Economics & Investing For Preppers

 Print This Post Email This Post Facebook Twitter Pinterest Reddit Google LinkedIn LinkedIn

Here are the latest items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. And it bears mention that most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on robotic gold mining, in the near future.

Precious Metals (Robotic Gold Mining):

First up, some real food for thought: Assessing the long-term Gold and Silver market (2030-2060). JWR’s Comments: I take his prediction of robotic gold mining as further validation of my view that silver will substantially out-perform gold in the next couple of decades. (A robot could isolate gold nuggets, flakes, and dust. But silver, in contrast, is hardly ever found in those forms.) By the way, I believe that robotic beach or shallow offshore sands mining will be far less risky and less expensive than deep sea floor mining. It is worth mentioning that beach mining in Alaska has recently had quite a renaissance.

Stock Markets:

Dow off to best start since 2003

Federal Spending:

By way of Yer Ol’ Woodpile Report, I encountered this at Front Page Mag: Feds Get “Minimum Wage” of $100K: The bureaucracy that rules over us keeps getting richer and richer.

 

Economy and Finance:

Signs of Impending Recession Pile Up Early in 2018

o  o  o

China Weighs Slowing or Halting Purchases of U.S. Treasuries. (Thanks to Gregg P. for the link.)

o  o  o

Next, at West Monster: Germany’s Schulz threatens to pull cash from EU unless countries accept more migrants

Tangibles Investing:

The Five Types of Items Worth Holding Onto: A collectibles expert on toys, art and other possessions that may grow in value

Provisos:

SurvivalBlog and its Editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. So 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 particularly watch individual markets. And due to their diligence and focus, we benefit from fresh “on target” investing news. We often “get the scoop” on economic and investing news that is probably ignored (or reported late) by mainstream American news outlets. Thanks!


7 Comments

  1. “As Americans struggle to make ends meet, federal government employees are taking home a “minimum wage” of $100,000 and getting two months paid vacation after a mere three years of employment, according to government watchdog group Open the Books.”

    No one employed by the Federal government gets two months of paid vacation. After 15 years the vacation becomes a very generous 26 days. If you are in a position with responsibilities you often end up forfeiting vacation days because your schedule prohibits you being absent so much. The actual schedule for vacation of paid annual leave is 10 days for years 1 thru 3, 20 days for years 4 thru 15 and 26 day for years over 15 which I agree is more than generous.

  3. The article may be talking about those elected to congress. I can attest that pay can be higher in DC than other places. The numbers reported may also include health benefits. Which I paid into and was very grateful for.
    DOD General Schedule employees are salaried while Wage Grade employees are deck plate grunts who do the real work.

    I started my Federal career as a WG 3 making 6.00 an hour. I worked side by side with sailors to overhaul war ships. I am so proud of the worked we did start to finish in my 33 years. I had the opportunity to see other countries, I was able to put a turkey on the table every Thanksgiving.
    I thank God in Jesus name everyday for the chance to work with other craftsmen in keeping our great Nation ready. I believe I speak for nearly everyone I ever met in my career. I did not hang with Congressmen or senior managers. If someone is getting rich as a civil servant they are either born into wealth or crooked.
    PS the decision to retire at 33 years was not a coincidence 😉

  5. I would be in favor of setting limits on federal, state and local government payrolls. If the average wage in the country is $50,000 then the federal government “average” wage should be the same. Pay some employees more but pay some less such that the average is equal to the citizens/voters.

    One argument against doing something like this is that the government hires lawyers and doctors. True. Should they hire lawyers and doctors??? Why not contract lawyers and doctors? That’s is what the rest of the world does. Most businessmen need a lawyer and they pay for their services rather than put them on the payroll. Ditto for doctors. In fact IMHO the biggest problem with the VA is that their doctors and nurses are government employees who cannot be fired and when their performance is substandard it is literally impossible to get rid of them. We would all be better off if the government contracted out many of these functions.

  6. The average person living off of tax paid wages earns significantly more than the average tax payer. And there is nothing we can do about it other than complain and get upset.

    We can write about it all we want, but you have absolutely no choice other than keep paying taxes so that a tax-payer paid salary earner earns more than you will. There is no “check and balance” system for federal employees, and their ranks will only get bigger.

    I know, it sucks, but there is nothing we can do about. I know, I’ve tried.

Comments are closed.