Posted on 12/04/2014 6:41:45 PM PST by blam
December 04, 2014
Stefan Gleason writes: Much to the chagrin of the financial elite, gold and silver are reentering the American consciousness and starting to shake the wing nutty image of their recent past. But it’s taken a global financial crisis to get the public’s attention – one that could wipe out our nation at almost any moment.
The U.S. government’s role in the economy is on a seemingly interminable upward trajectory. The government’s official debt balance that just crossed the $18 trillion mark (with additional unfunded liabilities estimated at more than $100 trillion). Half the population now lives in households that receive government payments.
Even as private sector jobs disappear and workforce participation rates languish near generational lows, the corporate sector is seemingly thriving. Corporate profits as a percentage of the economy are at record highs. Fortune 500 corporations are using cash hoards and cheap financing – not so much to invest in capital assets or business expansion, but to buy back their own shares and send their stock prices higher.
All these dangerous excesses and distortions are made possible by our free-wheeling fiat monetary system.
What’s occurring now – endless proliferations of paper flowing into the Treasury and banking sector from the central bank – is precisely the sort of thing our Founding Fathers sought to prevent.
The Coinage Act of 1792 authorized the minting of the nation’s money. It defined a “dollar” in terms of a specific quantity of grains of silver (equivalent to about three-fourths of an ounce). Few people today even realize that the dollar bills in their pocket were originally intended to be silver.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at marketoracle.co.uk ...
How are Platinum, Paladium and Rhodium(Zimbabweium?) doing?
The word on the street is the one to watch is Unobtanium.
THAT "fad" disappeared. Now it may be back.
Metal bullion pricing is cyclical.
In 2011 Silver was $47 an ounce. Even at that there were folks saying it was going to go higher. There always is.
Today it’s at $16.35.
A fair amount of money can be made in metals. A massive amount can be lost as well.
I’m not convinced it has bottomed out yet. My predictions generally send metals in the opposite direction.
With that in mind, perhaps it is time to buy. Or does that jinx it? I can never tell.
Goldbug ping.
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It's a gamble and if you can spare the money and like the challenge, then go for it. You can leave all your fortune you make to your great grandchildren and they will remember you with FONDNESS.
No such thing as jinxes. There ARE folks who set the prices, so THEY know and there are REALLY smart folks who are also investors. They know too.
MOST really smart investors hedge their bets. Lol. I do that when I play Craps in Las Vegas. I haven't been there in a while but plan to go there again next year with one of my old friends.
I have my faith, two very good friends that I've known forever, a nice home, healthy savings account, plenty of clothes and I'm annoyingly healthy. I lack NOTHING. Life is good. What the hell heck would I have any business doing trying my "luck" with investing?
Say it ain’t so, Joe.
Barbarous relic.
Precious metals are lousy investments. But they are pretty good insurance policies. I tell my friends to buy a small percentage of their invest-able capital split between gold and silver and keep it. As I said, PM’s are lousy investments, but I sleep better if I have a small pile in case the worst happens. It will buy you time to make better decisions when a situation happens with no time to prepare. Like the 5 hundred dollar bills one carries in their shoe when one travels to dodgy areas. It may give you options when you really need options.
“My predictions generally send metals in the opposite direction.”
Amazing you have that much power over the markets.
;)
It really is. I don’t know where I got this power. If only I could understand it and harness it.
I hear ya. Sounds like you’ve got a good thing going there. Excellent... glad to hear it.
That sounds reasoned.
How the price of Plutonium doing?
Just got a big SCUBA tank, valve and transport dolly for filling my USFT for 3 ounces of silver a couple weeks back. :-)
Also was pleasantly surprised to find out a hunk of melted metal I found detecting a while back which I thought might be gold is actually 28% silver and 42% Rhodium... 2.7 ounces (used one of the new XRF handhelds on it)
I have begun to think of what if I was a dentist in say Osaka or perhaps a journeyman lawyer in Toulon. I have substantial assets and I am fearful they will just disappear.
Where do I put my money? where is safe?
Two thoughts come to mind.... the American stock market in a good mutual fund, and Gold.
I can get on my computer and buy both in merely minutes. I can hedge my local investments easily on my computer from my desk. I can zap some money from my American local branch bank account as easy as pie
I have that power too, but mine is with picking football games against the spread.
” In 2011 Silver was $47 an ounce. Even at that there were folks saying it was going to go higher. There always is.
Today it’s at $16.35.”
Many FReepers said buy gold at 1700....that it was going to 2500. I warned many people in 2006 to quit trying to flip houses....a trillion dollar bloodbath was coming. Nah!
I despise Buffett, but he was right about one thing. When everyone else is buying, sell. When everyone else is selling, buy. Works most of the time.
Actually, that is a good guideline to consider.
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