Tag Archives: pms

Article – What Venezuelan savers can teach everyone else

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ASK the chief investment officer of a fund-management firm how to spread your investments and you will be told to put so much in stocks, so much in bonds and something in hedge funds or private equity. Chances are that white-elephant buildings, eggs and long-life milk will not feature. But in Venezuela, where the inflation rate is in the tens of thousands, things that people elsewhere would shun for fear they will lose value have become stores of real wealth.

The old standard for guarding against hyperinflation has always been gold and, to a lesser degree, silver. But, as seen in many wartime economies, certain goods hold their value across board… most notably cigarettes, booze, and …ahem…’personal services’. There’s a handful of occupations that are, basically, recession- and depression-proof: food, medical, weapons, entertainment, and sex. Doesn’t matter if it’s a war or a depression – everyone wants to eat, everyone wants to live, everyone wants to protect themselves, everyone wants to forget, and everyone wants to get some action.

Of course it’s kinda hard to transport some of those goods in a convenient manner which is why we have a medium of exchange – gold.

About this point in the conversation the shortsighted jump in and say that if you can’t eat it or shoot it, it’s worthless. After all, they argue, if you were dropped in the middle of the Andes with a suitcase full of gold you’d starve/freeze/etc.

This is, of course, quite true. But it fails to take into account that economic disasters rarely happen overnight. They are usually a gradual-but-increasingly-steep slope. The gold gets you the things you need to survive that drop into the Andes. Somewhere between “normal” and “Mad Max” is where the gold come into play. When the local backpacking supply shop won’t accept currency, the gas stations won’t take plastic, and the gun stores won’t take a check….that’s where the metals come in handy.

But…thats my opinion. I hedge my bets….metals, ammo, fuel, food, etc.

Whats up with silver

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I’ve been noticing that silver has been in the (mostly) below $15 range for the last couple weeks. At one point it very briefly dipped below $14, which was pretty surprising. Problem is, you head down to your local metals dealer to by some you wind up at dang near $20/oz. because of the premiums. Whats up with that?

As I understand it, delivery times on physical silver (and, really, why would you own anything else) are pushed out pretty far. Want a ‘monster box’ (500 ct.) of Silver Eagles? Pay now and we’ll call you in a few weeks when it arrives. And that’s not just Eagles…pretty much all the nationally minted stuff is backed out, too. The generics aren’t much better. Sunshine makes the plancehttes for the US mint, so getting Sunshines is also an exercise in patience. So while the generics have a lower premium than the nationally minted stuff, you’re still looking at waits for anything in quantity.

It seems that the only thing that isn’t on backorder is ‘junk silver’…the pre-’65 coins. Which makes sense since there is no manufacturing bottleneck on those…they’re already made. I want to say the junk stuff was going for around 14-15x face value the other day…which means ten dollars worth of dimes, or ten dollars worth of quarters, will set you back $140-150.

I rather like Canadian Maples and Sunshine rounds for their anti-counterfeiting measures. The Maples are hard to get right now but I can usuualy find some Sunshine Buffaloes in the ‘generic bin’.

I’m not sure where the price of silver is going but I would say its almost certainly going to go up. The days of $6 silver are, I think, gone for a long time. I’d say $15 is about the new normal for this sort of thing. Of course that can change depending on how the markets go…when the markets get wonky people run for something that holds value a little better. And, of course, us ‘anti-government, survivalist’ types always feel a little better with our holdings diversified into tangibles….ammo, guns, fuel, silver, gold, cash, etc.

If you think you want some silver and don’t mind the wait (which really isn’t even a choice at the moment) go rattle the cage of the Metals Pimp.

Article – Texas is creating a gold depository to rival Fort Knox and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

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Texas does a lot of things that I think are just for posturing and maintaining their image, but I rather like this:

On Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation that will create a state-run gold depository in the Lone Star State – one that will attempt to rival those operated by the U.S. government inside Fort Knox and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s vault in lower Manhattan.

“The Texas Bullion Depository,” Abbott said in a statement, “will become the first state-level facility of its kind in the nation, increasing the security and stability of our gold reserves and keeping taxpayer funds from leaving Texas to pay for fees to store gold in facilities outside our state.”

There’s the story that when a couple nations approached the US about repatriating their gold from the US depository there was some…concern…that the gold was ‘unavailable’. I’d be very interested to know if Texas gets to take their gold back or if some excuse will pop up about how they have to get it back over a lengthy period of time (if at all).

This is why I don’t believe in any of this we-hold-your-metals-for-you scams, or any paper representations of precious metals. If you have a certificate that says you own 100 oz. of gold in a repository in California, you don’t own anything except a piece of paper. If you’re going to go down the road of owning precious metals, then own precious metals…not a piece of paper saying you own gold or silver. Promissory notes with questionable redeemability is the whole reason we buy gold and silver to begin with.

I (usually) get my PM’s from the Metals Pimp. You may have your own ‘guy’, but if you don’t you might wanna give the Pimp a holler.

H/T to Ryan at TSLRF (which apparently is just TS these days).

Prices

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After a little bit of a spike, silver has dropped back into the low $16 range. While I think the odds of things ever hitting the stage of bartering for your life with a couple Silver Eagles is pretty slim, I still like having a little box full of tubes of them on hand. It’s some sort of primitive lizard-brain thing, but I just like the feeling of having them even if, from a pencil-and-calculator standpoint, it doesn’t make sense.

Speaking of prices going down, it’s been a long time since I saw gasoline for less than $2. I’m no economic expert but, to my uneducated eye, it appears this is a simple price manipulation by the oil producing nations to make domestic oil production economically unfeasible. If they make oil cheap enough, folks will just by it from them rather than dig up North Dakota and Canada. Simple business economics….undercut the other guy. An unfortunate side effect is that all those guys that were making bank out there in NoDak are now fearing for their jobs. A good reason to always tuck a little something aside when youre doing well…you never know how and when the fat times are gonna come to a screeching halt.

One thing prices have not been going down on is food. Meats are pretty high these days. Even buying in bulk it can add up quickly. We’re buying half a beef from a somewhat-local ranch next month and thats been, in our experience, the way to go. It’s the same price per pound regardless of cut…ground beef or t-bone…its all the same. It’s been a good way for us to buy meat but, obviously, you have to have the freezer space to pull it off. My experience, which you can read about if you search through the blog, has been that you can stuff a properly packaged piece of meat into a deep freeze and have it be just fine five years later.

On paper, its tough being a survivalist…you sink a lot of money into things that, arguably, you might never need. I’ve seen guys die with thousands of dollars tied up in things they owned ‘just in case’. The outside observer might think its a waste of money or ‘misallocation of resources’ but there’s a non-tangible benefit. It’s very much the same benefit you achieve from that other ‘waste of money’ – insurance. It buys me peace of mind and a general feeling of security which, in my opinion, does have a financial value. Still, it’s a hard thing, sometimes, to spend money on ‘just in case’ stuff when what you really want is a WarCraft subscription or a new iPad.

Of course, once the zombies rise it’ll be a whole different story and that money will look like a brilliant allocation.

Friday of Color

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Well, the Friday of Color sales I wanted to take advantage of turned out to be a bust. Of the few things I wanted, most had sold out virtually instantly. I suppose this is a good thing since it keeps me from spending money.

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Or, at least, it was until I noted that silver dipped down to around $15.50 today. Time to call the Pimp. Speaking of the ‘Pimp, he came by the other day with a silver round for me that he said came from someone who reads the website. So, to that benefactor, I thank you sincerely. When the zombie hordes are finally decapitated into the dustbin of history I shall praise your memory as I barter the silver for lapdances from grateful-yet-still-hot survivors at the local stripclub-turned-impromptu-fortress.

Just because I didn’t get the things I was looking for this Friday doesn’t mean there arent bargains and great values out there. Go! Shop! Acquire! Since ‘Black Friday’ has all but become a holiday I figured it was time to add another synthetic holiday to the pantheon of reasons-to-buy-stuff. Thus, tomorrows post is all about Paratus, the holiday of survivalists.

ETA: Dammit. Almost made it out of Sportsmans Warehouse without getting Friday Of Color’ed. But..but…its M855 on stripper clips! $169.99! Its the ballistic equivalent of Doritos – you can’t just eat a few.

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Silver stuff

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Silver is still below $16 and to me that is still a bargain. Even if silver drops to its old price of less than $10 an ounce I will continue to buy all the way down. Why? Because I know that it will go up again.

Speaking of silver, the Metals Pimp dropped by the other day and handed me one of these:

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Said one of you crazy guys bought some from him and told him to pass a Maple off to me. So, to that kind soul, I say ‘Thank you’! When we come crawling out of the fallout shelters to face the new, currency-less world of the post-apocalypse I’ll have a head start on every one else as I use this to purchase pre-holocaust Twinkies and post-holocaust pole dances.

SIlver

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Silver actually dipped below $16.00 the other day for a brief time. At the moment it’s around $16.30. To me, its time to buy. Is the price going to go even lower? Maybe..thats why I wouldnt spend all my money on it right now. And while I can’t be sure it will be going down further, I am confident that, eventually, it will be a good deal higher than what it is now.

When silver is limp, call the Pimp!

(Which reminds me, I need to redo my post about the Metals Pimp) Yay for cached versions!

The Metals Pimp

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Every time I post about  gold-n-silver someone usually comments about “where can I go to get a fair price and ……”. So, I’m making this post and will wind up just putting a link to it in any post I make about gold/silver since folks always seem to want to know a good source.

So… my buddy runs Montana Rarities. He buys and sells gold and silver, as well as, sometimes, doing trades for them as well. (As in, you trade ‘x’ amounts of one metal for ‘y’ amount of the other.) He’s very knowledgable, a straight-shooter, and is far more easygoing and fair than a lot of people I’ve seen in this business.

When he started this business and was looking for ideas, I suggested a subscription plan where a person could set up a repeating transaction once a month and acquire gold or silver. He drafts your bank account for, say, $200 every 15th of the month (you pick the amount and the day) and on the 15th of every month he sends you $200 worth of gold or silver (whichever you specified) at whatever the rate was on that day. Basically, set it and forget it. Here’s a link to the page describing how it works. If you want to sock away some metal without the hassle of following prices, and dealing with shipping and credit card numbers every month, it’s the way to go…a fire-n-forget way of accumulating your stash of metals.

Is he a good value? Well, certainly he’s the best deal in town here. Is he the best on the itnernet? Beats me. I suppose if you order 5000 ounces at a time from APMEX you might get a better deal, but if youre going to be doing a bit less volume than that I’d stack him against anyone. In fact, I usually give him a huge ration of crap about how his premium percentages are smaller than pretty much everyone’s.

Now, sure, I’m biased. I’ve known him for years, and watched him start this business from the ground up….back when a $300 sale was reason to celebrate. Nowadays a $5,000 sale barely raises his heartbeat. Why? Mostly because a lot of those $300 sales turned out to be guys ‘testing the waters’ to see if he was a good guy to do business with. Once they did a few ‘nickle-n-dime’ sales with him and realized how great he was to deal with, the real money started changing hands. Can;t buy that kinda customer loyalty, ya gotta earn it.

Anyway, before you go plunk down your slowly dissolving greenbacks at one of the big-name guys’ websites, check him out and see if you cant get a better value from him. Even if the prices ‘tween the two are virtually the same, you’ll probably get much better customer service from him.

Speaking of silver….

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

My metals-dealing buddy  stopped by the other day and handed me a silver Eagle. Not known for his boundless generosity, I inquired as to what I had done to deserve such a coin. He said that “one of your readers” contacted him to do some purchasing and said to send an Eagle in my direction. Of course, he won’t tell me who it was since that would violate the customer/metal-pimp confidentiality clause. So, whomever it was that put that Eagle in my pocket, mucho thanks! After the economy collapses and I use it to procure desperate coeds to work in the Lingerie Proving Grounds I will be reminded of your generosity.

Oh yeah, silver is down…….

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been so wrapped up with the gun stuff going on (and rightly so, I believe) that I completely overlooked the fact that silver has dropped below $30 and is, at this moment, right around $28.75…time to buy!

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I’m fortunate that I have a buddy in the gold/silver biz (and, wow, has he been busy lately or what!) so he only gives me the mildest of dirty looks when I ask him to drop by the shop with just one or two silver rounds or Eagles for me. (Honestly, I prefer the rounds for the better value but the Eagles are probably more ‘recognized’.) It sucks that between the sputtering economy (and how are those job numbers these days, anyway?) and the gun control shenanigans it’s mighty hard to decide which direction to point my disposable dollars at. (Although, after typing the term ‘disposable dollars’, I think I’ve figured out where to point that wallet.)

Really, the ‘investment’ plan is really the same as it’s always been: gun stuff, metals, food. (Not necessarily in that order.)

I realize that there’s a certain demographic (a short-sighted one, in my opinion) that says “If you cant eat it or shoot it whats the point of it? When we’re all living in caves and eating our children no one will want your Eagles!” and thinks buying this sort of thing is a waste of time. That’s cool, I can respect that..I disagree with it, but I respect that you have an opinion. So take your money and buy more mags, ammo, land, guns, food, fuel, clothes, meds, household supplies, tires, and tools…because while we can disagree about the metals thing, I think we can agree that there’s virtually no point in holding onto anything more than a small amount of cash when it’s looking more and more like the only economic courses available to this country involve bank runs and inflation.