Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of October 16, 2012

Article Excerpt

The U.S. and other countries are running vast federal budget deficits these days. This hurts the broad economy, but it brings opportunity to one small slice of it. That’s the investment marketers who focus on hyperinflation risk to market their overpriced gold coins, gems and other collectibles. The marketers say these products can protect your assets in a period of hyperinflation, but this is by no means certain. Hyperinflation is extremely rare. The term refers to inflation that becomes so intense that money soon loses all its value. This is quite different from today’s mild inflation. The hyperinflation industry has been around at least since the high-inflation days of the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, hyperinflation marketers used to try to put on a scholarly air. Now many simply wing it. For example, one of our portfolio management clients sent us a quote from a hyperinflation marketing piece and asked what we thought. The quote said that hyperinflation had happened in Russia and…