Unfortunately you can lose big even while buying tangible assets, and Kyle is right that timing can be a big issue. Lex is right that you have to be careful about getting caught up in the buying frenzy, otherwise you can be hit pretty hard.
There is big money to be made in the markets, derivatives and futures trading etc, but the truth is a lot of that is based on the ever expanding credit system. In other words, they can be so immediately profitable that tangible assets can pale in comparison. However, the problem is that much of those investments derive their profits on the debt dollar, and much of that profit does not represent real growth in wealth; just the effect and 'trickle down' effects of the creation of lots more dollars. In other words, you gotta make sure that you're on the top of the pyramid of people that will see those newly created dollars - the bottom feeders just eat it. Of course, when these guys fail (and remember, many of them must fail when debt dollar creation, speculation, and highly leveraged betting gets out of hand), they fall hard and they take down alot of others with them. That's why it's 'safer' to buy tangible assets however...
If you had bought 'tangible' oil just 8 months ago, you would have lost big. Speculators often drive the prices way up. Sounds like Lex had a bad beat back in the 70's when he did the equivalent of buying a highly over-speculated asset.
If you are looking to save for yor future, one of the safest and surest ways to preserve the value of your hard earned work (represented by money), then you just can't beat something that has inherent value: land, commodities, and precious metals. Gold and silver are inherently important not only as desirable items to wear, but for a wide range of industrial applications, and as something that every agrees and has agreed for a long time are worth having. There are many more precious metals and commodities other than gold/silver. Land will always have value, as inherently it is all we have. All work, all mining, all development, everything must be done on land.
However, and it's importance cannot be overstated, speculators often come in and place/base a wide range of speculative bets on these assets, and the speculation begins to take on a life of its own apart from the real value of those assests. When this happens it seems there's just a huge amount of $$ to be made in this speculation, and if you get caught buying overvalued assets you can lose big.
So the moral of the story is this: You can make alot of money on speculation - way more than the potential to make by just 'saving,' but also have the potential to lose everything. If on the other hand, you accumulate real assets outside of the window of artificially created bubbles - some people might call them ponzi schemes - then you are truly saving for you future, and it is a saving that will always retain its value, regardless of the debt based monetary system.
ps. that's an intersting strategy Lex with the insurance thing.
