Investing during a Global Crisis: by "Zapata" George Blake
- Oil: In the near term (3 to 6 months, oil is going to skyrocket. If you can afford the margin calls (it will dip slightly now and then), this is a good bet. Otherwise, try to trade within your limited in case it drops by 10 percent.
- Gold: cash in the bank, especially U.S. dollars, are becoming worthless. Consider swapping any idle dollars you have into gold.
- Land: especially agricultural land that's windy or has some other rnnewable energy prodocut (like wind or a stream or underground water) on it. You're also going to have to learn how to farm and defend your land and embrace communities that may not be too keen on embracing you. There's a reason Texan's cherish their rifles and shotguns and it has a lot to do with well water, cattle and crops to feed their families. Another group of mouths, especially a million city folks trying to move the the country, whether its Kansas or the Dakotas, Siberia or Argentina, isn't generally welcomed easily in areas where water resources may already be thin or where drought is already the norm. There's a fine balance in these types of communities between forming alliances of just the right number (what the Earth will support) and accepting a few mouths too many (or 10,000 new mouths). Will you share your dwindling water supplies with your neighbors? What will you do if strangers move into your area and start drilling new wells or rasinig livestock that might be feeding on open range your livestock was using or shopping at your local general store when shelves are already half-empty, if not nearly wiped out or lining up at your local gas pumps when the line is already 500 cars deep?
Naturally, I must be dilusional: America has never had gas lines, stores had plenty of supplies after hurricane Katrina and despite all the scientific evidence supporting global warming, you're probably thinking this drought thing will be over in a few months.
Think again.
- Wells and Water: streams can be dammed. Wells can run dry. You're probably going to want to install a catchments system to capture rainwater and you'd be wise to pressure your City Counsil into quickly investing in similar technology as Orange County, California is using to recycle sewage into drinking water. Gross? Actually, the product is cleaner than the water they're pulling out of the ground.
- Mining: gold is going to go through the roof. If you think $1000 an ounce is high, wait until you see the headlines as gas prices go through the roof and the dollar continues its crash. The problem is most people don't have enough spare cash to capitalize on this market and those that do would probably be wiser to invest in isolated, rural farmland and books on farming.
- Rnewable Energy Systems: whether its a small-wind rig for the ranch you have or a medium sized wind-rig for your local hospital or a megawatt wind system for your town, you'd better get on the ball. That includes bio-fuel systems that aren't based on food stocks or are based on food stocks that are often left rotting in the field due to over-production. Did you know that while corn prices were skyrocketing due to ethanol purchases, sweet potatoes were rotting in the field due to over-production? Did you know sweet potatoes produce fifty percent more ethanol per acre as corn? Bio-mass is another safe bet; methane products from human waste are already advanced enough for many communities to deploy them on a city-wide basis. And I again mention solar hot water systems for your roof; perhaps the least expensive way to make an impact on your fuel costs.
The CEO of Gold Pact Power has lived without utility grade power (electricity from the utility company) for over 8 years. You might want to start learning how to do it too by investing your free cash in small systems you can apply to your land, your home and your family.
- Large Renewable Energy Systems: People in the Middle East holding Petro Dollars are in for a shock. Those instruments are going to become worthless in the near future. The smartest thing they can invest in is either directly with a comprehensive renewable energy company that engineers a variety of generating technologies, or in either the equipment (like wind turbines and desalinization plants) or raw materials (like copper to expand the transmission lines). Investing in renewable energy systems to drive cities, desalinization plants and electrified tractors (assuming you can find them or modify existing tractors to 100% electricity). The same thing goes for electrified mass-transit systems, since automobiles won't be getting much use when a nation is scrambling to focus its dwindling oil supplies on crop and water production. Even nuclear power is making a come-back and the first plant in 30 years is being built by NRG in the New England Region. There is no single renewable energy technology that will save the day. The answer, if its possible at all (and I doun't think it is) will come from a variety of renewable energy technologies.
These are just a few of the general guidelines for what's going to be part of some very hot investments over the next year or two. I have more...many, many others I'd be happy to discuss with you personally, from ownership in sea-faring companies (some fishing boats are actually converting back to sail), to copper and aluminum mines. Please use the Ask A Question link on the left side-bar to establish a relationship with our office and see if there's some information I can send your way to make your life a bit easier through this transition.
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