Water is essential for life. It's quite literally an investment that you can't live without. And while you might not be able to trade water futures on the Chicago Board of Trade, providing people with H2O is a $400 billion global industry, according to an article by Harvard's Garry Emmons. "In ...read more

“Planet Earth is probably the riskiest it has been since the day before the meteor landed in the Yucatan and wiped out most life.” -- Donald Coxe This is an eye-opener. Whenever I talk about the Great Depression and compare it with what is going on today, I get a lot ...read more

Last week, the stock market fell by more than 6%. That’s a return of -24.5% for the year. While we equities here in the U.S. continue to struggle, emerging nations have been hit even harder… especially commodity-based economies. Brazil is certainly in this basket of falling markets. Fortunately for you, it ...read more

Trying to make any headway in this market is like trying to move around in a barrel of molasses. It’s a test of your patience. Meanwhile, there is a steady drumbeat of bad news in the press. Every day, there are layoffs and bankruptcies of one kind or another and ...read more

Of all the crazy events in 2008, seeing the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in flames on TV is one I'll remember for a long time. Last year, when I traveled throughout India, my first stop was Mumbai (or Bombay, as people still call it). I stayed at the Taj Mahal ...read more

Ukraine and Russia are at it again. This time, it’s turned especially nasty, as Russia cut off natural gas supplies to a host of European countries. Tired of relying on Russia, the EU will again look for alternatives. Its eyes will wander to Turkmenistan. Back in October, while the world was busy ...read more

He won a decisive victory in the presidential elections and his party picked up a bunch of seats in Congress. The American economy is in the dumps and the mood is glum. The new president puts in motion sweeping new legislation and spending plans in an attempt to fix things… I'm ...read more

We may be on the cusp of a great global boom in the automotive industry. That may be hard to believe given all the ink spilled on the troubles at the mossbacked mastodons known as GM, Ford and Chrysler. But there are reasons to believe something big is afoot here ...read more

The bell of American finance has cracked. It was a long time coming, as I’ll show you. The biggest change in the American economy in the last generation or so has been the rise of finance at the expense of making things. This seemed to work for a while, but ...read more

Congratulations on making it through yet another week of panic, margin calls, and forced selling! If you’re surviving, and you’re not down too much this year, you’re better off than most money managers. Out of the thousands of hedge funds in existence, hundreds are closing up shop and liquidating, if the ...read more