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Within the next 20 years, the most profound changes in economic history will sweep the globe. The economic chaos and turbulence that we are now experiencing are merely the opening salvos in what will prove to be a long, disruptive period of adjustment.

At least that’s my theory, and careful investors owe it to themselves to hear me out. If I’m right, long-term investing in stocks and bonds will deliver lackluster returns at best and be destroyers of wealth at worst.

The G20 meeting has revealed two important things that tell us something about our combined economic future.  First we learned that the US lost the battle to try to get everyone back on the Keynesian print-a-thon bandwagon.  This tells us something about US leadership in these troubled times.  Once upon a time, the US could dictate such things, but those days are apparently over (which deserves to be noted.)

I have been slow to throw my hat into the ring with organizations dedicated to bringing intelligent responses to our predicament. The reason is that I have a list of requirements that have to be met:

• The proposed actions have to address the real challenges that we face.
• The organization has to be strictly non-partisan and neutral or silent on a wide range of belief-centered positions.

I know that doesn’t seem like a very long list of requirements, but it turns out that it eliminates an enormous number of organizations and individuals from consideration as affiliate partners.

On the first requirement, there are a lot of efforts out there that are either in denial about the actual predicament in which we find ourselves or are approaching solutions in a socially-cautious, status-quo fashion.  Their incremental efforts run a very high risk of being in the category of ‘too little, too late,‘ and are therefore largely ineffective, even if energetic and well-meaning.  Even if I am glad they exist and wish them well, I simply have a hard time getting excited by efforts that, in my opinion, are badly overmatched by the pace and scope of the changes that are coming.

I give really, really boring advice. For years it has not changed a whit, and that’s just not the way to run a newsletter business.  There should be some movement, some pizazz, new things to ponder.  Instead I just keep saying the same thing over and over again.

Buy gold (and silver, too).

This is what I’ve been saying for the past seven years, ever since gold was in the $300’s and silver was under $5, so you might be tempted to think I am simply another gold bug.  While I confess to finding a certain allure in heavy bullion coins – they sound great tossed on a counter and feel good in my hand – I am not really a gold bug.

Instead, what I am is a gigantic, unrelenting, anti-fiat-currency bug.  Well, at least I am anti-mismanaged fiat currencies, but that pretty much encompasses them all to varying degrees.

As with all investment,s I have an exit strategy in my mind that will dictate when I sell my gold and silver to place those funds in other productive investments.  Unfortunately, that day seems further away than ever.

Let me explain why.

I may have to get a divorce from the news, as nothing adds up anymore.

For example, even as the stock market surges along, as one might expect at the tail end of trillions in stimulus and bailouts, and retail sales apparently roared ahead in March according to the Commerce Department, small businesses are as gloomy as they’ve ever been.

I really do have a difficult time trying to understand the source of the disconnect between these entirely divergent reports: