CONCLUSION 269I like to say that every individual has a Ph.D. when it comes
to managing his or her own money. You may not know a lot
about economics, but you can and should focus on your own
net worth.
You are not helpless. You don’t have to feel like a cork on
the ocean or like a victim of whatever policy the central bank-
ers are putting out there.
You can take your net worth and take your retirement and
take your portfolio into your own hands.
There are families in the United States, like the Rockefellers,
that have had money for, say, one hundred years. That’s the
old money.
When you go to Europe, however, you find families that
have had wealth for three hundred, four hundred and even
five hundred years. That’s the really old money.
Not long ago, I was at the magnificent Palazzo Colonna
in the heart of Rome. The Colonna family’s had their wealth
since the 13th Century. For 800 years they’ve been wealthy
and never lost it.
They not only survived 2008, but they survived the Thirty
Years’ War, Napoleon, Louis XIV, World War I, World War II, the
Holocaust and more.
If you ask them how they did it they’ll look at you and say,
“a third, a third and a third” — one third land, one-third gold,
one-third fine art.
Let’s say you’re living in Bavaria and it’s 1620. The enemy
is five miles away and they’re burning down everything in
sight. What do you do? You put your gold coins in a sack, you
cut your painting off the wall, roll it up, put it in your back-
pack, get on your horse, and ride away.
Then a few years later when the dust settles, you come
back and you should be able to reestablish title to the land,
put your gold back on the table, put your art back on the wall.
You’re wealthy and your neighbors have all been wiped out.