I give up on doing my taxes. I made a boo-boo on the number of credits for the Child Tax Credit and paid the IRS $421.04 this month for my mistake. Oh well. My mistake, and I have the money in my account. I do have a CPA lined up to do my 2006 taxes.

I'm reading Peter D. Schiff's Crash Proof-- a timely read. The only sale I made in the July 26 meltdown was QQQQ, and that was mostly because I need to limit my domestic exposure, and Tim Middleton of MSN Money had sold his. I was, weeks earlier, on a sloughing mission for domestic large-caps anyway. I'll probably do some light trading and messing around in my accounts and limit the domestic exposure.

Even though he is an expert I don't agree with everything Schiff says. I agree with him that plenty of smart, sophisticated, well-educated, financial experts got taken in by Enron. I was on his side when I saw the Summer 2006 Fox News bit where some real estate bulls loudly laughed and talked over him while he stated what was happening and what would happen to the housing market. I'm glad I didn't get taken in by ENR. I did get taken in by some local public companies in the heady 1998-2000 era: so much for paying attention to balance sheets and fundamentals!

About the economy I think Schiff is 95% correct, but I do not think I will be leveraging the equity in my home to get an 8% return elsewhere, as he recommends. I like my fixed 5% mortgage. It helped us during the daycare years. I might refinance if I were completely set on renting out the house.

Chapter 8 and beyond he advertises his firm Euro Pacific Capital. He conveniently glosses over index funds and ETFs, except when he discusses Gold ETFs. Another reason I haven't been selling much is because I have lots of money tied up in Vanguard value or international (value) mutual funds. If it's giving me a hedge against inflation or a high dividend, it's earning a spot in my portfolio.

I have been buying gold, even before the creepy dream I had about my dead mother reaching over me while I was in bed to get to my night table's drawer. She wanted her [insert dollar value of] gold jewellery and I said "I don't keep that stuff in the house, for insurance purposes."

My fact-finding mission, when I return from vacation, will be if my discount brokerage allows me to trade on foreign exchanges. I know the safety of sovereign foreign countries: I don't know how the housing bubble, stealth inflation and excess spending on what looks to be a futile endeavour is good for this country. And for some reason the people who've lived here much longer than I do don't or won't tell me how. I see too many parallels between what's going on now and the Reagan-era "we can defeat Soviet Communism by a spending race! Who ever goes bankrupt first loses!"

Invest in what you know. The problem is you don't really know what's going to happen, and Heaven help you if you have to rely on dreams about dead people to inform your investment strategy.