You see, the Karaoke speaker did not fill the room as claimed and the sound was definitely directional. The closer the audience to the speaker, the worse it was. It could be the Karaoke people had it set up wrong, since the quality of their show means I have to consider they don’t know from sound engineering. As well, the Bose is a heftier system than the Fishman, and the absence of the bass box was too evident.Not that lack of the box would slow me down. I still have the Ampeg and my other PA system should I ever actually need 600 watts. Best musical device this year? The headset microphone. And it isn’t even the wireless one I really wanted. Originally I needed it because I tend to glance at my left hand when playing bass runs, which had me constantly missing notes either on the bass or over the microphone.
Don’t misjudge the need to watch the neck, for this relates to why so many bass players don’t sing. I do it by totally disjoining the bass from the melody. When I look at myself playing bass while singing, it is almost like floating above the instrument and listening to someone else play. I’m really listening for the one or two root notes in each measure to keep me on key. I wouldn’t even try to break a habit like that, not knowing how narrow the foundation of my vocals are this late in the game.
The red scooter gets a refurbish beginning today. Upon review, the scooter has proven its worth, with thousands of unexpected miles in the first year. With just two breakdowns, both mechanical and easily repaired, it is easily the most economical vehicle for around town. Included are a heavy duty battery, the new front forks, a brake job, and a tuneup.
Later. Add a day’s delay for the scooter. The parts have to come from Miami and the traffic was two hours thick again, each way. Sunday is bound to be interesting, as I will assist in evaluating some art. For a 3% commission. The sad news is the art comes from Alaine’s dad’s estate, which they are finally winding up. I’ll plan some time for a talk with JP, who tends to overestimate the prices for paintings and sculptures. Between now and the weekend, I’ll read up on how to evaluate, but I live in a world where nothing is worth more than you can sell it for and no job worth more than the cheapest labor available.
I talk about silver below, but I’ve been really pondering what else there is to invest in. Not so simple a concept, especially considering that assets that appreciate due to inflation are just as taxable as real gains. This treatment means, like inheritance, the asset itself is liable be destroyed by the tax. So, the question goes out. What else is there to invest in besides metal that doesn’t have your name on it? Food doesn’t keep. Tobacco can get wet. The asset also has to be small and portable. It isn’t so easy to find anything that fits.
One more requirement, the asset has to be storable. That rules out oil because there is no place to keep it. Oil trivia, did you know that there have been no major oil strikes in the USA since the 1930s? I found this out reading about a new twin-hulled ship used to dismantle deep-sea oil rigs. (Pieter Schelte). Apparently thousands of these rigs are in need of removal, which led me to discover there have been around 50,000 oil strikes in history. Most were never put into production. Around half the world’s oil instead comes from about 40 big fields. That’s scary. How would I run my sidecar if gas goes to $10 per gallon?
I don’t place faith in shale oil either. In fact, even the name “shale oil” is bogus since it really isn’t oil. The closest substitute is tar sands and that technology is ruinous to the environment. The Syncrude plant in northern Alberta gets away with open pit mining because there are so few people and so much environment. This mode of doing business is self-destructive in the sense that over 90% of the Athabasca tar sands are too deep to be mined with cranes and trucks anyway. Shale oil takes more energy to extract than it produces. But there is a lot of it out there. Shale oil looks a bit like lumps of coal. Called the rock that burns, it is heated until the goo flows out, which is then upgraded and sent to a refinery.
In closer-to-home news, another major employer has left California, though the state continues to deny this is happening. The big Campbell soup plant (700 jobs) in Sacramento is kaput. Even software companies that originated in the state don’t hire locally due to excessive regulations. Worse, the most profitable businesses gain the most by leaving. The problem is crazy politics which equals taxation and regulation. I view California as the end product of letting liberals run the show. Of states with no income tax, Texas is the most palatable and that is where most of the shops are heading.
This exodus is familiar to me. That’s why I know the politicians over there won’t learn their lesson as their tax base disappears and the population gets replaced by those who arrive for the handouts. Ask yourself where I’ve seen first hand that when a winner leaves town, the losers think they now have more equality.
ADDENDUM
Comments on precious metal speculation are always a big draw for the blog. I repeat that speculation is not for everyone, and in fact, it isn’t even that much fun. The type who like to watch investments grow should stay away. The media harps on the US economic recovery, which keeps people faithful to the greenback dollar. I suspect that is because when all else loses value, the buck has always been there. And that is what is different this time. The dollar as a store of value is gone, and what does that leave?
Gold was an excellent investment last year (around 16%), but that is a tiny number as far as I’m concerned. Where is the big 2012 gold boom that was supposed to happen by now? The year is getting on, though there’s still time for it to hit $2,000 per ounce. My take on that is again that metal prices are being kept artificially low, unless you or anybody you know still believes in paper money. Banks, particularly Swiss banks, have been buying five times as much gold as previous years.
I stay away from gold, though having a little is never a bad idea. If you examine the facts, gold moves up and down in the same pattern as the stock market, so the idea it is a hedge is bogus. Same with the dollar value in the sense that for the past ten years, most currencies have gone up and down by the same relative amounts. No net gain to speak of. Mind you, any investment is better than no investment at all.
This picture is a silver mold, it looks like about a ten-ouncer. Most people have never seen one. It’s made of graphite. This is where molten silver is poured from the crucible to cool and take the shape shown. But if you are thinking of melting any silver, don’t. It is too dangerous, and melting coins by the way is illegal. Having said that, you can buy an electric silver smelting oven that fits on your kitchen table.[Author's note: There are several on-line videos of complete idiots melting down silver. Don’t copy them. They are not smelting, they are melting “scrap” silver, which in the case of jewelry often contains steel springs and copper. Smelting is a different process where a flux is used to remove impurities. Plus, many of the videos show the wrong technique of pouring the silver into the mold. And all of the videos show dangerous activity. Examples would be dunking the silver into water in a glass container and weighing silver while it is still hot. If you need to be told what is dangerous about that, you probably got here by mistake, too.]
Anyway, back to silver as a gamble. Allow me to clarify that I mean the gambling of others, not me. Those who bought in 1980 probably lost money. There are stories of a silver deficit and other stories about lack of demand. Both may be true, or how about the theory that digital cameras have cut the demand for silver in photographs. Sure, but the demand was replaced by solar panels. My guesswork says that people will bid silver to a ridiculous high some time soon. Suffice to say if silver hit $1,000 per ounce for a day, it would have been nice to have a hundred ounces tucked away. A hundred ounces is not that much silver.
And no, nobody is trying to stop those who cover their eyes and ears and hope inflation will go away. The US is paying China $74 million per day interest and that money is coming right off the printing presses in endless sheets of hundred dollar bills. There is a mistaken assumption that those who buy silver have to acquire enough to last the rest of their life. Wrong. All that is needed is enough to weather the inflationary crisis, when others will be forced to liquidate their assets. By comparison, you will then be wealthy, and if you are clever, own those assets—and that is what will get you by. My goal is a nice house or two. For starters.
Sources who study these things say 10% to 15% of a portfolio should be metal. But I say the average person does not have anything like enough money to have a portfolio. The down side of investing is losing, but silver is a pretty good bet because it cannot go bankrupt. It isn’t as rare as other metals, but the demand for it has ensured it a place for the past 2,000 years. I say it would not be wild for a beginner to have 40% of his money in silver (or gold). But where is the other 60%, that’s a valid question.
I don’t know. When I took, you might say, “stock” of what to invest in, I did not like anything out there. If silver prices are being fiddled, then diamonds, oil, and real estate is even worse. For you playboys, here are a couple of investments you might look over. Cristy Walton ($29b) and Laurene Jobs ($11b).
Do plan ahead, since neither of these women made the money themselves, they probably have some fairly whacko ideas about horse trading. Both are widowed with children. What? Yes, Laurene is the widow of that guy, and she is definitely my type. There are ten Anglo female billionaires in the world, average age 68 years 3 months, the youngest is Jobs at 48. Walton is 57. Wikipedia does not publish photographs of rich women, so I done it for you. Up yours, Wiki, we wanna see what rich white women look like. So we’ll know them when they walk into Jimbos.
