Profiting from the World's Economic Crisis

PROFITING FROM THE WORLD'S ECONOMIC CRISIS In Profiting from the World's Economic Crisis, author Bud Conrad, Chief Economist for Casey Research, predicts a rough road ahead for us—due to economic imbalances that have built up over the past decade—but reveals how you can prosper during these difficult times by tracking global market trends and finding investment opportunities that match those trends. With this book, Conrad outlines the long-term direction of our economy as driven by increasing U.S. government and trade deficits, oil prices, Social Security and Medicare obligations for baby boomers, the credit crisis, and the weakening dollar. He also examines why some of the government's actions—such as bailing out banks and curbing interest rates—fail to address more serious, long-term issues such as too much debt. The crisis we have entered is not a typical business recession, but, instead, a major deleveraging which is the biggest shift since the Great Depression. The stagflation of the U.S. economy will present great challenges on a global scale. And since no market travels in a straight line, you need to be positioned correctly, with the right investments, to protect yourself and profit from the twists and turns you'll inevitably face in today's turbulent economic environment. Profiting from the World's Economic Crisis deftly addresses how to gain your financial footing during these difficult times by highlighting global investment opportunities—such as gold, interest rates, currency, and commodities—that are likely to help you profit in the coming years. Visit www.caseyresearch.com

Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi PART ONE ECONOMIC FORCES 1 Chapter 1 The Budget Deficit Drives the Growth of All Debt 3 Chapter 2 The Trade Deficit and U.S. Dependency on Foreign Investments 27 Chapter 3 The Big Costs of Health Care, Social Security, and the Military 63 PART TWO FINANCIAL CRISIS RESPONSE 75 Chapter 4 The Federal Reserve Prints Our Money (Stop the Presses!) 77 Chapter 5 The Importance of Debt for Predicting Our Economy 115 Chapter 6 The Big-Picture Model of Our Economy 139 PART THREE RECESSION OR DEPRESSION? 157 Chapter 7 What Can the 1929 Great Depression Teach Us about Today’s Crisis? 159 Chapter 8 What the United States Can Learn from Japan’s Lost Decade(s): 1989–2009 183 Chapter 9 What the United States Can Learn from German and Other European Hyperinflations, and from China Today 211 PART FOUR INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES 227 Chapter 10 The Stock Market May Be Dead for Another Decade 229 Chapter 11 Energy in the 21st Century: The End of the Petroleum Age 241 Chapter 12 Food, Grain Trading 261 Chapter 13 The Demise of the Dollar 273 Chapter 14 Interest Rates: The Trade of the Decade 299 Chapter 15 Gold Is the Only Real Money 325 PART FIVE PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER 367 Chapter 16 Forecast for the Future 369 Chapter 17 Looking Over the Horizon to See the Best Investments 385 List of Tables and Figures 421 About the Author 429 Index 431