• The Science Of Loneliness
• The dark side of your $5 Footlong: Business owners say it could bite them
• These Will Be the Big Stories of 2018
• Stop reading what Facebook tells you to read
• Too much screening has misled us about real cancer risk factors, experts say
• Why American doctors keep doing expensive procedures that don’t work
• It's Time For Innovators To Take Responsibility For Their Creations
• Americans Will Eat a Record Amount of Meat in 2018

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Given the brutal start to the markets in the first three weeks of 2016, we thought it a good time to check in with the team at New Harbor Financial. We have had them on our podcast periodically over the past years as the market churned to ever new highs, and have always appreciated their skepticism of these liquidity-driven ""markets"" as well as their unwavering commitment to risk management should the party in stocks end suddenly.

So, how is their risk-managed approach faring now that the S&P 500 has suddenly dropped 8% since Christmas? Quite well. Their general portfolio is flat for the year so far — evidence that caution, prudence and hedging can indeed preserve capital during market downdrafts.

We've invited the New Harbor team back on this week to hear their latest assessment on the markets, as well as how they're approaching their portfolio positioning moving forward.

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Two years since his last interview with us, investor Jim Rogers returns and notes that the risks he warned of last time have only gotten worse. In this week's podcast, Jim shares his rational for predicting:

• increased wealth confiscation by the central planners
• a pending major financial market collapse
• gold's return as the preferred safe haven investment
• more oil price weakness, followed by a trend reversal
• Russia's rebound
• a China bubble reckoning
• agriculture's long-term value

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Last fall, I wrote an article titled Defying Gravity that warned of the absurd price levels that stocks and bonds had risen to. Less than a month later, the stock market abruptly dropped by 7%. Those who didn't seek safety in advance were left licking their wounds, panicked not knowing if the painful down-draft was over.

So here we are roughly six months later, and the same warning bells are ringing — just louder this time.

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I have not seen a year in which so many risks—some truly existential—piled up so quickly. Each risk has its own, often unknown, probability of morphing into a destructive force. Groping for a metaphor—I love metaphors and similes—I feel like we’re in the final throes of a geopolitical Game of Tetris as financial and political authorities race to place the pieces correctly. But the acceleration is palpable. The proximate trigger for pain and ultimately a collapse can be small, as anyone who’s ever stepped barefoot on a Lego knows.

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The Slow Money movement focuses on deploying capital, locally, to strengthen small food enterprises. Its goal is to improve the quality, dependability and sustainability of our food source, while financially nurturing communities and delivering an attractive return on investment to native investors.

Woody Tasch is the founder and chairman of Slow Money – in this week's podcast, he and Chris discuss the templates his organization is piloting across over 350 ventures in local food production, processing, distribution and marketing.

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This week's podcast build on our recent report on hedging, driller deeper into how the technique can be used to offer protection against falling asset prices.

There are numerous ways to hedge, which vary in cost and complexity — with several being quite simple and low-cost (such as building cash or employing stops). But many investors don't practice them, mostly out of unfamiliarity. Which is a shame, as often a small degree of defensive planning can provide substantial avoidance of large losses. (In fact, our recent poll has discovered that one of the most common and cheapest methods of hedging — setting stops —  is hardly used by PeakProsperity's readership.)

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The Federal Reserve and other central planners have worked overtime to lead the world back to "recovery" from the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. Using one of their main signaling indicators, they've succeeded: stock market indices are hovering near all-time highs.

But, as has been often discussed here, are we really better off for it?

Recent survey data from Bloomberg show that 4 out of 5 Americans don't feel any more financially secure as a result of the stock market rescue. 62% believe the country is headed in the wrong direction:

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I believe there's an entrepreneur in everybody. 

~ Robert Kiyosaki

Last weekend, Chris and I traveled to Phoenix, AZ, where we spent several days with Robert Kiyosaki, author of the popular personal finance book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which has sold over 26 million copies to-date.

Robert had read The Crash Course, and it resonated so strongly with him that he purchased copies for his staff and made it the theme of his company's leadership conference this spring. Together with his wife, Kim, and his council of Rich Dad advisors, we spent many hours discussing the future implications of the Three E's with business leaders from across Robert's global organization.

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