Preparedness Notes for Friday — August 22, 2025

On August 22, 1639, Madras (now Chennai), India, was founded by the British East India Company on a sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers. — August 22, 1775: King of Great Britain and Ireland, George III, proclaimed the American colonies to be in open rebellion and ordered his officials to suppress it. — On this day in 1812, Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt was the first European to rediscover the Nabataean city of Petra in modern-day Jordan. — Today is also the anniversary of the founding of the London Armoury Company, in 1851. It was founded by Robert …




My Concerns With Artificial Intelligence – Part 1, by St. Funogas

I appreciated JWR’s comments in his August 19th article on artificial intelligence. I’ve also had a lot of thoughts on AI recently, which I’d like to share. JWR’s informative article addressed many of the societal changes and threats we’ll experience just as sure as the grass is green. At this point, my concerns are mostly on a personal level of how things will affect my grandchildren, and to a lesser extent, how they’ll affect my children and siblings. WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE? When people ask me to define what artificial intelligence is, I give them my country-bumpkin definition: Human intelligence …




Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, we look at physical precious metals shortages. (See the Precious Metals section.) Precious Metals: I’ve been warning about this: Unprecedented Gold and Silver Deliveries Transforming COMEX Markets. JWR’s Comment: The physical metal shortage is even more dire at the LBMA. A short squeeze is approaching. o  o  o Gold is Signaling a Tectonic Shift in the …