Contributors

Mario Cavolo

A consultant in strategic communications, Mario has been based for the last ten years in Shanghai, where he currently works with clients including American Airlines, PPG, Alcatel-Lucent, eBay, L’Oreal and many others. An author, jazz pianist and popular event speaker, he has been featured on the dais at corporate and media expos, and in 2010 appeared on Bloomberg television as an expert on China’s economic expansion. Mario teams up regularly with former CNN Senior Correspondent Mike Chinoy to provide media training services throughout Asia.


Chuck Cohen

Chuck is a financial consultant specializing in market timing and in the precious metals and their mining shares, especially exploration companies that he believes will soon embark on the most spectacular bull market in history. He attended the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate and San Francisco State at its graduate School of International Business. A regular contributor to LeMetropoleCafe.com and Rick’s Picks, Chuck lives in Manhattan with his wife, Lorraine and his shy, black pug, Tulip. Click here to inquire about his services, track record and articles he has written about gold and the stock market.


Doug Graham

A 25-year veteran of the semiconductor industry, mainly in sales, Doug sold the company he’d owned for 11 years to two partners in 2008. He has been active in financial markets for 30 years, both as a trader of equities and futures; produced a film for children; and is currently an angel investor in a firm that builds small-scale, modular nuclear reactors. Doug, who graduated from Oregon State in 1983 with a BSEE, says that after being “intellectually waylaid” by the dot-com crash, he began to focus on issues and investables that he expected to grow in importance over the next 15-20 years, including commodities, a seismic dollar/debt problem, and peak oil.


Robert Moore

Robert Moore is a certified Information Systems Engineer and consultant by trade, with specialized experience managing data in the financial and semiconductor manufacturing industries. The economics of precious metals usage and consumption in semiconductor manufacturing led Robert to begin studying the precious metals markets in the mid-1990’s. Today, Robert is an active investor and trader in the precious metals and mining sectors, as well as a frequent blogger/commentator on topics ranging from the metals and financial markets, to global socio-political events. Robert holds bachelor’s degrees in Natural Resource Management and Engineering, a master’s degree in Computer Information Systems, and lives in the Phoenix area.


Wayne Razzi

Veteran trader Wayne Razzi studied finance and economics at Drexel University before starting his career on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange in the early 1990s. Trading equity options portfolios, he spent time on the prop- and order-flow desks and also worked in Frankfurt, Germany, helping to launch an electronic options trading desk for Crédit Commercial de France (HSBC France) on what is now known as the Eurex. Wayne has developed trading software, taught courses on options, and written economic commentary for diverse publications. A New Jersey native, he currently resides in coastal South Carolina, where he and his wife attempt to keep up with their four young children.


Erich Simon

A Tulane University graduate, Erich started his own marketing research firm after studying at Japan’s Institute for International Studies and Training during the country’s boom years. He was subsequently recruited to return to his home state of Pennsylvania to create a marketing department for the State Employees Credit Union (PSECU). In 1995, he segued into trading and money management, using a proprietary socio-demographic model to attract clients. By coincidence, based on Erich’s expectations of a terror strike in the U.S., the firm was 100% short five days before the 9/11 attack. With windfall profits from the market crash that ensued, he disbanded the company and now consults to a small group of clients while managing his own portfolio.


Ben Rositas

Although Ben has no formal training as a trader or economist, he credits his ongoing education in these subjects to several online sources, including Prof. Antal Fekete and commentators at GoldSeek.com and Rick’s Picks. “In this ongoing learning process,” he notes, “I’ve come to see two axiomatic truths: the abolition of all taxation, and the reinstatement of a hard money standard are both an absolute must, for both country and civilization itself. Naturally, the majority of my posts and commentary reflect this position.”