Philip G. Zimbardo, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University, has studied how we as humans perceive time.1 It seems that humans live in six psychological time zones: two in the past, two in the present, and two in the future. He divides the past into positive (those who are nostalgic, but also the keepers of family records, etc.) and

As an aside, both your humble authors are believers in owning gold, and in some countries and currencies, owning more than a small insurance portfolio is well recommended. For us, gold is not so much an inflation hedge as a currency hedge.

there is a well-known pattern in government behavior called financial oppression: There exists an alternative to outright default. “Financial oppression” (imposing on creditors real rates of return that are either negative or artificially low) has been used repeatedly in history in similar circumstances. Investors should be prepared to face financi

Job Creation and Loss by Firm Age (average per year, by year-group, 1992–2005)

While it is unlikely that the United States, Japan, or any other country will soon enter hyperinflation, the situation could change in the future if any of the central banks were to lose their independence or continue to coordinate their actions with their treasuries.

The following list comes from Michael Pettis, a very incisive commentator on global economics. It is probably one of the best single pieces you can read on how to identify problem countries in advance. Here is a slightly edited version of Michael Pettis’s five things that matter.3 1. Debt levels matter. The best way to measure them is as total debt

One last thought: Let’s assume that we find the political will to begin the process of creating some version of the glide path option, which we admit is not easy. That means the most important election in this whole process was not the one last November, nor will it be the one in 2012. Rather, it will be the one in 2014.

Each took place at a time when conflicting demands on finite government resources were high, and rentiers wielded reduced political power.6 Currently we’re beginning to see the financial oppression in developed countries. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe, governments have forced their social security funds to only buy government

This squares solidly with the work done by Rogoff and Reinhart, showing that when the debt of a country reaches about 100 percent of GDP, there is a reduction in potential GDP growth of about 1 percent. As we wrote earlier, government debt and spending do not increase productivity. That takes private investment. And if government debt crowds out pr