Seeing Is Believing

I’ve been working on Dent’s editorial team for almost a year and a half now, and in that time, I’ve read a lot of copy.

I mean, a lot of copy.

Sometimes I’m still amazed by all of the information we send out on a daily basis.

By now, I’ve had the opportunity to work with all of our different editors. I’ve read their newsletters, watched their videos, chatted with them over the phone, and even gotten a drink or two with them at company functions.

But the one thing that I haven’t done, in all this time, is watched them give a presentation in person, live and up on stage.

And let me tell you – seeing is believing.

The information just transfers differently. It’s real… more engaging. And if I have a question about something that, say, Rodney talked about during his presentation on the death of the dollar, I don’t have to do a Google search to find out what I’m looking for.

Instead, I can just ask him my question when he gets off-stage.

It’s that personalized one-on-one time that, for me, made this weekend different and so incredibly valuable. And I hope that all of our readers who came out to this year’s Irrational Economic Summit felt the same way.

Now, I know that not everyone has the time to check their email over the weekend, so for those of you who might have missed an update or two, here’s a quick recap of our Summit events in Palm Beach…

Harry kicked us off by telling audience members about the opportunities that will be available during the upcoming “sale of a lifetime” – a period of time that will directly correlate with the next market crash.

What you need to understand is this: the crash that Harry’s forecasting is going to be more devastating than the Great Depression was during the 1930s. It will annihilate everyone in its path – no exceptions. In fact, it’s the usually safe-in-their-ivory-towers 0.01%-10% of the population who will see the greatest hit to their finances in the years ahead. And that bust period – or, what Harry likes to call the winter deflationary season – is fast approaching, so now is the time to start preparing.

Luckily, those in the U.S. will have an advantage over the rest of the world, and it’s called the dollar. As Rodney explained in his presentation on Friday, the buck isn’t going anywhere any time soon. As a matter of fact, it’s probably the best crisis hedge that you can have.

This is something that Raoul Pal really drove home when he talked about his macro view of the global economy. He explained that right now, the world is desperately short of dollars, making those who have their wealth tied to our currency all the richer.

And Dr. Lacy Hunt reminded us all how we got to this problem in the first place. Not to point a finger, but… thanks, Keynesians.

You see, as Lacy explained, the federal government has tried desperately to sell off its debt in recent years. The problem is that we’ve seen a shift in savings going from the private sector to the public sector as a way to pay for it – and it’s put a real hurting on savers in the middle and lower classes.

Those who don’t have a lot of money in the first place generally don’t make the effort to “do their part” to stimulate the economy, a concept that the federal government just can’t seem to wrap its head around. So what we’ve seen is a gradual decline in spending, a slowing economy, and historically low interest rates as a result.

It’s a problem that no amount of easy-money is going to fix… but don’t be surprised if you see Fed officials trying it again anyway.

However, should they ever get their heads out of the sand and decide to implement some real monetary reform, David Walker has some amazing ideas on how to cut unnecessary spending and get our country back towards a more balanced budget.

In the meantime, there are plenty of ways to both make and save your money in this environment, and we saw a whole host of them over the last few days.

Charles showed us how to make great value investments despite high stock prices and abnormally low periods of volatility…

Adam taught us that investors tend to base their decisions off of a fight-or-flight fear response, and how to avoid doing just that…

John gave us insider knowledge about companies who fudge their numbers and rip off investors to pay themselves before their shareholders, and how to find quality companies that actually put you first…

Ben unveiled his new MarketVOX Intel Trader service, and how with it, he can search through over 3.9 million pieces of market intelligence to “hear” what high-level execs and investors are thinking…

And Lance taught us how to turn a profit off of interest rate volatility – whether rates go up, down or sideways.

This year’s Summit really had something for everyone. We went into it wanting to not only give you the big picture of what lies ahead, but also show you a variety of different ways to deal with it – whatever that looks like for you.

I’d say that after some 30-plus hours of non-stop insider tips and insight, we succeeded (and then some).

For those of you who weren’t able to make it out, there’s still time to order our 2016 Irrational Economic Summit Digital Replay Kit. With it, you’ll have access to many of the great presentations that our speakers gave this year, six of our workshops (audio only), and a digital copy of Harry’s latest book, The Sale of a Lifetime.

We also hope you’ll come out and join us next year in Nashville. We’ll let you know what days to mark in your calendars when we’ve nailed those down.

Before I go, I just wanted to acknowledge a few people who worked so hard to make our 2016 summit spectacular – Shannon Sands, our Publisher, Amanda Klein, our Conference Director, Megan Johnson, our Marketing Manager, Teresa van den Barselaar, our Editorial Director, Jacquie Talbot, our Member Services Specialist, Brendan Finnerty, our photographer, and everyone else who worked tirelessly behind the scenes.

Thank you to the editors – Harry, Rodney, Adam, Charles, Lance, John, and Ben – you guys were awesome.

These events take a village to pull together, and I’m so happy to be working with each and every one of you.

Also, a big thank you to all the experts who took to the stage: Dan Mitchell, the honorable David Walker, Chris Gaffney, Don Hosmer, Raoul Pal, Joe Wirbick, George Gilder, Josh Bennett, Barry Potekin, Dr. Lacy Hunt, Howard Lindzon, and Andrew Pancholi. They are truly the greatest minds of our time!

And last but not least, thank you to YOU, our readers.

You’re the reason that we hold this conference each year. I met a lot of amazing people this past weekend, and I sincerely hope to see you all next year in Nashville.

Until then, I’m signing off as your 2016 IES On-the-Ground Reporter,