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.