The Government Makes Lying Offical

      Not content with hiding information from the citizens (for whom they work) the minions of the Federal Government have decided to changes the rules about the Freedom Of Information Act to allow lying about whether the documents requested even exist. Currently they have to reply to requests for informmation by releasing the documents or stating that they are not willing to release the document and citing an exemption. The change will simply allow them to lie and state that the requested information doesn't exist at all.

   The Daily Caller spreads out the details for you.


Most. Transparent. Administration. Ever!

Yeah

Odd, but fun

This is out of China, it reminds me of the stuff that used to come out of the USSR, brilliant in its own different way.

Hopefully they can find something productive use for this sort of technology, I doubt they can afford to put a lot of their citizens on unemployment. "Virtual mining" using a combination of robots in the pits and remote human operators comes to mind. They would probably come in handy at Fukishima if they could be sheilded properly.

It gets even better at about 2:30 when the robot is playing vs a human (they are softballing the shots but it can handle forehand and backhand).

Solyndra, the gift that keeps on giving

     This just keeps getting better (worse?, I suppose it depends on where you stand). Just when the Resident is getting rolling on his "Fuck Those Rich Bastards" new tax plan it comes to light that Obama's billionare bundler, and Solyndra Big-Shooter, George Kaiser hasn't paid taxes in, oh, quite a few years.  From the Washington Examiner article  (which is a must-read);

"As Allison describes it in his Sunlight post today, "in one six year period, during which he increased his net worth enough to land him on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, Kaiser reported taxable income to the Internal Revenue Service just once, totaling $11,699--equivalent to a full-time hourly wage of $5.62."

     Small wonder that he needed a half billion dollar loan for Solyndra, the poor bastard was making less than minimum wage!


      Meanwhile the Resident continues his bi-polar campaign by bashing Wall Street at every opportunity while his Big Money backers are shaken down for huge quantities of cash; see this MSNBC article. Odd how one can slander and vilify the monied classes and at the same time be at their beck and call. Sort of like biting the hand that feeds you. You would think the man has no principles at all.  Oops, I just remembered that he is both a lawyer and a politician and is thus excluded from principles on two counts. I am sure he has principals that he is beholdened too, but principles (alas), none to be seen.


    As always, when tracking a criminal enterprise; Follow The Money.

Making Friends Around the World

     The most-loved and admired Resident has reached a new level recently; on Thursday, at a State Dinner for the South Korean President, President Lee Myung Bak, he has decided to serve Japanese beef. Apparently the whiz-kids in the WH haven't done their homework and are oblivious to the long and strained history between Japan and Korea (who are only "on the same side" today because we won WW2 and occupied both nations). This tops the notorious "Reset" button and Churchill bust fiascos.


     Smartest Resident ev-ah!!


     W was such a rube.

Ludwig von Mises and the Calculation Debate

This is an hour long so get a drink and get comfortable before you start




After watching this there is one question that you need to ask yourself; Who would you trust to make the Calculation for you, the slack-jawed mouth-breathers inside the Beltway? or yourself? in essence, do you trust them ?


I don't.

Land of the Free?

Watch this short video and ask yourself just how free you feel with 81,000 pages of rules and regulations for the businesses in this country. Big Brother snuck in by way of the back door and now rules every aspect of your life. At least with the collapse of the life-span that goes with the dissappearance of economic freedom I won't have to worry about all that "old-age" stuff.

Enjoy the illusion of freedom, it won't last much longer.

It seems that the word is getting out...

     Every day I am confronted with more and more unbelievable things; first it was the Times defending Palin, now Huffington Post has become aware of the danger posed by the exposure of US banks to a Euro blow-out. By way of Robert Reich none the less. It seems our beloved Banksters have compromised their solvency by buying crap paper in Europe to the tune of $2.7 trillion (or about 1/7th of our GDP) and will likely be needing the taxproles to bail out the Euro zone, or the Banksters themselves, to avoid another Lehman-style blow-out.

     I am left to wonder when some of these criminals will end up going to jail.

The USA goes Greek

       No we aren't joining a fraternity (we certainly are in a bad way, and it is sure to get far worse, but we haven't become so tragic as to do that) we are joining a club that only requires having a debt in excess of your GDP. At the rate the Treasury is pissing through money we should be crossing that line in a very short time indeed. We are just about $145 billion dollars short of $15 trillion in the hole, almost exactly  99% of our GDP, and let us be honest here, $145 billion just doesn't go very far in D.C. these days. In fact, at the going rate, it will last just under three DAYS.

     You may say that there are some countries that already are there, indeed some (like Japan) have been there for ages, but the crucial point is that this is the USA, that happy land that is the source of the world's reserve currency, and the largest economy on the planet. Greece had a 2010 GDP of  $305,415 millions, the USA $14,526,550 millions. Frankly Greece wouldn't matter at all if the Banksters hadn't gone bonkers buying crappy Greek paper (no slight to the Greeks but your bonds aren't even usable as toilet paper). In fact the USA is bigger than the next five largest economies combined, so when our money becomes worthless there are going to be a LOT of problems. There is no escape valve, no "leaving the Euro" for us, or any other nation on the planet, the dollar goes bust and the world hits the crapper.

Federal Judge slams EPA scientists

    A Federal Judge in California has called out the EPA in its efforts to prevent farmers from getting water into the Central Valley. The EPA and the Interior Department have been depriving farmers in the Central Valley of water for years now in an efforts to preserve the breeding ground for the delta smelt. Judge Wanger was deeply unhappy with the testimony of the two scientists that testified on behalf of the EPA and Interior Department indicating that said testimony was contradictory and false. This is a big hit to the Greenie movement that values a few tiny fish over food for humans.


    A most refreshing change to see a member of the Federal Government looking out for citizens (for once).

The more it changes, the more it remains the same......

   I read yesterday that the inflation adjusted wages for the average American man have returned to the level of 1968.  As I am an old fart I was around in 1968. Being ten years old at the time the world was pretty good for me at a personal level. In retrospect there were a good many bad things going on at the time but my dad, an average working Joe, could easily provide for our family on his salary alone (and still take us on a cross-country vaction for a couple of weeks every summer, while saving to send five kids to college and putting aside money for retirement). If I was deprived of anything I wasn't aware of it. Life was good.

The Greeks and Fate

     I was watching the film Gallipoli the other day and it struck me that the Greeks are currently in the position occupied by the ill-fated ANZACs in the film; each day they find themselves facing an impossible situation, at the end of each day they are shocked to find that they are still on their feet, each night they go to bed knowing that tomorrow may be "The End". Yet somehow they move from day to day without going mad. Sure there has been the odd riot, but London had worse over the suggestion of austerity.

Really Cool new stuff

     The ability of the human mind to solve problems is matched only by its ability to create new ones; but in this case it looks like we are on the "solving problems" end of the equation. A company has developed what they call a "nuclear battery". This is a small self-contained energy producing unit that can produce enough juice to run a small town (25,000 people) for five years at a go. It uses a sort of controlled reaction to generate heat which is then used to drive a steam turbine.

     Getting this sort of thing past the Government regulators will be the fun part, I am sure.

WSJ gets it wrong-way-round

     In this article the WSJ highlights the rising price of gold and then goes on to describe a pawnbroker that has been doing a bang-up business since the economy tanked. It provides an explanation of how people are pawning gold jewelry to pay bills and hints at the reserve of wealth that gold represents. To me they are suggesting that these folks are cashing in carefully purchased reserve holdings to tide themselves over during hard times (which would be a good use of PMs as they are the only effective store of wealth open to most people). 

     For most (if not all) people going through the door of a "We Buy Gold" joint they are dumping gold purchased at a very high premium (jewelry often runs many times higher than the bullion price) at less than half of the spot price. These people would have been far better served to have purchased the gold (or silver) when time were good, and prices low, as bullion rather than jewelry. Shedding jewelry at a fraction of it's bullion value is a sign of very hard times and extraordinarily poor decision-making, not a "boom" or "bright spot".

OK, now I believe that the world really IS ending

The New York Times steps up on behalf of Sarah Palin defending her against Joe McGinnis' new book.

What's next? Cats and Dogs living together

Even Jon Stewart has discovered the Solyndra debacle

Just watch this; Jon Stewart rips the Resident a new one .

Ooohhh, that's going to leave a mark!

Here is a little salt for that wound.

And some more.

Chicago-style cronyism is now a nation-wide operation.

UPDATE: more on the LightSquared thing from Ace of Spades

Does it ever end?

Buy Opportunity, or Time to Wait?

      The recurrent near-death of the Euro has driven the zombie-dollar upward (in relative terms only, it is still nearly worthless) and thus psuhed down the price of PMs in dollar terms. See below;



    The question buring in my mind is this; do I buy more now on credit, and pay of when the cash becomes available in October, or wait until October in the hope that the collapse of the Euro is slow enough to keep prices down until then?  Is it wrong for me to feel happy at getting a better fiat price when it means misery for millions of Europeans? I may be profiting, but it isn't as if I have anything to do with the fiscal insanity on the Old Continent, so why do I feel rotten every time I think "I can score big on this".

    For those with cash in hand you may want to grab some now. I feel that when the Euro finally dies (and it most certainly will) there will be a short-lived King-Dollar. Short-lived because the contagion is in our banks too, and Uncle Sugar won't get away with another trillion-plus bailout this time.

    Interesting times indeed.

And the noose grows tighter

     That freedom-loving band of jackanapes in D.C. (that pose as the guardians of our Constitution) are currently deciding if minor mis-uses of your company computer should be a Federal felony. The current law holds the penalty to be a misdemeanor. Apparently that isn't enough for Eric Holder, Minister of Injustice and Attorney of Not Prosecuting Real Criminals.

     For God's Sake don't update your Fantasy Football team on the work 'puter, the Stazis will come kicking down your door!

And we wonder why we are going broke.....

     I stumbled across this the other day. I find it mind-boggling that we are going under as a nation and we are still funding idiocy such as this (upon reflection that thought extends to the entire E.P.A.). Not that I wish that anybody live in unhealthy circumstances but this just stinks of governmental pork being thrown to politically aligned groups. Here is the money-shot (pun intended);

"EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson has made environmental justice a priority at the agency, issuing millions of dollars to local and tribal organizations and making plans to reach their aforementioned end"

What was going through his head when he was reading that Teleprompter?

Through a startling new technology (patent pending) we have been able to isolate the thoughts that were going through The Resident's head while he was reading the "Job Speech" to the Joint Session of Congress. It is enlightening, but no surprising. See below:

Full Text Of Obama's Speech

(with parenthetical thoughts as he reads the Teleprompter)

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and fellow Americans:

Tonight we meet at an urgent time for our country.  We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbors jobless (despite 2.4 trillion dollars in “stimulus” spending in the last twenty-five months), and a political crisis that has made things worse.

This past week, reporters have been asking “What will this speech mean for the President (aside from a desperate attempt to raise the poll numbers)?  What will it mean for Congress (neat diversionary trick eh? make it look like I am not worried about MY poll numbers)?  How will it affect their polls, and the next election?”

But the millions of Americans who are watching right now:  they don’t care about politics (which is good, because if they did we would all have been strung-up years ago).  They have real life concerns (like American Idol and Facebook) .  Many have spent months looking for work .  Others are doing their best just to scrape by – giving up nights out with the family to save on gas or make the mortgage; postponing retirement to send a kid to college (that is the sort of thing real people do when they are short of cash, unlike the government they can’t just print money).

Nothing to see here, this isn't the radiation you were worried about......

     An interesting screen confronted me when I opened my computer this morning, see below;

     So, now that the radiation leaking from the melting Fukishima Plant is spreading across the world the government mouthpeice media is going to tell us that it was there all along and everything is OK. I will take my own precautions, I don't trust them anymore on this matter than I do on the economy.

     Do what you think is best.

Burning the Bridges in front of him...

     It is widely known that a desperate, retreating army will often burn bridges after they have crossed them to slow the pursuing victors. In the Obama Admistration we have just been treated to the spectacle of someone burning the bridges in front of him. They have become so frantic at the drop in poll numbers that they are willing to do anything to appear attractive to the general public.

Love you too, Al

     The failed divinity student turned Global-Warming huckster, Al Gore, has recently announced that all of us (the brave, the wise, the sceptical)  AGW deniers that dare question his new religion  "will be shunned like racists". Nothing like a clear-headed and well-reasoned argument to win over those that disagree with you Al.

     I have always found a good measure of what a man believes is seen in what he does. The Man-Bear-Pig has just dumped millions of dollars (Nine Million dollars to be exact, earned by flying a carbon-spewing private jet around the world giving "lectures" about the dangers of AGW, that and the dividends from those AGW carbon stocks he owns) into a monstrous mansion barely a few feet above sea-level.

you can bet this baby has a carbon footprint like that of a small nation

Good News (or so it seems)

     This is something you may wish to follow; scientists at the University of Kentucky have found a simple to make compound that will split Hydrogen from Oxygen in water when it is exposed to sunlight. If this stuff really works we can say, "No Mas" to the oil barons of the world, actually build a "Green Energy" industry here in the US (as opposed to Obama's disasters like Solyndra) and maybe, just maybe, turn this ragged economy around. It wouldn't be a bad idea to invest in gallium nitride and antimony futures either.

Words of wisdom....

       So, after posting that last note I get home from work and find that Wretchard has gone and done me one (or two or three) better with this lovely bit of work; The Teahouse of the August Mood.

     I love his work, it is often of the same vein as the "Connections" TV series where a string of seemingly disparate ideas are strung together into a coherent and satisfying whole. HIs thoughtful and balanced views are a good offset to my opionated blasts as well.

Go there and see what I mean, now.

I mean it.

Go!

Reading Hayek

     I am currently re-reading F.A. Hayek's A Road to Serfdom. I first read this work when I was about fifteen years old (I had picked up the Reader's Digest condensed books version thinking it was about the beginning of feudalism) and it shattered the "central-planning is what everybody needs" propaganda that I had been receiving from my school teachers. The University of Chicago Press version is the complete version with a ton of extra notes and corrections. While reading it I am constantly struck by the thought that the current denizens of D.C. are doing so as well, except they are doing exactly everything that Hayek cautions against. The creeping socialsim and ever-growing power of the state in every aspect of our lives heads directly toward totalitarianism.

A Classic Case.....

,,,,,,,,,of being careful of what you wish for. I apologize to everybody that lost money on the downturn in silver and gold. I wished they were at a lower price a few days ago so I could buy more. I never intended they tank like they did after the coordinated margin jumps by the SGE and CME. 

     I promise to keep my mouth (keyboard?) shut in the future.

     On the other hand it does present a great buying opportunity to those with dry powder.

A positive thought

        I don't know why but watching this young man do the seeming impossible just makes me smile. The level of skill, concentration, physical dexterity and confidence is something we should all aspire to.

     Sometimes we can get lost in the Doom & Gloom that our forebears have left for us to tidy up and we fail to notice the blue sky, the warmth of the sun and the scent of fresh air.Life will carry on, those of us who have prepared will do just fine.


     OK folks the rainbows and unicorns moment is over; Steve Jobs just resigned as Apple CEO, the COMEX just raised the margin on gold by 27% and Printing Press Ben is still fishing around in Jackson's Bunghole. I hope you have stashed enough food for a year and have a supply of all four precious metals; gold, silver, brass and lead. 


      It is rough now and we are still miles from the waterfall.

Keynesians rebutted

      Jim Quinn at the Burning Platform offers this rebuttal to the efforts and arguments of the Keynesians, It is a longer read than most, but amply demonstrates his points and takes the spending like crazy folks to the woodshed. Really worth a read.

This is worth a look

I stumbled across this site today, it looks like it has a lot of good stuff, take a look. They have put a lot of thought into surviving the enevitable collapse. They move some different directions than the "hunker-down and wait for it to pass" mindset so common among the Doom&Gloom crowd. Worth some of your time.

Numbers that I wish had waited a while

     Gold over 1900, silver over 44, man I wish they had waited a few months before taking off, I wanted to buy while they were still at discount prices. The bubble-heads on TV are spouting that PMs are in a bubble, I would disagree. Take a look at housing prices in the ten years before 2008, or take a look at tech-stocks before 2000, they look like that notorious "hockey-stick" that those Greenies keep yammering about. Now take a look at PMs over a similar period (OK I will post it for those to lazy to look it up on their own);

Khadafy is dead?

 

The swirl of reports about the demise of Kahdafy senior and the intermittent detention of one of his sons shows the limitations of the 90 second news cycle. If they live on is of little import. If he had any sense at all he will have loaded as much gold as possible onto a freighter or airplane and split to go visit Col Chavez in Venezuela (what is it with colonels and becoming dictators anyways?).

     Italy, and by default the rest of Europe, has successfully (with loads of help from the US) saved the Libyan people from the iron boot of Col Khadafy, and in the process regained access to the light sweet crude they so desperately need. Too bad that the Syrian people don't have any oil, If they did some well-meaning and enlightened Western nation might come save them from the murderous thug that daily orders their slaughter. Alas, all they have is sand and a blown-up nuclear reactor, poor sods.

     In other news the rest of the world is still in full-retard mode, The BRICs are still trying to figure out what to do now that the US is no longer buying every bit of junk they grind out but are still complaining that we are printing money hand over fist (can't argue with them on that but we were buying their crap with that money). Printing Press Ben will soon make another of his meandering speeches in Jackson Hole about the upside of the ruination he has visited on the US economy while saving his bankster buddies from their own recklessness, Fukishima is still venting gazillion miliserviets of radiation into the air every second (you do remember Fukishima right?) while people prattle on about a few fractions of a percentage of a percentage of carbon in the air, I will gladly take the CO2 over radiation, thank-you. The stock market gyrates like a seismograph during an earthquake while precious metals climb ever skyward.

     In the meantime the Teleprompter of the Free World is busy building sand castles in that most proletarian of towns, Martha's Vineyard.

     Hey, at least he has one skill that he can fall back on after 2012.

Just my thoughts on current PM prices

No doubt some of you are familiar with this clip

More will thinking this when markets open Monday and the S&P and DOW tank and the PM's skyrocket.

Rumors of a big hike in margins on Gold coming soon, they might take a poke at Silver as well, just for old-times sake. There are good reasons for them to wait until the prices look a little more frothy and then jack the margins on the coat-tails of good news (anybody remember what that is?) to get a double-plus-good effect.

I was hoping that Silver would stay tame until October as I little dry powder until then.

Keep Stacking.

A look at the future??

History doesn't repeat itself but it sometimes rhymes........


The Paper mark vs the gold mark;

The USD vs one ounce of gold;

Not the sort of poetry I would like to hear, but I am afraid we will get more of it than we like.

This doesn't need any humor

You get a smile when gold does this, no need for a funny baby.




And silver finally catches a bid, hopefully this will turn into a run-up like golds.

A little humor on a very dark day (for stocks, that is)

UPDATE: The friendly folks at E Trade made them take it down

The E-Trade baby is back and I think there are a few people that can commiserate with him.....

A rebuttal to some of the Fingerpointing Madness

     The events of the last two weeks (as inevitable, and easily predictable, as they were) has given rise to a wave of hysterical fingerpointing. All of The Powers That Be are busy trying to shift blame and create boogeymen to act as the fall guy for the recent unpleasant events, from the "Dirty Joooos" to "Commies" to "Right Wing Religious Zealots", but none have been the target of fire more than the Tea-Party adherents. This is because there is no more dangerous man in the world than one who wishes to NOT spend someone else's money on a pointless project. A commentor on The Belmont Club, Don Rodrigo, refutes the nonsensical allegations beautifully;

"One of the most outrageous and surreal aspects of the American branch of this world financial debacle is the attempt to blame the “Tea Party” for both the debt agreement and the credit downgrade. Insane. Exponential Mendacity.

More apt observations

Warning , not safe for work (unless your boss is totally cool) or kids (unless they are fourteen or so)

This woman has some very apt observations on our current situation. They should open every session of Congress with this song, it should play as background music in the elevators and bathrooms in every building in D.C. and be the "on hold" music when the useless bureaucrats put you on hold.

Because we truly are . Truly.

DOW -634

More Bears

Once again the teddy bears have words of wisdom for all of us.

Just an observation

The DOW is down about 3.5%, gold is up 3.5%.

Gotta love those barbaric relics.

A quick note, a long read

Busy this weekend so all I have to offer is this link, You will find many things to ruminate on while reading it, I have read it twice and am still digesting it.

Watch both hands carefully...they are out to steal your rights

     Magicians do the seemingly impossible by getting you to watch one hand while the other conducts whatever "magic" they are undertaking, they get you to keep your eye on the wrong ball. The high drama of the Budget kabuki hid the passage from  House Judiciary Committee (voted 19-10) of H.R. 1981, a bill that requires internet providers to retain records of every website that you visit. Essentially they are going to make the people that you hire to provide you with internet service spy on you (this will doubtless increase your cost as the the ISP will have to establish huge data banks to track all of the contacts). I was following the debt-ceiling nonsense all weekend and saw none of this come up. The Media seem unintersted in it despite having D.C.swamped in reporters, another classic "Nothing to see here , move along, move along" scenario.

Here is where some of that spending is going

Now that we have decided to piss through annother couple of trillion dollars because we are going to (someday) make tiny cuts in spending I thought you might want to see where that untouchable "money for low-income" is getting spent. Remember this is for people that have never paid in to the system but are living better than most of us. Doesn't hurt to be a reliable voting block, does it?

Welfare Housing in Tacoma

And the Can has be Kicked Again!!!!!!!!!

     It looks like our math-disabled Congress has, after endless, pointless theatre, come to an agreement (is anybody really surprised by that) that raises the debt limit by over two trillion dollars. This is counterbalanced by cuts in spending of right around twenty billion this year and further cuts later on (as in after we have had to finance the spending and paid interest on it). This will, of course, save the country from the collapse of the ponzi scheme. At least until after the next election. Wonderful.

     Only in the wasteland of the intellect that is personified by any and all actions taken inside the Beltway could this make sense. $2,000,000,000,000.00 in further spending is clearly offset by $20,000,000,000.00 in cuts. I see it now more clearly. So I should pay my American Express bill by spending a further $2,000.00 because I won't be spending $20.00 next year. I am sure they will buy that line of thinking, maybe I should have the SecTres explain it to them.

     I know that I should be happy that people are actually talking about the hole we are in, that they are becoming aware (however dimly) that we are swirling downward in a whirlpool of debt. I just cannot bring myself to applaud the morons that got us in the hole in the first place. It would be like cheering the arsonist because he called the Fire Department after he set the blaze.

     In the end the D.C. beast will continue to grow while the taxpaupers are ground to dust. This most recent deal changes nothing but the time-line.

The 90% Solution

Welcome to the fourth installment of this series examining various types of Silver commercially available for those who have a desire to accumulate a bit of the “Ice Metal”.  As always I, the House Martin, am responsible for all content in this entry.  The owner, and until recently, rarely, operator of this blog invited me to post my ramblings on silver here.  Feel free to enter any questions or comments and I will do my best to answer them.  Photos will follow as soon as possible. 

Sometimes referred to as “Junk”, properly called the “coin of the realm”, many countries once upon a time minted their coinage out of a mixture of 90% Silver, 10% copper.  Today I will examine a couple of these silver options. 

To the coin accumulator the importance of these coins is very simple.  In the event of any catastrophic event which undermines the confidence/value of paper money silver is an obvious and natural replacement to mediate exchanges.  American Silver currency comes in forms that are readily identifiable by all Americans, and of a dependable quality known to most Americans and thus could serve as a medium of exchange in the event of a significant ‘dislocation’ to the economy.  The key thing is having some on hand in the event of the need arising. 

First, I will not be looking at any silver below the 90% level.  While I do own a bit of this true ‘junk’ it is neither my focus, nor all that interesting to collect in my opinion.  Furthermore, I will in no way attempt to chronicle all of the options in the 90% range as too many countries have dabbled in 90% coins for various periods of their history.  The purpose of this treatise is simply to look at those 90% silver coins produced in significant numbers and in some association with the U.S. Mint.  This confines us to basically three countries coinage, and I will be focusing on two of these countries in particular.  The United States Mint coined in 90% silver until 1964.  In addition the Nation of Panama also used the same source of coin blanks thus minting in 90% silver for generally the same time range.  The third country I will only mention is the Philippines which initially minted in 90% silver, but fairly quickly down graded (even before the outbreak of WWI). 

American 90% silver coins came in four varieties: the dollar, the half dollar, the quarter dollar, and the dime or tenth dollar.  The American nickel was only minted in partial silver for a very brief period in WWII (1942 to 1945) and even then was only 35% silver.  I will not go into detail on the American Dollar, Half dollar, Quarter, or Dime as I presume that all of you know what these coins are and have but to generally look at the dates to see if they are from the “Sound Money era”.  Speaking of which, if you come into contact with these silver coins they make a VERY different sound when struck against other coins, thus sparking the term “Sound Money” as you can literally here the difference between the coins.  I include a few pictures of some of the earlier coins in case you are not familiar with them.  In order they are a selection of Half Dollars, and old quarter, and an old dime.  They are all presented Obverse than reverse. 

The other coinage I will speak about is that of Panama.  Panamanian coins are reasonably common in the United States due to our long standing military presence in Panama.  Additionally, vessels traveling through the Panama Canal also have led to Panamanian coins being imported to the U.S.  In either event looking at most coin operations and ebay will quickly show that there are a reasonable number of the coins of Panama available, and often they can be obtained for less than the comparative American coins. 

The coinage of Panama was struck on the same coin blanks as American money.  This means that it is of the same size and quality as our own.  As a further bonus the Panamanians even went so far as to state directly on their coins the weights and purity of their coins.  The only two things to remember are as follows.  Which coins are we talking about?  And when did they stop minting them in 90% silver? 

Generically, the money of Panama is called the Balboa.  Coins that equal a portion of a Balboa are referred to by their proportion of a full Balboa.  So the ‘decima Balboa’ is 1/10^th of a Balboa, or the equal of an American Dime. 

The ‘Quarto Balboa’ is 1/4^t of a Balboa, or the equal of an American Quarter. 

 

The ‘Medio Balboa’ is ½ of a Balboa, or the equal of an American Half dollar. 

And finally a full Balboa is usually referred to as ‘Un Balboa’ and is equal in size to an American Dollar (not pictured). 

In Theory, Panama stopped minting in 90% Silver after 1964 just as the United States did.  However, the Panamanians seem to have had some left over 90% coin blanks and you can find numismatically tested and graded coins that were minted as late as 1968 and are still 90% silver.  However, the accumulator is not looking for oddities as such will always cost a premium and I would recommend sticking with 1964 and prior if you purchase Balboas. 

As a final note, all of these coins were minted to the Avopoidal, or 26 gram, ounce instead of the more talked about “troy” ounce which is a smidge over 31 grams.  The result is that an American Dollar, or a Panamanian Balboa will weight basically 4/5 of a troy ounce.  If you wish to accumulate these by the Troy ounce you need to remember you need 5 quarters to equal one Troy ounce, not the four you might expect. 

Next time, the last installment of this series.  Fun and Games of Ebay, or “You can’t always get what you want”, but you can probably at least see it on Ebay. 

Compromise, Senate style

     Now that the House has finally passed a Debt Ceiling increase the Senate, in a display of clear-headed thoughtfulness, voted it down without a reading. The sallow-faced worm Reid then demanded that the House Republicans stop being obstructionist and make a compromise with with the Senate.

     His only offer was his plan, the one that cuts far-future costs by not paying for things that we aren't doing now, and probably won't do in the future. These magical "cuts in spending" have been shot to pieces by the CBO and Reid's bill actually increases spending and widens the deficit. To Reid this is compromise. A careful and reasoned finding of middle ground in an effort to save the country from the "Armageddon" of default.

     This reminds me of the Bay of Pigs crisis, both sides are playing at brinkmanship, each daring the other to "knock the chip off my shoulder". These pampered idiots are pretending to be bad-ass gunfighters in some Wild West shootout movie, each resting his hand on his revolver while squinting down the sun-blasted street at his opponent. Too bad it will be the credit-rating of the US and the interest rate on T-Bills that will die instead of these morons, and thus we the tax-paupers will suffer further.

     Oh, for the days when these two would have had to square off with dueling pistols. It might not lead to better government, but at least we wouldn't be lead by pasty-faced wussies and it would be a damned sight more entertaining.

     In the mean time the Resident (still without a shred of a plan) stands on the sidelines cheering them on. He is no doubt thrilled that the spotlight is focused on the one thing in D.C. that is less popular than he is. This is probably the biggest display of absentee place-holdership in all of history. "The smartest man in the room" (which is true only when he is dining with his immediate family, the dog stays outside right?) has no ideas, no framework for discussion, NO PLAN AT ALL.

   I am afraid that this will not end well.

Something to think about

While the buffoons in D.C. argue dramatically (but pointlessly) over what .00002% of the deficit to cut out of the mountain of pork that is the U.S. budget (before they enhugeify it once more) somebody has but together this neat graphic so that you can get an understanding of the size of the hole that has been dug for us, the taxpaupers.

I find it frankly terrifying.

Boehner drops the ball.....

     The Republibums seem to be every bit as incompetent as the Demonrats. Boehner brought his Debt Ceiling bill to the floor only to find out that the Reps that had said "No Way!" actually meant it. He seemed baffled at such action by a politician, but then, they are new after all and haven't fully joined the Borg yet. Or, even weirder, they are actually representing their constituents. Such things happen from time to time, it is frowned on in D.C. circles (much like having sex with interns and taking bribes) but can be tolerated in small doses. When these types are present in larger groups the established elites suddenly find themselves confronted with a crack in the paradigm, the ground shifts beneath their feet and they get all woozy and feeling faint.

Amusing

A little video from Andrew Klavan over at Pajamas Media; amusingly told but true in its bones.

The facts of life for liberals.

History is rhyming again..........

This can't be good, an AWOL soldier has just been arrested near Ft. Hood, he was prepping explosives and had made statements about attacking person at the fort. here is the article from MSN.

The Collapse of the Middle

     One of the most striking things about today’s society is that the central space is gone. The polarizing forces in almost every issue have managed to pull and tug at the body politic to the point where all that remains is edge, the center having been torn to shreds. Extremism is the modus operandi of the day. Everyday.

Paper, paper everywhere and not a money in sight.....

OK, that was a terrible paraphrase but it was the best I could manage. Here is a lttle reminder of what has happened in the past when the government tries to solve its problems with a printing press. Anybody thinking that the dollar is some sacred document, free from the rules of reality needs to think again. All of these governemnts thought they could "pull it off".

Epic Fails all.

Great Quote

Sometimes you run into one of those statements that cut right to the heart of the matter, that clears away all of the fog and lets the pure light of reason shine on the subject in question, this is such a statement. I saw it on a post on Zerohedge that dealt with the latest Euro "fix" for the general insolvency of 2/3 of the nations in the Eurozone, Popo is the poster;

"At what point do these imbeciles realize that there is no permutation of reshuffled cards that does not result in someone eating the loss?

Rather than having endless meetings to discuss new permutations,  perhaps a better approach would be to decide (in general) who should eat shit sandwiches in the event that they need to get eaten?

Taxpayers? ... or the banks that made the shit sandwiches?   That's the only question.   Focusing on new complex "solutions" is an obvious ruse to avoid answering the fundamental question: 

Who eats it?"

Fooking brilliant!

A modern Cassandra, Sir James Goldsmith

     How this guy didn't go completely nuts when confronted by the persistent, unwavering idiocy of the the people he was dealing with is beyond me. He clearly saw the coming crash and nobody would listen to him. Proof that being right can be small comfort. This interview is from 1994 and he saw it clearly and predicted it perfectly, the stooge from the Clinton Administration is painfully clueless.

     There are six videos. watch them all.

Surviving TEOTWAWKI Part 3c A Man's Home is his Castle? Try Again

 Having considered the options of staying put or bugging out and made up our mind we now need to look at the next biggest issue; physical security of the home. Take a walk around your home, look at it critically. Think about how easy it would be to gain entry, particularly if you didn't care about breaking windows or kicking in a door. Rather daunting isn't it?

Gold as money

An interesting video covering gold and fiat as money, the shinking value of fiat over time is nicely done. It it the British accent that makes him sound better than the bozos in D.C. or is it that what he is saying makes sense?

Perhaps both.

Another video by Mr. Frisby, rather longer and more serious, well worth a viewing.

What a Debate should look and sound like

     After watching the Debt-ceiling nonsense in Washington I stumbled across this.

     Watch this debate, it matters little which side you follow (if you follow one at all), but this is a good example of what a debate should look like, two men going head-to-head about a matter that they hold passionate positions on in an articulate and polite manner. You don't have to watch the whole thing (I think you should, and with an open mind) to get the tone and tenor of the manner. Mayhaps the British accent helps.

     So very different from the Vaudeville act in D.C.

The Bears take on SLV

The Silver Bears are back and putting it to SLV ETF JPM will probably assainate the person responsible for this.

Back from the dead with more Xtranormal cartoons

Yeah, yeah I have been gone too long. I had to throw the Evil Empire off by playing dead, but now, zombie-like I rise again. Here is a lovely tid-bit from one of the posters at TFMetals more Xtranormal madness

On Her Majesties Monetary Service

Once again the House Martin returns with this Blog owner’s permission (since he has not done a thing with this space in two months, I mean really, 33 posts to the other board and none here in two months) to discus another silver option in the collecting world.  Any and all problems should be directed toward the House Martin as I am solely responsible for this entry.  Due to some technical difficulties, pictures will follow ASAP.  But with Silver starting to spike again on the odd chance that anyone is actually paying attention to this series I figured it is better to get the idea out there and worry about the pictures later. 

In the first two installments of this series I examined the worlds of Alternative 99% pure silver sources and Sterling silver produced by private mints for collector purposes.  This median installment will examine the world of Sterling Silver minted by governments for monetary circulation purposes.  With Silver cresting $40 again recently I feel some urgency to get this series completed. 

There are three unique advantages to collecting Sterling Silver used as national coinage.  The first advantage is that in this arena you are generally talking about some truly staggering amounts of individual coins that have been made, both in terms of years produced and number of coins minted each year.  Large amounts of coins produced means that individual values for a given coin are lower.  Second, because these issuances contained large volumes of coins and they were actually used as a medium of exchange, each of the coins received more or less wear and tear.  This fact generates a range of ‘quality’ in available specimens.  These quality variations result in large gyrations in the actual price of a given coin.  A perfect, or “mint” coin will have a much higher value to a coin collector than a heavily circulated coin of the same denomination and year.  Yet both coins will have basically the same weight of actual silver so the silver ‘accumulator’ (hoarder is such a negative term) will not care which one they get as the weight is all they see.  The third advantage comes in the form of a level of security that only one other silver offers.  With these coins you know exactly what you are getting in terms of weight and purity because they are internationally recognized currency units.  Furthermore, national governments spent considerable efforts detecting and ferreting out counterfeits, thus most of what remains is very secure.  I have tested some of my collection to insure quality level and never found a coin to not meet the quality expected.  As a final note on this dependability of quality some of you are probably thinking that the “Phleas” from the first installment of this series are the other dependable source and you would be wrong.  While most are very good and the dependability is very good, these coins are not the focus of a government’s anti counterfeiting activity so there is actually no oversight on these coins and counterfeits do circulate.  Basically, you are trusting that whomever you buy from was honest, did their do-diligence, and are in turn buying from an honest source. 

The Absolute ‘grand daddy’ of all Sterling Silver national coinage is Great Britain.  The British did coin the term after all.  Sterling has been used for coin purposes by the Brits for centuries.  If you want them, you can find sterling minted in the reign of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I, or whatever very dead august personage you like.  For ‘accumulator’ purposes it is probably best to stick with the mintings of Victoria and later.  This basically means Victoria, her son Edward VII, and Grandson George V.  This marks the high water of Britain’s World Spanning empire, and thus the maximum spread of the “coin of the realm”.  The internet is literally awash in these coins.  They came in many denominations, but all are based on the shilling and include the following: 3 pence(1/4 shilling), 6 pence (1/2 shilling), shilling, florin (2 shillings), half crown (2 ½ shillings), and the crown (5 shillings).  There are other Sterling silver British coins (2 pence, 4 pence) but these were special mintings called ‘Maundy Money’ and have generally a very high collector following which drives their price beyond the interest of the standard ‘accumulator’. 

The crown weighs in at just over 26 grams and is thus a ‘wee bit heavy’ compared to the ‘dollar’.  The half crown at a bit over 13 grams is again a bit oversized to a half dollar. 

Here are two Half crowns.  The one on the left is Australian, the one on the right is Victorian British. 

The Florin weighs in at just over 10.5 grams so three would be a bit more than a troy ounce. 

Here are two good condition florins.  The one on the left is Edwardian British, the right is Australian. 



Here are two not so good condition Florins.  Once again Edwardian on the left and Australian on right. 

The Shilling, while small is still easy to remember as it weighs 5 ¼ grams, so six are a troy ounce. 

Above is the obverse of two shillings. Below is the reverse of the same coins.  In both cases the coin on the left is Edward VII and the right is Australian George V.   

The six pence weighs in at 2.6 grams and is basically the same as a dime. 

Here are two sixpence, both are Victorian British. 

The three pence weight 1.3 grams as one would expect based on this system. 

Above and below is a George VI Australian Threepence. 

Great Britain reduced the silver content of their coins to 50% in 1920.  So for the Sterling ‘accumulator’ 1919 marks the end of the Sterling from Britain.  In addition to Britain, most of her major former colonies used Sterling in their mints.  Canada, if more to your liking,  also minted in Sterling until 1919.  Even better news comes from Australia, which  used almost the exact same system (no half crown) and continued to mint in Sterling until the end of World War II (1945, but if you are reading this and do not know when WWII ended you deserve to buy silver at overvalued price from after the quality down grade) when they down graded to 50% like the mother country.  Neighboring New Zealand also used the same terms, but minted in 50% silver at best, so while I like their coins appearance, I do not like their quality.  Interestingly, Newfoundland, an independent colony at the time, continued minting in Sterling after 1919.  Confusingly, the coins of Newfoundland stopped being Sterling in various years depending on the denomination, but all were downgraded by the end of WWII.  My mother (a Canadian by birth) always said “Newfies will be Newfies, and there is no way to explain Newfies!”  I have always thought this is the sort of thing she meant. 

Fortunately for those who like Sterling Silver, this was not the end of Sterling for national coinage.  After many monetary fiascos, Mexico decided in 1992 to issue a “New Peso”.  To demonstrate their fiscal resolution to the world (and perhaps generate a bit more confidence in their own public) they decided to mint some of the coins with some Sterling Silver.  Beginning in 1992 and carrying on through 1995, three “Bi-metallic” coins appeared the: ten, twenty and fifty peso.  All three have a Sterling Silver center core surrounded by a Brass outer ring.  The Sterling Silver portion of the 10 peso coin contains 1/6 ounce troy of Sterling.  The 20 Peso coin contains ¼ ounce troy Sterling.  The 50 peso coin has 2/3 ounce troy Sterling.  It is of interest that these are all in troy ounces instead of the more customary, and smaller, avapoidal ounce used in American national coinage.  The new 10 and 20 peso bi-metallic designs (without the Sterling cores) were continued after 1995 so an ‘accumulator’ must be careful to avoid the later non Silver coins when purchasing this portion of the Mexican Sterling Silver collection.  Fortunately, it is very easy to distinguish the Silver coins from the non silver at a glance.  All Sterling Silver coins will have the letter “N” next to the denomination at the top of each coin.  This was to signify the “New” Pesos. 

Here we have the Obverses of the Three Amigos.  The Fifty peso has the "Children heroes of Chapultepec" the teenage boys the Marines fought at the more commonly known "Halls of Montezuma". 

Here is the front and back of the Ten Peso. 

Here is the front and back of the Twenty Peso. 

Here is the front and back of the Fifty Peso. 

To celebrate the 200^th anniversary of Mexican independence, Mexico expanded this range by adding 100 peso coins in the same weight as the older 50 peso coins beginning in 2003.  This range was issued from 2003 until 2007 and contained a coin for each state in the “United States of Mexico” plus a few anniversary odd balls like “the casa de moneda” (house of money), and the writing of “The man of La Mancha” to name a few.  There is no “N: notation on these coins, but then there are no Mexican Bi-Metallic 100 peso coins that do not contain the Sterling Silver so keeping them straight is not difficult.  However, other Central and South American countries saw the interest in these coins and made their own 100 peso Bi-Metallic coins.  The good news is that none of the knock offs contain any Silver so as long as you stick to Mexico, in the proper range, you have no concerns. 

Here is a sampling of the 100 Peso coins.  On the Left is the Aguacaliente State coin (it means "Hot Water", somehow appropriate).  In the center is the reverse of all the 100 Peso coins.  On the right is the 400th Anniversary of "The Man of La Mancha". 

The penultimate missive of this set will concern itself with the higher quality members of the rest of the national coinage market -- the 90% crowd.  Until then, “ttfn” and remember to ‘boyscout’ for “TEOTWAWKI”. 

The House Martin

To Mint, ... or not to Mint

That is the question. 

The House Martin strikes again. 

Pure silver was the topic of the first installment of this series and if that is your interest please refer to it below.  As we now move past pure silver it is time to warn you that the term Pure silver is different than 99.999% silver.  The definition “Pure Silver” is applied to anything that has more than 92.5% silver content.  I own a commemorative coin that contains 94% Silver and its Certificate of Authenticity states that it is Pure Silver.  If you want 99.999% silver make sure your item is marked as 99.999%.  If you buy something that says “pure silver” only, it is probably not 99.999% (but it will be higher than 92.5%). 

Any object made up of 92.5% Silver is designated “Sterling Silver”.  The creation of Sterling Silver is lost in antiquity.  Copper is the usual 7.5% remaining component, but there are some other choices.  There are many stories on how that 92.5% standard emerged, my two favorites are as follows.  The first story involves that 92.5% was as pure as ancient technology could achieve/measure, so that became the standard for silver purity.  The second story says that 92.5% is the lowest percentage that could not be visually discerned from true pure silver, so it was the minimum that could be gotten away with by minters and became the standard.  Naturally, these two stories contradict each other as if the ancients could not achieve higher than 92.5% how could they know what these higher percentages looked like and keeping silver polished to its brightest finish is nigh on to impossible in ancient times.  Be these as they may, Sterling quickly caught on for two basic purposes: coinage, and commemoratives.  The next installment of this series will detail coinage, here we will focus on commemoratives created by private mints. 

Silver By Any Other Name ...

This article is the Handy Work of "The House Martin".  The owner of this Blog has given permission for this post, but should in no way be held responsible for the content of this post. 

For those of you who are interested in setting aside some silver there are a multitude of opportunities and options out there.  The classic system centers around the various one ounce rounds of pure silver (Eagles, maple leafs, and philharmonics being the most common).  However, this is certainly not the only option and I would argue not necessarily the best option. 

The “Philly-Leaf-Eagle” forms of Silver (here after refered to as “Phleas”) have several problems in my view.  First, they usually come with some sort of fee over and above the actual price of the silver resulting in the collector having to pay more than the “official” price for what they are buying.  I do not know about you, but it would irritate me to have to pay $6 for one of those infamous “$5 mildly warm and not ready” pizzas.  Second, because of the common knowledge of the basically instantaneously updated price of silver and the previously mentioned fees there is absolutely no possibility of ever scoring a deal when buying pure silver unless you get insanely lucky on Ebay.  Finally, while these bulk coins are certainly pretty and well executed and there is a ‘charm’ to having a hoard of the same thing (dreams of the Demi Moore bed scene from Indecent Proposal),  They really are rather boring when you think about them as a collectible item, especially once you know about the options. 

So what are these options you

TEOTWAWKI, gun pairing

         A friend of mine who has been preparing for the collapse recently had his eyes opened as to the need for self-defense. He asked me what I thought he ought to get started with. After going over his situation (married with two young kids, living in a small house near Detroit but with acess to an old relative's farm in Michigan's thumb) and thinking about what folks did in the days when money was dear, life was cheap and the ability to travel light was important I recomended that he get a .357cal. revolver and a lever action rifle in the same caliber.

         I can hear some of you saying "too much pistol, not enough rifle". To a point you are right, but my thoughts are this; he is looking to get started being able to defend himself and his family as easily and simple as possible, a heavy revolver will handle close-in work well and a lever-action in .357 will work out to 200 yards or so. Both have the advantage of using the same ammo and being able to use .38cal as well. For a beginner this could be important as he only needs to stock (and perhaps reload) one type of ammo. Both guns are as foolproof as is reasonably possible and are mechanically simple in the event of failure (very unlikely with modern firearms). Practice ammo is inexpensive and the full-power loads are tolerably priced. Neither gun can jam in the way a semi-auto can and the clearing drill is the same for both; reload and squeeze the trigger. Both have plenty of knock-down power ar closer ranges and are adequate fr taking game in the area he will be heading for.

         This is the best gun pair that I could come up with, I am sure there are others out there but for beginners this seemed the best; two simple guns, one type of ammo.

Surviving TEOTWAWKI Part 3b; A Place in the Country

For many people the thought of trying to survive an economic collapse (and the attendant social discord) in or near a big city is simply, well, ......unthinkable. The lucky ones have the sort of job, or finanacial resources, that has already allowed them to relocate to a more desirable location. For the rest of us there is only the option of trying to obtain a cottage or such as some sort as a bolt-hole in the event of emergency. This would provide the option to carry on in a more congenial environment "far from the madding crowds" without having to abandon the niceties of ubran dwelling and employment in the short-term.

There are many things to consider when selecting a domicile in a non-urban environment. First (as the real-estate people always say) is location. Access to resources is equally important in the country as it is in the city, water, food and fuel will continue to be crucial requirements. The upside of some cottages is that they are almost independent for short-term use (a good many have wells and septic fields so an important part of civilized living is covered) but many fall down when you consider permanent use as a dwelling. Most vacation properties were selected for sweeping views or seclusion in a quiet pine forest or waterfront access to an all-sports lake. These are excellent features for a vacation home they do not add to long-term survival in a crumbling world. If you can find a property that has these features and can cover most of the items that we will dicuss below then you are in good stead, if not you might consider looking elsewhere.

How will the collapse look?

It would be the height of presumption for me to claim that I know what the Fall of Fiat will look like to those of us that are around when it happens (it could be going on right now) but I think I can make some educated guesses. To my mind it could go one of two ways; sudden collapse or a long, drawn-out grind to perdition; I call these two The Explosion and Sovietization.

Steady Lads!

        The recent pummelling that precious metals have taken may be my fault, after the price broke back at the beginning of May I thought the correction was over and ran out and bought a bunch of physical. It seemed a deal at $36US an ounce, as usual I missed the mark. Oh well.

        My thoughts are this; I am buying insurance, everybody does. You insure your car, your house, your life; you never want to collect as that would mean that your car/house/life have been destroyed or damaged. I buy PMs as an insurance against economic collapse and, like the other insurances that I buy, I hope to go through life without ever testing to see how well it worked. That said, all other sorts of insurance is a loss while my collection of Silver Eagles can at least be used to teach my grandchildren to count.

    If you are buying PMs to trade you have bigger stones than I and good luck to you. If you are holding physical PMs as insurance this simply represents an opportunity to aquire more. Either way, hang tough (and read the Turd).