April 2020 in Precious Metals, by Steven Cochran

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This monthly column is by Steven Cochran of Gainesville Coins

Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review, where we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover gold’s performance, and the factors that affected gold prices.

What Did Gold Do in April?

Spot gold began the month of April at $1,577 an ounce. Spot silver started the month at $13.93.

Gold put in a strong performance in April, considering that retail gold demand from Asia was non-existent. China, India, and the rest of the Southeast Asian nations remained under lockdown to combat the coronavirus. With nearly 2 billion people confined to their homes, discretionary spending of all kinds dried up.

Gold began the month on the wrong foot, as speculation crushed both gold futures and the spot price on March 31st. Both physical and “paper” gold fell $46 as a gold crisis erupted on the COMEX futures exchange.

That COVID-related physical gold shortage on the COMEX saw the prices of gold futures and physical gold diverge by the largest amount in history. The spread between futures and physical gold hit a mind-boggling $100 at one point in April. This spread is usually around five dollars an ounce.

Thanks to the various central banks signaling “QE to infinity,” gold finished out April with the largest price gain in 10 months, on a percentage basis. Gold futures ended the day 1.1% lower, but up 6.1% for the month.

Silver gained $2 in the first half of the month, but ran out of steam later on. Palladium lost its shine in April. Prices slumped as automakers and other heavy industry were locked down worldwide. Platinum traded in a 10% range between $714 and $794.Continue reading“April 2020 in Precious Metals, by Steven Cochran”

Economics & Investing For Preppers

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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, we look at the effects of the upcoming Bitcoin Halving. (See the Forex & Cryptos section.)

Precious Metals:

Is The Comex On The Cusp Of Defaulting?

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Peter Schiff: Priced In Gold, The Dow Is In A 20 Year Bear Market

Economy & Finance:

I found this linked at Whatfinger.com: Coronavirus stimulus phase 4 could exceed $1 trillion and include negative payroll tax

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Charles Hugh Smith: The Crash Has Only Just Begun

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We Cannot “Reopen” America

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An essay by Gary Christenson of The Deviant Investor: Consequences, Crashes and Coronavirus

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At Wolf Street: Housing Market under COVID-19: Regular Folks Retreat, Foreign Investors Blocked, Large US Investors Gone, iBuyers Frozen

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How the Unicorn Blowup & Oil Bust Bleed into Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities

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US weekly jobless claims hit 3.84 million, topping 30 million over the last 6 weeks

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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“This factual approach puts Communism in what is, after all, its basic human perspective. For it was in truth a “tragedy of planetary dimensions” (in the French publisher’s characterization), with a grand total of victims variously estimated by contributors to the volume at between 85 million and 100 million. Either way, the Communist record offers the most colossal case of political carnage in history. And when this fact began to sink in with the French public, an apparently dry academic work became a publishing sensation, the focus of impassioned political and intellectual debate.

The shocking dimensions of the Communist tragedy, however, are hardlv news to any serious student of twentieth-century history, at least when the different Leninist regimes are taken individually The real news is that at this late date the truth should come as such a shock to the public at large. To be sure, each major episode of the tragedy— Stalin’s Gulag, Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward and his Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge — had its moment of notoriety. But these horrors soon faded away into “history”; nor did anyone trouble to add up the total and set it before the public. The surprising size of this total, then, partly explains the shock the volume provoked.” – Stephane Courtois – From the Foreword to the English edition of  The Black Book of Communism

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — April 30, 2020

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Today is the 82nd birthday of sci-fi novelist Larry Niven (Laurence van Cott Niven, born April 30, 1938). Along with Jerry Pournelle, he co-authored the survivalist classic Lucifer’s Hammer. April 30th is also the birthday of Ed Yourdon, who was born in 1944.

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I just heard that EMP Shield (one of our affiliate advertisers) has started a 15% off sale, that will last just 36 hours. If you’ve been considering placing an order, then this is your chance. Get your order in soon!

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 88 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A gift certificate from Quantum Harvest LLC (up to a $2,200 value) good for 12% off the purchase of any of their sun-tracking models, and 10% off the purchase price of any of their other models.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
  4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

  1. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  3. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
  4. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  5. An assortment of products along with a one hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).

Third Prize:

  1. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. Naturally Cozy is donating a “Prepper Pack” Menstrual Kit.  This kit contains 18 pads and it comes vacuum sealed for long term storage or slips easily into a bugout bag.  The value of this kit is $220.
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  5. A transferable $100 purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Round 88 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Reaching Out to Others May Save Our Lives, by Ani

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Whenever I’d get upset about not understanding why someone was doing what they were doing or thought the way they did, a friend always used to remind me that “not everyone thinks like you do”. That adage sounds simple on the surface but I’ve realized that it is a profound truth and of critical importance to us preppers.

At the time that I’m writing this we are immersed in the COVID-19 pandemic. I watched this coming, from the earliest days when the first reports of some strange new Coronavirus associated with the market in Wuhan was briefly noted online. That made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I thought, “Uh oh, SARS Take- 2”. But hardly anyone else seemed to pay attention. I watched with dread as it grew to epidemic proportions in China but it seemed that most here in the US, and the rest of the world for that matter, were oblivious, focused on other things like the impeachment proceedings or sports and celebrities. I started doing some extra preps, particularly difficult as I hadn’t bought my current home yet and was a pet sitting nomad at the time. Still, I started hitting the stores and buying what I could manage to transport back to Vermont in my sub-compact car. And making “to-do” and “need” lists, lots of lists. (And yes, being a “nomad” was a break in my preparedness but a risk I had decided to take).

I watched with ongoing dread as the first case was found in Washington state. I called my mother who lives in New York City (NYC) to “have the talk”. A lot of good that did. My mom is a city girl through and through and not a prepper. She just couldn’t even imagine that she might need to hunker down in her apartment and not leave. The idea of staying off mass transit, avoiding crowded venues, stocking up; all off-putting to her. I told her I was sending her some masks(N95). Explained what they were for and how to use one properly. And of course even as the virus was proclaimed a pandemic, as it made its way to NYC (what a surprise!) she continued to attempt to go about life as usual. Even after it got really bad there and she finally agreed to stay off the trains, she continued to take buses and go shopping in stores. (Her rejoinder: “But they’re small stores”!) My brother who lives with her did the same. And no, they didn’t wear the masks I’d provided because they didn’t “need” them , it would look weird and that was something “only Asian people” did!Continue reading“Reaching Out to Others May Save Our Lives, by Ani”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “JWR”. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. Today, we look at protective mask legalities.

45 Volcanoes Erupting Worldwide

I found this linked by way of the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor: There Are Currently 45 Ongoing Eruptions With Eruptive Activity From 52 Volcanoes at Some Point so Far This Year

The Lowdown on Virus Lockdowns

Linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: Tucker: Are coronavirus lockdowns working? Here is that vid and Tucker on it all. JWR’s Comment:  It is noteworthy that the video that he excerpted was recntly removed by YouTube’s censors, after more than 5 million views.

Illinois: Masks Both Mandatory and Illegal

Reader D.S.V. sent this: Illinois Governor Pritzker Orders Masks as of May 1, But Mask + Gun = Felony Under Illinois Law

State Codes Related to Wearing Masks

State Codes Related to Wearing Masks. JWR’s Comment:  Some of these laws have been over-ridden during the current pandemic, but some have not!Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — April 29, 2020

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Iyar 5th in the Jewish calendar (which in 2020 falls on April 29th) is Yom Ha’atzmaut — Israel Independence Day.

This is also the birthday of actor Daniel Day-Lewis (born 1957), often remembered for his starring roles in Last of the Mohicians and in Lincoln.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 88 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A gift certificate from Quantum Harvest LLC (up to a $2,200 value) good for 12% off the purchase of any of their sun-tracking models, and 10% off the purchase price of any of their other models.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
  4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

  1. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  3. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
  4. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  5. An assortment of products along with a one hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).

Third Prize:

  1. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. Naturally Cozy is donating a “Prepper Pack” Menstrual Kit.  This kit contains 18 pads and it comes vacuum sealed for long term storage or slips easily into a bugout bag.  The value of this kit is $220.
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  5. A transferable $100 purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Round 88 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Converting Your Pedal Bike into an E-Bike, by Mark F.

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What are your long-term transportation plans for when SHTF? That’s right – long after the diesel and gasoline tanks run dry, how do you plan to get around in a sustained grid-down situation? Walking can only get you so far, and that saddle horse will burn through feed and water, putting an additional strain on your resources.
We’ve all been there, and I know the unsettling feeling of not having a solid answer to this need for a reliable, sustainable, low-resource means of TEOTWAWKI transportation. It’s tempting to just write the whole issue off and accept the limitations of staying within walking distance of your retreat. Except what happens if you need to make a run to a nearby town for critically needed supplies?

Get this: there’s a solution to this problem and it comes in the form of a fun DIY project to tweak a mode of recreational transportation that you already enjoy. That’s right – we’re talking about your bicycle. I’ll describe converting your pedal bike into a Long-Range solar re-chargeable e-bike. Many of us have at least one inexpensive pedal bike, and you sporty folks may even have a high-end mountain bike already sitting in your garage. Too bad that bike only goes as far as your stamina can power it, right? Hardly! Nope, if you haven’t heard, they make these nifty new battery-powered “e-bikes” now that can extend your range up to 25 miles. (And that’s assuming that you’re just sitting there like a bump on a log not pedaling a bit and letting the electric motor do all the work for you.)

Now you’re probably thinking, “Sounds pretty good, but a bike like that has to be pretty pricy and it sounds like exactly the kind of flashy thing that someone’s going to rip off,” right? Yeah, I thought so too and my research on commercially available e-bikes pretty much backed that up. At $2,000 to $6,000 a pop, the price was steep, and their distinctive appearance was a huge flag signaling would-be thieves of a high-value target. In fact, I read that New Yorkers who bought these high-end bikes were resorting to wrapping the frame in frame tape or electrical tape to hide the brand name and attempt to disguise their bike’s value.
That’s when it hit me: Why go through all the cost of buying an expensive e-bike only to have to try to disguise it and make it blend back in? What if there was a way to simply build your own e-bike using an existing pedal bike as the frame? Did such a thing exist?
Continue reading“Converting Your Pedal Bike into an E-Bike, by Mark F.”

JWR’s Recommendations of the Week:

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Here are JWR’s Recommendations of the Week for various media and tools of interest to SurvivalBlog readers. The focus is usually on emergency communications gear, bug out bag gear, books, and movies–often with a tie-in to disaster preparedness, and links to “how to” self-sufficiency videos. There are also links to sources for both storage food and storage containers. You will also note an emphasis on history books and historical movies. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This week the focus is on roots and bluegrass music. (See the Music section.)

Books:

This recently topped the New York Times bestsellers list:  Magnolia Table, Volume 2: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering.  (The first cookbook in the series (Volume 1) was also a bestseller.

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Becoming a Backpack Hunter: A Beginner’s Guide to Hunting the Backcountry

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Cordwood Building: A Comprehensive Guide to the State of the Art – Fully Revised Second Edition

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The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War

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With so many families now homeschooling for the first time, workbooks like these have become very popular: My Phonics Workbook: 101 Games and Activities to Support Reading Skills (My Workbooks)

Continue reading“JWR’s Recommendations of the Week:”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“A cook she certainly was, in the very bone and centre of her soul. Not a….turkey….in the barn-yard but looked grave when they saw her approaching, and seemed evidently to be reflecting on their latter end; and certain it was that she was always meditating on trussing, stuffing and roasting, to a degree that was calculated to inspire terror in any reflecting fowl living.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), by Pudge

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What are standard (or standing) operating procedures (SOPs), and why should you have them? According to the U.S. Army, a SOP is “a clearly written set of instructions for methods detailing procedures for carrying out a routine or recurring task or study.” Now what does this really mean and how can I actually apply this to both my daily life and also high stress situations?

First, a quick background so that you can understand why this topic is so important to me. I’m an active duty Army Special Forces officer (O-3) with extensive experience around the world. I make my living using and creating Standard Operating Procedures for every situation you can think of within my team as well as with indigenous persons from other countries. I use these SOPs to enhance my lethality, effectiveness, survivability, and capability. They are what help separate my team from other units and allow us to operate at a much higher level. Okay, let’s get down to it.

What is an SOP, really? It can be as simple as: Each person will carry x-number of magazines on them for their rifle and handgun, or as complicated as exactly what you will need to do during a night time linkup with another friendly element. Why do we have them? We have them to eliminate extra steps or remove overthinking from the equation. We have them to make sure everyone follows the same standard for loadout on a patrol around the area. We have them so that no matter who is on guard shift, when a potential threat comes stumbling up to the gate at zero dark thirty, we all know exactly how to respond, even while still half asleep. They are used for all of these situations and many more.

At work, my team has a SOP booklet that is handed out whenever we receive a new teammate. Their job for that first week is to study this book. Now this alone isn’t going to get them up to speed with the rest of the team but it will make the learning curve not quite as steep. Additionally, whenever we go out for training, we review the SOPs for topics that we are going to cover. We do this so that everyone is on the same page and that everyone knows exactly what needs to be done and in what order so that we can work as efficiently as possible.Continue reading“Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), by Pudge”

SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

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This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. We also mention companies of interest to preppers and survivalists that are located in the American Redoubt region. Today, we focus on real estate sales reports and projections for the Redoubt region.

Idaho

Idaho Governor Gets Flak From Own Party on Virus Decisions. An excerpt:

“Little last week extended his stay-at-home order for Idaho’s 1.75 million residents to the end of the April, further irritating his fellow Republicans, but lifted some restrictions on non-essential businesses. Meanwhile, nearly 100,000 Idahoans filed for unemployment benefits from mid-March to mid-April.

Little plans to hold a news conference Thursday morning where he plans to announce a four-phased approach to reopening the state, but cited his concerns of a potential second wave of infections.”

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Boise Idaho real estate is still booming.

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A coronavirus yard sale? Idaho cops say woman cited for violating stay-at-home order

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13 vehicles involved in crashes due to dust storm

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt”