This here is a smart potato. Trust me, after fifteen years at the phone company, I know what a dumb potato is. By comparison, this one is smart, look, it says so right on the label. I bought this because it was month’s-end, I still had money left, and I can’t really say why but I always wanted a shrink-wrapped potato*. Possibly I’ve been reading too much Dave Barry lately. Besides, I grew up on a farm and never saw a smart potato until I moved into town.
On the return leg, I checked in at the club. Around a dozen people showed last Sunday although the band cancellation notice had been posted well in advance. That was a real disappointment for me, since it casts an aspersion on my reliability. It’s nothing to fret about but it appears I’m in yet another band that doesn’t feel that playing is more important than practice. Nothing gets me fired up like a deadline for a gig in a week or two. The band seems to be waiting for ideal circumstances. I posted a request in BandFinder for an acoustic player.
Six miles. That’s what I get on a full charge with the new eBike battery that set me back $120. About a third of what is expected and a quarter of what the advertising claims. I went for a twelve mile ride, so the return leg was aerobic for me. It was not that bad knowing that every calorie is drawing on reserves. I mentioned I lost inches instead of pounds and I actually got the look from a lady in the bakery this morning. Dang, I was on my way out when that happened so I couldn’t respond in any way without looking the desperate fool. She’s a regular, I’ll hear all about it next day.
The sunny weather was perfect for a ride which gave me time to think. I’m going to up my offer for the place in Boca, sort of sweeten the kitty. By a cool thousand bucks. I’m tired of this town anyway and would not mind the change for its own sake. Mid-afternoon found me back here in the shade watching “Swiss Family Robinson”. They were stranded on Gilligan’s Island because there were no biting insects, leeches, or scavengers. If you have to ask, no I have never seen these movies. I had better things to do when I was that age. Remember, the average young woman was far prettier back in my time when there were fewer tattoos, no boob jobs, and heavy makeup meant one thing only.
Did I ever tell you about the first time I ever saw a real prostitute? I mean, I’d seen them from across a street in Yakima and out the bus window in Wenatchee. But a real up close look at a hooker? I was eighteen and I was traveling with my girlfriend and my Egyptian buddy and his girlfriend. We pulled up at a motel in Montana and he went inside. A few minutes later a big old boat of a car like Wallace drives pulled up right beside my window. This horrid looking skinny hooker in a purple satin dress gets out and my oath, that was ugly.
The dress was low cut but it hung forward as she stepped out and I could see the outline of where she had put on makeup and how pale she was without it. It glowed slightly green under the neon light. Her eyes looked like sunken hollows of black mascara and she was smoking a cigarette. About fifteen feet away there was a bucket shaped like a spittoon. She stuck out her tongue with the cigarette on the tip, grabbed it with her fingertips and expertly flicked it that entire distance into the bucket as she kicked the car door shut with her foot. I think it was in Kalispell.
Anyway, I had a laugh at “Swiss Family Robinson” because of the conflict introduced by the babe between the two older brothers. Today, everyone has to be politically correct, but back in the boomer years, people had to be sexually correct. That means the boys had to fight over the girls because any other arrangement was unthinkable. Or rather, one had to pretend it was unthinkable. These days they’d all three move into a tree house together and tell their father dirty jokes when he swung over on the vine to snoop.
I might add that I never bought into all that play-acting back then. That’s why I thought “Wake Up Little Suzie” was a spoof. But a lot of men did buy in, as did my poor misguided brothers. But hey, I can’t change the world. For crying out loud, I’m a writer, a scholar, a musician. I should not be expected to go up against ignorance and muscle.
Silver hasn’t performed but I say that because I haven’t made a bundle. My plan was to buy on the downslide, which I’ve done very well. It just wasn’t supposed to slide all the way to $19. Profits are calculated by accounting methods, so if I was to use LIFO (last in first out) I would say yes, I’ve made money on anything I bought at $19. But overall, if I sold out, I would lose. Don’t worry, I have no intention of doing any such thing. I do know that whenever prices are down, a year later there is a shortage of silver because the mines quit producing it.
Gold should already be at that point, but it isn’t. I’ve never followed gold production so I can’t do the same guesswork. I know that most gold actually sold comes from South Africa except the gold in America. The African mines have a lot of the gold ore but it is low grade and costs plenty to mine it. That’s why there are so many black African laborers in that country. Without gold mining, the place is one large and overly-expensive cattle ranch. The less there is of something, the easier to manipulate it, so gold remains a little too rare for me.
*There is a reason for the shrink-wrap. These potatoes are pre-washed and ready to eat. Unless it is wrapped in a sealed container, you should wash all vegetables and fruit you buy at a public market. Remember, the public shops there.
ADDENDUM
This is a recap of the concept of making money via silver speculation. While it is true the world monetary systems are vastly more interlocked than in the past, inflation is definitely not evenly spread. The entire price increase in gold and silver over the past century is entirely explained by a drop in the value of paper currency. There has actually been very little change in the metal prices in relation to other commodities. Hence, no profit in the long run, just ever bigger numbers.
So how does it work? When I worked, I used the old “degree of suffering” method to compare prices. It was two stages. Convert my daily income to an hourly wage. Calculate how many minutes I had to work to buy something—after taxes. This is how I figured out my $28 per hour income at the phone company in the 80s was only $12 per hour in real money. But that calculation is meaningless today because national debt distorts all income. The difficulty with what I’m about to describe is that the time to get started was so long ago. Still, read on because it isn’t crazy to buy silver when you still owe two hundred large on your condo IF you think the price of silver will explode.
If unfunded obligations are totaled, the US liabilities against every person (man/woman/child) in the nation is $727,000. The only way to pay that is to print more money. The degree of suffering will be horrendous for those who don’t prepare. I may not be right about silver—that is why it is called speculation—but I do know the exact wrong thing to do is nothing. To sit around and hope the crisis will bypass you. Yet I find that is most people’s only plan. Yes, this next counter is the real thing. Pay up.
Silver prices are being fixed. What made me think this? What made me suspicious? It developed like this. Several times in the 80s and 90s I was overseas when I heard about price collapses and stock market fiascos in New York. These events made very little difference to people around me and life went on. But one Xmas, the American dollars I had on me tripled in value and I was able to treat the entire hotel staff to dinner at the best place in Caracas. This got me to thinking. The market at street level reacts far more slowly to price manipulation because THINGS TAKE TIME.
The fancy restaurant we went to undoubtedly had their costs skyrocket over that devaluation. But what could they do? Reprint the menus overnight? In fact, there were so many orders for new menus, I saw it take two months for the new prices to arrive. I ate like a king for that time. This is the time period to which I refer. Between the currency collapse and the general price rise. What? Collapse? It does not mean the money disappears, just that its purchasing power plummets. I define that as anything over 30% in a year.
If silver doubles in price because paper currency devalues, prices can’t rise across the board with equal speed. You can’t suddenly sell your car or house for twice the price, it takes time for the devaluation to work its way down through the economy. That is how you make a profit. If there is a spike in silver, sell your accumulated position but don’t hold on to the paper dollars. Immediately buy something that will increase in price when the effect trickles down. Myself, I’m looking at real estate. It’s a matter of timing and you don’t have to be very good at it to cash in. That’s all.
