One year ago today: September 29, 2014, recycled stop sign?
Five years ago today: September 29, 2010, fifty thousand bucks!
Six years ago today: September 29, 2009, on Martian self-disqualification.
MORNING
It’s buried on the lower right of page nine in the Herald this AM, but I was all over it in a wink. The Swiss have announced a fraud investigation into precious metal price manipulation by 7 major banks. It never made a ripple on the Internet and by the time the Swiss announce anything, it is to give their fellow gangsters the old “heads-up”. That means governments like the UK and USA, which operate underground even when they don’t have to, have been conducting a probe for some time. Watch for a roundup, the market has been held down for three years now.
Yes, I have the buy option tucked away, ready to spring if silver soars. What do I expect? I’m not a pro, so this is not advice. But as usual, this blog is a good starting point to begin your own research.
Some sources say $1,500 per ounce is the correct figure. Here is their logic, not mine. The historical value for a day’s work is a tenth of an ounce of silver, at least since ancient Greek and Roman times up till around 1918. So that is what, the average pay is $150 per day in our society. Therefore a full ounce of silver should pay ten men for a day's labor. That equates to $1,500 per ounce.
The only people willing selling physical silver at $14 per ounce today would be those who bought if for less than $9. I said willing. If there is a currency collapse, something has to replace it. It’s got to be silver at street level, although there could be pressure to make everything electronic. That would be the end of freedom as we know it. Either way, everything you are being told about rates of inflation, unemployment, and metal prices is completely fabricated. A fraud.
This is probably the biggest breaking news story of the year, maybe the decade. And most of the media glossed it over. I’ve been dead right about these things so far, guys. Either way, when the banks are caught, they are fined and the money goes into the government coffers. Not the investors who lost. Don’t look at me, I don’t own any paper assets.
The good news is that September is essentially over and the Red Moon collapse didn’t fly.
NOON
Nearby if you see a compound photo, I built a universal wide-angle camera lens. You are looking for a before-and-after type photo. If nothing, check back later, if so, what an amazing technology for such small gain. If it distorts in the corners, forgive, I used lenses from an old camcorder.
I say absolutely not. Those were black market prices and there was obvious enough funny money being gouged out of the old system to support that kind of excess. Why should the people who take Uber bail out a pack of near-criminals. Don’t even listen to their arguments because it is clear they have never been on the side of the taxi rider. Seig Heil, Uber!
Don’t be expecting great things, I once gain told JZ not to drive out here. I had to spend $26 and show ID before I got some cough medicine that worked. I didn’t waste the afternoon, rather I build a working scale model of the new cPod. The old one was just to test the size, this time I need to calculate where to place spars and braces.
The old pod was built for stealth and security. Forget that, I’ve learned, and the new model is designed for light weight and ease of setup. It is secure only when folded up, for all I know it when open it will sway in the breeze. But much less so than a tent. It will be as roomy as the older version, and that was very comfortable. There is plenty of room to stretch out, sleep sideways, or roll around all night. Two will fit in there, but it is designed for one. If you got two, get a room.
This cough suppressant did such a number on my appetite, I bought a tube of Pringles and scarfed all 480 calories in one session. But it also dulled my other senses, so I stayed home and watch some Grade B movies. “Skeleton Coast”, fr'instance. These are so bad, the enjoyment factor goes up as your head gets more foggy.
NIGHT
I’ll talk money in a moment, but first, here is a progress photo on the cPod. These are the small incandescent lamps which monitor the performance of the LEDs system. Reasoning: if there is a failure, it is far easier to replace a lamp than a diode. These things I know of. Anyway, another downpour today kept me off the project. In each case, the indicator lamp mimics the behavior as what it is monitoring, which is considerably more sophisticated than the original wiring.
So you want to know why anyone would keep the price of silver down. Why have they not shot prices through the roof, it’s been years already? I say they are after bigger fish. The biggest factor that makes a real speculator is the ability to wait out the competition. How fortunate is the man whose parents did it for him. Barring that, most speculation is having the resources to hold on to something that has the potential to balloon in price.
As an example, may I have a show of hands how many of us have saved up $10,000 in cash. It’s not that much, so, who’s done it? That’s what I thought. Now for the few hands left, here’s the trick question, and it is not “If you really saved it, where is the money now?”. It is, “How much did it cost you to save and keep the $10,000?”
Sound like an odd question? Not to those who have done it. Unless you've discovered the cost of saving, you have never done it. Put bluntly, it costs a lot of money to save, then more money to back it up, and more money still to protect it. I’ve known like forever that is why most people never save much for long. They don’t understand it is not a fixed goal once reached and then take it easy. They don’t teach you that part in business school.
The fact of the matter is, that $10,000 savings cost me $23,000 to do so. Sorry, no details, but them’s facts, boys. If you account for everything, including the gas it takes to make the regular deposits, you’ll find saving costs money. A good chunk of the cost was the money needed to change my lifestyle during the saving process when I could have been doing other things that are significantly more fun than saving money. All of it has a price tag. In the end, it cost $2.30 to save $1.00 – but that dollar is nurtured, protected, and ready to spring into action the moment anybody flinches. That, grasshopper, is the reality of speculation. Others must lose.
Now back to the theory of why silver prices stayed low. I mentioned monetary collapse. Who would benefit from this? The banks. With prices low, they have the paper cash to buy silver by the ton. Bankers took the same economics courses I did and they are fully aware that fiat currency is a Ponzi scheme. Who will come out of crisis smelling sweet? Those with the largest silver hoards.
To the naysayers who point to 1933, you are wrong. The gold was not confiscated, it was cashed in for paper. Then the paper was devalued. My point there is that not 100% of people complied with the law. They made millions. Most famous of the lot? Old Joe Kennedy. Between whiskey running and hiding his gold, he ran the full gamut, getting his sons either elected president or away with murder. Did you know there was a Kennedy in office for a span of 64 years? Wiki points out this is more than a quarter of the age of the USA.
What? I’m not supposed to point at the Kennedys, the royal family of America. Okay. I won’t. But the Straight Dope says it for me:
“J.P. was what we call an operator. He made his money by (1) pulling various hustles before it had occurred to anyone to make them illegal, and (2) possibly pulling other hustles that were definitely illegal but generally winked at.”
So, the 1933 event was not a confiscation. Another thing to consider is back then people respected and trusted the government. If they tried the same thing today, there would be consequences no politician could accept. Americans at large don’t fall for the same trick twice.
[Author’s note: for those interested, the nearby link to “Straight Dope” is like a parallel to this blog, except its guided by sometimes posed questions. But it is clearly written and the guy is no dummy. At first it reads like trivia, then you realize the guy is actually excellent at historical research. Which ties back to the questions seeming contrived.
He tends to write about what others, not his own adventures and experiences. For new twists on old subjects, it is quite the blog. As for creativity, a new idea once in a while, you might find yourself right back here.]
Last Laugh
Return Home
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
