Greetings from Phoenix, Arizona... where you have to go pretty far to shock the crowd. But Frank Holmes sure shocked 'em...

I'm sitting in on the Casey Research Crisis & Opportunity Summit, a place you're guaranteed hear investment ideas an average investor would consider crazy. The commodity-focused team at Casey Research is full of bold, contrarian guys. In the past few days, I've heard the Casey team and their guests talk about ways to invest in North Korea, African war zones, Mongolia, and the absolute tiniest public companies you can imagine (like around $10 million).

Of course, you expect to hear outlandish ideas from the investment newsletter industry... The business draws a lot characters who prefer to work and travel independently rather than clock in at a mainstream investment firm, where you say what the CEO tells you to say.

But that's what made Frank Holmes' call on copper prices the most shocking of the conference...

Frank expects copper – which has gained 400% in the past five years and now sells for $3.75 per pound – to hit $8 to $10 in the coming years.

Frank is the CEO and chief investment officer of publicly traded U.S. Global Investors, one of the top commodity fund managers in the world. He's compiled an amazing track record in the past several years. His funds regularly rank at the head of their class by mutual fund trackers. And he's one of the go-to guys when the media needs an expert's take on commodities... so you know he's not just trying to startle a crowd.

Frank's call comes down to one word: infrastructure.

Put simply, emerging economies like Russia, China, and India are desperately playing economic "catch up" to the U.S. and Europe... Only these giant countries are playing the game with 10 times as many people as the U.S. These countries will plow trillions of dollars into new roads, bridges, water-treatment plants, electrical capacity, ports, and airports over the next decade or two.

China alone is expected to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure by 2009. A team of Morgan Stanley analysts expects China to spend about $350 billion on new electricity capacity by 2010. Of course, all this stuff requires tons and tons of copper...

An average U.S. home contains 400 pounds of copper. A new automobile contains around 50 pounds of copper (the "green" Toyota Prius uses five times more copper than a gasoline powered car). A Boeing 747 airplane contains 9,000 pounds of copper. A big General Electric locomotive contains around 16,000 pounds of copper.

China is the largest consumer of copper in the world. It used about 9 billion pounds of it in 2007... a 9% increase from the year before.

Of course, there will be booms and busts as China and its neighbors grow... and commodity prices will react accordingly... But thanks to the communications and Internet boom, billions and billions of people can now see the Western way of life... and they want it. They want to drive cars, watch television, and just generally use as much electricity as they please. The potential demand here is extraordinary.

This is the stuff Frank sees driving commodity prices longer and higher than anyone imagines right now. And he tells his skeptics to travel over to Asia and see it for themselves... Beijing used to be full of bicycles, he argues. Now you don't see them – the people are in cars.

If Frank is right, the easy way to play this trend is by owning big copper producers like Rio Tinto and Freeport McMoRan. You can also own pipeline and refinery builders, cement makers, and construction-equipment producers to play an infrastructure boom. Or consider buying companies that own the infrastructure assets.

Frank's call is pretty bold. Some people will think he's gone crazy. They'll argue that a U.S. recession will pull down copper prices... But Frank is one of the best in the business, so we should take a look at what will do well if his prediction comes true. That means owning copper producers for the long term.

Good investing,

Brian Hunt

P.S. One way to get Frank's best ideas is to check out the top holdings of his natural resource funds (or simply buy one of the funds outright). You can visit U.S. Global's website here.

P.P.S. Our friends at Casey Research, publishers of Doug Casey's monthly International Speculator advisory, do some of the best research on natural resource investing you can find anywhere...

To learn about the International Speculator and how you can try it free of risk with a three-month, 100% money-back guarantee, click here.