It also has much to do about publicly-traded royalty companies like Royal Gold (Nasdaq:RGLD), Silver Wheaton (NYSE:SLW) and International Royalty Corp. (AMEX:ROY) which specialize in securing low-risk, long-term cash flow through royalty interests in mining properties.

The "Chaffee-style" royalty programs also speaks to energy royalty trusts like Hugoton Royalty (NYSE:HGT), San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (NYSE:SJT) and Enerplus Resources of Canada (NYSE:ERF) which pay out the most generous cash dividends on the royalty income each trust takes in. Now back to Mr. Chaffee (this article is a little longer than usual but if you read it to the end I promise you'll learn a lot and be a little entertained as well. Jerome B. Chaffee didn't make enough income as a schoolteacher. So he took a job as a sales clerk in a dry goods store.

Then he took that money and started a dry goods store of his own. When that wasn't enough, I'm told he packed his bags and went to Colorado in 1860. See, Colorado then — as right now — was mineral rich. And even though Chaffee knew next to nothing about mining, he saw the possibilities. And started snapping up the "royalty rights" on as many gold and silver claims as he could afford. This story and the following details was conveyed to me by one of my mentors and respected colleagues Chris Mayer, an analyst know for his careful research.

Every time one of those royalty rights started to pay off, he bought more. Until he had a business making between $300,000–500,000 per year — or as much as $17.3 million today. Suddenly the ex-schoolteacher was very rich. And powerful. Chaffee took up politics, pushing for laws that would lock in the same kinds of opportunities for everybody. He even went to Washington and became a senator — and a friend of the president, Ulysses S. Grant. Chaffee's own daughter even married the president's son, Ulysses S. Grant Jr.! In 1872, Grant expanded on protecting the resource rights that Chaffee championed by signing the General Mining Act, a law that still safeguards mineral rights today... has already created countless American millionaires... and helped blow open the gateway to the American West.

"Chaffee Royalties" let you tap into rich mineral rights more easily than so many others did years ago. You don't need a lot to get started. In fact, you do practically nothing. Even as the rich resource wealth piles up. All the value in "Chaffee Royalties" is backed by real resource wealth. Oil. Gas. Gold and silver. Copper. Nickel. Diamonds.

But the beauty of these royalty streams isn't just the hard asset value that's behind them. Instead, it's the fact that... as you watch the wealth pile up... you do it with none of the major risks that most mineral and hard asset investors face. How so? That's the unique opportunity with "Chaffee Royalties." They're designed to deliver all the upside of the world's rich mineral wealth. But without passing on any of the major exploration, management or environmental costs of mining or drilling to the end shareholders. Imagine, for instance, if you could own a "piece" of Apple's iPod sales... without paying a nickel toward the operating costs, research or advertising.

Imagine if you could collect Google's ad sales... or Exxon Mobil's oil revenue... without forking over for employee salaries, building and maintaining headquarters, or any of those other costs that typically nickel-and-dime shareholders out of gains. "Chaffee Royalties" let you do that, backed by pure gains on some of the most valuable mineral and other raw resource deposits in the world. Right now, resource companies are lining up to swap some of their gross profits for these royalty programs. Why would they do that? It's simple. See, right now, the global credit crunch is just one of the forces destroying the U.S. dollar. And that, plus unstoppable Asian demand, has sent the value of gold... silver... copper... nickel... zinc... lead... and just about every other mineral asset you can name... soaring. That's great for anyone who produces or sells those resources.

Trouble is, as energy prices go up, so do the operating and production costs for the miners. So if they want to expand to capitalize on the resource boom, they need money. Usually, that money comes from the banks. But the banks don't want to make any new loans today.