I hope that readers took my advice and bought precious metals during the recent dip. The bank credit crisis seems to have woken the gold bull from his short nap [1]. (Gold had one of its best one day gains ever, on Wednesday.) I believe that the bull’s charge will resume, shortly. Because the consumer economy now looks weak, I predict that gold will probably outperform silver in the next run-up. (Since silver is more of an industrial metal, whereas gold as seen as a safe haven when currencies are in turmoil.)
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Tim T. mentioned that any SurvivalBlog readers with an interest in farming with draft horses should check out The Small Farmer’s Journal [2]. BTW, they also have a great book catalog [3],
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Bill N. recommended a blog piece by Bayou Renaissance Man about his local Neighborhood Watch on Steroids [4].
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A puzzling article from Der Spiegel was flagged by reader Jack B.: ‘Certain Mistakes Just Can’t Be Allowed to Happen’ [5]–“Hundreds of millions of euros from a German government-owned bank went down the drain with Lehman Brothers on Monday after a strange deal that has left many people scratching their heads. Why would a German bank transfer €300 million to an American Wall Street firm after it filed for bankruptcy?” JWR’s comment: I suspect that they were hoping to limit some massive outstanding counterparty risk from derivatives contracts [6] with Lehman Brothers. If they can help keep them afloat by chipping in €300 million, then they might avoid the far bigger risk [7] of a disappearing derivatives contract counterparty. The stakes in the global derivatives casino are almost too huge to imagine.
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The Mother of All Bailouts (MOAB [8]) grows a bit more: Fed announces $180 billion cash flood to fight crisis [9]. Eric (a frequent SurvivalBlog content contributor) alerted me that as of Thursday, $105 billion had already rolled out the door of the Fed [10] (electronically). Meanwhile, we read: Morgan Stanley Said to Be in Talks With China’s CIC [11]. The global credit collapse is completely out of control, folks. Be ready to hunker down, if and when things get ugly.