How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years

I read the book around 1979 when it first came out. Everything the author says is completely plausible and happening now. The down side is I wish he had mentioned that it would take 30 years to happen! I missed the upside of the late 80's and 90's waiting for the end. I missed out on a fortune. Anyway, it does seem like the book is spot on for today's world.

"How to Prosper," is the personal inflation-fighter's handbook that catapulted Howard Ruff to nearly legendary status among gold bugs and hard-money advocates toward the end of the 1970's. Ruff, like many authors of the 70's (and again since 2000), takes a hard look at the problems of government debt, spending, and rampant money creation. But unlike many other authors, Ruff does not expect that hard-nosed or foresighted politicos to lead America back to fiscal sanity. Instead his book lays out a personal survival plan that assumes the dollar will continue to buy less and less, while the average person will suffer for it more and more. In short, Ruff expects that when it comes to facing the economic troubles to come, you are on your own. Ruff does not leave the reader without hope, however. Rather he notes that whether "inflation is good or bad for you depends on whether you own some of those things which are inflating in price," and he lays out a thorough list of those things that are expected to inflate in price, including gold, silver, and rural real estate. And while we never reached his tipping point in the `80s, many of the signs that Ruff pointed to as harbingers of economic woes are once again rising on the financial horizon. I certainly recommend this book, but I also recommend that the reader pair it with a book that takes a deflationary approach - Martin Weiss' "The Great Money Panic" would be a good choice - in order to achieve the perspective that a good investor should always try to acheive.