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Most Read Posts (64 articles) – Discover which articles Underground Investor™ readers are most interested in. See the full database, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below,  by clicking the link above.

Sept. 27, 2007 – 101 Reasons Why Managing Your Money is the Quickest Way to Build Wealth
Sept. 25, 2007 – 10 Surefire Ways to Make an Investment Fortune
Sept. 15, 2007 – Why the U.S. Feds 0.50% Rate Cut Won’t Save the Markets
Sept. 15, 2007 – U.S. Interest Rate Cut to Have Little Long-Term Positive Effect
Aug. 20, 2007 – How Much Does the Gov’t Really Manipulate Markets
Aug. 9, 2007 – More Gov’t Foolishness (or Lies) Again: Markets are Sound…NOT!
Aug. 9, 2007 – Chinese Tariffs and the Nuclear Option
Jul. 24, 2007 – How to Invest Like the World’s Greatest Investors
Jun. 17, 2007 – Get Out of Dollar-Denominated Bonds While You Still Can!
May 1, 2007 – Uranium Stocks are Finally Getting the Attention They Deserve
Apr. 23, 2007 – The Emperor’s New Clothes Abound in the Investment Industry. Don’t Get Cheated by Your Advisor
Apr. 20, 2007 – Use Intelligent Strategies to Push Risk Back onto Investment Firms
Apr. 19, 2007 – In Risky Markets, Follow the Behavior of the Ultra-Rich, Not the Rich
Apr. 12, 2007 – The Secret to Investing

Gold Investments (37 articles) - Use traditional rules to invest in gold stocks and you’ll lose money hand over fist with this asset class. Learn more about one of the most important components of every portfolio for future years to come. See the full database, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below, by clicking the above link.

April 23, 2008 – Will U.S. Markets Crash Now or Later?
Feb. 4, 2008 – Could Chinese New Year’s Fuel the Next Rally Higher for Gold Stocks?
Jan. 29, 2008 – Even After This Strong Run, Gold Stocks are Still a Bargain Today. Here’s Why.
Jan. 5, 2008 – A Sneak Peak at Our Premium Level Information
Nov. 4, 2007 – Is Hyperinflation Coming to the U.S.? It’s Time to Stock Up on Gold.
Nov. 4. 2007 – Gold is the Best Investment Today, History Tells Us So.
Nov. 2, 3007 – Gold Expensive at $791/oz.? Not by a Longshot
Jun. 5, 2007 – Learn How NOT to Invest in Gold
Mar. 30, 2007 – Navigate the Minefields of the Investment Information Highway
Mar. 7, 2007 – This Bounce in Gold Markets Merits a Cautious Approach
Mar. 6, 2007 – Gold Stocks Correction – What it Means?
Feb. 28, 2007 – How to Profit from a Weakening Market, Gold Stocks, & More, Part II
Feb. 28, 2007 – Buying Opportunity in Gold Stocks
Feb. 28, 2007 – How to Profit from a Weakening Market, Gold Stocks, & More, Part I
Feb. 23, 2007 – Uncover the Ignored Asset Classes
Feb. 12, 2007 – How Do I Know that Institutional Money is Still Not on Board with Gold?
Jan. 25, 2007 – If You Don’t Own Gold Stocks, You Need To
Jan. 23, 2007 – Building Wealth Requires More than Just Contrarian Investing
Jan. 14, 2007 – Use the Long Tail of Investing to Accurately Predict the Price of Gold
Jan. 11, 2007 – The REAL DEAL about Gold and Energy
Dec. 13, 2007 – Commodities and Asians: Apparently We All Look Alike
Nov. 6, 2006 – Sometimes Silence is Golden
Oct. 10, 2006 – Shock and Awe Awaits Global Markets
Oct. 4, 2006 – Is Gold’s Correction Over Yet?
Oct. 2, 2006 – Fiat Currency Concerns Give Rise to a Gold & Silver Backed Currency System
Oct. 1, 2006 – The Gold Timeline – A History of Gold Prices
Sept. 16, 2006 – Has the Commodities Bubble Burst? No, No, No!
Sept. 13, 2006 – Sell the Rumor, Buy the News
Sept. 11, 2006 – Gold’s Speculative Stigma is Unwarranted
Sept. 3, 2006 – Gold’s Glitter is Genuine
Aug. 14, 2006- Knowing Your History is More Important to Creating Wealth than Fundamental Analysis

Financial Crisis, Dollar Crisis & Recession Proof Investing (30 articles) – Foolish investors’ eyes lit up as New Century Financial dropped from $30 to $20 a share during the recent subprime mortgage fiasco. Their hearts thumped with excitement as shares dropped from $20 to $10 and they doubled down. When shares dropped to $5 they thought it had to be the bottom and put their last remaining money into New Century. A month later, they lost everything. There is similar optimism surrounding the dollar today from self-declared currency experts. Discover why the dollar is much more likely to go the way of New Century than experience a comeback like Muhammad Ali’s Rumble in the Jungle. For the most recent articles, perhaps not listed below, click the above category link.

June 26, 2008 – The One Question That Will Have the Greatest Impact on Your Financial Future
May 14, 2008 – What’s Driving the Price of Oil Higher? It’s the Dollar, Stupid!
April 30, 2008 - How Low Will the Feds Go?
April 17, 2008 – Monetary Inflation. How Increased Paper Wealth Can Translate into a Lower Standard of Living
March 3, 2008 – Why Investors Will Never Make Money in this Bear Market
Feb. 20, 2008 – The Secret to Building Wealth in Volatile Markets
Feb. 6, 2008 – Is Recession in the U.S. Coming? We’re Already in One.
Jan. 28, 2008 – The Outcome of the Fed’s Interest Rate Cuts? History is the Best Oracle.
Jan. 24, 2008 – The Fed’s 0.75% Interest Rate Cut – A Recipe for Future Disaster
Dec. 7, 2007 – The Dollar Panic. Is it Real?
Sept. 19, 2007 – Signs of a Peak Investment Crisis Keep Coming
June 18, 2007 – Alan Greenspan’s Call of Checkmate on China is Premature
June 17, 2007 – PIMCO’s Bill Gross and the Economist Agree with SmartKnowledgeU 6 Months After the Fact!
May 28, 2007 – The Politics of Higher Oil Prices
May 26, 2007 – Asian Countries Pooling Reserves to Protect Themselves from the Incredible Shrinking Dollar, Part II
May 25, 2007 – Asian Countries Pooling Reserves, Part I
May 3, 2007 – The Death of the 3-Year Treasury Note
Apr. 1, 2007 – The Next Cold War Will be an Economic One
Jan. 25, 2007 – Dollar-Denominated Bonds Faltering
Jan. 9, 2007 – Use the Longtail of Investing to Accurately Predict Dollar Behavior
Jan 7, 2007 – 10 Reasons Why Dollar-Denominate Bonds Aren’t Safe
Dec. 21, 2006 – Iran Presents More Trouble for the U.S. Dollar
Dec. 7, 2006 – The U.S. has Perfected the Incredible Shrinking Dollar

Free Stock Picks (24 articles) – While our top-shelf stock picks and ideas that have since returned 100% to 200% returns are reserved for our members only, here read articles about some mid-shelf stock picks and ideas that have already returned 30% returns in less than a year. Access the full database, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below,  by clicking the topic link above.

Jun. 4, 2007 – To Prove the Effectiveness of Our SmartKnowledgeU™ Investment System, Even Our Weakest Picks that We’ve Given Away for FREE Have Soared
Apr. 29, 2007 – After BAIDU, Possibly Focus Media
Apr. 2, 2007 – Profit, Don’t Lose From Market Corrections
Apr. 2, 2007 – Global Warming Presents Easy 30% Gains for Underground Investor Readers
Mar. 13, 2007 – Beware the Perpetual Bulls, Part II
Feb. 18, 2007 – Banking Sector FY 2008 – Positive for Japan & India, Negative for China
Jan. 4, 2007 – Chinese Technology Companies to Watch in 2007
Dec. 19, 2007 – MSFT and Internet Protocol Version 6
Dec. 12, 2006 – It’s Time to Keep a Close Eye on Indian Stocks ICICI & HDFC
Dec. 7, 2006 – The Ocean Becomes a New Growth Point in the World Economy
Oct. 30, 2006 – What’s the Safest Place to Invest in the Oil Industry Now?
Oct. 30, 2006 – You’ll Find Ignored Investment Opportunities in the DRC & Libya
Oct. 23, 2006 – Indian Banks Anyone? Four Letters: HDFC
Oct. 9, 2006 – Don’t Believe the Hype – Avoid Chinese Bank Stocks

The Peak Investment Crisis & Stock Market Crash (57 articles) – Bubbling underneath the surface, there lies a peak investment crisis. When it hits, savvy investors will build a fortune. Unfortunately, most investors will be blindsided and lose great fortunes instead. Access the entire database, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below,  by clicking on the above category link.

Nov. 4, 2007 – Is Hyperinflation Coming to the U.S.? It’s Time to Stock Up on Gold.
Nov. 4. 2007 – Gold is the Best Investment Today, Part II
Oct. 15, 2007 – Our New Forum on Facebook: Crisis Investing
Oct. 9, 2007 – Beware the Turbulence that Lies Beneath the Surface, Part I
Sept. 20, 2007 -The Signs of a Peak Investment Crisis Keep Coming
Sept. 19, 2007 -Why the U.S. Fed’s 0.50% Rate Cut Won’t Save the Markets
Aug. 9, 2007 – More Gov’t Foolishness Again
Jun. 29, 2007 – Don’t Let the Strength of the U.S. Markets in the First Half of 2007 Fool You
Mar. 11, 2007 – It’s the Difference Between Chasing & Building Wealth
Mar. 6, 2007 – What this Correction Means for Gold Stocks
Feb. 28, 2007 – How to Profit From a Weakening Market & Gold Stocks
Sept. 9, 2006 – The Peak Investment Crisis
Aug. 11, 2006 – How to Protect Your Portfolio During Turbulent Markets

A New Investment Paradigm for the 21st Century (11 articles) – Fundamental and Value investing may take years of patience to pay off (i.e. Apple Computers was a huge value stock at $13 a share and took more than four years of waiting to pay off huge), Growth investing often leads to chasing hot sectors that correct rapidly. Discover why changing conditions in today’s global market has created a new investment paradigm that is hands down the best way to invest today. Click the link above to see all articles, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below,  in this category.

Jul. 24, 2007 – How to Invest Like the World’s Greatest Investors
Feb. 25, 2007 – Frontrunning Can Make You a Fortune
Jan. 30, 2007 – The New Paradigm of Successful Investment Strategies
Jan. 21, 2007 – 10 Reasons the Longtail of Investing is the Only Way to Build Wealth
Jan. 16, 2007 – Use the Longtail of Investing to Predict Major Market Events with High Accuracy
Jan. 9, 2007 – Accurately Predict U.S. Dollar Behavior
Sept. 1, 2006 – What Mark Cuban Failed to Realize About Investing

The Biggest Investment Myths (62 articles) – All investment professionals, from investment firms to financial consultants to the financial journal purposely spread tales of lies and deception. Jim Cramer, an investment professional that amassed a fortune as a hedge fund manager, recently stated that the last thing he ever wanted to do is to tell the truth. Find out why deception is part of the game in the investment industry.  Click the category link above to access the full database, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below.

Oct. 25, 2007 – New Home Sales Went Up. So What?
Oct. 15, 2007 – Beware the Turbulence that Lies Beneath the Surface, II
May 6, 2007 – Economic Reports Drive Short-Term Behavior, but Hardly Represent the Truth
Mar. 21, 2007 – The Short-Term May be Rosy, but Beware the Financial Crisis that is Building Steam
Mar. 4, 2007 – Foreign Markets aren’t as Risky as the Pundits Say
Feb. 23, 3007 – Evolve Your Investment Strategies with Evolving Technology
Feb. 6, 2007 – My Problem with Investment Newsletters (except ours, of course!)
Feb. 4, 2007 – 10 Questions to Help You Find a Superior Financial Consultant
Jan. 30, 2007 – A New Paradigm of Successful Investment Strategies
Jan. 25, 2007 – Despite Evidence to the Contrary, Millions of Investors Will Believe Whatever they Want to Believe
Jan. 7, 2007 – 10 Reasons Why Dollar Denominated Bonds Aren’t as Safe as You Think
Jan. 5, 2007 – How Understanding MMA Champions will Make You a Better Investor
Dec. 18, 2006 – The True Determinants of Wealth Have Nothing to do with Asset Allocation
Nov. 12, 2006 – The Greatest Investment Myth Exposed: Why Modern Portfolio Theory WILL NEVER Make You Rich.

Wealth Literacy (88 articles) – Wealth Literacy is the new Financial Literacy. Financial Literacy may teach you to be fiscally responsible but you can still be financially literate and remain poor. Wealth Literacy fills in all the holes of Financial Literacy and teaches you how to build wealth today. Click the category link above to see new articles that may not be listed below.

Oct. 15, 2007 – Our New Facebook Investment Group – Crisis Investing
Oct. 9, 2007 – Beware the Turbulence that Lies Beneath the Surface, I
Apr. 23, 2007 – Beware the Emperor’s New Clothes -Don’t Get Cheated by Your Adviser
Apr. 20, 2007 – Intelligent Investment Strategies Push Risk Off of You & Back onto Investment Firms
Apr. 19, 2007 – In Risky Markets, Follow the Behavior of the Ultra-Rich, Not the Rich
Apr. 17, 2007 – Why Wealth Literacy is More Important than Financial Literacy, Part II
Apr. 15, 2007 – Why Wealth Literacy is More Important than Financial Literacy, Part I
Apr. 13, 2007 – Pop Investing is All the Rage, but it’s a Loser’s Game
Apr. 12, 2007 – The Secret to Investing in 3 Easy Rules
Apr. 10, 2007 – Build Wealth by Answering These 5 Questions
Mar. 30, 2007 - How to Navigate the Minefields of the Investment Information Highway
Mar. 12, 2007 – The Short-Term May be Rosy, But Beware the Financial Crisis that is Building Steam
Mar. 11, 2007 – The Difference Between Chasing Wealth and Building Wealth
Feb 23, 2007 – Uncover the Ignored Asset Classes
Feb. 21, 2007 – Why Traditional Education Stifles Your Ability to Build Wealth
Feb. 15, 2007 – 7 Habits of Highly Effective Investors
Feb. 8, 2007 – 10 Reasons Why a Professional Athlete’s Best Friend Needs to be his Financial Adviser

Politics and Stocks (30 articles) – Think you don’t need to understand politics to be a good investor? Think again. If you don’t understand politics, you’ll never fully understand the most likely future direction of global stock markets, oil, gold, and currency markets. Click the above category link to see the full database of articles, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below.

Apr. 11, 2007 – Building Great Wealth in Stocks Requires Understanding Politics
Apr. 1, 2007 – The Next Cold War will be an Economic One
Apr. 1, 2007 – Possible U.S. Military Intervention in Iran
Mar. 13, 2007 – To Err on the Subject of Chinese Tariffs May Expedite a Shakespearean Tragedy
Dec. 17, 2007 – Do Free Markets and Free Trade Exist?

Oil Crisis (15 articles) – Think oil prices are controlled by supply and demand, futures traders, or Peak Oil Theory? Think again. Discover the true determinants of oil price behavior, primarily dollar devaluation. Click the above category link to see the full database of articles, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below.

May 14, 2009 – What’s Driving the Price of Oil Higher? It’s the Dollar, Stupid!
May 28, 2007 – The Politics of Higher Oil Prices
Nov. 26, 2006 – Does the end of Mid-Term Elections Mean Higher Gas Prices Again?
Nov. 8, 2006 – The Peak Oil Theory was Created by – You Guessed it – Big Oil!
Oct. 30, 2006 – The Safest Place to Invest in the Oil Industry Now? – Oil Refiners, Pipeline Manufacturers, Deep Sea Platform & Drilling Manufacturers, and 4D Imaging Companies
Oct. 30, 2006 – You’ll Find Ignored Investment Opportunities in the DRC and Libya
Oct. 12, 2006 – How Has Prince Bandar bin Sultan Affected Oil Prices in Years Past?

Uranium Investments (3 articles)– The bulk of this information is contained within our members only area, but you’ll find an article or two here. Click the above category link to see the full database of articles, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below.

May 1, 2007 – Uranium Stocks are Finally Getting Some Attention. Better Late than Never.
May 1, 2007 – What Does Uranium Futures Mean for the Future of Uranium Stocks?

Africa Investments (5 articles) – For the more daring investor willing to place small bets for HUGE returns, Africa awaits.

Canada Investments (4 articles) – Articles about Canada and the Canadian stock market and hands down some of the best opportunities in ANY global stock market.

China Investments (21 articles) – Articles about Chinese stocks and the Chinese stock market.

India Investments (4 articles) – Articles about Indian stocks and the Indian stock market.

Japan Investments (4 articles) – Articles about the Japanese economy and stock market.

Russia Investments (1 articles) – Articles about the Russian economy and stock market

U.S. Stocks (25 articles) – Articles about U.S. stocks and the American stock market.

Vietnam Investments (3 article) – Articles about Vietnam and the explosive yet unregulated Vietnamese market.

Investment Psychology (22 articles) – One of the most important but yet most overlooked and ignored aspects of investing is psychology. Discover how an improper mindset can be the difference between huge losses and huge gains in your portfolio. Click the above category link to see the full database of articles, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below.

Feb. 7, 2007 – Investors Should Apply the Rule of Shopping 101 to Buying Stocks
Jan. 3, 2007 – Will the 2006 Year End Rally Continue into 2007?
Dec. 21, 2006 - Perception Can Overrule Reality in Driving Behavior but Reality Will Overrule Perceptions in Driving Outcome
Nov. 30, 2006 – The Recency Effect Hurts Investment Decisions
Nov. 2, 2006- Canadian PM Stephen Harper & Hungarian PM Ferenc Gyurcsany – the More Things Change the More They Stay the Same
Nov. 2, 2006 – Irrational, Not Rational, Behavior Often Drives Markets
Oct. 24, 2006 – The Financial Media are Like Bad Weatherman
Oct. 8, 2006 – The SmartKnowledgeU Reader’s List
Oct. 4, 2006 – Hungarian PM Ferenc Gyurcsany: We LIED Morning, Noon, & Night!
Sept. 26, 2007 – Move Over Harry Potter! The Deceptive Wizardry of Fund Managers
Sept. 17, 2006 – When it Comes to Investing, You Get What You Pay For
Sept. 16, 2006 – Why Do People Believe One of the Dumbest, Most Flawed & Deceptive Measures of Economic Conditions?
Sept. 13, 2006 – Why Book Smarts Won’t Help You Build Wealth
Sept. 10, 2006 – Investment Psychology 101
Aug. 24, 2006 – To Become Wealthy, Abandon Widespread Beliefs About Investing
Aug. 18, 2006 – Following Mainstream Media Will Lead You Down a Disastrous Investment Road
Aug. 3, 2006 – Following Short-Term Fluctuations Will Create Poor Investment Decisions

Options Investing (10 articles) – We don’t discuss options much here but occasionally, if there is a compelling play, we’ll write an article or two.

Water Investing (1 article) – Read articles about investing in water as a commodity as the world’s fresh water supply becomes more scarce.

The Zen of Investing (42 posts) – Read articles from our resident martial arts expert regarding how understanding principles of martial arts can make you a much better investor. A combination of “The Art of War” and “The Art of Investing” if you will. Click the above category link to see the full database of articles, including the most recent articles that may not be listed below.

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Below, I’ve summarized pertinent points of this growing food crisis:

• Though the mass media has continued to virtually ignore this massively important story, food riots, instigated by soaring food prices, occurred in about 30 countries last year, including Haiti, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. Due to shrinking food stocks, leading agricultural commodity exporters such as India and Argentina imposed bans on overseas sales of food products.

• Last year, global rice stocks fell to a 30-year low after droughts decimated crop yields in China and Africa. At one point, during a two-week period in April of 2008, prices of rice rose 50%. Rice is the staple food for more than 3 billion people. According to the World Bank, the real price of rice and wheat respectively rose to a 19-year and a 28-year high last year.

• At the recent G8 Agriculture Ministers meeting held in Treviso, Italy in April of 2009, US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack stated that climate change had materially affected the challenge to feed the world’s population – expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 from today’s current number of 6.5 billion. As a solution, he called on the G8 to back the use of science in agriculture, including genetically modified organisms, to boost productivity.”

• In 2009, for the first time ever, the United Nations reported an unprecedented 1 billion+ people went hungry every day and predicted that this number would continue to rise due to persistently high food prices and the continuing economic crisis.

Though the above unfolding catastrophe should be the leading story of every major media outlet in the world, instead swine flu has trumped this potentially much greater catastrophe. World Health Organization (WHO) officials have currently assigned the worldwide risk of swine flu to a Phase 5 level indicative of an “imminent pandemic”; if starvation were considered a disease, the risk factor of this hunger catastrophe would be assigned the WHO’s highest rating of Phase 6.

Beyond the surface points I noted above, there are some truly disturbing facets of this hunger catastrophe that lie beneath the surface. Given that the WHO has labeled swine flu a pandemic with a recent figure of confirmed cases at 1,316 worldwide, it is no exaggeration to consider a hunger pandemic that currently has more than 1 billion victims a catastrophe. Though droughts, low crop yields, and the spectacularly foolish, inefficient experiment to turn food into biofuels have all significantly contributed to the imminent mass starvation problems that will soon materialize, the truth is that the easiest and most efficient way to address the hunger catastrophe is purposely being obfuscated and hidden by the world’s Central Banks and financial oligarchs. Ironically, one of the most significant components of the troubling rise in food prices, monetary inflation, is also the easiest symptom to attack and solve as opposed to other solutions that seek to raise crop yields through the increased use of biogenetically engineered seeds. In addition, though poor climate conditions have undoubtedly contributed to low crop yields in recent years, the real effect of monetary inflation on plunging food stock levels is often obscured by governments through highly inaccurate and deceptive PPI (producer price index) numbers.

Of the current 6.5 billion people in this world, 50%, or 3.25 billion, live on a daily wage of $2 that has not changed in years, despite the fact that significant erosion in the purchasing power of these $2 over the past decade. In turn, the billions of people that subsist on $2 a day spend $1 on food daily. Simple math dictates that if the price of basic diet staples in the developing world (rice, corn, wheat, etc. but specifically rice) rises to $2 or $3 a day or more, more than 3 billion people will no longer just be hungry, but will begin to die from starvation. In previous essays of mine, I have outlined a strong argument for significant inflation in our future despite the persistent campaigns to spread deflationary beliefs. If time proves my arguments to be correct, then a doubling, or even a tripling or quadrupling in the prices of basic food staples is a real and distinct threat to the mortality rates of billions of people. Given the magnitude of this moral crisis, no matter one’s stance in the debate of inflation versus deflation, it is imperative to grant consideration to the possibility of strong inflation in imminent years and its implications for 3.25 billion of our fellow citizens.

This is precisely why the moral disaster of mass global starvation that looms in our near future must first and foremost be approached as a direct symptom of the foolish and dangerously destructive monetary policies now being implemented by the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and the European Central Bank. The United Nations, in their press release, stated that mass global hunger today is attributable to rising prices, and none other than former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, in a rare moment of clarity, stated in 1997 that “price increases are really the same thing as depreciation of the currency”. There is little doubt in my mind that one of the largest components of rising food prices over the next five years will be a very significant “food tax” that is directly attributable to the debasement of all major global fiat currencies. Thus, one of the most efficient and effective steps we can implement to prevent our current global hunger catastrophe from evolving into a global starvation catastrophe is to re-institute a sound monetary system in which all money is backed by gold or silver or a combination of both.

During the recent G8 Agriculture Ministers meeting in Italy, when US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack used this platform to promote the business interests of the biogenetic agricultural industry, such chatter was a smokescreen designed to deflect attention away from the true culprit of this catastrophe – monetary inflation. Given Vilsack’s history of well-documented supported for bio-genetically engineered agricultural crops, including his award as Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization in 2001, his preferred solution to this crisis offers no surprises. Those who invest in Monsanto (NYSE:MON) now, in terms of monetary profits, will likely emerge smelling like roses a couple years down the road. Still, a larger moral question than the debate over the safety of bio-genetically engineered food or the morality of using a crisis to promote business interests must be answered – “How significant are the contributions of our unsound monetary system to the greatest potential humanitarian crisis of our lifetime?”

Given the course of monetary policies being implemented by our global Central Banks, though this is a prediction I hate to make and detest even more if it comes true, the likelihood is very strong today that hundreds of millions of people will starve to death within the next five to ten years. Though many will find this prediction outrageous, remember that many of my predictions that were considered outrageous 2-3 years ago have now come true. I write this article not for shock value, but for the simple reason that this crisis is avoidable if we begin altering our solutions to the global financial crisis today. However, a persistent refusal to acknowledge the primary role of our fraudulent monetary system in creating this worldwide financial crisis will only serve to cement this obscene prediction in future years.

Should this grim hunger catastrophe continue to progress as increasingly seems likely, growing numbers of food-inspired riots and complex national security issues caused by mass migration issues will arise that will necessitate a response from our world leaders. Should this happen, I have no doubt that our world leaders will spin the starvation catastrophe as attributable to every reason imaginable but the true culprit – our unsound monetary system. Should this problem progress, eventually millions of rural poor will migrate to urban centers, driven by a need to earn higher wages to buy increasingly more expensive food. Ironically the consequence of flooding urban areas with cheap labor in developing countries will be significant wage depression for higher income earners and the rapid deterioration of the middle class into the poor.

Historical precedent for this outcome already was already set during the post NAFTA-years in Mexico, when NAFTA policies created a mass migration of poor into urban centers and effectively destroyed the wage potential of the middle class. Thus, this hunger crisis will not only affect the survival rates of 3+ billion people, but it will also negatively impact the earning potential of billions of urban dwellers in the future as well. Hopefully, this potentially epic humanitarian and moral disaster will finally serve as the necessary blaring alarm to citizens of the world to address the equivalent moral disaster that is our fiat monetary system.

JS Kim is the President & Founder of SmartKnowledgeU, LLC, a fiercely independent investment research & consulting firm that helps clients create wealth during this ongoing global financial & monetary crisis.

March 20, 2007 –

“It’s the Wild West,” says Noritaka Akamatsu, the World Bank’s lead financial economist in Hanoi. This Is her description of the Vietnamese stock markets today In 2007. Perhaps we should say it is the “Wild Wild East”, the modern version of yesteryear’s Wild Wild West. Currently, there are an estimated 150 listed stocks publicly traded in Vietnam on the Ho Chi Minh Securities Exchange with hundreds more unlisted stocks that trade through internet chat rooms and back alleyways. This is up from only 30 listed stocks in 2006, with a government target of listing over 1,000 stocks by 2010. Furthermore, the total market capitalization of ALL the legitimately listed stocks is tiny, at about $14 billion. To give you an Idea of how small the Ho Chi Minh Securities Exchange is, the total market capitalization of one company, General Electric, is more than 25 times the size of the entire Vietnamese stock market. Of course, nobody knows what the total market cap of unlisted stocks that trade on Vietnam’s grey market truly is…which brings me to my next point.

Although I have made the comment that strong, individual stocks are better than a strong mutual fund 100,000 times out of 100,000 times, and I still think this is true, in the case of someone wanting to invest in Vietnam’s stock market today, because their markets are highly unregulated and risky, this is the one case I would advocate investing in a mutual fund over individual stocks. Why? Due to the unregulated and early stages of this stock market, and believe me, it is In the embryonic stage right now, it is virtually impossible to identify strong individual companies unless you live in Vietnam and personally know company executives.

When I mentioned that there are thousands of unlisted shares exchanging hands In back alleys, cafés and in cyberspace chat rooms, this was not just a flowery analogy, but the actual reality in Vietnam. In fact, thousands of listed shares of companies trade hands this way as well. These actions are comparable to the following game. They post on ebay, “I have 10,000 shares of GE on sale for $40″. They then enter the most popular stock chat rooms online masquerading as a company executive and state “Right now I have multiple inquiries from multinational companies that want to purchase my company. This should drive our stock price up to $60 or higher in less than a month.” They then return to ebay to watch the feeding frenzy then ensues as people believe this fake information before they finally exit the trade and sell the shares to the highest bidder. In the United States, such actions would not only be rewarded with a fine that forced you to return any profits plus punitive damages but also most likely, some jail time. However, in Vietnam, not only are such shenanigans entirely legal right now but they are being employed by thousands of people. If you are a talented con man, hop the next flight to Ho Chi Minh City because riches await you if you learn this con game in the stock market. Obviously at a total market cap of o tiny $14 billion, there are not enough stocks to feed demand, a very illiquid market exists, and such shenanigans will continue for quite some time until the market catches up to demand AND the State Securities Commission greatly expands its employee base.

Vietnam’s securities regulatory body is called the State Securities Commission. As of early 2007, Vu Bang, the commission chairman, currently employed only 10 officers whose responsibility it is to monitor the activities of about 200 companies listed on Vietnam’s two bourses as well as thousands of unlisted companies. He self-admittedly acknowledges that there is no possible way that he can enforce their rules with a staff of 10. Furthermore, Bang states, “In 2007, we can’t expect too much…We are considering how legal or illegal those websites are…In time, we’ll consider it more.” Bang speaks of internet chat rooms where deals to trade stocks are struck and where savvy investors chat up a stock with false information to drive the price higher. In the U.S., this type of behavior would land you a nice jail sentence, but in Vietnam, as of today, anything goes!

Like Akamatsu said, it truly is the “Wild Wild West” where reliable market information is virtually non-existent and people trade stocks based upon rumors alone, hoping that stocks that are trending higher will continue to do so. Although I can’t confirm the following, I read an article that stated that the Ho Chi Minh Securities Exchange suspends trading in a stock when its price rises or falls by 5% in a day. In a market as volatile as Vietnam’s, I’m not really sure how enforceable that policy is as I imagine that every day, a significant portion of the stocks that trade on the Ho Chi Minh Securities Exchange would fall into that category.

So if you have recently been approached by your financial consultant to buy into Vietnam because it is currently one of the fastest growing emerging markets, I am going to take a stab In the dark and guess that your financial consultant disclosed the fact that the Vietnamese markets grew by over 144% in 2006 and has already grown an additional 50% to 70% this year. I’m also going to guess that he or she disclosed zero of the above risks to you including the volatile, illiquid, and almost entirely unregulated nature of their markets, and the crazy back alleyway, ebay style auctions that occur even for listed stocks everyday, and the fact that stock research, according to Mike Temple, a director at securities-trading company Dragon Capital in Ho Chi Minh City, is based upon the following scientific methods: ” My grandfather’s uncle’s cousin’s wife works at this company and says it’s a good buy.”

Make no mistake about it, Vietnam’s markets will continue to boom. Especially since they recently signed a Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., foreigners are allowed to hold 49% of publicly traded companies, and state-owned entities are being encouraged to go public. In fact, you would probably do alright just to ride the frenzy higher for the remainder of 2007 as there are not nearly enough stocks to meet demand. But just be aware that there are thousands of Vietnamese that see the stock market as many poor Americans viewed the Gold Rush in the 1800′s – an opportunity to get rich quick. For those Vietnamese that typically earn less than $300 for an entire year, the chance to make that in less than a week or sometimes in just a few days with borrowed capital Is almost too tempting to turn down despite the Vegas like atmosphere surrounding the Vietnamese markets. Many are simply betting that the ride at the crap shoot table will continue to produce 7s and 11s.

However, many companies’ stock prices are being driven higher everyday by tons of people “that have uncles that have brothers whose sister has a daughter that has a nephew that works at that company and says it’s a good buy” when in reality, the companies’ real earnings hardly justify such lofty prices. But in Vietnam today, earnings hardly matter. Sound familiar? It should. Because this is exactly the irrational buying that caused the frothiness of the dot.com frenzy that occurred in the United States. And we all know how that ended up. Valuations of companies in Vietnam are all out of whack because of this feeding frenzy.

Interestingly enough, though, because nobody really knows how much many of the traded companies are really worth, these out of whack valuations can possibly continue forward with sustained momentum for quite some time until much stricter regulations and much better transparency develops. It’s a dangerous game, and one in which everyone is trading blind. But as I’ve also stated before, irrational behavior can continue for a long time, and the Vietnamese markets just may be one of these instances. Furthermore, given that Vietnam is still in the Wild Wild West phase of its stock market, any real reform that leads to a decent level of transparency will most likely take years.

Am I in the Vietnamese stock market? Yes, but only with one company, in a very small speculative position (and if you are a SmartKnowledgeU member, you know what stock that is). I emphasize the very small position. There are two types of volatility when it comes to investing, good and bad volatility. Good volatility is volatility that is fairly predictable in arenas with a fair amount of transparency and good volatility can be used to build great wealth. Bad volatility is what Vietnam’s stock market Is chock full of right now. Bad volatility is volatility produced by pure speculation where buyers and sellers are both conducting trades blindly without the benefit of good Information. For this reason, If you absolutely must trade in Vietnam, temper the effects of this bad volatility by purchasing mutual funds until a modicum of transparency develops that allows you to invest intelligently in individual stocks.

Here are some of the mutual funds I was quickly able to track down for you.The aforementioned Dragon Capital runs the Vietnam Enterprise Investments and Vietnam Growth funds, VinaCapital, based in Ho Chi Minh City, runs the Vietnamese Opportunity Fund, and PXP Vietnamese Asset Management runs the PXP Vietnam and the Vietnam Emerging Equity Funds. And again, welcome to the Wild Wild East.

Technorati Tags: Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh Securities Exchange, PXP Vietnamese Asset Management, Vietnamese Opportunity Fund

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J.S. Kim is the founder and Managing Director of SmartKnowledgeU™, a comprehensive online investment course that uses novel, proprietary advanced wealth planning techniques and the long tail of investing to identify low-risk, high-reward investment opportunities that seek to yield 25% or greater annual returns.

I opened this blog with that comment to illustrate that money and greed will many times take precedence over issues of national security or the democratic desires of people. This is a concept that is extremely difficult for many people to grasp, especially those that have fallen victim to the mass media’s snow job (no pun intended in regards to U.S. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow).

However, one only needs to look at the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, an agreement signed by U.S. President Bush, Mexico’s President Vicente Fox, and Canada’s PM Stephen Harper on March 23, 2005, in relative obscurity, to understand the truth of my above statement.

I have heard many people state that the discussion of politics has no place in the discussion forum of investments and the stock markets. While this should be true, it is not. And if you don’t understand the inseparable links between politics and the stock market, then in the end, your investment decisions will suffer. I guarantee you this.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America has major, widespread implications for the future economic direction and national security of all three countries, even regarding the possible development of a single North American currency that would replace the peso, the U.S. dollar, and the Canadian dollar, yet it was not widely reported on by the mass media. Have you heard about it before? If not, then you prove my point.

But much more damning evidence of the fact that finance, and not governments, make the world go round is apparent when exploring the lead quote of this blog. In March, 2006, the U.S. government decided to keep the African nation of Libya on its official list of state sponsors of terrorism. Despite this, and despite Ibrahim’s inflammatory comment directed toward the U.S. government, the U.S. government still decided to restore full diplomatic relations with Libya just five months ago and remove Libya’s label as a state that sponsors terrorism.

In fact, given the frequent White House criticisms of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s similarly colored inflammatory statements, how many of you remember hearing criticisms of Ibrahim’s statement? I read international news daily and while I come across dozens of stories about the U.S. rebuking Chavez I can’t recall a single story I encountered that criticized Ibrahim.

Why?

Libya has oil- lots of it – and they’ve been friendly to the desire of Western oil companies wishing to explore and develop in their country. Although Libya intelligence has cooperated with American intelligence in interrogating captives and providing information to capture terrorists, certainly another important impetus behind the restoration of diplomatic relation is undoubtedly the massive oil reserves that Libya possesses. Despite the fact that countries such as Nigeria are in the news far more frequently, Libya possesses the largest oil reserves of all African nations. And as soon as diplomatic relations were restored, every single major big oil company, American and European, was knocking on Libya’s door.

As you will know from my next blog entry which I will post in a day or two, after big oil finishes its current leg up, I much prefer shifting assets to auxiliary industries away from companies that directly explore and produce oil. However, investing in the right junior production companies will still be okay. One such company is the UK firm Soco International (Ticker: SIA.L on the London Stock Exchange).

Besides oil interests in Vietnam, Yemen, and Thailand, Soco International holds oil exploration interests in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Libya in Africa. I purchased Soco International about four months ago because of the wildcards of the DRC and Libya. These are two countries that could potentially grant explosive growth to Soco in addition to its solid projects in Vietnam, Yemen and Thailand.

The DRC is transitioning into one of the more stable emerging nations after decades of corruption and volatile instability, and because of this, I like SOCO’s exposure to the DRC as well. Follow this link to read about elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo this week that a Reuter’s reporter called “the most important in Africa since a ballot in 1994 ended decades of apartheid repression in South Africa, the United Nations said on Saturday.”

I know that most people probably are unaware of the importance of the changing political and economic landscape in the DRC and the changing attitudes of the U.S. towards Libya, but as I said, my goal is to dig out opportunities that most likely will never make it to the mainstream media. I discovered both of these developments four months ago and as a result, invested in Soco.

However, realize that Soco is subject to more volatility and more geo-political risk because of its business strategy than blue chip oil companies and even other junior oil companies. However, there is also an “X” factor with this company that I have not discussed. I have reserved discussion of this “X” factor only for members of my SmartKnowledgeU™ e-learning site that we will hopefully launch within the next month. This “X” factor helps mitigate much risk when investing in companies similar to Soco, and also exists for companies of all sizes. For example, telecomm giant Verizon is another company that has this “X” factor that I also like. Many of you that know me know that I recommended buying Verizon about six months ago due to this “X” factor. And even though Verizon has had a good run recently, I believe that due to the “X” factor, that it would still be a good stock to purchase on dips in the future.

So again, my strategy in investing in Africa for now largely consists of finding companies that are invested in some of the African nations that have potential for explosive growth such as the DRC and Libya, but yet have a wide enough portfolio of business outside of Africa to mitigate these riskier opportunities.

P.S. By the way, Lula has just secured re-election in Brazil.

Technorati Tags: Soco International, oil stocks, best free stock picks, investment strategies, Libya, Thailand, Vietnam, politics and stocks

J.S. Kim is the founder and Managing Director of SmartKnowledgeU™, a comprehensive online investment course that uses novel, proprietary advanced wealth planning techniques and the long tail of investing to identify low-risk, high-reward investment opportunities that seek to yield high double-digit or greater annual returns.