dualstow wrote:
Honestly, if I only knew about your survivalist classes -- not that there's anything wrong with them; they're cool -- I'd be less inclined to buy bullion coins. But, there's a parallel to Harry's past, his pre-PP investment career.
You know I didn't even want to post about the classes because of that reason of what people would think. I just took it because I do spend a lot of time in the woods and also volunteer for the Forest Service from time to time. That puts me in the backcountry at times. And by backcountry I don't mean a city park. I mean places many miles away from a trailhead with no cellphone service and no people around if things go wrong. The national forest near me is larger than some countries (and almost some states)!
So my goal for the survival classes really was more to expand my bushcraft skills because I actually make use of them. This particular class really had nothing to do with doomsday scenarios. It really was about staying alive if lost in the woods and getting rescued. I could have packed in some gold, but it would have put my pack weight up too high and I'd rather have had food and water.
When I see that someone who worked with computers and security & who sold a business to Cisco is willing to dive into a 25% gold allocation, that looks like someone with a genuinely open mind.
I'll just say this. I was not an easy convert, especially on the gold allocation. It took a lot of research of financial markets and history for me to make the jump. I am not a gold bug and I clearly recognize the risks of gold. But I also see the positives. As my wife would say about people talking about gold being "dead weight":
The ropes and gear a rock climber carries are dead weight as well. But the one time you need it you'll be glad about all those years you had to lug it around unused.
I haven't taken the plunge yet, other than a paltry sum invested in PRPFX. But, I'll be converting some of my holdings to TLT/VUSTX, coins and cash in 2011. Looking forward to it!
After I did my conversion I slept a lot better. I wish I had found the strategy when I started investing in 1994. I followed a lot of advice early on that was not very good (but sounded good) and it really hurt my savings.
