Martenson has NO background in finance, economics or investments yet he charges money for his newsletter. He is just another profiteer out there who has fooled so many idiots. What a joke.

In fact, because of Dent and his predictions… starting with ‘the great boom ahead’ in 1993 that I read, I knew to be out of real estate investments well before 2010… and coming up to 2010, to be watching for a market that stopped making new hi’s on volitile news as an indicator to transfer all retirement funds in equities into guarenteed investments… all in prepairation for the change in spending of the baby boomers, etc.

I succeeded with both.

That ‘Gone Fishin’ portfolio and other buy and hold strategies similiar to it… have no exit trigger, incase of a market crash of this magnitude. Dent’s readers knew that you need an exit strategy to prepare for… 16 years ago.

I found Chris Martenson’s Crash Course to be pretty informative. I know that no one can predict exactly what things will look like, but there are some things that are almost sure to happen:
1. Population will grow
2. Resources (oil, minerals, etc.) will get harder and harder to obtain
We’ve lived through the easy to get resource period (that’s the last 20+ years). Now comes the harder part (the next 20 years). That’s all Martenson’s point is. He’s not predicting a specific DOW or S&P level. Just a lot of changes that don’t spell growth like we’ve seen in the past.

Interesting article, however i disagree with you concerning Dent. Everyone fully realizes that his (or anyones) exact predictions are very unlikely to come true, after all no one has a chrystal ball… however his logic and stats concerning the baby boomers and how their spending (or lack of) will effect the economy. Both Harry Dent and Peter Schiff were highly ridiculed for their perspective… and I feel after 20 years of investing… seeing what i’ve seen… they are more correct in their long term perspectives of anyones articles i’ve ever read.

I hope by now you’ve had a chance to take a look at it. Martenson does not sensationalize or impose a partisan bias to his examination of the facts. His narrative is all-inclusive, and he makes the point very clearly that in his judgment, all the evidence points to a very serious economic downturn and perhaps a protracted recession. He explicitly does not attempt to predict the future, but does provide some useful tools for the average investor to preserve wealth in a downturn.

I think it was premature of you to assume that he was making specific predictions about the state of the economy in 20 years. Otherwise, keep up the great work and thanks for your insights and opinions.

“I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.”

Alex,

Good article, interesting ending. Considering the aforementioned quote, are we to expect continued corruption on: wall street, the banking sector, the federal government (where has the SEC been), real estate, the automotive industry, etc.?

nice article. i have another view point. dent saw the same data i saw but failed to understand it. it’s all about supply and demand of investors. we end up with a 36 year cycle that i have tracked back over 100 years. it has always worked with a minor shift due to interest rates. we have 6 to 8 more years to go on the downside. the important thing to do is remove inflation from the data then it is clear as a bell. if you are ever in the boston area, we could discuss this over lunch. i am a71 year old retired engineer. been investing for 45 years.