One way you can be sure to have no shortage of work is to do what I've done, spending much of my life -- in the form of books, podcast episodes, articles, and speeches -- refuting false or distorted claims (historical, economic, and otherwise) made in the popular press.
But the problem is more than distortion. The problem also involves issues that are entirely ignored: they aren't distorted because they don't get mentioned in the first place.
Or the problem is that the range of allowable opinion is preposterously narrow -- e.g., which wing of the bipartisan foreign-policy consensus do you wish to support?
You mean I have the privilege of choosing between Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney? How about neither?
By far the most important ignored issue, in my opinion, is money.
The destruction of sound money around the world has laid the groundwork for the destruction of so much that is good and beautiful. There are so many bad trends -- in fields as disparate as science, food, architecture, and family life, and a great many more besides -- that can be traced back to bad money.
And it is at the root of why no matter what we try, the world's bloated regimes cannot be kept under control.
This is why Ludwig von Mises said: "It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights."
Yet not only does essentially nobody talk about it, but you are almost universally derided as a crank if you do.
Even though gold has been displaced from its throne in the world of money, it still provides a service to those who own it. It isn't a make-money scheme or get rich quick, neither of which you should want anyway. But it has held its value consistently over the centuries.
I own it because even if its value doesn't increase the way I expect, it's something I know I can hand down to my children -- and unlike the paper money I've earned, it won't be debased, and indeed it could rise in value for them.
I am not giving you advice; I am just telling you what I do.
In the crazy world of 2026, we have to put our heads together.
I've told you about CrowdHealth, the brilliant health insurance alternative that lets you secede from American health-care madness and funded our $200,000 pregnancy bill -- not a typo -- without a problem.
Its CEO is a free-market guy like you and me, and instead of sitting around complaining, he built an alternative.
Well, the same is true for gold.
My longtime friend Jeff Deist (he was actually a groomsman at my wedding), former president of the Mises Institute, now works with a company called Monetary Metals, where I've had an account for a couple of years. Those of you familiar with Jeff know he's a good and brilliant guy.
The idea behind Monetary Metals is simple: people like you and me are probably going to own gold anyway, so why not make it earn a yield?
Instead of letting it sit there like a lazy bum, I put my gold to work with Monetary Metals and earn about a 4% yield per year, paid in more gold.
I rather like the idea of earning income for things I was planning to do anyway, like owning gold. This is what they call "low-hanging fruit."
Good luck finding out about Monetary Metals in the New York Times or on cable news. But when you subscribe to ol' Woods, gems like this come with the territory.
At this point you are losing track of the number of ways the old man here has improved your life.
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