It’s hardly a surprise anymore that the financial media, and by association most investors, miss out on the most important news.

Over the last week your editor has been on the road again (using “road” loosely).

A little over a week ago we traded in our comfy confines in central Arizona for an 8,000 mile trek halfway across the world.

The 36-hour journey plunged us into the Philippine jungle exploring a unique low-risk/high reward gold investment strategy for Prudent Investors. Despite the off-road trucks bouncing across roads only the locals could see and a rickety wooden boat which after hopping on you reflexively count the life vests and after engine fires up you look for oars that you’ll likely need at some point, it was nice to get away from the daily crises of the markets.

It helps to get a clear head and time away from the market swings always serves as a solid reminder that a 5% move – either with you or against you – isn’t much to get worried about in the big picture of investing successfully.

But now that most of the deep-in-the-woods work is over, we’re back in a downtown Manila hotel. It’s about 100 degrees. The heat and humidity makes the Christmas music blaring in the mall across the street a bit odd, but nice. It’s almost two o’clock in the morning and there’s still enough traffic even to frustrate an L.A. commuter. But we’re back to civilization and we were kind of excited to log onto the well-traveled laptop to see the major news for the last few days.

Of course, the “big” news didn’t have too many surprises. Unemployment hung steady around 10%. The tax compromise, which was essentially a done deal after Election Day, is now nearly finalized. As for the markets, everything that was going up continued to go up.

Not much to worry about really. But then I came across something incredibly important. Of course, there was significant news that most of the investment world simply passed over. And it explains what’s going on in the markets, where the opportunities lie, and what to do now.

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Everything has changed.

Two days ago Black Friday. It’s a day when Americans shop and the financial media dispatches as many reporters to stands outside malls and big box store describing and describe the size and types of crowds, what they’re buying, and speculate on how much they bought. They interview of one or two shoppers posed as if they’re representative of the crowd.

It’s an annual tradition. This year, however, it was a much different story.

Leading the financial post-Thanksgiving headlines was a much less pleasant theme – debt.

The revolving crisis in Europe has snagged Ireland this time. But as the market has realized late night negotiations will inevitably lead to a bailout. And then it will Portugal’s turn to be followed by Spain and Italy.

The one common factor among all of this is that interest rates are going up. The deteriorating creditworthiness of countries around the world has forced lenders to demand higher rates of return for the increased risks. And with interest rates on government debt as the baseline, the inevitable rise will ripple through the rest of the global economy.

As long-time Prosperity Dispatch readers know, interest rates are the most important factor in the financial markets. They drive stocks, commodities, the economy, and bonds directly or indirectly.

Now that they’re on the rise, the financial media is right to be focused on them because rising interest rates will have significantly and negatively impact most investors’ portfolios. But despite all the bad news, history has shown rising interest rates signal very good times ahead for one asset class.

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Ever since the long crisis of 2007-2008 that ended in the credit crunch, the financial world has jumped from crisis to crisis.

Last week it was the muni bond crisis. This week it’s the Ireland debt crisis. In a few weeks, Bloomberg warns, the Greek government may have to shut down because it doesn’t have any money.

After that, there’s the rest of the PIIGS – Portugal, Italy, and Spain – will have their turn as the crisis du jour. Then in time the food, oil, and the dollar crises, another “flash crash,” and other expected and unexpected crises.

We’ve entered a period of perpetual crisis.

Despite it all though, stocks keep going up (has anyone called the current run-up a “rally” in a while?). Commodity prices keep going up. Bonds, despite a few hiccups here and there, have kept going up for a while.

But there is one big underlying factor behind all the crisis-hopping that could make you very wealthy in the months and years ahead.

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It’s a scary time for seemingly safe municipal bonds.

The Boston Globe warns muni bonds “have been sinking like a rock” and the fall “signals turmoil ahead.”

The New York Times suggests it is “akin to the one that brought Greece to its knees.”

Time magazine warns they’re the “next financial land mine.”

The mainstream media is all over the emerging muni bond crisis.

There is, however, a lot more to the story than they’re letting on. And knowing the most important elements of this unfolding crisis will allow you to avoid the pitfalls and position yourself to personally capitalize on it all.

The last time a window of opportunity opened in muni bonds, investors walked away with 100% gains (yes, from muni bonds) in a very short time. Now, we’re on the verge of it happening again. Here’s the set up.

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John Paulson almost single-handedly made gold “cool” again on Wall Street.

The man who made billions betting against subprime debt put the spotlight on gold when his firm revealed in May 2009 that he was betting on gold in a big way.

Since then gold has climbed 45% and major gold stocks (as tracked by the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF – NYSE:GDX) have climbed more than 70%.

Paulson’s largest gains in gold, however, have come from using a unique strategy which reduces risk, increases gains, and you can use to truly maximize the gold bull market.

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