Review of Ruff's Little Book of Big Fortunes in Gold & Silver: A Middle Class License to Print Money (Hardcover)

A good introduction to investing in Gold, Silver and mining stocks. The author is knowledgeable as well ashumorous and entertaining. No shrinking violet either! It helps that I was already a huge believer and practitioner of the methods he puts forth though. An enjoyable read and well worth the money. But I will caution that , as is usually the case with these types of books , there's a lot of cross-promotion laced throughout , from ads for his own newsletter , to other ancillory services. Some things kind of stick in my craw , such as statements like "There is no best- or worst-case scenario in which I can conceive of gold and silver being losers. You can mortgage the kids and bet the farm!". Some claims I find questionable: "If you add up the dollar value of all the gold and silver supplies in existence, plus the market value of all the stocks of the mining companies, it would total far less than the market capitalization of Google or Microsoft." Don't know what is meant by this. Google has a market cap of about $123 Billion. The giant mining conglomerate BHP Billiton has a market cap close to the same , at $112 Billion. Microsoft has a $271 Billion cap. But 'According to the World Gold Council (and others) there are between 4-5 billion
ounces of gold remaining in the world...' (off the web). At $600/ounce that's a value approaching $3 Trillion right there. One last thing I note with confusion is that in a the chapter on potential scams , he admits readily that a company he founded which he describes as having been a coin and bullion dealer, was subsequently sold to a scam artist, and people were hurt. He says he feels a sense of accountability , and that the buyer's intentions were unbeknowst to him , and internet searches do seem to show that he had nothing to do with the problems that arose from this entity. But , the confusion arises from the fact that he repeatedly says he got out of the metals markets in 1980 and was even bearish until recently. "...I ignored the metals for 22 years..." So the question then is how/why he founded a coin and bullion dealership which appears to have been founded in 1985.
In any event , bullish as he is , the author offers very sound advice of avoiding undo leverage, watching out for fraudsters,and diversifying among investments within the realm of metals.
Recommended.



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