 to 1975, should serve as a way to test the confirmation of his continuing advocacy? Or is there no other way save wait out the seasons of financial chicanery of criminal and dictatorial elite's as they plunder national treasuries about the globe? In this sense it would be necessary to examine the author's predictions and advocacy of anarchy as a way to govern the affairs of society, against the backdrop of history.

The fact that his book sells for $.50 as a relic of the seventies gives one an indication of the verdict of history as rendered by thousands of readers and investors. By heeding, and worshipping only at the altar of the school of rational calculation, Doug has failed to fully comprehend human nature and its various cultures. This is why backcasting his theories over history has ended with them being relegated to the far, far fringes of public policy. While Doug is a facile and entertaining writer, gifted with an ability to multi-task in a way that most mortals could only dream of, his historic revelations belong in the same dustbin of history with Marx and Malthus as regards his forecasting with predictive accuracy. The reason? His basic set of premises are fatally flawed.

If one reads the most recent of this trilogy, "Crisis Investing", published roughly circa 1980; "Strategic Investing" - 1983, and "Crisis Investing for the rest of the 90's" - 1993, one can only marvel at the missing chapters on the rise of the micro-chip revolution, and its effects on gold as a final currency. Beyond that one can continue to be aghast at the author's reasoning as to the way society might be ordered; Ayn Rand's Galt's Gulch being a fantasy of the first order. Anarchy? Show me a successful historical example?

The prime underpinning of Doug's theory is that government is unnecessary. This makes anarchy a possibility for comprising a heaven on earth community. A cursory reading of "the military 100" would disabuse the average person, but not so with our intrepid visionary. He airily dismisses such objections with a cursory "all those guys just......", and then trails off into the intellectual arena of God knows where.

Doug believes that if we don't bother them they won't bother us. He believes that mercenaries and bounty hunters can be hired to fend off the i.e. al-quaeda. That this analysis is totally at odds with history does not seem to phase Doug, intrepid analyst that he is. Just like our socialist brethren, who have been responsible for so much human misery, Doug treads into intellectual quicksand by averring that "just because it hasn't happened yet does not mean that it cannot happen in the future". By this I mean Libertarianism. If you believe it will work then I have a bridge to sell you. And, you're going to lose your shirt investing in the next run-up in the prices of gold stocks. To repeat myself, rarely have so many lost so much by following the advice of so few.

The theme of this book, and indeed of all three of his books, is that:
1 - mankind cannot devise a government worth having.
2- that any government will eventually debase the currency making gold the only solution for those who wish to conduct commerce, and.....
3 - that the masses of humanity, so ignorant and incapable of learning from historical mistakes, will only be a burden on the "producers", as articulated in Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".

From this societal malady, only one solution can be rendered; that is to nsulate oneself from the onion breathed multitude through isolation in a Switzerland-style redoubt in i.e. the rocky mountains, in a modern day "Galt's Gulch". It is there that our modern day "dogs of war" will protect our producers from those who would steal their possessions.

For contrast on Doug's theories please read "the Twilight of Sovereignty" by Walter Wriston - circa 1992, or "the Vandals' Crown" by Millman, circa 1995. These books will explain how the micro-chip has made gold a 3rd rate currency hedge and no longer the final solution for national monetary systems. Read "the Military 100", about the most influential military leaders in history. In order to augment your understanding of the need for government pay particular attention to Machiavelli, Jomini, Sun Tsu and Clausewitz. Compare and contrast what you learn with Doug's advice.

Read the trilogy, Doug is a very bright and an interesting guy. The exercise will make you think and that, in and of itself, is a good thing. I've learned much while listening to him, you could also.