pennies on the benjamin

PENNIES ON THE BENJAMIN


I’m just now finishing up a great library book, “Gates Of Fire”. Normally I don’t much like history pre-gunpowder, but this Greek history of the battle against the Persians was hella good. It isn’t like that gay movie “300”, where all the Greek dudes go around with really nasty looks on their faces, like they haven’t eaten anything with fiber in it for three months and they’re working on a compacted turd the size of a softball with the density of uranium. This is the best treatment of Spartans as human rather than robo-warrior I’ve ever seen. Of course, some jag bag Jesus freak borrowed the book prior to me and went through all four hundred pages and defaced the inappropriate language with ink, scratching it out. I get pissed off when these inconsiderate whores dog-ear the pages of a library book, so this almost sent me into convulsions. I still keep wondering how the human race has survived this long. The only explanation has to be raw numbers.

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I must confess to behavior I normally don’t indulge in, I left comments in the last article over at American Energy Crisis blog. Not because I’m opposed to anyone’s writing or ideas being better than mine, since let’s be honest here that’s simply impossible, but because I rarely have enough time. But now that I don’t have to kiss any ass to get laid I can stay longer after I clock out for some additional Internet time. Pioneer Preppy responded to my comments quite politely and logically, for which I thank him. The subject was farming versus gardening and I stated that I was in agreement that farming was needed. PP thought this went against my philosophical bent, and I tried to clarify that while I didn’t think farming was a good idea, an immobile victim as it were, if you weren’t paranoid like I was it made perfect sense. My strategy takes into account total collapse, Greg’s ( the author of the blog which all of you should check out ) a slow collapse. I’m not a slow collapser, but if you are farming rather than gardening it is a viable way of feeding yourself. You don’t have to believe what another does to acknowledge their ideas have merit in their own worldview.

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Isn’t the paper mail a sad and pathetic shadow of its former self? Nine out of ten weeks I get mail one day of the week, the weekly free newspaper that supports itself by including three to five ad inserts. This week our ranch supply store was advertising a S&W flat top AR-15 for $799. I’m sure that every Yuppie Survivalist in a two state area is waiting at the window before the store commences business, peering in between cupped hands, chanting “open!, open!”. Nipples rock hard, sphincter clenching, the high point ( could I say “apex”? ) of their sad and pathetic lives is now at hand. I hate to think of the suicide rate locally if the stores sells out. Look, I’m not against the AR system if you use it as a mid range sniper rifle. The carbine has absolutely no recoil and once sighted in and, one presumes, using the correct ammunition, it is so accurate it is scary. It really does help the non-skilled achieve some kind of hit ratio. But since its gas system was designed by a moron disguised as a friggin idiot, using it as a semi-auto assault weapon is usually suicide. Anyone? Can you disable the blowback so there is less fouling? Manually reloading a round would be a bit tedious as the charging handing is right under your nose, but if the thing didn’t crap itself every round you wouldn’t need to clean it every third magazine.

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Okay, obviously my chastising the minions for lack of article ideas fell on deaf ears, but at least one person answered. If a young and luscious female type was showered in diamond jewelry as her multitude of beaus wooed her, and now that her looks had faded, her nubile parts were wrinkled and sagging, and in lonely and quiet desperation she had turned to survivalism to fill the void ( I would have recommended crossword puzzles in order to keep ones sanity, but as you might have guessed by now no one ever asks my opinion ), how could she go about trading in those trinkets for prep gear? The firms advertising mail-in jewelry and gold only paid pennies on the dollar and even pawn shops only pay 10%. What was a former hotty to do? Since her looks had quickly faded, and presumably she was older than the dirt Baby Jesus walked on, she had to fend for herself now and needed capital. At first I just broke the bad news to her that jewelry and diamonds have an astronomical mark-up and while some folks might be ripping her off she can’t expect much more. But then it formed into this article. I have no good source for her to contact for more than pennies on the dollar. I do have this advice. Cash in now for pennies on the dollar, because soon you will be lucky to get pennies on the hundred dollar ( pennies on the Benjamin, get it? ).

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De Beers is, or at least was the last time I checked, the de facto diamond monopoly globally. They jack up their prices to what the market will bear, which is pretty high considering the uber-rich, and the fake Yuppie Scum wannabes trying to emulate the cash rich by being credit rich and debt rich, will pay oodles and gobs to impress everyone. Diamonds should be a girls worse friend, they hold little real value outside the contrived monopoly price. You could offer me a diamond with a retail price of a hundred grand and a one ounce gold coin and let me choose. I would take the gold. That has universal value held by peasant and king alike. A diamond is worth a lot in good times, not in bad. Gold is worth more in bad. As far as jewelry, it has a markup for artistic value, added to its base metal price. Everyone can argue and place a bet ( by buying and then betting on finding a buyer ) on the artistic price, but the only price everyone will agree on is the base metal content. And remember, buying gold you pay a ten percent retailer fee ( if not more- I think right now it might be up around 20% ). About the same with silver. So you pay that price selling the metal also. You walk into a coin dealer, you get the days spot price MINUS the 20% fee. Same if you sell your jewelry. You pay a fee subtracted from the metals price. I know the Argentina dude disagrees with me. And probably about a billion or two Indians/Chinamen. Jewelry is their ace in the hole. I think wearing a gold ring means someone wants to cut off my finger. And you pay a penalty to convert bullion to wearable wealth.

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Remember all those tales about the German grand piano being sold for a sack of potatoes during the hyperinflation? Once food becomes scarce, you sell your former priceless crap for pennies on the Benjamin. I’m not saying you can’t find a buyer that will give you a better deal, I am saying that if you wait too long trying to find that deal you will get even less for it as you starve.

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