Category: money and currency

The Phantasms Of International Trade

     We often speak of international trade as if it were an unfathomable mystery, opaque to the understanding of anyone without an economics doctorate. That’s particularly the case in exchanges over trade balances, a contentious topic these past few decades. That America should have a negative balance of trade is regarded as a shameful thing, …

Continue reading

Investing, Speculating, And Hedging

     Because of my interest in monetary theory, I’m occasionally asked whether the precious metals are a “good investment.” It’s a question that can’t be answered with a simple yes or no, because it lacks context.      The required context is the answer to this question: “Where do you store value?”      I regard gold …

Continue reading

What Is And What Is Not “Property?”

     Time was, we thought we knew. Silly us!      Property – that which is “proper” to an individual owner – is in a sense an undefined term. Ever since John Locke attempted to define what makes an item one’s property, semanticists and “experts” have nibbled at the edges. Even some decent people, who genuinely …

Continue reading

How Long Has It Been Since Your Last Hyperbola?

     Here’s one, just in case you’ve forgotten:      All right, it’s a little glitchy. However, it illustrates a critical relationship: the one between the size of the money supply and the value of the dollar.      What’s that you say? The chart doesn’t graph those things? Ah, but it does! The size of the …

Continue reading

Unanswered Questions Dept.

     Nasty habits usually come with their own punishments. My nasty habit is talking about money. Not how to make oodles of it; that’s an arcane art. At any rate, I haven’t mastered it. No, I talk about the nature of money, and why it’s no longer with us.      I shan’t repeat the litany …

Continue reading

Visions Of Sugarplums

     Let’s talk about money:      Well! If the subject is money, is there really more to say than that? Frankly, yes.      Relax, Gentle Reader. I’m not about to quote Francisco D’Anconia at you. But he did have a point or two, especially this one: the first thing looters and totalitarians go after, when …

Continue reading

Watching The Gold Market

     Gold is tearing through every threshold anyone has proposed for it.      Americans smart enough to hold some physical gold should not take this as a reason to sell their holdings. Speaking for myself alone, if I had any unemployed cash just now, I’d be buying. But more to the point, the steady increase …

Continue reading

A Useful How-To

     Courtesy of David DeGerolamo, we have this: Gold… Today, another NEW record high in US dollar terms. In other words, The dollar is getting debased rapidly vs. gold. — Gold Telegraph ⚡ (@GoldTelegraph_) September 23, 2024      And it is so. The awareness of that debasement (which is a synonym for inflation) has driven …

Continue reading

Brace For Impact

     Gold is flying: $2577.80 / Troy oz.      Silver is as well: $30.58 / Troy oz.      Platinum, palladium, and rhodium are all up sharply.      Copper’s moving, too, albeit more gently.      Would you like to know why? Just go here.      The aggregate federal debt is now $35.3 trillion. That seriously exceeds …

Continue reading

Sometimes You Just Have To Laugh

     …and I did:      A conservative estimate holds that there are 240 billion pennies lying around the United States — about 724 ($7.24) for every man, woman and child there residing, and enough to hand two pennies to every bewildered human born since the dawn of man. (To distribute them all, in fact, we’d …

Continue reading

Hedging

     Save only real wealth. — John A. Pugsley      Pugsley’s book The Alpha Strategy is one of the wisest pieces of financial advice ever penned. It’s also entertaining and hilariously funny, by turns. And now you can read it for free, at the link above.      Since I retired, I’ve been unable to afford …

Continue reading

The Unchanging Nature Of Wealth

     I know, I know: the title “gives the game away.” And it does. But perhaps not in its entirety, Gentle Reader. I restrained myself from applying the title I really wanted to use.      Breck Dumas of Fox News tells us:      It takes more to be viewed as rich in the U.S. this …

Continue reading

A Proper Response To Ignorance

     Three years back, Elon Musk was briefly in the news for this statement:      “Goods & services are the real economy, any form of money is simply the accounting thereof.”      That tweet was absolutely correct…but it displeased a lot of less savvy types, including a few who argued that Musk’s statement was tantamount …

Continue reading

This Is The Nation’s Top Economic Advisor

     And you won’t believe the crap he spouts, or how he stammers and misdirects:      Time was, even a schoolchild knew what money is: money n: a medium of exchange and a store of value.      I was taught that before I could write a check. Note the and in the definition. Money must …

Continue reading

Cash And Chaos

     This bit of news rang a bell for me:      LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – A Senate bill introduced on Tuesday would prohibit businesses from refusing cash-only payments.      […]      Senate Bill 306 has not been assigned to a committee yet. [Steve] McClain said the Kentucky Retail Federation will be closely monitoring it.      …

Continue reading

For Those Who Still Use The Phrase “Sound As A Dollar”

This is a very astute observation. It’s a major milestone in the death of a fiat currency when its issuers need to get bribed in a harder money. https://t.co/0l6DRFrTtR — Saifedean Ammous (@saifedean) September 27, 2023      Ponder that! Remember that when the corruptocrats of other countries solicit bribes, they usually demand that they be …

Continue reading

Invidious Comparisons Dept.

     This story provoked quite a range of reactions from readers. Mine was “Why did ‘they’ wait so long when the danger to ‘them’ is so obvious?” Bank Shuts Down ‘Silver Stackers and Gold Stackers’ Shop’s Business and Personal Accounts      An Ohio-based coin shop owner recently took to YouTube to share alarming news: His …

Continue reading

Money And The Processes At Work

     Bustednuckles deposeth and sayeth:      One of the things that is amazing to me is the gamble the people in charge of the money supply system are taking. They are deliberately killing the dollar as they have run it as far as it will go before it becomes completely worthless, while thinking that they …

Continue reading

Things Predators Like

     Predators of all sorts will concentrate where the prey is fattest. — Arne Stromberg, Gallatin University      Robert A. Heinlein promoted this concept of a human trichotomy:      …and no third category. What follows from that partition is an even simpler dichotomy: You’re either a Maker or a Predator.      Anyone who doesn’t get …

Continue reading

Illegal Tender

     With all the worrying going on over the ominous prospect of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), it’s just occurred to me to wonder: What is the state of the legal tender law?      We know – hey, it’s printed on every BLEEP!ing Federal Reserve Note – that federally approved physical currency is “legal …

Continue reading

Load more