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Posted on 06/13/2025 6:30:26 AM PDT by V_TWIN
KNOXVILLE, TN — Local Libertarian Steve Kocot was unsure about how best to invest his money and was torn between investing in shiny rocks or some of those newfangled magic computer coins.
Kocot's dilemma reportedly came about as soon as he heard on the internet that the collapse of his government-manipulated fiat currency was imminent and that he needed to preserve his wealth in a more stable form before the American empire disintegrated.
"It's only a matter of days or weeks or months or years or decades," he said. "Everything our government's Keynesian economic house of cards is built upon has to come crashing down, and when it does, the man who has shiny rocks — or magic computer coins — will be king."
Kocot was caught between a shiny rock and a computer coin as he spent an agonizing couple of weeks weighing the pros and cons of the shiny rocks, otherwise known as gold and silver, versus the magic computer coins, which are a more libertarian form of unstable fiat currency.
"See, I could get a bunch of gold or silver coins, but they are really heavy. And then I would probably need to get a safe or something, I guess," he continued. "On the other hand, I could put my money into these magic computer coins everyone is telling me exist. I have no idea how they work or where to get them, and they're invisible, but they're apparently really cool."
At publishing time, Steve had decided to go halfsies on DOGE Coin and gold pitched by Glenn Beck.
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The shiny rocks can be turned into cutlery or jewelry, or used for making computer chips and circuit boards. They have intrinsic value.
The funny computer coins are rare, and as long as enough people think they have value, they do.
Watched an episode of Dr. Phil a couple of years ago. Topic was crypto.
He had ine older guy saying crypto was really smoke and mirrors and 3 millennials advocating for how great it was and the next big thing.
All 3 of them had this little smirk on their faces throughout the whole show like they knew something no one else did.
I had already made up my mind on the subject but that was just one more thing that told me to avoid it.
They can make shiny rocks by the millions now, so that’s a no go...............
As far as diamonds go, conventionally mined stones are quickly becoming a thing of the past.
Bought Mrs. V_TWIN a lab grown for her birthday recently......unless your a jeweler you can’t tell the difference......and the price was literally half as much.
DeBeers, the big diamond brokers were trying to keep them off the market for jewelry but I guess they failed..........
That’s what we were told by our locally owned jeweler we bought hers from. We’ve been using them since we bought our wedding set from them 33 years ago.
He said it was only a matter of time before the process of how to manufacture diamonds became know.
I’m surprised DeBeers didn’t somehow patent it and make it proprietary.
Exactly. Those rather peculiar-looking slips of otherwise nearly worthless paper in your wallet have value because we all agree they have value. Say . . . Perhaps you can answer this crypto question. I’ve heard of people “mining” Bitcoin, gobbling up a good deal of electricity and computer power in the process. What exactly are they “mining”? Why does it require so many resources? Where do the physical tokens come from? Has anyone tried counterfeiting them? I guess that’s more than one question . . .
Just buy tulips.
They are guaranteed to grow and grow in value forever.
“Just buy tulips.”
Flowers in general.
When I retired I briefly worked delivering for a fairly small local flower shop.
The owner told me the day before mother’s day is ALWAYS the biggest day.....he made $20,000 bucks that day.
One delivery I had was around 45 miles away.....the arrangement was $150 and delivery was another $60.
Last time I went in for flowers i asked where the owner was, they told me he was on vacation......in SWITZERLAND!
So yeah, the flowers business can be lucrative.
As a rule of thumb, I suggest about 5 percent of one’s portfolio be in precious metals and jewels. I quickly follow this up by saying, you won’t get any argument from the misses if you have these fashioned into jewelry.
“It (DeBeers) also has an artisanal mining business, Gemfair, which operates in Sierra Leone.”
Mining diamonds in Sierra Leone.....what could go wrong? 🤷
I’m investing in a rock polisher/tumbler so I can make my own shiny rocks
You can bury the shiny rocks in the ground, and dig them up later to enchant or bewitch barbarians - but when the lights go out for 100 years, your magic computer coins ain’t shit.
Slightly flawed diamonds are actually becoming more valuable because they are “real”.
If you want an interesting read, the original (anonymous) thesis of bitcoin was that they were created as a statement about the worthlessness of fiat currency, except what we give it.
The proposition was that bitcoin was more valuable, in that; (1) it could be securely exchanged peer-to-peer over great distances, like cash and the transfer could not be easily prevented by middle-men (like banks or governments) (also like cash) and (2) was not subject to devaluation due to leftists going mad with a printing press.
It was never intended to be a “thing”, just proof of concept.
But became a “thing”.
For mother’s day he ordered a refrigerated tractor trailer full of flowers and had at least 4 times as many people putting the arrangements together as usual.
Oddly enough almost all those people were 20 somethings.
So between the flowers investment and paying all those people, yeah I guess it is a bit of a calculated gamble.
That day he paid me by the delivery.....$12 per....e gave me all the deliveries that were closest to the shop which was really cool of him. I made decent money that day.
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