You Want to Own Things The Enemy Can't Print
Mac Slavo

Whether you have limited means directed at specific collapse-proof assets, or you’re an investor with capital in personal savings or stock portfolios, there exist a number of strategies that can help you to not only mitigate a worst-case scenario crisis, but to come out ahead should it come to pass.

Rick Rule is the Chairman and Founder of Sprott Global Resource Investments Ltd., and one of the world’s foremost experts on non-traditional investments during times of uncertainty. The company manages some $10 billion in investments for clients. Sprott is one of the few firms that has been highly recommended by contrarian investors, as they not only talk the talk, but walk the walk, having created a massive store of physical gold and silver to back some of their leading investment funds. With currencies being devalued to the tune of billions of dollars monthly and government debt skyrocketing at an unprecedented pace, getting into the mind of someone who’s seen and prospered from cataclysmic market events over the last 40 years can help us to identify opportunities where none seem to exist.

From how to trade stocks in erratic markets to investment strategies that target long-term global trends like dwindling resources and economies on the brink of disaster, the following interview with Rick Rule from Future Money Trends covers numerous topics that include how he thrived during geo-political calamity, his past stock investment mistakes, the outlook for precious metals, how cold hard cash will play a role when markets collapse, and preparing for a world where even our most precious global asset – fresh water – becomes almost impossible to acquire.

When looking for the best way to allocate your hard earned money, start with one of the key rules Rick follows:

 ”You want to own things the enemy can’t print.”

Watch the full interview from Future Money Trends:

Rick Rule on precious metals:

I like all forms of bullion…

I believe, if pushed, that the best form of bullion in terms of price appreciation for the next one or two years, is platinum and palladium.

I don’t believe it’s because of the monetary aspects of it. I believe it because the industry does not earn its cost of capital at this price point.

I believe it because on the supply side there’s no above ground inventory. All the platinum and palladium that’s ever been mined has gone out a tail pipe, it’s gone up a smokestack or it’s gotten turned into jewelry.

On why you should have some dollars in your reserves:

I think you have to own some dollars.

I think you have to acquaint yourself with the fact that liquidity is a tool in turbulent markets. You have to have some dollars knowing you’re going to lose 2% or 3% compounded. Because, as turbulence increases, cash will give you the means and the courage to take advantage of the mistakes that other people will make in a 2008 style market.

The first thing is you have to choke down the fact that you’re losing money in the real sense and have some cash.

Ugly lesson, but we have to do it.

The second thing is that some of that cash ought to be bullion. Some of that cash ought to be a store of value that’s a medium of exchange.

I can’t tell the individual speculator if they should be long gold or silver or platinum.

If somebody asked me that question I would say “yes,” as opposed to making a choice.

On dwindling Western water resources:

We haven’t had a situation where we’ve had to ration it by price before.

Water is allocated in the west politically, it’s not allocated by the market…

…We do things as a consequence of that like growing rice in the desert.

We do some phenomenally stupid things with our water, but it’s protected by law.

And the law is protected by guns. 

In a real market you wouldn’t have any problem like this. We have these adjudicated rights to water.

As a consequence we’ve subsidized people’s water consumption to the point where it isn’t enough to say that we’re vulnerable to a drought.

You have to say that if there is a drought there’s going to be massive dislocation. 

Part of me would like to see nature and the market triumph…

You may be an average American struggling to make ends meet, a retiree with a sizable savings account, or an investors with capital at the ready. Whatever your means, Rick Rule’s ideas can apply to your situation.

Consider a scenario where financial markets and the economy collapse similar to 2008, but more severe. As counter-intuitive as holding US dollars may sound, if prices in commodities like food or precious metals collapse, or farmland drops to 20 cents on the dollar like it did during the Great Depression, you’ll want to have cash on hand to quickly accumulate whatever you can.

At the same time, perhaps the US dollar melts down in an overnight ‘waterfall’ event, leaving much of your cash worthless — if you don’t have some medium of exchange like gold, silver or platinum, then you’ll have no way of engaging in trade.

Likewise, while Rick Rule focuses on water in this interview, there is a broader trend surrounding the allocation of resources through political means, and it affects not just water, but energy and food as well. Should we have a crisis in one of these sectors, it could cause significant dislocation in the others.

Diversification and assuming that multiple events of varying degrees and effects can play out is critical to any complete SHTF plan.

If you’re caught unprepared with none of these ‘hard assets’ in your personal inventory, how will you manage?

If you focus on the things the enemy can’t print or manipulate, primarily hard assets that will always be necessary for day-to-day human functioning and survival, you’ll come out much better off than most when the system descends into crisis.

Hat tip Future Money Trends

www.shtfplan.com