DAILY FINANCE: The patron saint of the Wall Street apocalypse society may be Barton Biggs. The leader of Traxis Partners, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund, Biggs has gained a reputation for his dire predictions, particularly those of his much-quoted 2008 analysis of World War II, Wealth, War and Wisdom. At the end of the book, Biggs offers his conclusions from his brief study of history, suggesting the likelihood of a future era in which “People with wealth” will face “another time of cholera when the Four Horsemen will ride again and the barbarians unexpectedly will be at their gate.”
Biggs offers some interesting advice for hedging the apocalypse. In addition to prescribing a highly diversified portfolio heavily invested in equity instruments, Biggs also advises that his readers buy farms to which they can retreat when the hammer drops. The hedgie touts the joys of the natural life, noting that “landowners seem to find considerable psychic satisfaction just from the knowledge of possession. There are few things as fulfilling as having drink [sic] in the sunset and looking at your fields and cows.”
This bucolic perspective seems to owe more to Little House on the Prairie than to any actual experience on Biggs’s part. Although the author briefly worked as a schoolteacher and a semiprofessional soccer player, his New York-Yale-Wall Street career track doesn’t seem to have left much time for tilling fields and milking cows. But this doesn’t stop Biggs from telling his readers what they need to do in order to wait out the end of the world: “Your safe haven … should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson.” He goes on to suggest that, when the post-apocalyptic hordes attack, the survivalist money man should shoot first and ask questions later: “A few rounds over the approaching brigands [sic] heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there are easier farms to pillage. Brigands tend to be cowards.” MORE
JIM ROGERS BLOG: I expect to see social unrest, civil unrest in the United States a couple of years from now. Yes its changing the entire situation in the United States, the US is the largest debtor in the history of the world. There is a dramatic change taking place. The world`s century is moving from the west to the east, to Asia and many people have not figured this out yet. Yes, you are going to see a lot of turmoil in the United States in the next 3, 4, 5 years. MORE
WIKIPEDIA: James Beeland Rogers, Jr. (born October 19, 1942) is an American investor and financial commentator based both in Singapore and Miami.[2] He was a co-founder of the Quantum Fund, and is a college professor, author, economic commentator, and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index (RICI). He is an outspoken proponent of the free market but does not consider himself a member of any school of thought. In 1970, Rogers joined Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder. That same year, Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund. During the following 10 years the portfolio gained 4200% while the S&P advanced about 47%.[5] It was one of the first truly international funds. In 1980, Rogers decided to “retire”, and spent some of his time traveling on a motorcycle around the world. Since then he has been a guest professor of finance at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. MORE