Category: Economics & Investing

Letter Re: Signs of Potential Currency Hyperinflation, by Lee Rogers

Jim, The article on currency hyperinflation [by Lee Roger, posted on November 30th] was interesting. However, trying to keep the puny penny alive to prevent hyperinflation is like trying to prevent floods by banning depth gauges. Someone will need to explain to me why we need any coinage with a denomination less than the value of a minute of a minimum wage worker’s time. For decades in earlier times, our smallest coin was worth about as much as out current dime. How many billions in wasted time would be saved if we had a simple coinage system that reflected real …


Letter Re: A Further Slide For The US Dollar?

Jim, I wonder how many other folks have read this: ” …Ritholtz told WorldNetDaily that yesterday’s downward move “was a major market correction that points to the risk of subsequent downside to the dollar,” and “… but the recent fall suggests “the probabilities have increased of a major dollar correction, or even of a collapse.” ” The whole story can be found at the WorldNetDaily web site. – Joe from Tennessee


Signs of Potential Currency Hyperinflation, by Lee Rogers

Defeat the Coin Act of 2006, by Lee Rogers at The Funny Money Report. Here is an excerpt: “Over this past summer a bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives called the Currency Overhaul for an Industrious Nation. This bill is also referred to as the Coin Act of 2006 or House Resolution 5818. Introduced by Representative Jim Kolbe from Arizona the bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology this past August. The purpose of the bill according to the text of the bill itself is to modernize the legal …


Letter Re: Advice on Cash and Weapons While Traveling Overseas

Mr Rawles: My first family vacation is coming up and we’ll be in New Zealand for three weeks. I’ll be away from my food, guns, ammunition, and assorted survival stash. Add to that that I can’t take more than $10,000 in cash out of the country and can’t take any weapons with me. So, what do you take with you on such a trip? Gold is too heavy. Any ideas on what to bring that won’t weigh me down. Thanks, – S. JWR Replies: Assuming that your main purposes in carrying cash and/or specie would be 1.) to secure passage …


Two Letters Re: Another Perspective on Selecting Barter Goods

Mr. Rawles: I’m glad to see I’m not the only one that thinks having skills in different areas is a great barter tool. I worked for years as a mechanic, in my thirties I changed careers and went into construction as a General Contractor. After about 10 years in construction. I semi-retired and when to school to become a professional farrier. I spent seven years shoeing horses and working metal in a forge. That lead me into custom knife making. My wife & I have been selling handmade and factory knives for the last several years. I have always kept …


Letter Re: Barter as an Investment and a Hedge

While barter for necessities is one possibility, barter for wealth is another. A poor man with a small investment in an essential TEOTWAWKI item can magnify his wealth. If you are not in a position to outfit yourself with the food/weapons/tools you would like now, consider a barter investment. Something you can get cheaply now, and then trade for the items that are currently out of your budget. When choosing barter goods for storage, consider seven things. Original cost, size, availability, need, divisibility, verification, and indestructibility. Items stored for barter should: (1) Have a very low initial cost. In this …


Another Perspective on Selecting Barter Goods, by OSOM

Dear Jim: The recent letter on barter goods caused me to sit down and organize my thoughts on the matter. Running a successful retail/wholesale operation, I can see some caveats and analysis that needs further exploration. What’s WRONG with Barter Goods As has been well emphasized before – forget about barter goods until you are squared away for your own logistics. Beyond that, remember that barter goods are much inferior to money or cash in a functioning economy, with a good division of labor. If you need to sell them to raise cash, it will take some effort, and you …


Two Letters Re: Alcohol and Tobacco as Barter Items

Mr. Rawles: Thanks to Warhawke for his very well written article. There are two items conspicuous in their absence, tobacco and alcohol. I seem to remember reading somewhere, perhaps in the novel Lucifer’s Hammer, that people will always want to smoke and drink no matter how bad things are. I am wondering if you and/or Warhawke have any thoughts? Would it be prudent to stock an occasional can of Plowboy tobacco and some of the little airline bottles of booze? I’m very Interested in your thoughts. – Carl In Wisconsin Sir: Greetings and thanks for the great web site. In …


Getting Ready for Survival On a (Broken) Shoestring Budget by J. Cole

Since the mid-1960s, after reading Pat Frank’s novel Alas Babylon, I have been interested in preparing myself for TEOTWAWKI. And, as a child of the 1950s growing up in central Florida, I was taught early to be ready in case of nuclear war, so Frank’s book was not that far-fetched to me. My family was poor by any standard you could compare it to in those days. There was no chance of us ever affording a “bomb shelter” but preparations were made as best we could. We stocked up on canned food and water, we had a central hallway with …


Stealth Inflation, by Inyokern

This is in response to this article you posted a link to The Fed and Baby Boomers. The Federal Reserve is trying its best to solve the incoming budget crisis as the baby boomers near retirement age. Soon a relatively low number of workers will be paying taxes to support a high number of retirees. Really unsustainable numbers are involved. So how do you solve it? Well, either you tell yourself that the youth will pay for it because they have no choice (which would be a bad assumption), or you find a way to make the money paid to …


Letter Re: Thoughts on Investing, by Michael Z. Williamson

Dear Jim, I’ve been following the investing threads and would like to weigh in. The first item is to consider what emergency your investments are for. A collapse of order or society could make ammunition and other tangible hard goods very valuable. Conversely, an economic collapse could predate that by years (see Germany during the Depression), in which case freehold real estate and bullion are much more useful. Some people are stating that “X will be worthless,” but that all depends on the scenario. To assume that one and only one disaster will happen, and will happen within a set …


Selecting Barter Goods, by Warhawke

In a post-TEOTWAWKI world just about everyone realizes that paper money will become useless (unless you can get enough to use as insulation for your house) and there has been much discussion of gold, silver and other items for barter in these pages. I have devoted a great deal of thought to this subject and I would like to share a few of my ideas on the subject with you. I’m going to try to be fairly short on details here in order to keep the length of the article manageable. Keep in mind that what I am discussing here …


Two Letters Re: Advice on Ammunition and Precious Metals for Barter?

Jim, I read your post of 10/15 about barter items and the problems with fake gold coins. You wrote: “The other major problem with using gold coins for survival barter, regardless of their weight, is that they will be immediately suspect as counterfeit by the individual on the other side of the table.” You are quite correct, but an easy and affordable solution is available. Please note that I am not a salesman for this product nor affiliated with the company in any way. I am simply someone who has been working on preparedness for 40 years and have found …


Letter Re: Advice on Ammunition and Precious Metals for Barter?

Mr. R.: Years back a good friend – a “tech incubator” and investment banker – asked me “What would make a good, easily portable medium of exchange ?” He was referencing some WTSHTF, post apocalyptic scenario. Good question. We thought about it and came up with answers, none of which were a pretty, malleable, ductile, shiny metal. Same with diamonds. Pretty. How do they taste when brewed up in the coffee-pot ? … oh yeah, they don’t! Wanna barter ? You’d better be bringing something to the table that has functional value. Food. Water. Shelter. Fire. Things that go bang. …


Letter Re: Advice on Ammunition and Precious Metals for Barter?

Jim: Some thoughts with regards to the following [from JWR]: “If and when you want to buy (via barter) a gallon of kerosene, a box of ammunition, or a can of beans, then gold is inappropriate. How would someone make “change” for a transaction that is priced at 1/100th of the value of a one ounce American Eagle or one ounce Krugerrand gold coin? With a cold chisel?” While I feel that the advice given, namely to use pre-1965 silver dimes, is sound, I want to comment on the above, since it is grossly misleading. For starters, everyone seems fixated …