Real output is already very cheap in gold terms. Instead, the most likely correction will take place in the stock market itself, either because the dollar sinks or because stocks sink…or both.
That’s beautiful, Bill. Nice to know somebody’s got a head start while the rest of civilization is bursting into flames like a discounted fireworks tent. 🎆🎇🧨🥳😀
Everything got cheaper in gold, which is great news for the millions of Americans who were apparently paid in pirate treasure this whole time, so as long as your paycheck arrives in doubloons and you shop like a demented pharaoh, you’re crushing it right now! 🤩👌
I love the strategy here, measure houses, trucks, and the whole empire in gold like medieval accountant, while the government prints fairy dust, lights money on fire, and calls the smoke “growth,” and then act surprised when the ashes cost more.
Meanwhile the government’s burning a billion a day on war while the public is getting bled at the pump, households are getting kneecapped by gas, food, and taxed with tariffs, and the big boys are saying, “Don’t worry folks, we’re monitoring the situation.” Yeah, of course you are, vampires monitor the blood bank too.
Started buying gold/silver 40 years ago. Why because paper money never made sense to me. Educated myself by following Bonner and various other “charlatans” about what money really is. It’s never too late to get started. My one silver dollar, 25 years ago, bought 4 gallons of gas. Today that same one silver dollar buys me more than a tank of gas. Good luck on your journey.
Bill ; Speaking as a farmer, unless you are operating a farm to table operation, us real farmers can't pass anything along. We are at the mercy of the commodity markets. The only way to get more is to produce less and that isn't how farmers think. That's not to say the price of food will not go up, it will. But it will be all the middlemen getting the mark-up, not the farmers.
Two reports without a hint of politics. Just back to the basic stuff. Hope a new trend is developing. I know, I know you can't draw a trendline with 2 data points but still, it is nice to think about.
In the Beartooth Mountains of Montana there is a road that leads from Red Lodge to Yellowstone National Park. One of the earliest markers for a trail through the mountains was a sharp rock formation shaped like a long tooth. It was how a mountain range came to be identified. By this point of recognition, you would know where you were and where to keep going.
Something similar occurred while I was in high school. The US Mint announced that the use of silver metal for minting dollars, half-dollars, quarters, and dimes would no longer be practiced. Over the next few years the silver coins began to become scarce while base metal coins were put into circulation. Individuals began to save the silver coins while using the newer coins to make change.
My Dad was one of the individuals who saved the older coins when he came across them and I followed his example. In my mind they would become rare over time and might become something people would want to have as a memento of earlier years, much like the old Morgan Silver dollars were.
My first summer job in a factory started the year I turned 16. I was an all-purpose helper who was paid $1.00 per hour. On pay day my envelope had a statement for hours worked, taxes deducted, and $32.00 in one dollar bills. This was a sizable increase over the $.25 per hour I earned by loading hay on a wagon, cutting a lawn, weeding, or raking leaves. So I had a chance to set aside some silver quarters or more rarely a half-dollar when they were part of my change. Over my time in collage I didn’t spend my silver coins, they were now very rarely seen getting change. But, once in a while the bank would hand out a roll of quarters and some or all of them could be silver quarters. That was really special.
After I returned from Viet Nam and started my career another change was announced by President Nixon. The United States would no longer surrender gold to foreign nations for our currency or Treasury Bonds. It would now be backed by the full faith and trust of the American economy. I barely noticed the change as I started a family and bought a home. But, there was another change I did notice. Silver coins, which I still had, could be classified by collectable grade or “junk silver” status. The funny part was even the junk silver, could not be bought for its face value. You had to pay more for the silver coins in either category. That was a benchmark I noticed.
The silver coins were more desirable because of something intrinsic in their nature. The silver made them “real money” versus the “change status” of the base metal coins. This was a distinction that would only grow over the next 30 years.
As the internet grew, the ability to transact business expanded into commerce between peers. An early example was E-bay. All manner of items could be purchased through their site including coins and collectables. Prices were established by bids that buyers and sellers established by auction of offered items. This included my featured topic of this discussion, silver coins. I was drawn in by the convenience of the online purchases of silver coins that clearly were obtainable one at a time, or in multiples.
Willing buyers were able to obtain junk silver by bidding. I was one of them. I could also bid on Silver Certificates which the government printed years before, but those pieces of paper could not convince me to part with my money merely for the sake of nostalgia. They had no intrinsic value. The silver coins demonstrated that their intrinsic value had not declined. Somehow the broken trust of banks without silver and gold that could not be exchanged for federal paper made a drastic change in my perception of what savings meant.
Trust must be the hallmark of money. If I save money as a representation of all of the time and effort I expended in my career, I must be able to trust that money. Because of my deferred gratification and budgeting, I have savings and did not live beyond my means. I cannot say the same for the government at any level. Their excess spending is a perpetual threat to my savings through the inflated money supply.
And so I am even more suspicious of some countries within our international supply system. Bill will speak of win/win negotiation as the basis of trade. He assumes the presence of trust in the hearts of others. I am more cautious and aligned with Dan’s skeptical reserve of where to be as our situation unfolds. Tom is able to align maximum safety mode and cautious investing of limited funds to offset inflation while waiting for the gold/Dow to align in a signal of value based buying. And he says he will not sell gold before that time.
When I follow a recipe that sets the temperature for 350 degrees, I have to assume their oven’s temperature is calibrated to the same 350 degrees as my oven. The same is true in interactions with other humans. Are their values about how to interact aligned with my values? Shared values are the bridge to trusting others. I have followed Bill’s counsel for years because I trust his judgment and his associates. I don’t extend it carelessly, value in all things is my mantra.
I posit that gold does not behavoir smoothly with the debasement of the papar dollar. It cycles through under and over done. So 1999 to today for certain goods in gold gives a completely different impression than if you picked the brief high point in 1980 or if you picked 1932 FDR move or 1928 to predate the crash. for instance or the 1973 shafting of foreigners date. My challenge is to know when the cycling has swung too far and so to exit. Maybe its the price of F150's and not the Dow?
"In very round numbers, total US output was about 10 trillion dollars.
Now, it’s $30 trillion. Measured in gold, it was worth 36 billion ounces of gold at the turn of the century, but only six billion today....about an 83% drop. In terms of real money, US output is just not worth as much as it used to be."
Does the US still have the 265 million ounces. ? Above ground world gold supplies are? ~6.5 - 7 billion ounces. Something seems off.
I still am uncertain that ‘ they whom owns the gold makes the rules.’ The Ayatollah’s & cronies owned lots of it hidden away so it’s said but it’s the bombs that are making the lawfare for them many who are now dust.
I guess everyone wants to have the biggest golden bomb but when they finally get used perhaps, all the gold you own and have in a tin box, won’t make a nuclear winter liveable anywhere.
“Hey London, Paris and Berlin, this Tehran Missile Central calling…”
That’s beautiful, Bill. Nice to know somebody’s got a head start while the rest of civilization is bursting into flames like a discounted fireworks tent. 🎆🎇🧨🥳😀
Everything got cheaper in gold, which is great news for the millions of Americans who were apparently paid in pirate treasure this whole time, so as long as your paycheck arrives in doubloons and you shop like a demented pharaoh, you’re crushing it right now! 🤩👌
I love the strategy here, measure houses, trucks, and the whole empire in gold like medieval accountant, while the government prints fairy dust, lights money on fire, and calls the smoke “growth,” and then act surprised when the ashes cost more.
Meanwhile the government’s burning a billion a day on war while the public is getting bled at the pump, households are getting kneecapped by gas, food, and taxed with tariffs, and the big boys are saying, “Don’t worry folks, we’re monitoring the situation.” Yeah, of course you are, vampires monitor the blood bank too.
Started buying gold/silver 40 years ago. Why because paper money never made sense to me. Educated myself by following Bonner and various other “charlatans” about what money really is. It’s never too late to get started. My one silver dollar, 25 years ago, bought 4 gallons of gas. Today that same one silver dollar buys me more than a tank of gas. Good luck on your journey.
Bill ; Speaking as a farmer, unless you are operating a farm to table operation, us real farmers can't pass anything along. We are at the mercy of the commodity markets. The only way to get more is to produce less and that isn't how farmers think. That's not to say the price of food will not go up, it will. But it will be all the middlemen getting the mark-up, not the farmers.
Problem is, I haven't seen the picture get clearer. But take heart: I get my cataracts pulled later this year... Best always.
I farm I would like to know how I will pass the cost of fertilizer on to the consumer I do not get to set the price for my commodities
Two reports without a hint of politics. Just back to the basic stuff. Hope a new trend is developing. I know, I know you can't draw a trendline with 2 data points but still, it is nice to think about.
I own lots but I think $5000 gold is too high. The cost to produce is only $2000.
Applying Lessons Learned:
In the Beartooth Mountains of Montana there is a road that leads from Red Lodge to Yellowstone National Park. One of the earliest markers for a trail through the mountains was a sharp rock formation shaped like a long tooth. It was how a mountain range came to be identified. By this point of recognition, you would know where you were and where to keep going.
Something similar occurred while I was in high school. The US Mint announced that the use of silver metal for minting dollars, half-dollars, quarters, and dimes would no longer be practiced. Over the next few years the silver coins began to become scarce while base metal coins were put into circulation. Individuals began to save the silver coins while using the newer coins to make change.
My Dad was one of the individuals who saved the older coins when he came across them and I followed his example. In my mind they would become rare over time and might become something people would want to have as a memento of earlier years, much like the old Morgan Silver dollars were.
My first summer job in a factory started the year I turned 16. I was an all-purpose helper who was paid $1.00 per hour. On pay day my envelope had a statement for hours worked, taxes deducted, and $32.00 in one dollar bills. This was a sizable increase over the $.25 per hour I earned by loading hay on a wagon, cutting a lawn, weeding, or raking leaves. So I had a chance to set aside some silver quarters or more rarely a half-dollar when they were part of my change. Over my time in collage I didn’t spend my silver coins, they were now very rarely seen getting change. But, once in a while the bank would hand out a roll of quarters and some or all of them could be silver quarters. That was really special.
After I returned from Viet Nam and started my career another change was announced by President Nixon. The United States would no longer surrender gold to foreign nations for our currency or Treasury Bonds. It would now be backed by the full faith and trust of the American economy. I barely noticed the change as I started a family and bought a home. But, there was another change I did notice. Silver coins, which I still had, could be classified by collectable grade or “junk silver” status. The funny part was even the junk silver, could not be bought for its face value. You had to pay more for the silver coins in either category. That was a benchmark I noticed.
The silver coins were more desirable because of something intrinsic in their nature. The silver made them “real money” versus the “change status” of the base metal coins. This was a distinction that would only grow over the next 30 years.
As the internet grew, the ability to transact business expanded into commerce between peers. An early example was E-bay. All manner of items could be purchased through their site including coins and collectables. Prices were established by bids that buyers and sellers established by auction of offered items. This included my featured topic of this discussion, silver coins. I was drawn in by the convenience of the online purchases of silver coins that clearly were obtainable one at a time, or in multiples.
Willing buyers were able to obtain junk silver by bidding. I was one of them. I could also bid on Silver Certificates which the government printed years before, but those pieces of paper could not convince me to part with my money merely for the sake of nostalgia. They had no intrinsic value. The silver coins demonstrated that their intrinsic value had not declined. Somehow the broken trust of banks without silver and gold that could not be exchanged for federal paper made a drastic change in my perception of what savings meant.
Trust must be the hallmark of money. If I save money as a representation of all of the time and effort I expended in my career, I must be able to trust that money. Because of my deferred gratification and budgeting, I have savings and did not live beyond my means. I cannot say the same for the government at any level. Their excess spending is a perpetual threat to my savings through the inflated money supply.
And so I am even more suspicious of some countries within our international supply system. Bill will speak of win/win negotiation as the basis of trade. He assumes the presence of trust in the hearts of others. I am more cautious and aligned with Dan’s skeptical reserve of where to be as our situation unfolds. Tom is able to align maximum safety mode and cautious investing of limited funds to offset inflation while waiting for the gold/Dow to align in a signal of value based buying. And he says he will not sell gold before that time.
When I follow a recipe that sets the temperature for 350 degrees, I have to assume their oven’s temperature is calibrated to the same 350 degrees as my oven. The same is true in interactions with other humans. Are their values about how to interact aligned with my values? Shared values are the bridge to trusting others. I have followed Bill’s counsel for years because I trust his judgment and his associates. I don’t extend it carelessly, value in all things is my mantra.
Steve Buchness
I posit that gold does not behavoir smoothly with the debasement of the papar dollar. It cycles through under and over done. So 1999 to today for certain goods in gold gives a completely different impression than if you picked the brief high point in 1980 or if you picked 1932 FDR move or 1928 to predate the crash. for instance or the 1973 shafting of foreigners date. My challenge is to know when the cycling has swung too far and so to exit. Maybe its the price of F150's and not the Dow?
I think the premise here is that you would know by watching the Dow/gold ratio.
"In very round numbers, total US output was about 10 trillion dollars.
Now, it’s $30 trillion. Measured in gold, it was worth 36 billion ounces of gold at the turn of the century, but only six billion today....about an 83% drop. In terms of real money, US output is just not worth as much as it used to be."
Does the US still have the 265 million ounces. ? Above ground world gold supplies are? ~6.5 - 7 billion ounces. Something seems off.
In your opening header line did you forget the letter t when you said "the dollar sinks or because stocks sink... or both"?
Bill, does that comparison work with the debt also??
Jim C.
So back to the dots. Thank you Bill
I still am uncertain that ‘ they whom owns the gold makes the rules.’ The Ayatollah’s & cronies owned lots of it hidden away so it’s said but it’s the bombs that are making the lawfare for them many who are now dust.
I guess everyone wants to have the biggest golden bomb but when they finally get used perhaps, all the gold you own and have in a tin box, won’t make a nuclear winter liveable anywhere.
“Hey London, Paris and Berlin, this Tehran Missile Central calling…”