Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, the prospect of $200 NFA tax stamps for every magazine of more than 10-round capacity. (See the Tangibles Investing section.)
Precious Metals:
2021 gold price target: ‘not wildly bullish, just positive’ – HSBC
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Gold And Silver Under The Biden Government
Economy & Finance:
Reader H.L. suggested this at Zero Hedge: Is Another “Crisis” Imminent: The Fed Must Double QE In 2021 But It Needs A Catalyst
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Peter Schiff: American Retirees Drowning in Debt
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And at Wolf Street: Wild Ride for Used Cars & Trucks in Weirdest Economy Ever
Commodities:
Goldman is calling a bull market for commodities in 2021 on dollar moves and inflation risk. Here is a snippet:
“Markets are now increasingly worried about inflation returning as a result of historic fiscal spending and continued low interest rates, which the bank says will likely drive more investment in commodities in order to offset that risk.”
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At Seeking Alpha: Materials Sector Relative Strength Signals Further Gains For Commodities And Inflation Expectations
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OilPrice News reports: U.S. Natural Gas Stocks Close To Record-High At Refill Season End
Forex & Cryptos:
Reserve Bank of New Zealand Adds a New Feature to Monetary Stimulus
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Forecast of the Euro to US Dollar (EUR/ USD) for 2021
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A data point: The USD cost of a Bitcoin (BTC) was more than $18,000 on Thursday morning (19 November, 2020).
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Martin W. Armstrong: The Fate of Cryptocurrencies
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An interview with Lyn Alden: Macro factors can propel Bitcoin to $1 trillion market cap | Strategic investor explains. JWR’s Comments: Lyn Alden is one of my favorite investing nerds who understands the intrinsic value of scarce assets. But she would be wise to lean more toward tangibles rather than intangibles like Bitcoin. For teh sake of full disclosure: My family still holds some Bitcoin.
Tangibles Investing:
The Four-Part Biden Plan to Destroy the Second Amendment. JWR’s Comments: This scheme is absolutely wicked and dictatorial. Let me illustrate: I presently own roughly around a thousand magazines, most of 20 and 30 round capacity, that cost me an average of $12 each. To be taxed $200 for each of them ($200,000 in tax!) is insane. Somehow, each would have to be individually serialized and be issued a separate $200 NFA tax stamp. And what does The Brilliant Mr. Bidet plan to do about my linked ammunition belts and links? I have more than 5,000 of the 5.56 and 7.62 NATO steel links that can be used to make belts of any desired capacity. Do the Democrats expect me to somehow engrave a serial number on each little link?
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Looks Like Biden Will End Up Being a Better Gun Salesman Than Obama. (Thanks to D.S.V. for the link.)
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It is noteworthy that the SurvivalBlog limited edition Rawles Cold Steel Voyager knives are now selling for more than $275 each, on eBay. But beware: There are some fake ones (made in China) still on the market.
Provisos:
SurvivalBlog and its Editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for our detailed disclaimers.
News Tips:
Please send your economics and investing news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) These are often especially relevant because they come from folks who closely watch specific markets. If you spot any news that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers, then please send it in. News items from local news outlets that are missed by the news wire services are especially appreciated. And it need not be only about commodities and precious metals. Thanks!
If the communists are able to steal this election for Biden/Harris, we have no government. No America. No United States of America. No rule of law. Only the rule of bullies and tyrants stepping on the throats of their slaves. That is us. Slaves with no power to elect our own leaders, no free speech, no right to keep and/or bear arms, no right of assembly, no right to petition the government for a redress of our grievances, no power to work at our choice of jobs, no right to attend church or go to a restaurant, theater, or ball game. No right to send our children to school.
No rights at all. They want to take away our God-given rights. And leave us to be their slaves. WITHOUT THE RULE OF LAW.
If so, you all know what will happen. 1861 with many more times the casualties.
Pray for a fair determination of the election. The alternative is unthinkable.
No rights at all? I think that’s a bit too much.
I’m sure the Germans felt the same way you do back in the 1930s.
@Mray- what kind of “rights” do you think you have if you cannot even pick your own leaders and representatives ? You have no influence on their actions and no control over your own life. On the other hand, just go back to sleep. Nothing to see here.
Guns n mags (and everything else)
In order for The People to enact change there must first be discomfort. When people are comfortable they do nothing.
You think your going to be uncomfortable so now your thinking you need to do something.
Once you become uncomfortable you will actually do something.
What is a speedloader, if not a full capacity magazine for a revolver?
Sadly all my full capacity magazines were lost in a boating accident.
Mine too. Maybe we should take up SCUBA diving…
I sold all my eeevvviiilll guns, magazines, and ammunition when Former president obama said how bad they were. I couldn’t bear his dissaproval, so I sold them all, really cheap. I sleep well at night now.
A wise man told me the other day that if you have to use the excuse that your guns were lost in a boating accident, then it is at that moment that you need to be using your guns.
A Harris/Biden government will absolutely push this country into a HOT civil war. There is only a certain amount of abuse people are will take.
Mr. Biden, Read the Constitution. ” Congress shall issue no retroactive laws.” While you may try and issue un Constitutional laws by executive order, my question to you is. Who do you think is going to enforce your decrees? State and local LEOs live in our neighborhoods and are vulnerable to direct peaceful protests as are federal authorities. Attempts to disarm 97 million (and climbing) gun owners in the country with over 600 million weapons is a rather large undertaking for a man of your age. If you are as effective at this as your party is at stopping the destruction of private property in the cities with “mostly peaceful protestors” you might rethink your actions, life is short; you certainly could find something more beneficial to do with your short time amongst us. I personally could be encouraged to gift a lot of my collection of muskets to like minded folks who are unable to afford government extortion, thus making things more equitable for the poor and unfortunate . Simply a humanitarian gesture on my part.
Joe: I’ve already started. I love giving useful gifts that are appreciated and have value beyond my original purchase price. Naturally it’s important to make sure that all the necessary accessories are included.
Ditto…on steroids!
Always remember this adage about Evil Humans (i.e. about the Left): “People will DO whatever YOU allow them to DO!”
If Joe is able to get MSR’s on the NFA register it would take a change to the Law to do it with a tax stamp requirement, In 1968 there was an amnesty opened up to register class 3 guns that had been in hiding There was no $200 fee incurred then. In the 1980’s the USAS-12 ,12 ga shotgun was declared a destructive device and then required to be registered on the NFA register, There was a 6-month time frame to file, after that they are contraband, Again no fee, The 200.00 fee is for transfer to the next owner or to make as an individual incurs a 200.00 tax, That best they could do is require them to be registered since they are already made, As for magazines the NFA registry is only for Firearms and Destructive Devices and Silencers, The Law would have to be changed to include Mags and that that can’t be done by EO. What can be done by EO is to ban magazines like they did with Bump Stocks I base this statement on 40 + years in the Firearms Industry and Dealing in ClassIII items for many of those years.
you base this statement on logic and the assumption they care about “laws”
@Any Mouse- +1
The communists, like ANY criminals, DO NOT care about any laws. If droolin’ Joe is sworn in on January 20th 2021, THERE IS NO RULE OF LAW ANYMORE. ANYTHING GOES ! They fail to realize that that will apply to US as well. We will no longer be under any obligation to follow any of their laws, morally or legally. Wild West days ! ANYTHING GOES !
Does anyone have a “man on the street” definition of Bitcoin? Exactly what is it? What does it do? Does it have any utility or purpose? Is it really created by computers solving complex
mathematical problems?
Right now today can I pay the rent,buy food or water,buy guns and ammunition,medicine or
any life other life sustaining tangible with Bitcoin?
All fiat currencies paper or crypto are based on the faith and trust of the people that the
currency is valuable and worth something. In these troubled times faith and trust are in short supply.
As individuals our main responsibility is to protect and insure the welfare of our families.
There are two hard tangibles that will help us do that. Gold and silver both have a five thousand year history. Neither is a make believe fantasy toy of the gullible techno nerds.
People will say that I’m an old fashioned dinosaur that is behind the times and that crypto
is the thing of the future.
I say that I’m a traditionalist that has faith in Gods money.
CHECK OUT THIS PODCAST 2777
http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/newbie-crypto-currency
IM STILL TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT MY SELF
BITCOIN is the modern equivalent of the tulip market. It will end the same way.
Ron, this is my very condensed, simplified view of Bitcoin: A Bitcoin is a unit of digital currency defined by a great deal of math that I can’t explain and you probably wouldn’t understand which is called the blockchain. Yes, massive computers are used to do the math to find, or mine, Bitcoins, and then to track future transactions. As the blockchain grows, the difficulty of mining and transferring the coins increases and requires more and more computing power.
Bitcoin, like any cryptocurrency or government-back fiat currency, only has the value the market place assigns to it, just as you said. In short, it is an idea, defined by a mathematical concept, but given value only because it is scarce and people want to own it. Like a dollar bill, it has no inherent value. In fact, it has less because is intangible and in a pinch you cannot use it to start a fire or as TP.
Bitcoins can be lost, wallets and online depositories can be hacked, and like a mutual fund share in your 401k, it cannot be traded without electricity and the internet. From my perspective, this makes it well below junk silver in its value to preppers.
In the long term, I think the value of the blockchain in industry and commerce will end up being greater than the cryptocurrency that spawned it.
A Bitcoin is actually a very complex number that meets a very special criteria. It takes a huge amount of computing power to test numbers one by one to see if they meet that criteria. Since this requires electrical energy and dissipates heat, actual work is done (the same as drilling for oil or digging for gold) and requires the expense of currency to find. This, however, does not have anything to do with the actual or perceived ‘value’ of a Bitcoin or a fractional portion. It is my humble opinion that the ‘price’ of Bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies is purely derived by speculation. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have any real value – for now.
The Bitcoin ‘system’ is maintained in an instance of a ‘blockchain’. A blockchain is a complex data structure. Data structures are essentially containers of information with additional elements that allow for complex indexing of the data in the container.
I’m trying to keep this as simple as I can. Having taken a graduate course in cryptography, I have delved into some of the complex mathematics involved. It is purely my personal speculation that there was a need to have very complicated computer calculations performed on a massive scale that even our best supercomputers would have required many decades to solve. My suspicion is that the entire data set will help to form a sort of ‘master key’ to unlock current computer architecture based encryption algorithms. What better way than to entice huge numbers of people, companies and countries to invest in the computers and run these calculations at there own expense than to convince them that they could achieve incredible financial wealth by participating. No one ever mentions all of the people that spent huge amounts of money to build ‘mining farms’ that never found any Bitcoin. It is understood that there are a finite number of Bitcoin, and nobody ever mentions what will happen when they are all found. I contend that at that time their ‘value’ will go to zero. The search will be over.
I own no cryptocurrencies as I view it as a form of gambling which scripture forbids.
The four part plan to take our guns is another useless waste of time. The author fails to make any mention of immigration. We are being erased and replaced with people who favor gun control or favor voting for people who want gun control. If you love your right to own guns and do nothing to bring about an immigration moratorium because you are afraid of being called a racist you are an idiot. Nothing a patriot claims to care about will be enhanced by the addition of 100 million more Africans, Asians or Muslims. Sure, some will be on our side and maybe even bigger patriots, but the exception does not prove the rule. Wake up! Stop being distracted. Either you have a country or you do not.
re:
‘Class 3′ and tax-stamps
On the rational side:
Taxing my tools is a spectacularly-bad idea.
Why?
* The taxes required from tax-payers to be given to tax-burners is always wasted.
* The tax-burners wasting taxes is engineered into TheSystem.
The tax-burners have no ability to not waste taxes.
Ergo [`consequently’], any tax-burner demanding taxes is best ignored as if it and all other tax-burners do not exist.
Ergo on!
*****
On the irrational side:
Nearly five decades of ‘public service’ prove Joseph Robinette Biden is a blithering imbecile.
Ergo, taking him at his word, believing any words he blathers, expecting him to honor his oath, is a spectacularly-bad idea.
Any family worth their salt would hide such an ‘unfruited plain’ in the basement and otherwise away from sharp scissors.
Ergo on!
Wow! You guys are headed down the same road that we are. You’ll have to forgive me if I find some of the comments naive. Biden can’t do this, or Biden can’t do that, because of this law, or that law. This is the worst kind of normalcy bias that I have seen in a while, and many of my fellow countrymen share it, as well.
We have all seen countless incidents of the Democrats (Liberals in my country) blatantly breaking the existing laws with impunity. If you want to go back to Hillary, with a private server, Bleachbit, and destruction of government cell phones you can see it. Even in violation of your existing laws, it was found that she didn’t have any “criminal intent”. Since when does the law hinge on intent? “I’m innocent your honor, because when I fired that gun I didn’t intend to kill that man”. Yeah, right.
You have video of Biden bragging about the fact that he interfered in the Ukraine, to stop an investigation of Burisma. Threatening to withhold aid. Never mind the latest Hunter Biden computer revelations.
But he can only do what the constitution allows him to do. Really? And what about when he stacks the SCOTUS, and they “reinterpret” the bill of rights to allow him to do pretty much whatever he wants.
As to who will enforce these illegal laws? How about a politicized FBI. How about a military that has been stacked with generals selected by Obama.
Once he passes even the most basic “common sense gun laws” you’re pretty much done. All he needs is a “red flag” law to allow LE to conduct warrantless searches, and SWAT teams to act with impunity.
And, the greatest thing is the Corona virus. They can use it to keep people from assembling, for any reason. You can’t form a resistance if you can’t communicate, if you can’t gather together.
It is a dark and dangerous time that we are headed into. I fear it is already too late for my country. God bless you all. My prayers are with you.
Thank you L. C.
Your dead on LC.
He can try to come and impose these draconian measures, which I will not comply with. If he does impose it, the resistance will begin, we may die, but we will die with honor.
Molon Labe traitor.
“The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time time, with the blood of tyrants and Patriots”
Thomas Jefferson
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/11/19/fundamental-chains-2/
Important read. WordPress has decided to de-platform The Conservative Treehouse. Therefore, they are in cahoots with The Enemy-no surprise.
We are holding our collective breath to see if the theft of our votes will be successfully challenged in the courts. My two cents: A Biden puppet presidency would, in my opinion, be the official start of CW2.0. “They” will come after everyone who voted for Trump. I think, it’s important to think through what one’s role (seriously) will be in the resistance. Every family needs a plan with well thought out “reasons”. And, in my opinion, no online communications of any kind. We’ll have to go dark. Lord willing, we can save the Republic.
JWR, I know way back in the beginning you probably identified the characteristics of the fakes, but they escape me now. Aside from the insanely low prices of the Chinese knock-offs, how can we distinguish the genuine from the Chi-Com forgeries?
As always, hoping we all…
Seymour Liberty
May I share a chuckle amongst all of the serious (and of course necessary) discussion?
https://babylonbee.com/news/new-ar-15-glows-blue-when-libs-are-near
These should be at the top of the wishlist for every 2A-supporting Tolkien fan (who doesn’t mind being backlit)! 😉
Hahahahajahahaha. Absolutely hilarious! I think I’ll call mine lib cleaver.
Hello All. First I want to say that I have been a long time lurker here on SurvivalBlog. I’ve enjoyed reading the articles and all of your comments for years. I’ve learned a lot that’s helped me prepare myself and my family for most emergencies.
After so many years staying silent in the background, recent events have caused me to become more vocal, both online and off.
I keep hearing people say that “X can’t happen because its against the law!”. Or “The Constitution doesn’t allow that!”. My Friends, please don’t make the mistake in thinking that our opponents give a damn about either the law or the Constitution. From the progressive elected politicians, to the appointed judges, all the way down to the Democrat voters in your neighborhood, the ends justify the means. They will gladly step over our bodies to gain more control. We have already witnessed politicians and judges blatantly ignore the law and Constitution (8 years of Obama and SCOTUS travesties), Federal LEO’S working to overthrow a sitting POTUS, and Local LEOs enforcing Constitutionally egregious Red Flag laws. Some of which ended in the murder of an American citizen. I hate to sound so pessimistic, but we are not exactly on the winning side these days. If Rudy Giuliani’s Hail Marry play is successful, it may buy us more time. But either way, our opponents are coming to enslave us, or exterminate those of us who don’t go along. There are many blogs, message boards, and social media sites filling up with talk of “re-education camps” and “Nuremberg trials” for Trump supporters. I tend to take my enemies at their word when issuing threats.
Sorry to go on the rant, but please, friends, don’t fall for the sweet lie that “it can’t happen to us”.
Don’t just pray for a good outcome to all of this, pray for the strength and courage to make a good outcome.
You are absolutely right Ghost.
Too true, anymouse, they have been going around and doing away with the constitution since before President Wilson. President Media Elect Bidet is another in a long line of hollow men doing the bideting of their masters. The world will never be at peace until the last of America’s freedoms are subjuguated, so “they” say.
Agreed. Their definition of peace is “the absolute absence of all opposition to socialism.”
Only a fool would underestimate a person with PASSION and a BELIEF in a cause, that also has a position of authority. The 100 day plan they have is largely built on existing law and it would be relatively easy to implement as it would all be “common sense” to half the country. If they get the Senate, it is a slam dunk. Our country is literally hanging on by a thread at the moment. Keep your head on a swivel. Write your representative!
Well, they seem to have proven that “voting ” only works for them. I would say that perhaps it’s time to stop letting your American normalcy bias get in the way of pragmatic thinking. That chant of “vote” rings ever so hollow now in 2020. Either start thinking with a new pattern, or lose your country to the Marxist.