Before we start today, I feel I must take a moment to run a counterargument past you. Since you foolishly keep coming back to read my drivel
I can get away with this kind of thing. I just got done singing the praises of Creekmore so now it is time to reverse direction and disagree with an assessment of his. Okay, I usually only write about disagreeing with everyone else’s opinion, but I felt that since I might be giving you the impression that I don’t like Rawles
it was time to clear that up and at the same time disagree with someone’s opinion. Which is what I do best. Remember, I’m striving to be the gadfly of the survivalist movement. The crap I do for fame and fortune. I disagree with what most of what is written over at http://www.survivalblog.com/. It is Yuppie Survivalism personified. I believe that Rawles means no harm, that he is following his convictions, that he is offering the best advice he can, the advice that has the best chance of getting you through the Apocalypse. I don’t agree his advice is correct in as far as we don’t have the prep time he requires unless you are rich. But I don’t believe he is a get rich survivalist guru. He means well. I hope that is clear enough. The reason I bring all this up is Creekmore’s dislike of “Patriots
”. He plainly states that it is only his opinion, that his review is subjective. We all like and dislike different things. You love semi-auto carbines while I love them as a toy and hate them as a survival tool. You love that crap fiction Earth Abides
and I proclaim it offal. I’m not saying Creekmore is wrong for hating Patriots as much as I’m saying we have different opinions on it. I thought it was a pretty decent novel, at least up until page 300. After that it took a different track and I didn’t care for it. I’ve read most survival fiction and Patriots is far better than most of the 80’s pulp prepper fiction. It beats most of the zombie
crap. It is not poorly written in my opinion. I think it is a dislike of the message more than the style most people have. I just wanted to throw all that out here, to give the devil his due.*
Sometimes the laser focus of economists irritates the crap out of me. I know, I know, you are frankly astounded that I would be irritated about anything, being such a mellow fellow and all. Nevertheless, at times I find myself screaming at the monitor, “It’s more than just money, it’s about the energy!”. Of course, no one listens to me and they ignore me and drag out more charts from dead Russians as proof that the economy moves in forty year cycles and hence while we are on the third leg of the fifth cycle shadowing the retirement of the third generation we will see a second recovery of a third quarter rally ( or some such jolly rot ). Once you introduce the concept of energy into economics, the entire model breaks down, from generation cycles to capitalism to communism to Austrian to Keynesian
. If you look at colonialism
as the first western energy surplus and oil as the second, anything economic in that period is unique and hence not applicable to the future. So, while one argument about the value of gold claims that a nice business suit five hundred years ago could be purchased for the same amount of gold as it can today ( arguing for the stable value of gold ), it is on one level flawed. Not that gold doesn’t hold its value, it does. That is the whole reason to own gold, as a long term storehouse of wealth. Not as an investment so much as a guaranteed protector of your earnings. Paper currency ultimately is only good for tinder. No paper currency has ever held its value for too long. The flaw is that the time measured only covers the time we must discount as a historic norm.*
From the colonialism of Spanish America
we have seen a period of gold deflation. Gold was found in such abundance that it actually crippled the Spanish economy ( well, gold and silver to be fair ) through an explosion in the money supply. This was followed by the colonization of North America. The New World
was an unexploited continent ( in terms of an economy much above hunter/gatherer- the natives pretty much lived a sustainable life ) which gave up vast treasures. Then, coal and oil came along. We have had five hundreds years of abundance in the West. When that ends, gold will no longer be artificially constrained. I contend that gold is actually much more valuable than currently measured against paper currency
, and that gold is far more valuable than the last half a millennium might indicate. Of course, at this time I only claim that this is my newest pet theory and is backed by little more than casual research. Use it as investment advice at your own risk. *
If you read the excellent article http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay10/go-long-deep-broke05-10.html ( being an exception to my irritation at pure economic lenses to forecast the future ) you might agree that the bankers have pretty much manipulated the entire global economy and there is nothing left to finagle except wild gambles ( $600 trillion in derivatives
, anyone? ). The question this article got me asking was, how much has gold been manipulated? How far and for how long has it been held down? On top of a general trend in gold deflation over five hundred years, we also have a recent clamp by the central banks. How much is gold, an extremely rare metal all the more so with so many people on the planet, really worth? My best guess is, far more than $1200 an ounce. There is absolutely no way that gold wouldn’t be reaching the stratosphere right now in a free economy, with all the life altering bad economic news crowding out any other events for the last several years ( although in our corporate whore media, news stories such as Korean ship sinking and oil spills are given more importance than is warranted just to cover up the bad economic news ). It is being manipulated right along with the stock market. Any precious metal should, with or without hyperinflation
, shoot up in value ( not just price but actual buying power- especially once oil stops subsidizing low prices ) as soon as the money master cease to control it. And then shoot up again after the end of the Oil Age.END
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*
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11 comments:
Gold is just another "Shiny thing" that dumb-ass human's go Ga-Ga for, that has no intrinsic value. Is it worth more than Monopoly money, sure its more real than the flimsy cloth-paper, and perhaps could be used in a slingshot to kill some rodent.
Human's spend a lot of time with fictional bullshit, trade makes far more sense, sure gold like paper is a symbol of wealth--meant to facilitate the "economy". Gold/paper and all the other monies just allows the extreme rich throughout the centuries to become richer and control more--via these symbols. It was much harder to become crazy rich when your wealth was in land you had to defend, cattle that had to be tended to and the like. Now people can have the wealth of millions of people, all in paper, er digital format. So the mega banks of the world can just type in money now, don't even have to print it all like the old days, and then get interest on that money they created out of nowhere. Sounds like a nifty system. Everything is manipulated Lord Bison, by someone, much of the manipulation is purely psychological--get people to believe that the invisible man in the sky talks to them--and of course wants your money, or wants you to go die for them, er I mean the invisible man, or perhaps some paper money, or better yet gold, sounds smart to me.
Perhaps part of the reason gold isn't higher is lack of demand. Most 'consumers' need their entire income just to pay the bills and have nothing left to invest.
FYI, there is a three-part series on gold as an investment in the Wall Street Journal (today is part two). If you are not a subscriber, you can typically access the complete article by typing the headline into Google News. You may not find anything new, but the WSJ has a readership of 2+ million and some of the follow on comments are insightful.
Edit to add:
The Wall Street Journal articles are:
*5/26 "Is Gold the Next Bubble?"
*5/27 "Why I Don't Trust Gold"
*5/28 part three will be published
Copy and paste the article title into a Google search box and you should be able to view the whole thing, not just a preview.
If you consider the book as just a novel (a work of fiction) it's not that bad.
But the book has been referred to and I think marketed, as a “survival manual hidden in a novel”. That is why it was included on my list and evaluated as such.
I think this is where a lot of people missed the point. As a novel it's okay - as a how to survival manual not so much.
Good post, Bison.
I've never cared much for prepper stuff and a preachin' sermon. Fluff, mostly. Rawles, in particular. Rawles is for yuppies, or how to spread your mustard while riding in your bmw.
Your suff, on the other hand, is class. Go for the throat, give 'em a simple bolt action rifle and a sack of beans.
Jackboots, by the way, cut in thin strips make good tie-ties. Keeps things from coming loose.
Do you hand load and salvage wheel weights and other precious metals, scrap lead and such?
Keep up the good stuff.
Mountain Rifleman
Creekmore- I should have been clearer. I pretty much lumped in all the comments along with your writing. Sorry about that. Hopefully, anyone that cared read the original rather than my compressed/distorted version and is none the worse for wear.
Anon 753-With so many Chinese able to buy gold, and that ownership being a more entrenched cultural habit, it doesn't matter what Americans do as far as buying gold. That shouldn't move markets as much as Chinese demand. So why isn't the price higher if the GLOBAL demand should be up as a hedge ( if China/India don't have a welfare state, wouldn't precious metal be their insurance? ) against currency collapse?
Never did understand the whole gold thing.Try to actually use it,almost anything else would be better to have,ammo,booze,smokes.RW
used to make 50cal balls with wheel weights back when you could buy black powder at walmart.
gold and silver are fine if you got plenty of 12 gauge shells,beans,coffee,sugar and whiskey.
don't know this rawles fellow. i thought he is religious? ain't jesus going to take care of him when the time comes?
Gold only has value in specific situations. In the book "The Road" the father found some Kruggerands among the food. He played with them awhile and left them there. Gold will have immense value after a crash and some degree of stability has reappeared. Right now, I would rather have a ton of feed corn and a cheap grain mill.
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