In a bizarre twist, central bankers actually want the price of gold to rise because it would be an indication that attempts to stave off deflation were working. Why do we have all of this upside down thinking?

In the past year, we've seen gold go up on fears of inflation, then it rose on fears of deflation. Analysts who follow gold say that it may be entering a structural bull market. Why is this? For one thing, gold has held firm mainly due to the problems in the banking industry.

What are the best speculations and investments among metals, miners, and other resource plays? To find out, I turned to 20 of the nation's leading newsletter editors, as well as speakers from the recent New Orleans Conference, a leading forum for resource advisors.

Their current top ideas cover a wide diversity of ideas, from gold and silver, from alumina and copper, to platinum and palladium. These picks cover markets from Chile to China and from Canada to Russia. These ideas also range from large cap, well-established, and diversified companies to small cap, development-stage junior speculations.

Readers should only consider these ideas as a starting place for their own research and should keep in mind the caveat that any stock you buy should only be considered within the framework of your own time horizon and risk parameters. Meanwhile, here are 20 different advisors assessing various aspects of the metals, mining, and resources sectors:

There are mountains of cash out there and it is putting huge pressure on the real estate market -- driving up the cost of industrial, commercial and retail properties. The housing market may be hurting badly, but that's homes and condominiums only - because apartment buildings are attracting plenty of investors too.

In the past six months I have looked at no less than a thousand properties in the western United States and could not find anything worth buying. It must be just me, cause plenty of investors are buying property at cap rates between 3 and 6 everywhere. I don't know if it's just the abundance of OPM (other people's money) out there that is burning a hole in investor pockets or I'm blind to the values and just missing out. Perhaps all this property is going to appreciate greatly in the next few years and I don't see it.

Perhaps it is me because I tend to pass over thousands of stocks too, before being satisfied any one of them is worth buying. Interestingly property has been changing hands at a faster and faster pace in the last few years so things are being bid up. Another factor may be investors' bearish sentiment about the falling dollar and the possibility of inflation hiding around the next corner so they seek tangible hard assets and are willing to accept smaller returns. One theory suggests that foreign money from places where cap rates are traditionally higher, combined with their currently strong currencies make our real estate market a bargain. This seems like a probable cause to some degree.

I also wonder if all the stock buybacks, company buyouts, and new capitalists in China, India, Russia and Eastern Europe plus the folks with cash from oil countries are just creating hyper demand the past few years.

All I can do is stick to my guidelines, continue to be patient and watch for an opportunity. Investing in properties without a return higher than a treasury note is not something I am going to do.

Those of you who are new to BloggingStocks.com can check out my other stories and read Chasing Value or Serious Money to find more potential opportunities and verify my track record as well.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. Check out his other posts for BloggingStocks here.

There is only one Warren Buffett and there will never be another! He is the product of a set of circumstances that will not repeat itself. It is more likely that you will fly first.

I say this because we often are told that everyone is replaceable. Well, if you poke your head in the Senate or House looking for a Washington, or Adams, or Jefferson, or Franklin you will not find one. Buffett has become a national treasure and someday we may find his face on the currency because he is one of our greatest non-elected statesman and I figure it is not necessary for him to be a dead president to represent us.

He has the clear vision and insight that allows him to see all those things that are in plain view to everyone but we miss anyway, that is, until he points them out. A little bit of Will Rogers, combining wit and wisdom.