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Straight Talk ***************************************************** An Overdose of Investment Advice Whew! By the time you receive this, I will have just finished my MC duties at two back-to-back investment conferences. First came the Atlanta Investment Conference, where a host of newsletter editors, market analysts, and other wizards told us what they expected the market to do over the coming months. Best line of the conference was someone who quoted Barack Obama as saying, "If I weren't President, I'd be buying stocks now." And followed it by saying, "Heck, if he weren't President, I'd be buying stocks, too." Before I could compile a list for you of their best recommendations, I had to hop on a plane and fly to Bermuda (yes, sometimes it's tough duty), where I was the MC for the Total Wealth Symposium sponsored by the Sovereign Society. The focus there was on international diversification, rather than stock picks in the U.S. There was an overwhelming consensus on the part of the speakers that the tsunami of new spending coming out of Washington is going to do terrible things to the U.S. dollar. It's going to take me several more days to sift through all of the ideas I heard and come up with a coherent summary for you. But that will be high on my list of priorities when I return home. So for this week, no specific investment suggestions for you. Instead, I want to repeat some of the best financial advice that's ever appeared in this column. Dennis Gartman's Rules of Investing One of the smartest market commentators in the business is Dennis Gartman. I've had the pleasure of hearing him at several investment conferences and have even had the privilege of introducing him once or twice.
Thanks, Dennis. Every business day of the week, Dennis arises in the small hours of the morning and writes The Gartman Letter, a market commentary that many consider the best in the business. To learn more about it, check it out at www.thegartmanletter.com. Chip Shots * Punished for telling the truth. I feel sorry for Carrie Prejean, the Miss California representative in the Miss USA Pageant. At the beginning of the contest, this lovely lady was favored by many to win. But then one of the judges asked her about same-sex marriages. She replied, graciously I thought, that she had been raised to believe marriage should be between a man and a woman, but that she wouldn't judge someone who felt otherwise. That was all it took for the homosexual lobby to go after her scalp. So what if a majority of Americans agree with her? There went her chances of winning. * Bigger bills get spent slower. Here's an interesting study from researchers at the University of Maryland. It seems that the larger the dollar bill we carry, the slower we are to spend it. Most people are unlikely to break a $20 bill to buy a pack of gum; but if they have 20 $1 bills, they won't hesitate to make the purchase. If all you have on you is a $100 bill, you won't spend it unless it's important. But break that into a bunch of $5s and $10s, and your impulse buying goes way up. * All the gold in Fort Knox isn't enough. Stewart Dougherty, author of Theft of a Nation, comments that "The United States of America, or more precisely, the American people, are said to own 261 million ounces of gold, supposedly stored in the same Fort Knox vault that Goldfinger found so appealing. At $1,000 per ounce, the people's gold has a value of $261 billion. TARP I alone has cost 270% of the entire value of that singular, tangible American asset. The total $13 trillion bailout cost thus far is 4,980% of the value of America's gold." * Seventy-four years ago this month, Congress approved legislation creating the Works Progress Administration. The program created 8.5 million jobs for the unemployed in public works projects. Americans quickly coined the name "We Piddle Around" for the WPA, because so many of the make-work jobs consisted of standing around leaning on shovels. What do you think the chances are that this time will be any different? This Week in History Hiss was not the only American involved in the formation of the United Nations who was later revealed to be a Communist. In fact, of the 18 Americans cited by the State Department in 1950 as "the important men who shaped the UN," all but one were later identified as Communists. The lone exception was former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who may not have been red, but was certainly a very pink Establishment insider. With such a record, it is no surprise that the UN's "Universal Declaration of Rights" makes absolutely no mention of the source of our rights being a Creator — or anything else but government — and further says that all rights and freedoms "shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law." ************************************************* Straight Talk is a weekly commentary written by Chip Wood. For many years Chip was the host of an award-winning radio talk show in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the founder of Soundview Publications and serves as an MC at several investment conferences. His weekly rants and raves are free for the asking at www.straighttalkletter.com. Copyright 2009 Soundview Communications, Inc. To ask a question or to comment on something you've read in Straight Talk, please write to Chip@StraightTalkLetter.com We have a strict anti-spam policy. We know how important your privacy is to you. That's
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