Game Over

January 26, 2009
Investment guru Leeb, former editor of Personal Finance and a media commentator, reaffirms his earlier predictions, in The Coming Economic Collapse and The Oil Factor, that "the world is headed for a train wreck centered on pending massive shortages" of resources and commodities, especially oil. Though financial institutions now take center stage, Leeb asserts that the "vicious circles" he describes underlie those problems, and will only get worse as oil becomes scarcer (the Peak Oil theory, that "oil will never again be as plentiful and cheap" as it was). Another problem is increasing demand from emerging economies like China and India, and the inability of alternative energy to keep up-as they depend on yet more scarce commodities (solar cells use rare tellurium, wind mills require steel, etc.). Leeb declares gold the "most essential asset to invest in," with defense stocks a close second (in anticipation of coming resource wars), but his sobering perspective is tempered by a conclusion that "our challenge" in the coming crisis is "more sociological than economic," and that a soft landing for the U.S. could mean a simpler, "more productive" society and a return to 1950s-style prosperity.