Biden Sentences Struggling Americans to Even Worse Economic Hardships

Via Birch Gold Group

How Biden Is Pricing Americans into Homelessness

From Brandon Smith

One of the most detrimental aspects of an inflationary or stagflationary crisis is that, in most cases, housing costs tend to rise while home sales fall.

It might seem counterintuitive; one would assume that as sales fall so should prices, but this is the upside-down world of inflation. Certain commodities and products, usually necessities, almost always skyrocket in price, ultimately driving most American families out of the market completely.

One of the only exceptions to this rule is when the government institutes rent or price controls.

Continue reading “Biden Sentences Struggling Americans to Even Worse Economic Hardships”

The Best Path to Retirement Success Is Not What You Think

Via Birch Gold Group

The Best Path to Retirement Success Is Not What You ThinkAutumn Moon at the Temple Ishiyama-derMany pths lead up the mountain But at the top we all look at the same bright moon - Ikkyua, by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1834. Public domain image via Wikicommons

 

Sometimes, this koan credited to the Japanese Zen Buddhist monk and poet Ikkyū is translated as:

There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.

There are so many ways for retirement savers to invest their hard-earned dollars it can make your head spin.

There are high risk investments like options. There are lower risk investments like Treasuries. There are both long-term investments and short-term investments. With so many choices, it’s no wonder that retirement savers might get confused.

Take Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway. He’s notable for taking a long-term view on investing, with incredible, nearly legendary, success. But what’s interesting is how dedicated to that path Buffett is, sometimes at the expense of another route to the same success in the same timeframe.

Continue reading “The Best Path to Retirement Success Is Not What You Think”

Why Did the LBMA Apparently Alter Its Gold Refining Flow Statistics Lower by 2,200 Tonnes for 2013?

Guest Post by Jesse

Ronan Manly has published a fascinating analysis of the LBMA gold refining statistic today.

The gold refined by LBMA ‘good delivery’ refiners in Switzerland is sometimes involved in converting existing gold bars into kilobars suitable for export to the Asian Markets.

Ronan Manly offers quite a bit of detail with regard to a very large revision in the LBMA 2013 refining data and suggests that such a large restatement of gold statistics, almost 1/3, without explanation, seems odd.

The supposition is that the LBMA originally counted gold bars that were taken from existing sources, such as their own stores, ETFs, and the Bank of England and re-refined into kilobars for delivery into Asia.   They later restated the number lower by 2,200 tonnes.   We have not been given the exact reason for this, but one suggestion is that the gold did not come from new mining or traditional recycling.

Depending on how the GFMS and the WGC uses the statistics and sources, this could result in a significant (~2,200 tonnes) understatement of the flow of gold from Western sources into Asia in just one year.

What is the LBMA policy decision here, and what about subsequent years of 2014 and 2015?

What is the source of this gold?  And what is so special about 2013?

Continue reading “Why Did the LBMA Apparently Alter Its Gold Refining Flow Statistics Lower by 2,200 Tonnes for 2013?”