Smartest Man In Europe Not Much Help

Peter Grandich made me aware of this post by Byron Wien offering insight to the mind of the smartest man in Europe.

Yet after reading the post I didn’t feel like I had come away with any usable nugget of information I didn’t already know and been regurgitated over and over by so many experts.

To me this is the crux of the problem with financial gurus and soothsaying these days. They say a lot but tell you little.

If you like catch phrases, there is nothing ACTIONABLE.

They may go on and on with details, charts, graphs and have you nodding your head the entire time but as a trusted mentor has often said to me “what are you supposed to do with that piece of information?”

Let’s take a look at some of the highlights from this interview with Europe’s smartest man:

• The debt problem we have could be the end of the (Western) world as we know it
• Governments can and have been kicking the can down the road
• They can’t kick forever
• This is what the people want: have their cake and eat it too while someone ELSE pays the bill
• ECB balance sheet is in the trillions (a term of measurement previously equated with infinity – Roger)
• Spain and Greece will default (There’s some news..NOT! – Roger)
• But it won’t matter at that point because by then the people will be on the hook for their bank’s bad paper
• Central banks will print and keep on printing

Really, what part of that didn’t you already know?

So finally, Byron does actually reveal the gem of the article, what everyone really wants to know from the smartest man in Europe.

We want to know what he is doing with his money, right?

You ready? Here it is… (drum roll, please!)

What the Smartest Man in Europe is Doing With HIS Money

Are you sitting down? My (sarcastic) comments are in parenthesis.

(I can’t believe this information is being released, in the clear, for free on the internet!)

• It’s hard to hide in stocks (Shocking!)
• French auto companies are in trouble (Why does he single these out? Seen GM’s stock price recently?)
• Gold is going much higher (I would NEVER have guessed)
• He is buying energy stocks (yib, uh, bbb…WHICH ONES???) because he wants to own something real (Jim Rogers thinks agriculture and other commodities are real too…but, come on, we need specifics)
• Preserving capital is his focus, not making money (That’s great for someone SO wealthy they can spend down their capital to live on, but what about the sub-US$5,000,000 retiree trying to live on the earnings of his wealth in hopes of passing something on to his heirs?)
• He likes IBM and Apple (IBM, really? Are they still around? – Does he still like Apple at $600?)
• He likes some Swiss multi-nationals (OK, that’s pretty specific)
• If Obama wins, the market will go down. If Romney wins the market will rally until it pulls its collective head out of its hind end (OK, the pulling the head out part was mine)

So there you have it. Financial advice from the smartest man in Europe. Feel better now, all set to reallocate your portfolio and head out to the golf course feeling just fine?

Aren’t you glad you didn’t pay for that information, all spiffy’d up, drawn out and neatly packaged in a $99 special report?

What You Can Do

If per chance you never got around to buying gold or just don’t feel you have enough yet (does one ever?) then you can get some great advice on where and how to buy gold and also learn about storage options, both at home and overseas here.

In addition to that I can finally say that at least one financial guru I have known for over a decade has recognized the problem, the plight of folks just like you and me, and decided to start doing more than just offering his economic insight for free.

This man has just started a (paid, but cheap) service to help you find investments that can offer you YIELD while not subjecting your capital to UNDUE RISK in order to achieve that yield. That’s right, enough of this crap where you go out 20 – 40 years on a bond just so you can get 4%, as if 4% is still going to look good in 5 years, let alone 20 years or more.

More on that service soon, I hope; and I will post it here. (I think I’m waiting for his return from a working vacation to get set up to recommend his new service.)

Tagged as: Europe