“How important is it for investors to be prepared for another serious economic downturn?”

It’s a very difficult situation if you don’t prepare properly. It’s like a big earthquake. I mean, you really want to be the guy who has prepared your financial structure properly so it can survive the earthquake. If you do, not only will you be in a much better shape, but you’re going to have investing opportunity of a lifetime. You really will do very well by being one of the few that survives, has everything in tact.

Again, don’t think that there’s nothing left to the planet earth, that’s hardly true, but you are going to have a large economy. It will not be a thriving economy, but it’s a large economy where people who’ve got assets, who’ve preserved what they’ve got through say investments in gold, which I think will do very well in surviving that environment, they’re going to do very, very well. It’s not the end of the world. It’s really in many ways a great opportunity and I think long-term I’m quite an optimist, I think we’ll solve all of our problems. I think ultimately this is one thing that will force us to solve our problems and I think we’ll go ahead and focus on improving productivity and not blowing bubbles. I think that’s such a critical thing that we’re lacking in this current economy that more than the fake recovery and all that, it’s really the lack of focus on improving productivity that’s hurting us more than anything else. And if there’s any really one big silver lining in the “Aftershock” is it will force us, no more talking about it, no more getting around it, it will force us to focus on improving productivity, which I know we can do, because we’ve done it before. We can certainly do it again.