Hi Greg,

I was lucky to have a formal education in economics in the early 80s. That helped me a bit but on these issues, monetary policy and currency issues, it is never too late to learn.

Lots of free resources, especially in American English. Some are indeed quite decent and a couple of exceptional US resources on macro-financial information spring to mind, ZH (if you can avoid taking the information as an incentive to trade...), Stockman letter, Jeremy Grantham, Charles Hugh Smith, mises.org and others I forget. US is a place filled with shameless banksters, crass lawyers ... AND courageous bloggers. That should not be forgotten!

Once you stop confusing the words "investment", "saving" and "trading", you have already learned a lot anyway. Even at a cost, that's quite useful. Buying precious metals with a trader's view to "make money" mat not be exactly a great idea. Having some in the bank with a view to save and forget makes a lot of sense. Except for buying when everybody does as in the early 80s or at the top of the previous crisis. We are neither exactly here nor exactly there by way.

The problem is elsewhere: having your country run the world monetary system for over 70 years has a cost. America has forgot the sense of this word. Which one? "Saving", which has become passé. Both for the people as a whole - say the state - and as individuals. This is fully linked to the monetary arrangements of our planet. But who is really aware of it?

Daniel