Chris Martin, order and read James Rickards' newest book, The Road to Ruin.
It reads like a textbook on the History of Money. The man is brilliant and rubs elbows with the world's wealthiest. He teaches the reader how to read the very public jargon of the world's elite.
In chapter nine all is revealed. Hint, in Rome there is single family who are the sole owners of the Plaza Colonna. This wealth family has controlled their wealth for 900 years for over 31 generations. Rickards muses... "Here is a family fortune that had survived the Black Death, the Thirty Years War, the wars of Louis the COB, the Napoleonic Wars, both world wars, the Holacaust, and the cold war... That kind of wealth and longevity could not be due merely to good luck... There had to be a technique."
A telling portion of a quote that follows: "...art, land, and gold are the things that last."
Later he imagines "..An early 17th century noble, hearing marauding armies approaching his manor, could remove his paintings from their frames, stow the canvasses in a sack, put his gold in a pouch, and ride away with both in tow. Months later he could return to the manor, reclaim possession, stack his gold on a table, and hang his art on the wall. His wealth would be intact, while his neighbor's wealth was perhaps destroyed.
Rickards make the point "Land can be lost. Nevertheless, good title to land, once established, is durable. ...There are thousands of Cuban refugees in Miami who will show you deeds to properties in formerly wealthy neighbourhoods of Havanna. They took these deeds with them when they fled the Communist takeover in 1959. Many of the homes were occupied by party officials. Some have been destroyed. Yet the refugees still hold title and they, or their descendents will return someday. As the US and Cuba normalize relations, those titles will not be ignored.
..."An interesting 21st century take on this millinarian portfolio is that land, art, and gold are nondigital. They cannot be wiped out by power outages, asset freezes, or cyberbrigades.
1/3, 1/3, 1/3 was the basic portfolio of the Colonna family. Me, I'm not into art. Rickards' advice is to acquire "museum quality" art. That, for the most part, leaves me by the wayside.
... But I can learn from his book and adapt my investment plans to aid me and my descendents... probably less than 5% in the stock of businesses that have a century or more of "survival history". 😊
In former Communist East Germany there's a Christian family I know who did well as bakers in a very small town... Though the apparatchiks approached them to "join the cause", they wisely refused. Bread, in their case, was Life to them and the communities they served.
When I served as a missionary in Haiti, I saw the value of local bakeries... as they are (valuable) in all developing nations... this is a fact of life known by missionaries throughout the world.
My real estate interest is in farmland and small producing farms outside of metropolitan areas.
I'm looking to invest in a very special local bakery near where I'm increasing my holdings in farmland.
