Doug Casey on Today’s

Tumultuous Markets—And
His Top 5 Ways to Profit
A cooperative effort between International Man
and The Independent Speculator

For years, Doug Casey and Lobo Tiggre (a.k.a. Louis James) published a series of weekly conversations on just
about every topic imaginable. These usually concluded with the investment implications of whatever was
discussed. Doug and Lobo recently got together for a more thorough review of the places, politics and markets
our readers care about—with an emphasis on the specific ways to invest accordingly for a profit.
As you’ll see below, this is much more than an informative conversation between two of the world’s most
seasoned travelers and investors. Doug reveals his favorite speculations, including his single largest stock
position.
We hope you enjoy—and profit from—this conversation and the very specific speculative investment ideas it
contains.
 Lobo Tiggre: Doug, It’s great to talk with you
Doug Casey
again. After such a long break, I have so many
questions…

Doug Casey: I hope I have an equal number of

answers, Lobo. Let’s get to it.

Lobo: Great. Well, right off the bat, several of my

readers have written in to ask what I know about you
taking control of InternationalMan.com back, and
what your plans for it might be.

Doug: Well, as you know, I sold 80% of Casey

Research to my friends at Stanberry & Associates
several years ago. International Man (IM) was part
of the deal. But they are a large organization, and IM
became a sort of “red-headed step-child.” They think
in big numbers. For the American market, anything
with the word, “International” in it is poison when it comes to selling large numbers of newsletters. So…

Lobo: Wait—I have to stop you there. Whose genius idea was it to call your newsletter International
Speculator, then?

Doug: [Laughs] Well, that’s a good point. It was my idea. But it’s a niche publication, not intended for a wide
audience. I’m just telling you that people who know think 98% of Americans aren’t very interested in what
happens outside the US. And while it’s not true of your readers or mine, it is true that most Americans have
very provincial, if not xenophobic attitudes.

At any rate, the Stansberry folks were very kind, and gave it back to me. The International Man, of course, was
my first book. They gave me the keys to the blog, and the list of subscribers who’d never bought anything.
These things have trivial value to a large company, but it’s a base I’d like to rebuild. I’m partial to the audience.
I’d like to make InternationalMan.com into the premier internationally-oriented blog in the world.

Lobo: By “internationally-oriented,” you don’t mean just covering international news, travel, or cuisine. You
mean to provide useful information for people who have—or want—international lifestyles. Can you quickly
state why this is important?

Doug: We’ve had several conversations on that subject in the past, but the summary version is that you don’t
want to put all your eggs in one country basket—and you definitely don’t want one government thinking it owns
you. A lot has been written about “permanent tourism,” the practice of minimizing state interference by having
a citizenship in one country, banking in a second country, working in another, and living in yet another. This is
probably the best legal way to live a freer life. And it’s enjoyable, too.

1 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Lobo: Okay, so is this blog to be a labor of love, a public service, or a for profit venture?

Doug: I’d say all three. People need to stop thinking like medieval serfs, or plants rooted to the ground. But if a
service is worth providing, there should be a way to make a buck doing so. If something can’t show a profit,
then the market is telling you it’s not interested. So, yes, it will have to show a profit, or it will mean people
aren’t really interested and I’m misallocating my time working on it.

But I think it will work out. There’s a certain percentage—even among Americans—who are interested in this
subject.

Lobo: And there are plenty of people in Europe, Asia, and

other places who’d be interested.
“That’s absolutely right.
Doug: That’s absolutely right. Americans often forget that Americans often forget that
Americans are only about 4% of the world’s population. So, I
Americans are only about 4%
have high hopes for International Man 2.0.
of the world’s population. So, I
Lobo: Very good. I wish you the best of luck with it. The have high hopes for
next most common question I get about you is how your
International Man 2.0.”
next novel is coming along. People loved Speculator and
Drug Lord. They want to know when Assassin will be
published.

Doug: It’s half done, but the problem is that both John Hunt and I have been busier than one-armed wallpaper
hangers lately. We’ve pledged to get it out by next August. But it’s got to be a tour de force. When you’re writing
about something as contentious as political assassination, it’s got to be well done. We’re doing our homework
so we can provide an alternative history for past assassinations, as well as the details of techniques used by
assassins. Most important, the story needs to be carefully constructed to deliver a clear ethical analysis—all the
books are morality plays—of political assassination.

Lobo: Heavy stuff, Doug. Are you prepared to defend yourself if the feds prosecute you, the way they did Jim
Bell, the author of Assassination Politics?

Doug: Ah, well, I’m writing a work of fiction, so I don’t think they could make any charges of fomenting
assassination stick. Oh—and not to give away anything in the plot—but the book has absolutely nothing to do
with Donald Trump.

But it’s very disturbing that we live in a time—thanks to Google, Facebook, and Amazon—when the walls have
ears. And you have to be very careful about what you say, and what “they” might imagine you’re thinking. The
world is looking more and more the way it did in the 1930s—which was not a mellow decade.

Lobo: They couldn’t charge Bell with advocating assassination either. They busted him for tax evasion, like Al
Capone.

2 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Doug: All the more reason for me to stay down here in places like Argentina and Uruguay. Out of sight and out
of mind. I fear that the US is accelerating on the downward path it’s been on for decades. But still, we won’t be
advocating assassination in the book. Not so much on moral grounds—sometimes it’s actually the correct and
ethical course of action. But because it rarely makes things better. In fact, assassinations almost always make
things worse. I suppose there’s a time and place for almost everything, but assassination is generally
counterproductive.

Lobo: An angry patriot assassinates Archduke Ferdinand—and starts WWI. I understand. Still, keep your
guard up.

Doug: Keep your pecker hard and your powder dry, and the world will turn. All the more so with the next
book, Terrorist. Assassination, of course, is used against point targets. Terrorism is for area targets. So we plan
to investigate the techniques and ethics of terrorism. Part of the problem is, to start with, figuring out what
terrorism is. The US Government alone has over 100 definitions of the word.

Without getting into that, I’ll just say that our hero, Charles Knight, finds terror is just another method of
warfare—like artillery barrages and cavalry charges. But since he believes in the Non-Aggression Principle, he
doesn’t engage in terrorism—although he’s accused of it.

Lobo: I look forward to reading it. You mentioned Uruguay. Is that where you hang your spurs mostly, these
days? And would you recommend it to others interested in internationalizing their lives?

Doug: Well, Uruguay is a backwards little socialist country. I bought an estancia here because it was both very
cheap and and very nice. I like it, as I like my properties in Argentina, and the US. But I don’t want to spend
more than six months a year in any one place. Splitting my time between here and Argentina allows me to
remain under the residency hurdles that would incur an income tax obligation.

Lobo: Would you recommend Uruguay

to others for the same tax planning
reasons?

Doug: Uruguay has some advantages,

but it’s a dull little country. The only
thing of interest to most people is the
beach resort town of Punta del Este.
Unfortunately for anyone who likes that
sort of thing, it’s deserted for nine
months a year. The other three months;
it’s bumper-to-bumper traffic until 6am,
full of Argentine teenagers drinking and
partying all night long. None of this
bothers me, because I’m out on a farm
away from the hustle-bustle anyway.

3 INTERNATIONAL MAN
 Argentine Farmland

Doug: Uruguay’s economy is very socialistic. It’s a terminally constipated little welfare state, with very few
business possibilities. No attractions for an entrepreneur. On the bright side, it’s peaceful and quiet. A great
place to work on novels, though. Argentina has much more to offer.

Lobo: So, is it just Uruguay and Argentina these days? Or do you spend much time anywhere else?

Doug: I still spend my northern hemisphere summers in Aspen, Colorado. It’s quite pleasant. There’s a reason
why a town of 6000 people in the middle-of-nowhere in the mountains is one of the best-known places on the
planet.

Lobo: I thought you wanted to sell your ranch there?

Doug: I do. It’s odd. There was a mania, up until the crash of 2007-2008, for ranches near Aspen. It’s
subsequently become all the rage to have something in the central core of the town. Tastes change; real estate is
just as cyclical as stocks. Since I stopped playing polo, however, I certainly no longer need 350 acres.

Lobo: Could end up like Punta de Este during the busy season. But anyway, I remember that you didn’t want
to have a house in the US. Has that changed?

Doug: Well, I certainly have one; it’s a good idea to maintain a crib in the US. It’s convenient. And who knows,
maybe I’ll be wrong about the US economy collapsing, totally and catastrophically…although I don’t think so.
But if Ray Kurzweil is right about the Singularity, what happens to the economy may be trivial in the big
picture.

Lobo: Let’s come back to the economy. What about Argentina. You’ve sung its praises for so long. You still like
the place? How is President Macri doing?

4 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Doug: Macri is about the only decent politician Argentina has had in the last century—although that’s not
saying much. If the wicked witch—Cristina Kirchner—had been reelected, the country would be well on its way
to becoming Venezuela. That’s despite the fact Argentina has always had the most Classic Liberal orientation of
any country in Latin America.

But the government and the culture are two different things. Of all the countries in Latin America, Argentina is,
by far, the most sophisticated and outward looking. I think it’s the best choice for a North American or a
European looking for a crib away from home. And that’s more important now than ever.

Lobo: Becoming Venezuela. Ouch.

Doug: Well, I don’t think things could get as bad as Venezuela, because Argentina is basically a farming
economy. Farmers are independent and entrepreneurial, so tend to be pro-market and anti-government.
Argentina offers a great culture and lifestyle.

Whereas Venezuela was cursed with a giant pool of oil, which made it easy for the government to centralize and
steal everything.

At any rate, Macri has greatly improved things in Argentina. I’m just afraid he was too little, too late. What
Argentina really needed was a Pinochet.

Lobo: A right-wing dictator?

Pinochet
Doug: Pinochet is perhaps the most underrated
and unjustly besmirched Latin American
politician of the last 100 years. He reformed the
Chilean economy. It’s gone from a backward,
nothing-nowhere mining province to being by far
the most prosperous country in Latin America.

Lobo: That’s true, but he did preside over some

pretty bad human rights abuses…

Doug: Yes, he did. But the generals in Argentina,

Brazil and even Uruguay killed a lot more people
and are not so demonized. The generals in Uruguay, which has half Chile’s population, probably killed more
people than Pinochet. The reason for the disproportionate hate is that Pinochet reformed Chile’s economy
along capitalist lines. The people he had killed were leftists of the sort Hollywood movie-makers love to idolize.

It’s too bad, really. Pinochet didn’t have to kill those people, and I don’t condone those killings. They were
counterproductive. But, we’re talking about Latin America, and that’s how things are done here, when things
get rough. But that’s true everywhere. The US just has a marginally thicker social veneer—which is is rapidly
being eroded.

5 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Doug: Anyway, Pinochet was prosecuted not because he killed people, but because he killed the “wrong”
people. Just goes to show that there’s no hope for a political solution. The generals in Argentina and Brazil each
killed about ten times more people, and basically got away scot free.

Lobo: And I know you think Chile is a nice place, but too expensive, uptight, and socially conservative. So,
back to Argentina. Is it still a good place to be, if Macri is “too little, too late?”

Doug: He’s got a bit more time, but he’ll be up for reelection next year. The problem is the bureaucracy, the
trade unions, the welfare state, and the corrupt legal system. These things are all so entrenched, it’s almost
impossible to change anything. It may be even harder than for Trump to reform things in the US. By way of
comparison, you can see how much people hate Trump in the US—it’s just as bad for Macri.

Lobo: El pantano—the swamp—is even worse in Argentina?

Doug: [Chuckles] That’s right. When half the population is living off the State, it’s very hard to break their rice
bowls. But Argentina isn’t unique. This is true of almost every country on the planet. Just as in the US, the
college professors are neo-Marxists, turning out a new crop of Social Justice Warriors every year.

Lobo: But you still think it’s a good place to invest? Are you still buying land there?

Doug: When it comes to the Third World, you don’t

“When half the population is living off the
State, it’s very hard to break their rice
bowls. But Argentina isn’t unique. This is
true of almost every country on the planet.
Just as in the US, the college professors
are neo-Marxists, turning out a new crop
of Social Justice Warriors every year.”
invest, you speculate. When you’re buying for leisure,
or lifestyle, that’s one thing. If you’re trying to make
money, it’s a question of assessing how the political
winds are blowing, and the timing. The only way to
speculate in real estate is to wait for a distress sale.
Lobo: Understood. What about resource companies
with projects in Argentina? Would you invest in a
good one of those, or stay away due to the political
risk?

Doug: It’s a toss up. If the Peronists win in 2019 against Macri, they are almost certainly going to do
something stupid. If Macri wins, he’ll attempt to allow more wealth to be created. Fortunately, you and I just
deal with stock certificates. Pity the poor fools who don’t have liquidity. Mining is the worst business in the
world. You gamble millions on a longshot Easter egg hunt. If you’re successful, that’s when your trouble
really starts, because it will take hundreds of millions of upfront capital to develop whatever you find. And
it’ll be a decade before there’s any hope of production. And then the government, the NGO’s, and the natives
all have their hands out—knowing you can’t move the asset.

Lobo: Yes. We’ve seen that many times. But I can’t believe you said “almost” in that sentence about Peronists
doing something stupid. I can picture you talking about how many stupid things they might do, or just how
stupid those things might be, but I can’t imagine you doubting that they will do stupid things.

6 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Doug: Oh, I can’t either. Peronists and Kirchnerites are classic fascists. Like Mussolini, they have no
principles. They’re capable of anything. Socialists, on the other hand, have principles—they’re just uniformly
bad principles. They view investment not as the means to create wealth, but strictly as a means to generate
taxes and pad payrolls.  But I’m a perpetual optimist. Things will work out, eventually.

Lobo: So, you’re not a buyer of real estate in Argentina right now. Is there any place in the world that you think
is a great place to buy real estate today? Do you have a favorite real estate speculation today?

Doug: I’ve got to tell you; I’m afraid the world-wide real estate market is coming unglued, as we speak. The
worst hit areas will be in countries that are most debt-leveraged. That’s essentially the Anglophone countries—
the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Everything in those places depends on mortgage
financing. As a result they’re all in bubbles, floating on seas of debt.

So, notwithstanding all its problems, Argentina is actually a much lower risk and higher potential bet than the
US. In Argentina you can get a property for somewhere between 5% and 30% what you’d pay for its equivalent
in the US. One reason for that is that it’s a cash market, not a debt-leveraged market.

Lobo: Got it. Moving from real estate to stocks, what other types of investments are you interested in today?

Doug: I think we’re looking at a bottom for mining stocks. The last peak was 2011. The bear market since then
has gone on far longer than I imagined it could, but it’s a highly cyclical market and it always comes back. It’s a
crappy business, but the world runs on metal. The metals are still very cheap. Gold and silver are certainly
cheap, as is copper. Uranium has to go up. There’s been some action in energy minerals like cobalt, nickel and
vanadium, but it hasn’t been reflected much in the stocks of the junior companies that so often see their share
prices go through the roof when these metals prices rise.

So, I’m a bull. I’ve been buying into a lot of private placements, because when I’m right, which I will be, these
things can go up ten to one. And with the warrants I get in the placement, I can get 20 times my initial
investment. I’m looking for the coming bull market to be one last, and very large hurrah.

I’ve also been involved in

pot stocks over the last few
years, and they’ve been very
good. As have
cryptocurrencies, although I
was late in understanding
their utility. I’ve come to the
conclusion that they’re
going to resurge after
coming off about 80% over
the last year. In many way
they’re similar to mining
exploration stocks. Cryptocurrencies

7 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Lobo: Hm. As for hurrahs, I’ll vote for larger, but I sure hope it’s not your last. I’m looking forward to the new
medical technologies that will drastically expand our lifespans, so we’ll still be playing poker a hundred years
from now—it might take me that long to learn how to beat you!

Doug: Well, I’m not planning to check out of either speculating or writing, but I could see spending more time
on books, as opposed to articles. And mostly on non-investment topics. It’d be nice to cash out big this cycle,
buy some bonds when interest rates look as ripe as they did in the early 80’s, and not even read the Wall Street
Journal anymore. I’m enjoying writing novels and would like to dedicate myself to making each one better than
the last.

Lobo: Sure. After riding these wild markets for a dew “You’re right. I might end up
decades, we’d all enjoy some low-stress time. But if we’re
following in the footsteps of
right about the life-extension technologies coming out of the
lab, even as we speak, you could have a lot more life in front Charles Knight, the hero of my
of you than behind you, young man. I can’t see you sitting at novels, and head to Africa to
home, doing nothing more than writing for the next 100 start over again. I’m willing to
years.
put theory into practice.”
Doug: You’re right. I might end up following in the footsteps
of Charles Knight, the hero of my novels, and head to Africa to
start over again. I’m willing to put theory into practice. At worst I could wind up like Ambrose Bierce in
Mexico…

Lobo: That’d be quite an adventure. But okay, back to mining stocks. You’re famous for saying that your
biggest three wins were a fraud (Bre-X), an accident (Diamondfields), and a psychotic break on the part of a
broker (Nevsun). Bre-X went up over 100 times after you bought in, and you were smart enough to get out
before the fraud was exposed. But those were all years ago. Have you had any big wins recently?

Doug: The last decade has been one of singles and doubles—when we’re lucky. Absolutely no long ball home
runs. But I think that’s about to change.

The Bloomberg commodity index is off 70% from its last peak, and the precious metals in particular look ripe
for a new bull market. I’ve about doubled my money on what is probably my biggest position, a tiny new royalty
company called Metalla—MTA on the Toronto venture exchange. I started buying shares at it’s founding.
The royalty business is without question both the safest and one of the most leveraged ways to approach the
mining business, which is still a dirty, 19th Century choo-choo-train industry. This company has about 70
royalties, mostly on gold projects. And though it’s a new company, just starting out, several of these are already
cash flowing. Metalla gets paid regardless of the cost of operating those mines, as long as they continue
producing. Plus, Metalla pays monthly dividend, currently about 2.5% annualized.

Lobo: I see it as being like getting in on Franco Nevada or Wheaton Precious Metals when they were trading at
tens of millions instead of tens of billions. Care to share another?

8 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Lucara Diamond

Doug: The second one I really like right now is Lucara—

Lobo: Lucara? But you hate diamonds…

Doug: As a commodity, that’s true. But this company is run by some of the best mining people in the world —
the Lundin Group. It’s making a lot of money with its high-grade mine in Botswana, enough to pay a solid 6%
yield. But the real upside is a technology that should take the middleman out of diamond sourcing and sales.
This is potentially a very big deal, with 10-bagger potential for LUC, from around C$1.80.

Lobo: Well, it’s certainly been impressive to see Lucara making headlines, unearthing gigantic diamonds the
size of baseballs.

I’m struck by what you said about Lucara having a technology aspect as a bonus. You taught me not to invest in
science projects. But I can see the benefit of having one tacked on to an already profitable business. We’re both
technophiles, and I know you do invest in some technology plays. What are you interested in in that sector
today?

Doug: I think the cryptocurrencies are a very interesting development. I heard about bitcoin early in the game.
Marco Wutzer first explained them to me in about 2010. And then another friend of mine, Tuur Demeester,
gave me a physical bitcoin token in 2013.

But I still didn’t “get it” until the summer of 2017, when I went to a conference, and figured it out. Bitcoin is
valuable as transfer mechanism. It allows people to get money across borders privately, without using the
banking system. That’s especially critical in countries where currencies are blocked—well over half the world.
So, I was very late in joining the game, August of last year.

9 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Lobo: That was just before it went vertical.

Doug: Exactly. They went crazy. The account rose by 700% in four months. Took the initial investment plus
50% profit off the table, and let the rest ride. Marco believes there is going to be a second phase. New cryptos
with special applications, which offer a chance at hundreds-to-one profits. I’m positioning myself in those. The
old bitcoin bubble has burst, but there will be a new one.

Lobo: So, how do you know which ones are going to be the big winners, and which ones are going to take your
money to money heaven?

Doug: The situation is exactly like the junior mining stocks that we both play with. A good 90% or more of
them are crap—burning matches, at best. Just as I check with you on mining stocks I’m not familiar with, I rely
on Marco’s guidance to help me pick cryptos. He really is an expert in this area, and I’m not a computer jock.
Unless it can’t be avoided, I don’t even use my cell phone.

Lobo: [Laughs] I know. Such a strange thing for a technophile.

“So, no, I’ve got nothing against
But I also know you see a cell phone as a cat would see a bell. At
flavor of the day plays. You just any rate, can you tell us which crypto or cryptos you’re most keen
have to treat them like hot on today? Do you have a top pick in this space?

potatoes, not heirlooms.”

Doug: Well, Marco says that right now Bitcoin serves mostly as a
store of value. For mass adoption of cryptocurrencies and for them
to become a medium of exchange as well, we need faster blockchains that can handle this volume. That's why
next-generation high-speed blockchains as well as protocols that enable new products and services are the
speculations with the most upside potential. It’s unwise to put money in something you don’t understand.

Lobo: Your bitcoin story reminds me of the whole “flavor of the day” phenomenon. Is that sort of trend of
limited duration something you’re willing to speculate on, if the rate of increase is high enough?

Doug: Cryptocurrencies are here to stay.

But I’ll give you another example. The most recent flavor of the day is pot stocks. Now, I got involved three or
four years ago, in pre-public companies. Back then almost all were private; now there are hundreds publicly
traded. I think this bubble has broken—even though some of the underlying companies will do well as
businesses.

So, no, I’ve got nothing against flavor of the day plays. You just have to treat them like hot potatoes, not
heirlooms.

You can always tell there’s a bubble in something when failed mining companies turn into whatever is driving
the flavor of the day. When XYZ Exploration Co. becomes XYZ Weed Co., you know it’s a bubble. That’s exactly
what happened back in 2000, when every single day—I’m not exaggerating—there were one or two mining
companies announcing that they were now some sort of dot-com company.

10 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Doug: Now, the dot-com thing was real. At least some of those businesses went on to deliver extraordinary
gains for investors for many years. But most just dried up and blew away. At the time of the bubble, you’d have
been an idiot to buy most of those things. It’s the same thing now with pot.

Lobo: So, the signal that it’s time to get out of a flavor of the day is when mining companies start changing
their names to catch those waves?

Doug: Yes. Because most mining exploration companies only have gold in the names printed on their stock
certificates. Management are much more interested in selling stock than any real products.

Lobo: Are there any pot stocks at all that you think could become the Amazon or Google of pot stocks? Is there
none you’d consider holding, or recommending to a newcomer to the sector?

Doug: There will be. But not right now. Don’t try to catch a falling safe. Let it smash on the sidewalk and then
pick up anything left that has value.

Lobo: On a related note, it’s striking to me how certain companies seem to capture a lot of investors’ attention,
so their prices run up out of all proportion to whatever value their assets may have, if any. But that doesn’t stop
those market darlings from continuing to run and run—until they pop. When you see something like that, do
you ever jump on the bandwagon, or just stay away?

Doug: Well, my most recent experience with that was Novo Resources in 2017. I bought at about 85 cents,
exercised some warrants and sold some stock at $4.60 and sold the originally underlying shares at $7.40. I
missed the $8.00 top, but I’d made enough money and missed the subsequent crash down to $2.50.

Pot Farm

11 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Lobo: So, how do you know when to get out of a market darling? It was, objectively, overvalued when you
bought in the first place.

Doug: You’re right, it was. But it was a great story, and I took a gamble. At this stage I want to be on the long
side of good stories. And you can’t analyze these stocks like you might General Motors or General Electric. Not
that banks of analysts covering them did investors any good, as those two dogs cost investors 90% of their
capital in recent years. The concept of “safety” in the financial markets is greatly over rated. Especially today.

Lobo: Very interesting. I was wondering about something else. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,
but a speculator has to learn new stuff—like you did about Bitcoin—to stay successful. And in the time I’ve
known you, the world has changed a lot. Since the crash of 2008, desperate governments and their crazy
central bankers have done unprecedented things to prop up their economies, like offer negative interest rates.
Watching all this, have you learned anything new you can share?

Doug: Well, it’s very fashionable these days to quote Sun Tsu, who said that you have to know yourself as well
as you know your enemy. I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ll tell you that one of my faults as a speculator has
been a reluctance to hold on to cash. It’s true, of course, that the cash in circulation today is just a bunch of IOU
nothings issued by bankrupt governments. But it’s better to lose 5% per year to inflation than to feel that you
have to invest the money now, and maybe lose 50% or 100% as a result of acting precipitously.

So, right now, I’m mostly buying gold stocks because I think gold is cheap, and building up cash in the form of
dollars. As crappy a fiat currency as it is, the US dollar is the one most people around the world will accept.
That’s my game plan right now.

And it’s entirely possible that we’ll see a credit

collapse, a deflation. In which case US dollars would
be the very best holding.
Lobo: Agreed. There’s another thing I was
wondering, looking back over our years of investing
together and your years before I came along. Is there
is any accepted conventional investment wisdom
that’s always wrong? As a contrarian, it seems like
there should be. For example, does “buy on rumor,
sell on news” actually work? Or are there certain
classes of common investments you never make?
“I can’t help myself sometimes, but
I’ve come to hate illiquid investments.
That’s because if you come to see that
you’ve made a mistake, you can’t get
out. There’s nothing you can do about
it. Here’s an old bit of wisdom: “I’m
often wrong. But never for more than
24 hours.”

Doug: Hm. You know, I can’t help myself sometimes, but I’ve come to hate illiquid investments. That’s because
if you come to see that you’ve made a mistake, you can’t get out. There’s nothing you can do about it. Here’s an
old bit of wisdom: “I’m often wrong. But never for more than 24 hours.” Of course, like all aphorisms, it’s easier
to say that than do it.

But now is not the time to even think about pre-public or illiquid deals.

12 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Lobo: I learned that lesson from you early on. That’s why I was surprised when you said, a few minutes ago,
that you bought those pot stocks when they were still private companies. How did anyone talk you into that?

Doug: It was early in the game, and they were very cheap. I think, in this case, it’s going to be a story with a
happy ending for me. But in general, illiquid positions in things that are little more than science projects are a
bad idea. It’s not like buying private equity in a productive business with earnings. Most of the stuff we tend to
buy is just hopes and dreams—with no cash flow. So I try to keep my irrational exuberance in check.

Lobo: Speaking of irrational exuberance, the last bull on Wall Street enjoyed a record-breaking run, but these
things all come to an end at some point. Many people fear that the next decline will be fast and furious when it
happens. Another crash is in the works and many indicators are that it may already be starting. What should
people do to prepare?

Doug: Be liquid. Go to cash, particularly in the form of short-term T-bills, while interest rates are going up. And
own gold coins.

Lobo: I thought you said government bonds were a triple threat to your investment.

Doug: That’s true, about bonds, but I’m talking about 30 day bills. I don’t think the US government will go
officially bankrupt anytime soon. It’ll happen, but it will be the last thing that happens in this story. If we’re
looking to prepare for a crash in the near term, short-term T-bills are a convenient way to hold a lot of cash. I
would also say that people should own physical gold, of course, and some actual paper currency notes as well.

That crash, by the way, is way, way overdue. I can’t believe how much money they printed up over the last
decade to keep the ball rolling. But now the Fed is trying to sell treasury instruments, not buy them. They’re
putting the money-printing process into reverse. They’re also raising interest rates. This while all the major
markets are in a bubble.

I’m not saying global equity markets are going to crash in the morning—just that I don’t want to be in them
when they do. Because it’s going to be truly ugly.

Lobo: On that subject, do you think the Dow and the S&P 500 have peaked? Are the hugely volatile moves
we’ve seen in recent times the pin approaching the balloon? Or could the party on Wall Street resume for more
months or years?

Doug: These things tend to run in almost generation-long trends. The US bond market last bottomed in the
early 1980s. Before that, it had peaked in the early 1930s. As for stocks, there have been some interim bottoms,
but it’s basically been in a huge run up since the early 1980s. When I wrote Strategic Investing in 1982, it was
the bottom for both stocks and bonds. It was a stock market book. I told people they should buy the old Nifty
Fifty—if anyone remembers what they were.

Lobo: That was the blue chip list of growth stocks in the 1970s, right?

13 INTERNATIONAL MAN

“I see Western civilization itself collaps-
ing. It’s already started, and it’s going to
be much harder to recover from. If belief
in things like freedom, individualism,
property, individual rights, rule of law—
the core principles of our civilization—if
those things go down, forget about the
stock market. That will be the least of
your worries.”
Doug: Yes. At the time, the Dow was at 900. A
whole generation has passed, and it recently came
within kissing distance of 30 times that number.
That’s a huge increase. And it’s taken a generation
to build. It’s a bubble in search of a pin, for about
20 different reasons.
And that’s not all. The stock market is just a small
piece of a much larger and much more dangerous
trend. It won’t just be the stock market rolling over.
It will be the bond market and the real estate
market as well. That’s going to be really ugly,
because they’re much, much bigger than the stock
market.

I see Western civilization itself collapsing. It’s already started, and it’s going to be much harder to recover from.
If belief in things like freedom, individualism, property, individual rights, rule of law—the core principles of our
civilization—if those things go down, forget about the stock market. That will be the least of your worries.

Lobo: A sobering thought. But I’m not clear on your sense of the timing. Is your guru-vision clear on that, or
are you still uncertain?

Doug: I can’t tell you with total certainty if the peak on Wall Street is behind us. There’s no limit to what the
people in power will do to keep their gravy train going. Honestly, I hope they can prop things up for a few more
years. I’ll take artificial good times over real bad times any day. I therefore hope I’m wrong about the overdue
crash coming soon.

But if I had to guess, I’d say the crash will come before the end of Trump’s four years. And that will be
unfortunate, because people see him primarily as a businessman. So when things go south, capitalism will get
the blame.

Lobo: Just like in the 1930s.

Doug: Exactly. You know, George Goodman wrote an excellent book under the pen name Adam Smith, called
The Money Game. Everyone should read it—it’s a really great book. I didn’t know it when I read the book back
in the 1970s, but the guy who was the basis for the central character in the book turned out to be a good friend
of mine in Aspen. His name was Wink Jaffe. In the book, he’s called The Great Winfield. He was a very, very
shrewd player. I asked Wake if he’d like to co-author a newsletter with me. He turned me down. I asked him
why not, and he answered: “Because if I’m wrong, it’ll be in print.”

And now you’re asking me to call the market top—in print. I might have done well to follow Wink’s example all
those years ago. Now, I’ve been wrong in print so many times, I don’t care anymore.

14 INTERNATIONAL MAN
Lobo: I can see that. And yet, you’ve made and held on to a lot of money. You’re not living in a box under a
bridge as a result of being wrong more than you’re right. So, people want to know what you think.

Doug: I’m gloomy about how this will all play out. I do see the end of Western Civilization coming. And it’s the
only civilization that’s ever done anything for the common man. Rand was essentially right when she said East
minus West equals zero. And with Trump on the watch, the free market is going to going to be tarred for
generations.

Meanwhile, generations of people have been miseducated by government schools and left-liberal academics, so
their proposed solutions to the problems are just going to be more government. Which will only exacerbate and
prolong the problems. The Greater Depression will be much different, much worse, and much longer lasting
than the unpleasantness of 1929-1946.

Lobo: That is pretty gloomy, my friend.

Doug: It gets worse. When the going gets tough, governments like to distract and unite people by raising up
some enemy that must urgently be confronted, at all costs. I’m talking about war. People always come together
under the flag when there’s a war afoot. In this context, China’s rising power—including military power—is both
alarming and inevitable. World War III is not out of the cards, and it would be the greatest convulsion in
history.

Lobo: Wag the dog. For a guy who always looks on the bright side, that’s pretty darn stark, Doug.

Doug: Well, I do think there’s going to be a panic into gold. Those of us who own gold and gold stocks stand to
make a true fortune. I don’t think there’s any way around the world adopting a new, international gold
standard. All the world’s currencies are worth less than toilet paper. All of them. And it’s all gone into the
markets, which is where we’ve seen the most inflation, rather than in retail consumer goods. That will come to
an ugly end, and the world will go back to gold. The Chinese will probably lead the way, followed by the
Russians.

Lobo: Both have certainly been amassing gold as fast as they can.

Doug: Of course they are. Why would either of them want to settle international trade in dollars?

Lobo: Why indeed. Well, thank you very much for your thoughts, Doug. As always, much to ponder.

Lobo Tiggre, Independent Speculator

15 INTERNATIONAL MAN
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