2148 FBF: How to Prosper During The Coming Bad Years - An interview with Howard J. Ruff

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With great pleasure, I'd like to welcome Howard Ruff to the show. He is a very well known author. His most recent book is how to Prosper during the Coming Bad years in the 21st century and that was published in 2008. Howard, it's great to be talking with you personally.

Well, it's great to talk to you. I can hardly wait to hear what I'm going to say.

Me too. So tell us about your take on the current economy. I mean, it's pretty disgusting what's going on out there with the money printing and the bailouts and rewarding the wrong behaviors and the moral hazards and so on and so forth. What is your take on stuff?

Well, you got it all just right. My take on it is that the conclusion I've drawn and that I'm and I'm viewing with alarm like I've never done in my entire career. The problems that we face are mount to socialism. We used to be creeping towards socialism. Now we're galloping towards socialism. And I see Barack Obama. I hesitate to say this, but if he is in the Antichrist, he'll do until one comes along.

He is definitely moving us toward a very big government. A lot of draconian rules and.

Well, not just that. The thing to remember about is the definition of socialism. Socialism is government owning or controlling the means of production. All socialist economies do it. That's the definition of the term.

Sure.

And now he's taken over the automobile industry, taken over Wall street, he's taken over the insurance industry. And what he's done is given them money with strings attached. He claims he's not going to make decisions for them. That's a bunch of baloney what he's doing. He's already at General Motors, he's already the CEO at aig. Insurance companies all said, well, we can't pay those guys bonuses even though they're working for a dollar a year plus bonuses. And we're the best producers they had. And he's step by step taking total control. And I was interested that Barney Frank, congressman in the House said that he thought we could control the salaries and pay out bonuses of companies even that hadn't received money from, from the government. And that just scares the witch out of me.

I mean, that is very scary.

Yeah, the strings attached to money and government has big strings attached all this money. But remember what Rahm Emanuel said when he became chief of staff of the White House? He said, you can't allow a crisis to be wasted.

Yep. Let's never miss the opportunity to use this crisis to, you know, promote our agenda.

For example, they, when they did that 700 some odd thousand.

700 some odd billion bailout package, it had like 40 years of the, of what the liberals in Congress had wanted for 40 years and nobody got a chance to read it before they voted on. They finished about 11 o' clock at night. The night before they had to vote. No one, not one person who voted for it had read it before. Not one.

You know what's interesting about that is that I remember Obama during the campaign promising that he would put everything up on a website for five days so the American people could review stuff before votes were cast so they'd have time to react and you know, write to their representative and so forth. And these kind of things were just rushed through. But you know, Bush is not free of blame either. I mean, Bush and Paulson, you know, between the two of those guys, I mean they were a little less socialist, but it started to get pretty big in terms of the size of the government under Bush too.

Well, what we have to remember is that much of this has been been approved by Democrats who initiate a lot of this stuff, but backed up by weak kneed Republicans who were just basically enablers. So you know, years ago, remember when Papa Bush said that, read my lips, no new taxes. He said that to me on my TV show. I'm the guy he said it to.

Wow.

When he did, I decided to abandon the Republican Party. I'm much more in tune with the philosophy they profess, but I'm not in tune with the way they practice it. And consequently I resigned noisily from that party and publicly. And so I don't know what I am. I'm not a libertarian because I don't like their philosophy. I'm certainly not a liberal. I'm more in tune with the state of Republican philosophy. But they don't do what they say they're going to do. They just don't.

Well, when you say, you know, I mean Bush got really, you know, he got really vilified for the read my lips, no new taxes thing when he ran the second time. But I'm talking Bush senior. Of course it wasn't really he who, who promoted more taxes. He just caved in. He didn't stand up to the big government liberals. Right.

Well actually he endorsed it.

Oh, he did, okay. Well it must have been a trade off, a plea bargain then. I don't remember.

And that's why I resigned. I didn't want anything more to do with a party that would do that.

Yeah, well, you know, tell us your philosophy on why controlling the means of production.

I mean to me taxes are just a contemporary version of slavery and the government has to tax a little bit so you don't have anarchy. But it's been blown so far out of proportion with what's going on nowadays. You know, give us sort of your philosophical underpinning for that if you would. And then let's take this into how one reacts to this, how one invests, how one protects themselves.

You mean the defending the definition I gave you? Yeah, I'll have to defend the definition. Every economist, they go down the brass route, they'll all agree with that. That's the definition, the actual true definition of socialism. And every socialist country, there've been a lot of them. The Soviet Union was socialist, union of Soviet Socialist Republic. The Nazis was the National Socialist Party, Britain, socialism, all of these things. Our government eventually getting control of industry. Now that the Obama administrators taking control of the automobile industry, they've taken pretty much the insurance industry. They've certainly taken control of Wall Street. And I don't see that as anything but the purest definition of socialism. The only hang up is that they find that they have to control people's behavior. And so all socialisms eventually turn into totalitarian systems, a totalitarian elite that tells you what to do.

That's the link I'm looking for. Actually I didn't mean for you to go into that much detail on it, but what does this really mean to people? Because nowadays this is all being soft pedaled is though, you know, maybe the government can run it better. These are crazy statements to be.

When has government ever run anything? Well, except maybe the wars and that.

Would be debatable too.

Yeah. Well, let me tell you this. The one thing that happens under socialism is they throw a lot of money around. In fact, today government knows they've got a recession, they know they have a deflationary period. They don't know anything to do with that except throw money at it. On the process of throwing money at deflation and recession, they're laying the foundation for inflation coming around the corner. And so we're just a few months away from all of this money they're printing, turning into inflation. Inflation is at all times, all places of monetary phenomenon. Now when inflation picks up, you can bet that this administration will go to price and wage control. That always creates shortages. I remember when my wife and I were on a cruise and we stopped at Leningrad in the Baltic and we were on a bus and all of a sudden when the bus got stopped in traffic, we saw all kinds of people running and we don't know where they were. And I found out someone on our bus woke up Russian and they were running for a store because rumor was out that something that was for sale there that had been scarce, they didn't know what it was, they just wanted some because the shortages were, that were created by wages. Price controls were immense. They were tremendous.

I remember one time I was in Moscow and I was with a tour guide on a bus tour in Moscow, Russia. And you know, I always, whenever I go to these formerly communist countries, I always ask a lot of questions about it. And she was telling about how they had to wait in line for shoes. One time she waited in line for shoes for 16 hours. And it's cold in Moscow too, in the winter and it was very cold out and people were just lined up to get shoes. And by the time they got in to get their shoes, they didn't even have her size. So you just took whatever you could get and you figured you'd trade it later. I mean, what a ridiculous loss of human productivity. And it's just so inane how people think these systems actually work.

That always happens under socialism. Yeah, they all turn to some kind of totalitarian government. Fascism, Nazism, Soviet Union, they all have to do that. So we find our lives being run by an elite that controls everything for everybody else.

And it sure seems like this elite is pretty far from the American people, they're paying people out. I mean, Obama, when he did the auto deal and he just sort of abandoned the bondholders, the people who created the capital for the company, in favor of the uaw. It just reminds me of that George Bernard Shaw statement, Howard, that says a government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. So they're just buying votes.

Well, the thing that's amazing is that bailout of General Motors started with George Bush.

Yeah.

The political pressures to turn socialists are irresistible because it always promises a lot of things. Promises a lot of things. And right now, half of the people in America don't pay any taxes. So there's no constituency for controlling taxes. Half of the people in America get a check from some level of government, so there's no constituency for cutting government spending. And there was a poll recently that found that half of the people in America were confused over what might be better, socialism or capitalism. And they didn't have the slightest idea what either one was. And I don't think Barack Obama knows that. All he knows is there are promises. The people who've been getting checks, especially young people, they've always gotten checks. They got checks from their parents. They got student loans. They just have great expectations and promises. So based based on promises, countries turn to socialism. They always do. And the inflation that we're looking at, which is basically a collapse of the value of currency, every currency lasts maybe 75, 80 years. That's the lifespan, that's how long they last. Ours have been around for 80 years right now. And so inflation is not rising prices any more than wet sidewalks or falling rain. Inflation is simply the dilution of the capital by making more of it, decreasing its value by making it common. That inflation eventually reflects itself in higher prices. Because inflation to an economist is not rising prices. Inflation to an honest economist is indeed diminishing the value of currency by creating more of it. Consequently, all this money that's being thrown around right now, these trillions of dollars, and I've been, in all the years of publishing, I've never used the word trillions before. I just didn't think it was possible. But all these trillions that are throwing around are going to create a massive inflation that I predict is going to start for the end of this year. And Barack Obama is going to pay him himself into a corner with it. And so right now he's fighting deflation and recession. One of these days, he's going to be fighting runaway inflation. I bet you anything with their mentality that they'll turn to wage and price controls and create shortages, and that will be followed by people taking over everybody's lives. The whole idea is we're on the cusp of socialism. We really, truly are. And the average person doesn't have the slightest idea what it is, what causes it. And so the. A small minority are going to make money. You know, I'm a maverick. Maverick is a cow that's left. The herd. The herd is still on Wall Street. They're doing what their financial advisor tells them to do, and that that herd is going to all be turned into hamburger. And a small minority are going to make a lot of money out of the mainstream, not doing what Wall street says, but doing what they know will make them money. What they finally become convinced will make the money.

I couldn't agree more. I think you're absolutely right.

Well, good for you. Hey, that makes you a real smart guy.

When you talk about most of that herd being made hamburgers, and then you talk about the shortages that will eventually follow the inflation when you have price controls. It actually just happened in Zimbabwe, which is sort of the poster child for inflation. Their currency's worth the paper it's printed on, basically, which is what all fiat currencies become, paper and ink value. They instituted price controls and they said that the shopkeepers would be arrested if they raised prices anymore. And so guess what happened, Howard? What a surprise.

Goods disappeared.

The shopkeepers just said, I quit. I'm not going to do it anymore. Why am I going to run a shop? I have to pay a certain price for goods, and I can't resell it and make a profit. I'm out of business. So then there's just price controls, and then there's just shortages, and it becomes this unproductive, deadly spiral into socialism and central planning. Let me talk to you a little bit about gold, if I could, and debt. I had Pat Buchanan on the show, and I couldn't have quoted him better than when he said this after I explained our strategy. And by the way, since we've only talked for just maybe two or three minutes before we started recording, and I've never talked to you before, I want to explain our investment philosophy a little bit and see what you think of it, because I'll be very interested. We believe in investing in little inexpensive rental properties where basically the land is free and you're basically buying the commodities, the construction materials, the copper wire, the petroleum products, the glass, the steel, the lumber, the concrete, the energy that it takes to assemble, you know, a Little inexpensive, modest rental house. Okay. In areas where land is either free or cheap and we're buying them far below actual construction costs nowadays. And then we believe. So there's the commodities investment, what I call packaged commodities investing. And then we believe that you should use as much long term fixed debt as possible, so long as the property is self sustainable and there's positive cash flow because you get three decade debt at artificially low interest rates. And I'm sure you think rates are going up. I sure do. And Pat Buchanan said, you know, Jason, that's a pretty good strategy because basically their debt will be floated away on a sea of inflation. And I thought, you know, I couldn't have said that better myself. It was very quotable. What do you think about that idea?

It was okay, except timing is a problem right now. When I wrote the how to Prosper in the Giving Bad years back in 1978, I recommended real estate as an inflation head. So why aren't I recommending that now? Because real estate, residential real estate, still in free fall and hasn't bottomed out yet. Well, as a financial advisor, you don't want to buy low and sell high.

But doesn't that depend on what market you're talking about? I mean, you know, certainly in a.

Country it's virtually universal. I would like, yeah, you could pick up markets where that's not happening, but it's just about universal. And I think the, the upshot of it all in play, the residential real estate will become a good inflation hedge and your strategy will work. But right now you're trying to buy real estate now because people think it's near a bottom. It's sort of like trying to catch a falling state.

Yeah, I agree with you. And I think in markets that are the, you know, the bubble markets, where you're paying for a lot of land value in that equation, like, you know, anything in California, most of Florida, the Northeast, the expensive markets, none of those make any sense. But if you look at like Texas last year, you know, the three top. Appreciating. I did say appreciating, by the way. Markets in the US were in Texas doing about 4% annually, which you combine that with leverage and free land and buying below construction costs, that to me seems like a pretty good equation. And I know you're a gold bug. So I want to talk about gold and metals in a moment.

I'm not a gold bug. Let me put the quietest of that.

Okay, go.

First of all, I had some, I was on a talk show recently and Someone said, well, I know you always like gold. No, that's not true. I've been publishing for 34 years. I've been bullish on gold and silver for 12 of those years. My job as a financial advisor is just to be right for the time. Different things at different times. Sometimes I'm bullish on the stock market, not bonds, especially sometimes I'm not. And I'm bullish on the precious metals. Right now we've gotten into a situation where the fundamentals say Will Rogers was right. Invest in inflation is the only thing that's going up.

That's a good quote.

And I think that I became bullish on the metals again. Again in like 2003.

That was good timing.

After about 12, 15 years of being bearish on it. My job is to make money for my subscribers. And it all flows around again. Let me give you another quote. Yogi Berra, he said it's deja vu all over again.

I love Yogi Berra. He cracks me up with his quotes. They're so funny. But yeah, it is deja vu all over again, isn't it?

It is. And I burst from the scene in the mid-70s. And that was my recommendation was gold and silver because it was right for those times. And we made a lot of in gold and silver. Like when I started recommending gold in 75, it was $105 an ounce. Silver was under $2. Gold eventually peaked out at $8.50 and silver at 50. So the point is, I made people a lot of money and everybody figures out I'm stuck in the past. I'm still bullish on gold and silver. That's baloney. I'm bullish when the time is right. The time happens to be right for now.

Yeah. And I would agree with you. The only reason I'm not such a gold bug, and I hate to use that term, but I just said it, so I'll just stick with it. Gold and silver are definitely better than fake money, dollars, currency, because they are real money. Okay. But they have a few flaws. They don't produce income. There's no financing available, no tax benefits. No one will rent them from you. And most of all, and I'm sure you can speak to these two quite well, is that they're subject to confiscation. Possibly it happened in the 30s. And also subject to manipulation because the central banks want to see gold pushed down. They want to see silver and gold constantly manipulated and pushed down because they're in the business of fiat currencies and you know, what do you think about those five characteristics? That they don't make them as pleasing.

To me, all those characteristics are avoidable if you choose wisely. And that's what I advise my subscribers to do. I show them how to invest in it. For example, I can give you some other things that are fraudulent about it. When gold is taking off, the Sharpies come out assuming that it's a big emotional moment and they can get people to go for their frauds and all kinds of frauds. Like don't have to take the metal home. We'll store it for you. Well, you don't know whether they're actually storing it. And a lot of companies are not doing it. They're cheating. And there are all kinds of problems, but they're all avoidable. And so I have four recommended dealers that deal nationally. Not because they're the only good ones, because I'm getting old. More than four is too many to monitor. But the point is that. You want me to go down the list of things that are wrong with Wall street investors with stocks and bonds?

Please do. Go ahead. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot wrong with them. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Go right ahead, please.

Well, first, Wall street has paid lots of money for selling pieces of paper that supposedly represents something tangible. Supposedly.

Right.

They're immensely money motivated. I remember when I was at the peak of my notoriety in 75 or in the late 70s, I got a call from Merrill lynch, the chairman of the board, to come to New York. And they pay the night trip and they show me around. They were thinking about a mutual fund they thought I might like with the precious Met. So I went there and they had a vice president taking me around. He took me into the. In this huge room with all kinds of desks and everybody's talking on phones, on desk. And these were brokers. Well, all they were talking about was the money. They made commission. So he, the guy took me out to the garage and showed me all the Porsches and Maseratis and Cadillacs and I was supposed to be impressed. Then he took me on the roof, showed me the yacht harbor in the Hudson river, just loaded with yachts and spot out the brokers all own these yachts. I was mostly impressed with that. I was not. I've never met such a greedy, money motivated group of people in my life. And that very fact turned me off. So the point is, the money in the future is going to be made by people who ignore Wall street, who don't pay Any attention. Like I said, the herds get turned to hamburgers.

Howard, I'm surprised. I thought you were going to say as the punchline to that story, you asked them, where are the customers? Yachts.

Well, there was a book by that.

Yeah, right.

But those are all the brokers. Yach. A lot of these guys are taking make millions of dollars a year in commission.

I know.

Now the gold and silver is not hard. It's just unfamiliar to most people. Not hard to buy. And I'm just dictating a chapter now from my new book which describes the problems and how to avoid them. I'm not a gold bug. Gold bugs are always bullish on gold and silver. That's not me. I just want to be right for the time.

Yeah, fair enough. What do you think about the numismatic side of precious metals?

Well, Yanna, you've got to know a lot more about than I want to. There's. You've introduced a couple other factors. One is the bullion content. Another is the scarcity and condition of the coin. And I'm. I don't have the skill to judge that. So you, you will make money in numismatics, but it requires skills that I don't have. You will do well. But I kind of like the semi numismatics which are. Have some scarcity value and their value is pretty much based on the bullion value and a little bit for the scarcity value. I like those things because. Because they're specifically exempted from seizure if the government should decide to seize gold.

Assuming the law stays the same though too. Right. I mean they can always change the law. Right?

Yeah, but they have no reason to do that right now. The government thinks gold is something that they manufacture and sell coins. They're trying to sell this stuff. They're not going to buy it. And remember when Roosevelt did it, it was considered real money and he did it to improve the government's balance sheet. They seized the gold. It wouldn't improve the government's balance sheet because it isn't even on the balance. She just. In case you're worried about it. That's one of the reasons why I would prefer silver. Because the silver market is so small, government wouldn't benefit by seizing the silver. They would hardly benefit. The odds are the government won't even pay any attention to silver. To them it's just an industrial metal. But yet throughout history it's been a monetary metal. It's been more useful for making it a currency than gold has over the years. So I like it and There are over 2000 industrial uses. Are it. So it's good, do well and good times are bad. And incidentally, as I've been watching the gold and silver market, which I do every day, they've been doing very, very well. For example, when the market collapsed back in 2008 and the stock market was down like 45, 55, 65%, gold was down only 7% for a little while, silver took a beating and I begged my subscribers to jump in and buy some. When drove, it cleared down from like 18 down to 9. I recommend that they buy it now. You'll never find an opportunity like back up now over 15 on its way back up.

Right.

The point is this. I'm not a trader. I don't believe in trading anything because I'm no good at it. I always buy high and sell low when I trade, but I don't recommend drivers. I don't have the skills to do that. So I want to catch a trend early in the trend, buy it and hang on no matter what. All through the ups and downs, that's what we've got right now.

Do you think that one day in the future here, as inflation sets in and the dollar becomes progressively more and more worthless, do you think that we'll actually be trading silver coins to buy things? Or do you think we'll be trading our silver and gold for other fiat, a new fiat currency? What are your thoughts about the Amero? Is that a crazy conspiracy that's above my pay grade?

I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that question. I should. I don't care right now. We'll simply be on the right side of it if we own something. That's all I'm pretty sure of.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So when you talk about how inflation can make people rich, is that the way being invested in the bullions and having gold and silver as it rises in value?

Well, that's one way. There's another thing that's going to happen as the price of oil goes back up over $100 a barrel. And it will all of a sudden we'll find that stores are having trouble getting truckers to get their back door and restock their shelves because they can't afford the fuel. Consequently, I recommend my subscribers that they, when they go to the store to buy any commodity, not just food, but you know, diapers, soap, motor oil, whatever, that they don't just buy one. They don't buy one can of tuna. Buy a case set aside and that way you'll be Buying at today's low price and consuming at tomorrow's higher prices. So that's a way to get a return on investment on inflation. On the right side of it. I also, as the price of fuel goes up, eventually public pressure will lead to a release of the of the oil service companies to build more oil oil wells and service them offshore. So I like oil service companies and I think they're going to benefit from inflation. Also, the pressure is going to build and build to construct more nuclear plants. Right now there are 35 under construction or on the drawing board. There's going to be more. And even if they only build that 35, there's still there's only half enough uranium above ground to service their needs. So I like uranium stock. That's another way to better inflation. Uranium mining company. So I like that. I'm not down on the whole stock market, just the growth stocks, the Dow Jones like I'm down on most of it. But there are places and industry groups that I like that could make a lot of sense.

Yeah. And I agree with you about those sectors being wise investments given that situation. But there's always the potential graft of the investment banks, the CEOs, the boards of directors and they just skim the money off the top and the profits. So even if the sector does well, maybe the investors still don't fare well, right?

Well, perhaps, but we don't know that'll happen. We won't even know what's happening. Consequently, I would like to base my investment program on actually owning the bullion and a good selection of mining stocks and mutual funds that invest in mining stocks. I like those areas. And you will make a great deal of money. And someday we don't know whether we'll have a new currency that's backed by the commodities or whether we'll someday be by using our coins to buy stuff, have no idea how it's going to turn out. And I'm somebody smarter than me might figure that out. In the long run, we'll be glad we have it because whatever happens to it, it will be useful. And it's the simplest to buy. They're the least factors to worry about, the least complications. And so for example, there's probably a coin dealer within a mile of your house.

One of the dealers you recommend actually is right here in Orange County.

Yeah. And they're very inexpensive. But boy, be careful. Compare. Even if you buy from one of the companies, I recommend compare prices because price prices can differ.

They differ wildly.

They do. And from day to day and even from hour to hour always compare prices.

No question about it. And I have found that some of these that have their own radio shows and stuff, those guys are some of the most expensive of all. I've heard them on AM radio and called up and priced them against another dealer and I couldn't believe the price difference. It was just amazing how much more they charged. Do you think, Howard, there's any risk of getting like, like a fake metal? You know, that's always sort of concerned me. You know, you take delivery of some gold coins and you know, or some gold, 1 oz gold bar or something, how do you know it's real? You know, maybe it's fake. I mean it looks pretty, but who. Does anybody test it or anything? You know, do any buyers do that?

That's another reason I like silver. There's not enough money in a given quantity of silver, a silver coin or even 100 ounce silver bar to make it worthwhile to spend all the time and trouble coming up with kind of. There will be some counterfeiting in gold. There always is. That's one reason why I have recommended companies. I know they check them. I know they check everything they have to make sure it's real. I trust them. I don't always trust them to have the best prices at any given time, but I trust the integrity of their business.

Good. And what do you think about other commodities? You mentioned uranium and so forth. But what do you think about soybeans and coffee and rice and all the other things out there?

The only way you can buy them is buy a futures contract and have a truck dump a couple of tons of it on your front porch. The average person can't do that. The reason I like gold and silver is the one commodity that people can buy in concentrated small amounts, take home and conceal around their house. That's vastly superior to the other thing. Yes, I think commodities are going to go up, but the average person doesn't have the cannot invest them short of.

Having a warehouse with storage of these metals. Do you think it's wise to have it in your house or should it be in a safe deposit box? And you know, I tell you, the reason I ask that is that my grandfather collected a lot of coins and so forth and you know, he used to show them to some people and he suffered a home invasion robbery. They stole a lot. Fortunately no one was hurt, but it wasn't a pleasant experience to go through, you know. Do you think it's okay to keep it in a safe deposit box?

What are the Alternatives safe deposit box. The government has the right to tell the banks to seize the safe deposit boxes. And there already are laws that prevent you from restoring precious metals or currency or explosives in there.

Oh, really? Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah, there are laws. Right.

Wow.

And so there's nothing perfectly safe. I remember coming to Investment Rarities. I recommend they had developed something called a Midnight Gardener, which is a big PVC tube that you could put your metals in and bury it in your backyard. Midnight Gardener. I thought it was cute.

Yeah, that's a good name. That's interesting.

Be sure you remember where you put it, because I know the one family, when their mother died, grandmother died, they knew she buried some of the backyard, didn't know where it is. They had to dig up the whole backyard to find it. Yeah. There's no foolproof answer.

Yeah. And maybe the point is diversify. Do different things. Do multiple things, possibly, you know.

Sure, absolutely. That's always safe. But don't diversify like Wall street says.

Yeah.

Diversify between this industry or that industry is simply putting everything in the same boat.

Yeah, I agree with you there. Just in kind of wrapping up, tell people about your website and your newsletter and the book and so forth forth and, you know, any thoughts you have in closing.

My website is rough times.com www.roughtime.com. there you'll learn more about me than you ever wanted to know.

And I want to tell people that spelled R U F F times Ruff times.

That's correct. There you can read about me and sign up for my newsletter, the Rough Times, if you wish. But there's some benefits if you sign up for you get a free book, how to Prosper in the Coming values in the 21st century. Then I'll tell you how to rip me off if you want.

Okay. If you want to tell them, I'll let you.

Sure, you would. Simply after a couple of newsletters or you don't want it and so ask your money back and I'll send it to you promptly and you will keep the book. How's that?

Sounds like a great deal. Any thoughts in closing, Howard?

Well, just that we're headed for troubles, political troubles that are scary. I'm more frightened for the future than I have been in all the years that I've been viewing with alarm. And so my concern is convincing all my children to do the right thing. I have a couple, two or three very well wealthy children. We have 14 children now, nine with my wife for five teenagers we adopted and 76 grandchildren. So that's my biggest concern. And when I write, when I write the rough times, when I write books, I'm writing for my children, my family, really, I'm making sure that there's no Wall street jargon and that people can understand what I'm saying and do what I suggest. And it's really an instruction manual on how to do it. My key point is I've been publishing now for 34 years. I'm one of the old guys. I'm not one of these slick guys with a hair slicked back that goes on television to tell you what to do. A guy who's probably hardly old enough to get a driver's license, it looks like. And so the upshot of it is, if you want to hear from a savvy old guy who's been there, done that, been right most of the time over the years, then the rough times are where you want to go. And We've had over 600,000 subscribers over the years. And my book, how to prosper in the coming back years, the biggest selling financial book in history still is.

And that was from the 1978 edition?

Yeah, that was from 1978 edition. So when I realized that the Yogi Berra was right, it did you have all over again. And we were doing the same things we did in the 70s that caused that inflation that made us so much money in gold and silver. Rather than writing a new book, I just decided to revise the old one and update it.

Good stuff. Well, Howard Ruff, thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate having you on the show and learning from your vast experience. It's been very insightful.

Oh, happy to talk to you. Call me again anytime you want.

Okay, thank you.

Bye bye.

The American Monetary association is a non profit venture funded by the Jason Hartman foundation which is dedicated to educating people about the practical effects of monetary policy and government act on inflation, deflation and personal freedom. Our goal is to help people prosper in the midst of uncertain economic times. This show is produced by the Jason Hartman Foundation. All rights reserved. For publication rights and media interviews, please visit www.hartmanmedia.com or email mediaartmanmedia.com Nothing on this show should be considered specific person, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate professional if you require individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own and the host is acting on behalf of the Jason Hartman foundation exclusively.