Profit of Doom

Ruff huffs and puffs

Whatever else happened to Cassandra, there is no record of her going broke, and that fate does not seem to be in store for the latter-day doomsayers either. With their books and pricey newsletters, their investment advisory services and conferences at celebrated wateringholes, the professional pessimists are mining hard cash out of their predictions of catastrophe.

One of the fastest-rising practitioners of the art is Howard Ruff, 48, a smiling, pleasant fellow who works out of San Ramon, Calif. He is the author of How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years (Times Books; $8.95), a guide for survival in "the next recession, which will happen some time shortly after the publication of this book," as it states on page 15. Says Ruff, whose tremulous text has gone into its fourth printing and is in fourth place on TIME'S nonfiction bestseller list: "There is cynicism about Government and institutions and an immense searching for someone who looks like he knows where he is going."

Where Ruff is going would probably be to the banks, except that he does not believe in them. His three-year-old biweekly newsletter. Ruff Times, has 80,000 subscribers who pay $125 apiece for 15 months of advice. His second annual convention on financial survival last February drew 5,200 fans to Anaheim, Calif. Ruff usually commands $3,000 an appearance on the Chicken Little lecture circuit, and his half-hour syndicated TV talk show, Ruff House, is carried by 48 stations.

His message is clear: "With inflation, we have in effect been raped by Government. Federal borrowing is the pervert that did it, and inflation is the weapon of coercion." Inflation, he warns, will get totally out of control and lead to an economic smashup. "The juggernaut is headed for the precipice," he declares in his book. When it reaches the brink, he says, the banks will collapse, Social Security will be worthless, the machinery of Government will break down, and the cities will become chaotic.

Because paper currency will be valueless, Ruff argues, assets should be transferred into hard goods, such as gold and silver coins, that could be used for currency. He also favors small-town real estate, on the theory that the collapse of large cities would accelerate the flight of middle-class and prosperous whites from urban areas. Investors should start stockpiling a year's supply of food to get them through the first calamitous period, along with spare auto parts and standard ammunition; the latter can be used for both barter and self-protection.

Ruff, a devout Mormon and father of nine children, comes by his grim views after a checkered career as a college dropout, singer, actor, stockbroker, owner of a speed-reading franchise, natural vitamin distributor and real estate investment teacher. As he concedes, "Some people say that I couldn't succeed at anything, so I became a prophet of doom." A decade ago, he was $250,000 in debt after his speed-reading schools failed and he had to declare personal bankruptcy. Today he estimates his net worth at $600,000 and reports that he has paid off all but three of his creditors. Says Ruff: "This nation is ripe to be manipulated by a powerful personality. I am appalled at the ease with which I am acquiring a following."

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