Thursday, June 30, 2011

"They Shooting!..."

"...Made you look."
Is the title of the a phenomenal NAS track embedded at the end of this post for your listening pleasure. Today isn't going to be nearly as serious as the usual vein of geofinances and the pursuit to get cash. To put it simply, I'm still living that positive life, and to much focus on things beyond ones control just isn't healthy.

That's how I envision my life.
Its almost the end of the month. I'm probably just feeling the urge to write another monthly recap. They are usually filled with odd but pleasant memories and landmarks for me. Which is to say, they are a written record of (some facets of my life), a sort of diary which all men should keep for introspective purposes. I'll (as traditional) be updating this post in snippets throughout the day.


But first: NAS, Made you Look

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

A Socratic Approach (Or... Tea With Socrates)

File this one under philosophy. Those readers looking for financial news should go here, or for silver click here. Those who are interested in my recent firearm purchase, a Hi Point CF 380, should click that.


Of late I've been investigating Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It is astounding to me how closely it has paralleled some of my other research into other fields. Which is to say, if viewed as a Ven Diagram, Think & Grow Rich would occupy a circle within the larger circle of cognitive restructuring and the quantum effects of direct or indirect conscious focus on an ideal. In other words, most of what Hill writes, I've already discovered independently as have others. But Hill is perhaps (along with Carnegie) the most "baseline" economic side of what is a multifaceted field.

Anyway, those of you who have read Hill will understand this post. But then, I don't know what to expect any more than you, the reader do. Call it Tea with Socrates.

Narrator: "I'm asking your help in selecting further member's of my Cabinet."
Socrates: "What are you looking for the candidates to help you with?"
Narrator: "Fulfilling my desires."
Socrates: "And what are they?"
Narrator: "I want to improve my physique beyond past levels, the same with health particularly quitting cigarettes for good, achieve wealth..."
Socrates interrupts: "Define wealth, how much and when?"
Narrator: "A side business making $1,000/month and two degrees in a business field by 2016."
Socrates: "So who would have qualifications to help with business?"
Narrator: "I don't know." Google Time! "Don Draper" (Editors Note: Many purists might scream 'He ISNT REAL', i'm not interested in REAL, i'm looking for abstractions for clear ideas. It is pointless to come up with a name but no idea how their reactions typical act. What matters is perception.)
Socrates:"How?"
Narrator: "I could learn and use the drive, self confidence."
Socrates: "Who else would you need for a business? What other traits?"
Draper: "You need a plan before getting more specific"
Socrates: "What is the plan?"
Narrator: "Continue with current job, trying for advancement, to pay for small entrepreneurial adventures."
Draper: "You don't "try" for advancements, you either put in the work and it happens, or they don't and you move on."
Socrates: "So its a temporary position, are you dedicating enough to it to warrant advancement?"
Narrator: "On some days, but I am making a conscious effort to change."
Socrates: "Great! so what are some of these adventures?"

(And I'm off, later kids.)

"I gotcha back so you best to watch your front...

....cause it's the niggaz who front that be pullin stunts"
- The Genius GZA, 'I Gotcha back' 

I'm to the shooting range with a friend to give a couple of guns some testing. One of them will be my new Hi Point CF 380, which I intend to carefully review. Of course, I'll post my review for you when I finish. In the interim I'm going to touch on silver.

As if I need an excuse, her necklace is silver.
I'm holding off on buying, because I no longer feel that 33 is the bottom. Although in earlier posts I set my buying target at just over $34/oz (and silver is currently $33.90), continued trends have led me to believe that it will continue a plunge. I'd been expecting a dip, but was basing that expectation on events such as the end of QE2, and general market sentiment.

The oil release took me by surprise, and I feel it is heavily contributing to the hurting silver market. In a normal market, I would expect silver to rise again with gasoline, but I feel that by the time oil explodes again (Two months?) the worst of QE2 will be rolling through. 

My hedge buy around $34.50 also has given me further confidence to probe the depths. I am considering buying another hedge against an upward spike if it breaks past $35/oz again. Today's charts haven't found any really constant level of resistance, and have been fluctuating up and down wildly. I'm not particularly interested in watching second by second, given my longer-term views on the subject.

Paper players might be a bit more interested in examining kitco.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Missing Silver...

Early in my silver stacking I lost about $40 on a single silver eagle. Shipped via USPS with tracking, it said "delivered" but never did show up in my mailbox. A called complaint to USPS lead to no results. I still haven't received it, and I don't think I ever will. So imagine my concern when the hedge of silver I bought a while back (against what is looking more and more like the big drop.), said "delivered" online, but never showed.

The right amount of Silver can.
I repeated the song & dance with the post office. No results. Then went downstairs, into the patio of my downstairs neighbors, opened their mailbox (they've been gone for a few days) and pulled out my package of silver. Sigh. At least I have my silver. Which is continuing its slide, with spot dropping into the $33's, this could be it. Here's to a DIP! I want to BUY!


Since I've already got my monthly silver (almost didn't), I'm going to wait and see if the charts drop down to $32/oz and buy another hedge. I'll also buy a small hedge if it goes back to $35/oz. Some on the internet are claiming prices as low as $22/oz, I'm not sure about that, a more common estimate is $32, $30, $28/oz.


Edit: Got this as a question, wanted to elaborate for those interested.
Did the first silver shipment that went missing wind up in the same mailbox?

It is very possible, and if I had to do it over again, I would have knocked on my neighbors door and asked. As it was, I just checked my neighbors mailboxes, but it had been a few days and I was met with no success. Here is a more detailed explanation of events: The first shipment to go missing was "delivered" on a Friday  but I was at work. I wasn't expecting the package until Monday and that is when I discovered that it should have been waiting for me in my mailbox Friday night.

I figured that there were three options - 1. Someone stole it out of my mailbox while I was working, 2. The carrier miss-delivered, or 3. (Tin Foil hat alert) - Someone at the post office was stealing it.

You have no real recourse if your package is "delivered"
My first step was to call the post-office to see if there had been a mistake. When that was frustratingly futile, I surreptitiously checked the mailbox of both my neighbors. This yielded no results. Neither were home, and I didn't feel like pursuing a single oz of silver that badly. I figured that if my neighbors had gotten my package they would have returned it, and that most likely it had been delivered to another part of the complex, to some more unscrupulous family. I also didn't believe (until I saw firsthand) that a carrier could make such a terrible mistake (my mailbox is NOWHERE NEAR theirs, and has my apartment letter clearly above it). Now I know.

I've learned to try and be present during delivery times, and to eye the tracking information like a hawk. Because if they claim its delivered, and its not in your mailbox, there aint s%)* you can do. This is the first time I've been caught off-guard since the missing 1oz. As with the first example, I didn't catch that it was "delivered" until a while after.

Friday, June 24, 2011

It makes sure the Jake's respect me...

Or to use terminology you might understand, without it, all other amendments are indefensible. "It" is the second amendment. I'm proud to say I picked up my new pistol yesterday, and will be taking it to the range this weekend. I bought the Hi-point CF 380 after much deliberation.

But it was shipped fast, hassle free,  and I credit http://www.hipointpro.com/ as a good seller. Given silvers current volatility, I might update this post later with financial news. But for now, the rest of this post is about my new gun!

A Hi Point CF 380.

It is not quite the conceal and carry weapon I was initially looking to buy. That said, I knew what I was buying, and its no surprise just how comparatively heavy this gun is. Its also larger than a subcompact, 6 & 3/4" long. Someone facing down this weapon would not be thinking "Pfft... its just a .380".

It works well enough for waistband carry with jeans, and will fit inside the larger pockets of my walking shorts (but not the pockets of the jeans). When placed loose in the pocket, its pretty obvious from the weight and size of the pistol that you are carrying a firearm. I will HAVE to invest in a holster of some sort to conceal/carry comfortably during the summer.

I've currently got the 8 round magazine loaded with Gold Dot Speer 90grain JHP. I also purchased some cheap FMJ round's for training. Ideally, I'll be able to find some critical defense or other Gen 2 hollow point to replace the Gold Dot with.


Improved penetration thanks to innovative tech.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Pursuit to get cash...

That hi point .380 did not arrive yesterday, but as long as I can pick it up today or tomorrow I will be content.  This post will eventually turn to the money chase, cause I'm still working on the $200/month short goal. For the silver/market bugs I've updated this post further down, this is due to continued volatility throughout the morning. A dollar down and its not even the afternoon, could this be the correction? Lets hope so, I've been freeing up lots of cash to buy assets with.

I've been keeping FRN liquidity high.
Websites clocked a new all time high, which is always a good thing. Though CTR has been flat lined recently. Mostly its just a matter of the new sites reaching critical mass, both in terms of views, and in terms of back-links. I would expect another two months, but at this progress, I may meet my goals by august.

-----------------

Well, I said this post wasn't going to be about silver, but the market has been going down recently. Along with it the price of silver has fallen by as much as $1.80, actually breaking in the high 34's before resuming a tedious position about $35/oz. I believe that silver's fall, and that of the market, are correlated with immediate events: Silver has plunged at the same time oil reserves are being released.

This use of our "oil savings" (so to speak) will (TEMPORARILY) drop the price of gasoline. Usually an increase in the price of gasoline makes commodities more expense/scarce, silver is no different, while the inverse is also true. So, my personal theory is, as long as we have cheap gas it will be another anchor around silver's value price.

Gold's price will suffer to.
Another major event that you NEED to be following daily, is the overarching global fiat/credit financial crisis, that looms over us. Here is the recent Bernanke speech that precipitated a further fall in the markets:

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told reporters Wednesday that the central bank had been caught off guard by recent signs of deterioration in the economy. And he said the troubles could continue into next year.
"We don't have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting," Bernanke said. He said the weak housing market and problems in the banking system might be "more persistent than we thought."
Ben Bernanke
If you are a mainstream, hardworking sheep, it looks bad. From where I stand (which isn't nearly as far away from the flock as some of our internet brethren), it looks even worse. For me, this is the sum of all fears, my own nation affected by a Keynesian nightmare and welfare state. Because all the "relief" we are being given is debt-equivalent-poison.

The global banking system has reached a staggering level of power, and are the ONLY party benefiting from this financial crisis, which despite claiming that they "don't have a precise read on why..." has constantly pursued policies such as QE2 that has perpetuated and increased the problem.

To quote Frank Zappa's song "The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing":
"Well, people, you ain't even got no
Deal at all
'Cause what they do
In Washington
They just takes care
of NUMBER ONE
An' NUMBER ONE ain't YOU
You ain't even NUMBER TWO"





 Perhaps the next few weeks will be that final monster silver dip I've been predicting for a while. If so, I'll have my money ready to jump in. Cheers Yall. :edit: another hour past, silver broken past its previous low again! This may be it :)

Monday, June 20, 2011

Mid-June Summation

Its that time again. I outlined last month with "Time Enough For Love". Now it's time for June's bi-weekly review. I'll start with some headlines from the drudge for future reference, then move into my financial plans, health etc. Enjoy.
  • "SHOCK: Pigs could grow human organs...* "
  • "Copper Thief Steals Entire Transformer From Power Pole..."
  • "CITI: Greek debt may be contagious..."
    "States look to Internet taxes to close budget gaps..."
  • "African-American unemployment at 16%..."
  • "NBC apologizes for cutting 'under God' from pledge..."
  • "House will move this week to limit funding for effort in Libya..."

*...I'll go check out the pig story later.
------------------
Silver holdings increased slightly, thanks to my purchase of a hedge amount when spot was 35.90 on the 18th. Spot is currently 36.16, but I'm still expecting price to dip again (on big last swoon) sometime near the end of the QE2. My purchase of this small hedge is admittance that the market is volatile I'm willing to resist going all in. Remember, patience is a virtue... but personally, I will patiently buy what I think is a f(*&(*ing dip.

Right now I've got about 10% of the physical silver I want to have by November. I have 0% of the gold I want (gold will be the next step, but I don't feel it is on my priority list yet, and its not particularly large. I'm only planning for single half-oz eagle by November.). My real job is experiencing massive cut-backs in hours, and its barely paying the bills. If it wasn't for my other entrepreneurial stuff, I couldn't invest in the physical metals.

 
Unsure of my feelings about the design.

On the survivalist side, I've been using father's day sales to stock up on tools. I also spent a moderate amount of paper money on medicine (about $30). Boxes of aspirin, sudafed, Tylenol, Robitussin, etc. (I still need to buy a bunch of band aids.) I'm also still trying to improve my water situation which doesn't consist of anything more than some 24pk bottled waters. The past week I began putting together a Vehicle bolt out bag (really a rubbermade footlocker I've had for years), I'm not well prepped for a bolt out on foot, or bolt in.

Lets put it this way: When you move from an old house to a new, you use the biggest vehicle you can afford to haul all the stuff. To prep for an urban evacuation scenario, it is much cheaper for me to prep for Bolt By Vehicle, simply because I already own a car. If I prepped to leave on foot and cover the same ground as I would be car, it would cost a great deal more to achieve the same level of comfort (durrrr....).

"But there are times you can't leave by car!" Yes, I know. But life is about compromise, just as with my investing, I hedge as best I can around what I view as reasonable events that might occur in the short term. There is a good probability that by the time SHTF to that level, I'd already be across state lines with my family.  There is a small probability that I wouldn't, if so, well - that's why I go the gym, and try and stay healthy and mentally sharp.

My city experiences random drive-by shootings.
I'm expecting that CF .380 pistol to ship later today, I had several very positive experience with the company's customer service yesterday, as I worked with them to try and resolve some problems with my bank declining the payment. So I'm not as concerned about it never shipping as I was when I first tried to buy it online. But we will see, the Hi-Point CF .380 should arrive late this week at the FLF dealer for me to pickup. It would be a nice complement to my other firearm, and would let me arm my roommate should something wildly improbable go down. My gun pursuits will die off for a while after this gun arrives and a write a review.
 


-------------------------------
 Health wise, I'm actually about to go the gym. So, I'll catch you later. Have a good Monday. 

Friday, June 17, 2011

Pre-emptive look at the Hi-Point CF 380

I'm expecting my pistol to ship at the start of next week, so I should be able to provide you with a review at weeks end. In the interim, and in response to all of the flack some of you have direct at me over the decision to buy a Hi-Point CF 380, I will present a video later in this post. If you REALLY feel my safety is terribly compromised and care to send me a better pistol (or the cash for one) I will happily use the provided gun instead of the CF 380.  Otherwise, my decision remains - I don't have the means to buy a better pistol and need a transitory stop-gap to meet the low-level threats of my daily non-SHTF environment. 

Hi-Point CF 380
The pistol (pickup and projected twenty rounds runs a total of $170) is $120 less than the next level of guns I could find at the three local pawn shops and two local gun shops. Examples of the $240 range includes a used Kel-tec or used .22 Taurus PT-22. I feel that I am much better served spending that $120 on medicine/water/food/tools etc. until they are up to a month minimum and I am capable of a 3 day bolt-out by foot or vehicle. 



So long as TS-DOES NOT-HTF I think it will be a perfectly useful weapon as a hedge. (Everything's a hedge). And speaking of, I'm planning to buy a few more Oz of silver as a hedge against any random up spike. I'm keeping double that in reserve in case my predicted price drops happens in the next two weeks. 
Either way, I'm holding this silver for the long haul, and I expect in five years that I will reap at least my investment.



Edit: This link actually lets you tag people if you feel you know them from the Vancouver riots via facebook.
http://www.identifyrioters.com/
I'm not sure how to feel about this.

Edit 2x: Nevermind, send those yuppies to jail. One typical Bish is flashing the camera for a T-shirt (before you click the link, its censored, calm down). Other pics include clumps of young white guys acting thug.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Huh... Oh well... Back to the pistol.


Silver didn't end up going very far, not deep enough to make money on physical (which is where my efforts reside). I still think it has a real dip in it somewhere, and am going to try and hold on to as much cash as possible to allow me to exploit any such drop. But in the meantime, I just placed an online order for a new pistol. The cheapest P.O.S. I could find: A brand new Hi-Point CF .380 from "hipointpro.com" (<-good or bad, I'll let you know if they are legit when/if I get my pistol).

A CF .380, not mine.


Let me explain my choice of gun. In previous posts I had outlined specific budget concerns. I needed a gun around $200, with taxes and 50 rounds of ammunition included in that price. The best I was able to do on my previous round of hunting yielded the Taurus PT-22, a well made super compact whose biggest shortcoming (and strength) was its .22lr caliber. I already own .22lr guns and have the ammo. So with a price tag of $249 it seemed reasonable. That said, I did want a bigger caliber.

So I found one, at a price I could get behind, even if it suffers in quality. My neighborhood is getting worse, I'd like a pistol ASAP. As long as it lasts 2 years with acceptable amounts jamming (1 in 100?) I'd be happy. And, for $140ish the Hi-Point 9 Millimeter C9 seemed perfect. Except I couldn't find it in stock. But it had a little brother, that was still a step up from the .22lr, with a price that would allow me the single box of premium ammunition I'd like.

I've had it shipped to a local FLF dealer, free shipping, with a grand cost of $129.90. I figure $20 of ammunition, and $20 to pick it up - I've got a .380 compact semi (with some drawback's I'll point out when I review it (if it arrives :P) and ammunition for self-defense (training ammunition will have to wait 'till next paycheck) for a sum (projected total) of $169.90.

--------------------------


will update later... right now I'm tunneling through red tape trying to buy the damn thing. (Issues with bank zipcodes and sillyness.)

Monday, June 13, 2011

BTFD Silver bitchez?


Remember that pistol I was going to buy a while back? Now I have the cash for it... but I'm holding off in case silver keeps declining past $35/Oz. I've been waiting for "the real dip" that (depending on who you talk to), could dip as low as $17/Oz. Such a dramatic retraction may be possible, but I'll be pulling the trigger at anything close to or under $30/Oz.

We'll see how far down this dip goes, but if they do it fast, some people are going to make some nice money selling off and buying lower. "Refinancing" their silver so to speak. Personally, I'm to busy and my funds to limited and precious to speculate. I'm just going to keep buying, I just don't want to buy to soon and miss (what some are claiming) could be a serious retracement, the last big swoon before a gradual ascent later this year.



Crime in the local city has started to get very bad. The daily paper has confirmed (what I feel is palpable in the air), copper robberies have tripled from last year, and robberies and shootings are up. I'm seeing bad signs everywhere, and my employment at a big box retailer also lets me look into the corporate world. Things aren't to good, despite strong sales it seems we're cutting back on employment, "making do with less" etc. Anyway, its got me really wanting that pistol - but I'm predicting a single large dip in silver before it heads due-east  or slightly northeast for the summer - so I'll hang onto my cash for another week or so.

Many of my sources are firm believers that this month is the quiet before the storm. I agree with them to some extent... I'm not expecting TEOTWAWKI (but you know that I am always open to change my opinion if the situation warrants it)... but rather a slow, steady, and broiling wave of awakening resentment that will be captured and directed towards the polls in November.


Remember, its only been a generation since the watts riots. I would expect things to get at least as bad some time in the next five years.


---------------------------
Health Update 2: (For you, the reader who isn't as interested in the recent financial theme)
Currently my est. 1 Rep max is a combined 105lbs. (2x 52.5lb), real is 100lbs (2x 50lb)


I've been able to get back to the gym after a wrist injury at the start of this month kept me out. I'm gingerly getting back into it. My biggest wrist-stressor and the dumbbell exercise I'm putting the most energy into this summer is the incline DB press (pictured above). My five week routine for this exercise involves 4 sets, three times a week. Ideally 8 reps per set in the following format:

Set 1 (warmup): 2x 35lb DB (70lbs) for 8 Reps (Today I did 10)
Set 2 ................: 2x 40lb DB (80lbs) for 8 Reps (Today I did 8)
Set 3 ................. 2x40lb DB (80lbs) for 8 Reps (today I did 8)
Set 4 ................. 2x45lb DB (90lbs) for 8 Reps
(^Today I did 6, and then 1 rep with the 2x50's to test my wrist^)

Once I can do that (the end of this week), everything will shift up by ten pounds. Eg, my warmup will be 80lbs, and the fourth set will be 100. Body weight still dropping, abs are coming along great.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

My Country She Wants to Get Rid of Me...*

This story should be plastered on EVERY single mainstream news station across the United States. This is our (thankfully bloodless) harbinger of the next Kent State. You think that's extreme, keep reading. This has the potential to cripple the next generation, the first wave of the police state setting precedent for another wave of in-debt college grads.

"A father was dragged from his home and handcuffed in front of his children by a SWAT team looking for his estranged wife - to collect her unpaid student loans.

From the Dailymail, link at end of post."
What if it was you, and you unknowingly went to meet the violent noise with a shotgun?

The story gets so much worse the deeper you read, I promise this is just the start. I'm going to build a list, highlighting the biggest B.S. but lets take one thing at a time. Here are the first two pieces of information that are causing my blood to boil with outrage.
  1. A SWAT team drug an Innocent father in handcuffs in front of his children.
  2. A SWAT team was dispatched to arrest a woman for unpaid student loans.
That's just the start. We find out it wasn't local cops. In fact, it was the federal government who issued the warrant and sent the SWAT team. That paragraph is quoted from the Dailymail article below. But first:
"He says he was then detained for six hours while officers looked for his wife - who no longer lives at the house...."
Now the part about the federal government, and I'll add to my list. 
"Mr Wright was later told by Stockton police that the order to send in the SWAT team came from The U.S. Department of Education who were looking for his estranged wife to collect defaulted loan payments.
Speaking to ABC News 10, a visibly shaken Mr Wright described what happened when he was woken by a banging on his front door[....]
[....]
The Department for Education refused to comment on the incident, saying they would not do so until the case was closed. They did however confirm that their Office of the Inspector General had issued the search warrant.

The office has its own branch of federal agents that carry out search warrants and investigations 
From the Dailymail, link at end of post."

  1. A SWAT team drug an Innocent father in handcuffs in front of his children. 
  2. A SWAT team was dispatched to arrest a woman for unpaid student loans.  
  3. The DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION issued the SEARCH warrant (for a 6am door kicking).
  4. The Department of Education has its OWN branch of Federal AGENTS that carry out such warrants. 
  5. These Federal Agents are hunting down student loan offenders (surely there are better targets for SWAT teams?)
 NO. Those of us who still want to keep the dying ideals of liberty alive must publicize this atrocity. This is the first repercussion on the young, and it will only get worse with each passing generation. You want your daughter pursed by SWAT teams with SEARCH warrants sent by the Fed? You want your door kicked in because your old roommate didn't pay his loans back? You want your off the grid life to be brutally interrupted because YOU are latent on loans?

YOU CAN"T FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY WITH COLLEGE LOANS.
(Unless you can show that your education loan payment is an "undue hardship" on you, your family, and your dependents, your student loans are ineligible for cancellation (discharge) in bankruptcy.

However It is difficult to prove "undue hardship" unless you are physically unable to work and there is no chance of your making money. To discharge your student loans under this special case, you must file a separate motion with the bankruptcy court and present your situation before a judge.)

........

Thankfully I have silver....
................
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2001010/SWAT-team-launch-dawn-raid-family-home-collect-womans-unpaid-student-loans.html?ito=feeds-newsxml 

*Title from Nas' "My Country" from that great album Stillmatic. 

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Guest Blog: Don't Hold Your Breath

I am sick, sick, sick with food poisoning from Arby's. So, I'm going to keep praying to the porcelain god and leave you readers with this long, but fantastic article on what to expect the next few months. (Originally from JWRs sirvivalblog). Happy Tuesday!



Don’t Hold Your Breath
By Silver Shield, on June 1st, 2011

1912 Cartoon Against The Coming Federal Reserve

Financial sanity is returning to the world. The silver bubble has burst. The debt ceiling won’t be raised. The government is going to make trillion dollar cuts in spending. Osama bin Laden is dead, signaling the end to the war on terror. Greece is going to be bailed out. Everything is dollar positive and it is time to dance, right? Don’t hold your breath.

Most bear markets follow the same characteristics. They start with a major wave down, followed by a brief counter trend move to the upside, only to be finished off with an even stronger and final collapse. If you look at the 2008 crash as the first wave down, and the following 3 years after that as the counter trend move, then we are due for the final collapse very soon. The reason is quite simple, none of the problems that caused the crash in 2008, have been corrected. In fact, by all accounts they have gotten much, much worse. Not only are things worse, there is no room for error. A major collapse now would be exacerbated by the fact that all of the safety nets we had in 2008, are destroyed.

I am not a market timer and don’t trade, I spot trends and see their inevitable outcome. My job is to pick the right asset, and to stick with it, until the trend changes. The big trend at work here is a shift away from fiat, paper assets to REAL assets. This is a trend that has been in the making for over a decade. If you take any commodity and compare it to any paper asset, you will see that REAL assets are the place to be. This is not necessarily because the price of these REAL assets are going up, as much as it is the value of their measuring sticks (the dollar) are going down. The more dollars that are put into circulation, the less they are worth. This dilution of purchasing power is caused by Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) by the Fed and their Quantitative Easing (printing money out of thin air.) Now that the Fed has announced that it is no longer going to do QE, does that mean the end of this trend? Don’t hold your breath.

Our money system is one that is based on debt. For every dollar that comes into existence, there is a dollar of debt AND interest that is owed on that dollar. Quite simply, the only way for our debt based monetary system to work, is that every year debt must be increased in excess of the debt AND interest accrued the year before. This debt can NEVER be paid off, because if it did, there literally would be NO money in the economy and there would still not be enough money to pay the interest back. Please read that paragraph over again, it is so important that you understand that simple principle.

If debt is not increased on this exponential climb, we get what we saw in 2008, a massive de-leveraging and massive defaults. This is why there are “too big to fails”, because if this collapse was left unchecked, it would lead to systemic collapse. (The end of the dollar paradigm.) The Elite cannot afford to let their quadrillion system of banking, media, military, corporate and political power to collapse. So what do they do? They bailed everyone (the big boys) out and allowed them to consolidate power. The Elite has to be careful, to keep us guessing and in the dark. If the average person or say China, saw this game of money printing, they would seek to protect themselves by buying REAL assets. That would destroy the ability of the Fed to create money that has any value.

The modern Elite always err towards inflation, because we live in a fiat world. Inflation allows for old debts to be devalued and overall debt to increase, because it is more affordable. Can you imagine taking a $750,000 mortgage in 1960? We live in a world unhinged by any monetary anchor, and like I said before, debt must be increased every year in excess of the debt AND interest accrued the year before. There was a time when deflation strengthened the banks positions, but that was when we had hard money that they coveted. Now they get systemic risk of collapse as people walk away from their debts. It does the Elite no good to seize assets if they lose control of the banking system. The game is to create bubbles, pop bubbles and liquify the system again. They make money by knowing what comes next. Since we will never know the timing or extent of their moves, one has to focus on the end game.

So here we are in the eye of the hurricane. We know that the debt must be increased or else we will have a systemic deflationary collapse. Any debt increase will lead to further weakening of the dollar and much higher inflation. This is because smart money and foreign nations to dump their dollars for REAL assets. Given this Catch 22, here is what I think the Elite have in the works.

First attack the Elite attack commodities to scare investors back into the paper system. You can see that the coordinated attack of silver (the anti-dollar) and Osama bin Laden, was a tour de force by the Elite. They essentially said to the world, “look what we can do.” I look at it like a sucker punch from a stage IV cancer patient. The punch hurt, but it does not show that they have any long term strength. There could be one more attack in the works, but I just don’t see that they are going to be that aggressive again. They were smart to wring out all of the weak hands of the bull chasers, but now all that is left is strong hands. Now more than ever, those strong hands only want physical silver. Any further attacks will lead to further pressure on the physical market, which will eventually bring about a physical default of the CRIMEX.

The timing of the next step is tricky. The Elite need to increase the debt to keep their game going. Americans are broke and at their max with mortgage, auto, credit card and student debt. Corporations see the weakness of the American consumer and will not take on more debt and hire new jobs. State and local governments are at their max and desperately trying to keep things going. Which leaves the spender of last resort, the Federal Government. I wrote that the debt ceiling will be raised despite all of the soap opera like antics of Congress. (The Contrived Drama of the Debt Ceiling and Count On It!) In the end, they will either raise the debt ceiling or the Elite will cause a stock market collapse. Remember what they did when Congress balked at the $700 billion dollar Bankster bailout? The next day they smacked the stock market down 777 points. I feel that there will be a coordinated collapse to make everyone BEG at the alter of the money gods. This will lead to QE3, government bailouts of corporations, states, and I believe personal bailouts.

The personal bailout I feel will come out of necessity to keep Americans from revolution. This collapse will cause already desperate Americans to say, “enough is enough.” We are seeing a rise in violence and people shooting over 99¢ burritos. Americans will see a system that no longer benefits them, and they will want blood. I believe that the government will attempt to quell the personal pain with extensions of benefits and actual checks. This will be short lived, as Americans finally wake up to the lie that they have been living.

Foreign holders of the dollar will see any inflationary action as a good reason to dump their dollars for the only logical asset class, REAL assets like gold and silver. This will lead to more dollars eventually finding its way back to American domestic economy, putting even more inflationary pressure on us here at home. Foreigners have already shown that they are not interested in buying anymore of our debt. They have already started dumping their dollars for trade settlment. They are already buy oil with other currencies and not the dollar. They are already buying gold outside of the Anglo American Empire. What are we going to do if we cannot export dollars for 25% of the worlds oil?

I still believe that before all of this is over, the Elite will steal American’s retirement savings. (Read: The Treasury is Coming and Don’t Say I Did Not Warn You.) This may happen as a means to pressure people to raise the debt ceiling or they might just steal that wealth by hyper inflation. At the end of all of this, there is either a systemic deflationary collapse of the dollar or a hyper inflation. My best guess is that there will be a small deflation or panic that will serve only as an excuse for more money printing. There is no scenario that I can even begin to conceive that will not end in the destruction of the dollar and priceless silver. If you try to trade this market, I believe you are crazy. Even if you are right in the short term, you risk having your wealth in a paper system that might collapse overnight, look at Belarus. You may think that we can extend and pretend forever, but I would not hold my breath.

Can't say I agree with everything laid out but when it comes to social trends, you find the outliers to find the median.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Live and Let Die

I'm living a positive life to the best of my ability. That is to say, this is not a perfect world. You can smile and be polite to strangers around you, but selling your house to feed them won't yeild positive returns from them. What (I believe) many progressives subscribe to, is of a similar concept. I can respect, on a basic level, another individuals opinion. What I don't respect (and this is true on both sides of the aisle), is hypocrisy. Something governments have always been full of.

 

By the time progressive or conservative ideas from the grassroots reach the policy level, they have become the tools of the politicians to carve out more power. For republicans, the first target they use to shelter spending kickbacks (a natural part of governments), would be war. This isn't always to a nations detriment, just read the annals of the Peloponnesian wars, where the weakness of the Athenian government impeded its ability to fight off external threats. A more modern example would be the states under the Articles of Confederation.

Remember, that the last time I voted, I voted republican. But at heart, I am a libertarian-nationalist.  The danger of recent wars (and the same can be said for social welfare), is that they have been built on fear that has been derailed from reality. Particularly this B.S. where we are involved in Libya. At least we justified our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan based on fears of terrorist harboring AND human rights abuse, in Libya we have just the claim to abuse. Somehow the American people are so detached they don't care.

The same is true of the financial markets. Normalcy bias reigns supreme while we live out what could potentially be the worst financial meltdown since the U.S.S.R.

But remember, a financial crisis ISN"T TEOWAKI... humanity has actually made phenomenal strides in all of the hard sciences, and softer ones such as psychology. Knowledge is something that manages to persevere and survive even in financial droughts. Life goes on.



But, I won't go any further. Right now, in my life, I have to many internal problems to fix to direct everything to others. As I said, I'm living a positive life to the best of my abilities. In these darkening times, I encourage you to fire up your own light, be pleasant with your neighbors.

I'll revisit this post in a while. In the meantime, I'm still investing in silver.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

....

I'm just to tired and happy to really rip into this story the way I did with Debtski*. Suffice to say, I applaud what appears to be a fresh way to present dietary percentages, courtesy of our government. I just can't believe we live in a society where people can't make informed decisions on dietary habits without consulting a
food plate.

How about the government GTFO? And take the money they spent designing this new food plate, and pay back some of the pension money they're stealing to pay for our debts while the politicians fight over the debt ceiling. But its ok... just trust that the FDA is at the forefront of nutrition.

You don't (& Shouldn't) need the Gov. to learn what to eat.

*I feel justified in pointing out, in our current economic situation, just how asinine that "educational" flash game turned out to be.

Then again, if it keep the sheeple happy, by all means.

Is this the time to buy?

Yeah, I'm on about silver again. The price is finally dropping before what I presume will be a rise in price over the summer. The question is, how long with the drop persist, and how low will it go? Given the dip, which I wasn't expecting to encounter for another few weeks, I've decided to hold off buying that pistol and consider upping the priority of some more Silver Ounces.

My target buy will be just before the $34 spot mark ($40/ASE). That said, there are a number of sources online who claim a retrace all the way back below the $30's. I've heard (with fewer followers the more extreme), $27/$28, $22/$24, and $17/$18 per ounce bandied about.

Read to jump into this blog? Click the picture.

Personally, here is the theory I'm sticking to until situations change - Lows throughout the next two months before a resurgence near the autumn.   All it takes is another shift in the herd.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

"This is radio nowhere...

...is there anybody alive out there?"
- Radio Nowhere, B. Springsteen.

So I will update this post. But for now, I feel that any survivalist needs to take a long, hard look at the markets from the mainstream perspective. Today, as some on the internet have been predicting for months, things took a bad turn. I expect the next week to have a slow awakening of the people, soothed by whatever QE3 pops up.

Here are some headlines*:
  • "Private Sector Jobs Grew By Only 38,000 in May..."
  • "EUROPEAN FOOD OUTBREAK SOARS"
  • "WHO: Radiation From Cell Phones Can Cause Cancer..."
  • "Goldman Sachs wont face criminal precaution related to sales of mortgage linked securities because such a move could threaten the US financial system."
  • "Goldman Cuts NFP Forecast To 100,000 - Sheer Panic On Wall Street"


*Of course, headlines are always bad. But I think these will be some interesting quotes to look back on in two years, regardless of how accurate they turn out to be. You know my opinion on the matter....