RE: Still sure your money is safe in a bank?JS Kim, the author of the article quoted by Tensne1 (why didn't you cite it, are you him?), has just produced a book:
"Confessions of a Wall Street Insider, A Zen approach to making a fortune from the coming global economic crisis"
Howard Ruff is notorious for writing this book in 1979:
"How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years"
about fleeing to gold, which he keeps updating. As one reviewer wrote: "Anyone who followed his advice lost money for years and years. Sort of reminds me of Ravi Batra and his 1987 best-seller, "The Great Depression of 1990." What Great Depression of 1990, you ask? My point, precisely. Now that things are looking badly economically, Ruff can call himself a prophet, and republish his book with "21st century updates" responding to the credit crisis. Yeah, okay Howard."
Mr. Kim says that one of the enemies of sound investing is hope, but it's sounding as though he (like Mr. Ruff) trades exactly in the opposite: fear.
Sooner or later everyone is right, at least for a time, but over the course of history (at least in my lifetime) the hopeful have won out over the fearful by a gigantic margin. And unless you have a particular reason to agree with Mr. Kim's or Tensne1's prognostications (Mr. Kim is selling his investment services just like those he disparages) it may be easier to put your stock with history (instead of banking on disaster) and recognize that wealth-creating enterprises always have and always will be the foundations of our economy. Gold does not create wealth, it is merely a refuge for it, and if you're wrong on your timing it can be just as detrimental as anything else.
p.s. I whole-heartedly agree with Mr. Kim that so-called mutual fund managers do worse than stock-pickin' chickens, which is why I don't bank on them, either.