Category: Economics & Investing

Sir: Something occurred to me while addressing an envelope today that I thought might be of value to your readers. One small way to beat inflation is to purchase US First Class Liberty Bell “Forever” stamps that guarantees a mailed envelope in the USA forever. They may or may not be available at your post office so ask for them. I bought about $200 worth of stamps before the prices went up and plan to hold on to them for a while. I don’t know if these are still being sold but I think we may have yearly or bi-yearly …

The recent overseas stock sell-off inspired the White House and congress to start talking about manna from heaven, in the form of tax rebate checks. The same day, the Federal Reserve announced what can only be seen as a desperation measure–a one-day .75% interest rate cut on two key rates–has done little to reassure the traders on Wall Street. The market is starting to make some wild daily swings, mostly downward. This piece from The New York Times sums up the big picture nicely: Worries That the Good Times Were Mostly a Mirage. Meanwhile, we read: Plenty to chew on …

Last week, after Citigroup reported a net loss of nearly $10 billion for the quarter, the New York Stock Exchange had its biggest percentage drop for a January in 17 years. Between Monday and Friday, the DJIA dropped more than 670 points. The S&P and NASDAQ posted similar losses. This doesn’t look good. There is an old saying on Wall Street: “As goes January, so goes the rest of the year.” (And this has been borne out statistically.) My friend The Chartist Gnome is recommending that his clients get out of nearly all of their stocks–with just a few exceptions …

Hi Jim. I’m pretty sure you know this but I thought i would pass it along anyway. I just went through this trying to explain some of the history of 1933 to a friend. Presidential Executive Order 6102 (From: President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the United States Congress, 5 April, 1933) And yes, you are very correct that most of this is coming from coin dealers trying to sell overpriced stuff. Here is an explanation. Here ia quote from Congressman Dr. Ron Paul on gold confiscation: “If it gets bad enough, they’ll declare a national economic …

Hi Jim, I’d very much like your opinion on this matter. I’ve been investing in gold and silver bullion for a couple years now. One source from which I made one of my purchases stated that he believed that gold and silver are going to be confiscated from citizens by our government when the economy implodes and that the confiscation will take place soon after an announcement is made without warning, that the face value of the gold will be reset to $42.00, which will be the sum that’s reimbursed upon confiscation. He argued that investing in pre-1933 collectable silver …

Howdy Jim, Regarding the quotation by Dr. Walter E. Williams wherein he writes about “dollars as being ‘certificates of performance’” it reminds me of discussions years ago of the nature of money. Perhaps it may be condensed down to something such as, “Money is a measure of life energy.” Whether it is fiat paper currency, or silver or gold coinage currency, or electron-charged cyberspace currency, what it measures and thereby accounts for is life energy. As an example consider the different measures of value we accord to an ounce bar of pure silver and an ounce coin of the the …

Sir, Today I went through some of the links on SurvivalBlog that I might have otherwise passed over, for whatever reason. I came across the Google Video link: Maxed Out. Normally I would not have taken the time to watch an hour-and-a-half video on the computer, but I was curious just because you would take the time to post it up on your site. I knew that credit cards would one day become a problem, but even in my wildest dreams I never could have imagined anything even close to what is contained in that video. For those of you …