| Gold
is one of the world's oldest and most stable repositories of wealth.
For centuries, it was the basis of monetary systems; today, those
who advocate a monetary gold standard (or gold investments as
a way to protect assests from inflation) are often known as "gold
bugs."
Many
gold bugs are deeply suspicious about government control of
money; they note that governments
can create spending or cause inflation, but they cannot
create gold at will. Freely circulating gold is thus a check
on monetary authorities - and this creates intense controversies
about the monetary role of gold and its relationship to political
and economic power. President Franklin D. Roosevelt suspended
the free circulation of gold coins in 1933. President Richard
Nixon in 1971 ended the convertibility of U.S. dollars to
gold, thus ending a de facto gold standard in favor of a system
of floating monetary exchange note.
The
financial newsletter industry provides a colorful and spirited
alternative to the mainstream financial press. It is an industry
full of self-taught mavericks - some well-organized and well-capitalized,
and others producing little more than kitchen table paste-up
jobs. Often treated like a black sheep cousin by power brokers
on Wall Street,
newsletter writers are an important counterpoint to conventional
opinion, and often a powerful source of investment insights.
Financial Writers and
Gurus is the story of the alternative financial press, with
some thoughts and guidelines about what to expect form a newsletter
advisor, how to separate the wheat from the overabundant chaff
- and how to find the right advisor for you.
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