ALERT! ALERT! Right now, in my opinion, you should put a few $thou in ABX, AEM, SSRI, CDE, PAAS or any other combination of Silver or gold/silver miners that have efficient operations and lots of reserves of your choice and watch them. FULL DISCLOSURE: I have positions in all of them and more.. Silver gapped up 2.5% TODAY alone and has been in a new Bull Market since last February. Gold, not so much but since last February, it too has been strengthening. Get them both and trade the paper, and buy the real thing with the proceeds of the trade. Another Muck’s Minute will be along in a bit that will cover the subject in more depth than this ALERT..
We return you now to regular programming!
Our Presidential Candidates —– Who Cares?
The sad fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter a hill-of-beans (with farts thrown in for free) who becomes the next President. It doesn’t matter a single pail of water in Hell who is elected to various Con-gressional seats. What does matter, this election more than most any before it are who you elect for State Government, County Government and your own town government. Big Shitties are eventually going to burn no matter what, so who presides over the burning is of no importance at all. But smaller cities, towns and wee burgs all matter a lot because eventually, the ability of the governing bodies of these smaller collections of human beings WILL HAVE TO provide the leadership required to pull the populous together after the National Governments and big cities go in the dumper. Again, remember, the timing of such a disturbing scenario is impossible to predict but things are happening much faster than I ever anticipated even four or five years ago.
Vote for Hellery and perhaps the Ponzi Operation now financing the U.S. Government crashes sooner. Vote in Trump and it just might crash by a year from Christmas depending on how he can manage “the deal” with the Con-gress animals on trying (and failing) to get a handle on the near $20,000,000,000,000.000,000.000,000,000.00 of debt that this used-to-be-great country now owes to itself, foreign central banks, mom and pop’s retirement accounts, tucked into various lock boxes, hedge funds, and everyone else who is now searching frantically for a safe haven in which to invest! The derivatives markets (i.e. bets against defaults on thousands of kinds of bonds and other wild and wooly kinds of debt) are 100 (ONE HUNDRED) times larger than the national debt and when they implode, it will take down banks worldwide overnight.
By the way, how do you like to see $20 Trillion all spelled out in zero’s??? We’re almost there (so close as to make no difference) and not one thin dime will ever be paid back to anyone who holds any of the debt. Oh, they’ll nibble around the edges for foreign holders, just to try and convince the Furriners that we’re still trustworthy, obedient and whatever the Scouts’ oath says we are. But that too will fail by and by and then it’ll be every man for himself financially speaking and the rats will bail from the sinking ship in waves. Our Government, regardless of who’s sitting in the oval office will be able to do nothing but Bleat, Whimper, try to act Statesman(or Stateswoman)like and eventually be invited to the burning party where the Federal Reserve holds a bonfire of worthless Treasury Bonds, Bills and whatever junk the Government has foisted off on them by then. With luck, it’ll burn Washington down – which has not been accomplished since the Revolutionary War!!!
See, history does not repeat itself but it rhymes beautifully!
So who will you vote for: Hellery “Because I deserve it” Clinton or Donald “I’ll build a wall” Trump?
For all I know, you’ll get to vote (or not) for neither of them once the National Conventions open up to violence, rioting and general disruption with everyone trying their best to maintain the status quo. Let me give them all a clue. The Status Quo is d-e-a-d. Either way, there will be great rumblings from the populous, not to mention the rumblings from the new tank treads of many sheriffs’ and police departments. Our local sheriff (who thoughtfully retired this year – before the elections) ran a tight ship of 700 employees. Of course, he has the County Jail to also manage with dozens of corrections officers and kitchens and pantries to feed all the miscreants residing therein. He also has dozens of sweepers and moppers since the prisoners aren’t required to do squat for their keep (I’d like to see how they’d fair in Mexico – ooops – can’t go there, we’re liable to have a wall up before you know it!!)
What I’d love to see is so many goofs in both parties that both Republicans and Democrats self-destruct with much smoke and stench and ringing of hands and perhaps some honest man or woman just might stand up and “ENOUGH!”, offer to run for President under a Third Party and win it.
The trick this year is to thoroughly identify all your state and national elected officials and when in the voting booth, vote FOR NONE OF THEM. It’s time to THROW ALL THE BASTARDS out of office and start new.
Sadly, when TSHTF, the people who are holding the bag for that present will be home counting cans and filling emergency containers with water, but at least we’d have fresh minds to put on the problem of what to do with a broken, busted, cheated out of everything but his underwear, Uncle Sam. I’ll even pop for a new Top Hat for the poor old guy.
End
Muck
I don’t have the faith in miners that you have. If the gold price spikes exponentially, you run the risk of sovereigns taking over control of the mines. Sometimes shutting mines to keep the gold in country.
You can have the paper, most goldbugs want the phizz.
@Bea: Trade the mining shares – not intended to hold. Buy them somewhat off the bottom, ride them up and sell them slightly past the top when a reaction sets in. Don’t fret nationalization or anything else here. The idea is to t-r-a-d-e the paper (shares) and take the profits and put it into the hard stuff and just sit on it. It won’t hatch and it might be lumpy, but it retains its’ value which is more than anything else you can name.
Muck
Listen to muck. Very low risk proposition. One should have paper to trade and hold physical. Silver for its volatility and gold because it is gold. Miners are a trade never hold strategy. I bought everything he mentioned prior to brexit vote.
It does matter who you vote for – another Obama and the U.S. will embrace Sharia law.
War of 1812
Another alternative goldwise is to buy goldx the gold mining fund. It’s trading at its 52 wk high right now. Disclaimer, I’ve owned this fund for years and am glad I’m about to see daylight!
around 40 ozs AU mixed: in 1/2 sovereigns, Helvetia or Rooster 20 fcs, Peru 20 sols and eagle and half eagles coronets from 1800’s….thousands oz’s in silver–500 oz “bricks” ( 20 oz tubes) of .9999 pure AG eagles, rolls of 25 1 oz maples, Austrian philharmonics, britannias, tokelu turtles, Australia kilo coins and kangaroos, Armenia “Noah’s Ark oz’s–etc etc and lots of .900 and .925 circulation issue pre 1960’s coinage.
A tip for stackers–keep your gold diversified in dates, denominations or countries and you can classify it as “collectibles”. During the 1933 gold confiscation, coin collections were allowed to be kept while bars and bullion/rounds had to be turned in it at a cheap govt set price–then the banks jumped the value per oz 250%…….
Jesus H Christ….this again? You’re going to roll the dice on a fixed market….again?
Sure, it’s good to hold PM’s, if you have the extra cash to do it. If everything else in your lifeboat is well stocked then, yeah…go ahead. But to jump at some very temporary rise in PM’s is not wise.
A bonfire of treasury notes? Are you kidding? That’s all there is, is treasury notes. That’s all there been for decades, is treasury notes. Let me clue you all in….if the .gov defaults, that is; if the treasury notes are worthless, then you’ll have a lot more on your mind then planning what you’re going to buy with all your gold.
As far as not voting in the presidential elections go……if hitlery gets in, or biden or whomever, then it’s game over for Whites, for Christians and for gun owners. Game over.
The asshole governor of CT and his cronies have completely fk’d this state up, but he isn’t in charge of how many bloodthirsty muzzies are let in nationwide, nor is he eroding our military into a shadow of what it was. He would if he could, but he can’t. That’ll be hitlery’s job in her first four years.
If The Donald turns out to be a loser, then so be it, but we won’t know what he’ll do until he gets in. We goddam know without a doubt what hitlery will do….that’s the difference.
@Lysander: Be advised, the “.gov” as you so neatly put it, is in gradual default as we speak – read the MM again. $20 trillion of nonpayable debt and only the Fed is buying Treasuries these days – it’s total default, just by another name – i.e. PONZIE SCHEME…
America’s ever more limited freedoms are the business equivalent of “good will” as far as the rest of the world is concerned because as bad as it’s going to get here, it will be worse most everywhere else. Hence, the ability of .gov to pawn off Treasuries to foreign interests even though they are guaranteed vehicles of worthlessness over time.
Muck
I agree. We will probably have a little more prep time if Trump gets in before the nation’s economy completely implodes.
If Hitlery gets in, it’ll be time to get the hell out of this country for good if it is even still possible. After 4 years of that fucking bitch as president, there won’t even be a country left.
The real problem is that there isn’t any place left to go to. Caucasians everywhere seem to be hellbent on committing national suicide in the name of political correctness.
Lusander:
Colt, Smith and Wesson, Rugger: why do they stay in Ct? They provide great tax and employment advantages and are vilified, scorned and milked. Is this like the battered wife syndrom or is it a Freudian desire for punishment and abasement? Go to Texas and FTA.
Muck, at the close today I’m up 78% on NUGT. Probably gonna dump it soon. I have been kicking myself in the nuts for not selling near the close. I have a feeling the monkey hammer is going to swing at both gold and silver over night on Sunday. Both will open down big time and it will probably take 25% off.
And before more people shit on buying the miners, I got what I could out of the casino a while back. I’m fully prepared to lose what I left in there, and I’m well aware that I am, in fact, buying nothing but electronic versions of paper.
@Gator: If you are right – and right now, all the strength in the PM’s is UP, then I’ll dump when the reaction is confirmed. Like I said – don’t fret the bottom 10% and don’t fret the top 10% (or even more) because there’s a bunch left in the middle with which to profit.
I learned back in 1973-4 not to buy and hold PM stocks.. But their volatility makes them ideal for trading.
Muck
The peso went up. They bumped up their rates. That will draw buyers into in the Mexican currency, can’t have that. The US will raise its rates, the market will drop, gold will rise. Stealth moves will get it there.
@FullR: Many years ago, and I forget who first said it, the US Gov. has gotten us into a position of “Inflate or Die”.. If the Feds runs up interest rates, they better do it like Volcker did back in ’73-4 or so but if they do it, we’ll fall flat into a depression (not recession).
The only way this poor benighted country can now survive (for a little while yet) is to inflate away that $20 trillion in debt until it’s as worthless as a dollar bill is now when compared to 1912.
The Gov. is eating us alive from within – like a parasite who eats the host unto death – and that’s what will happen eventually. Bad debt WILL be repaid – and the only way we can do it is just exactly like the Germans did in the Weimar Republic – they inflated it out of existence, followed quickly by WWII. This time, we’ll inflate it to zero and probably get WWIII, IV and V in small, short and deadly war sequences..
I’d like to be peacefully dead before that happens..
Muck
I recall that Stuck couldn’t get somebody to mow his lawn for $25. Illegals will allow you to turn back time for a while but eventually everybody’s price goes up.
We are simply moving over to another chair in this mad tea party. Old Ben was well aware of the scam when he advised, neither borrower nor lender be.
If you borrow, you’ll get screwed paying forever and if you lend, you’ll get screwed with junk dollars. I guess inflation and war are preferable to forgiving debt in a jubilee.
Thank you very much for your opinion and the entire article, at times I cannot resolve my internal conflict, so many Trumpeteers make me worry that my gut feelings are wrong.
Prof Pangloss once remarked, I don’t vote, I figure by the time the general election arrives, the voters have selected the best candidates and either one will do.
Looking at it from your reductive assessment, he was right. We should tend our own garden; vote locally.
Muck About–The shares can lag the bullion as it has done in the past and for a very long time. If the dollar assets begin to fail and there is a real move to tangibles and tangibles become increasingly scarce (backwardation), then you will see funds move into the next best thing, stocks. PM stocks are a thin market and when that happen you could see massive gains. But…You always have to think in terms of the value of the dollar, that is purchasing power, and not in the nominal dollar published value. See, what Daniel R. Amerman on his web site writes. Read EVERTHING he writes Stay away from any ETFs and take possession of any stock certificates unless you are a trader. Any stocks held in the street name belong to CEDE and Co. and the new rules are restrictive to you cashing out should market turbulence happen. Believe me it will happen. Selling out would be like a 100 sheep trying to get through a 3 foot gate.
Muck About–So you’re a big trader now in PM stocks??? Better think about your assumed ability to be able to buy the solid stuff when the time comes. Good luck in that idea and what makes you think that the money you’re going to get for your stocks will even be able buy any real amount of the solid stuff. Muck About you’re a bottom feeder on the information food chain. By the time you learn it is time to act, the circus has already packed up and left town. How much money have you paid for information from whose who spend their time and money to front run the mob?
Bea Lever–In a fascist economy governments don’t nationalize mines. Socialist governments do that. Fascist governments just force you to sell your gold or silver to the government or agents of the government. Why do you think that a company can sell its PMs outside of the country with out the government’s permission? Look, gold in bullion form is infinitely more important than unrefined gold in the ground. But if you don’t have any gold bullion because you leased it all out and it’s gone, gold in the ground is the next best thing. Then it will be mined. ABX– Barrick Gold Corporation has already demonstrated its willingness to more than do what the government wants in its hedge operations in the ’90s’.
Homer, my boss said that you can’t argue with success. Two people you can’t argue with are Mucky and LLPOH. Being he is a former flight instructor, he would not give you advice he himself would not rely on.
Doesn’t mean the advice is good or taking one’s advice can’t lead to destruction or that taking one’s advice represents anything but sincerity. Advice should be taken with a grain of salt and measured against what other knowledgeable people say and your own knowing.
Opportunity is great, but you need to understand that you first have to know when opportunity is knocking on your door. It works like this. KNOWLEDGE + ACTION = OPPORTUNITY with emphasis on knowledge.
“Homer, my boss said that you can’t argue with success.” I’m going to be kind. Normally I would say that’s the stoopidist thing I ever heard. Of course you can, he may just have been lucky or a number of other chance offerings. Look, every Ponzi scheme has relied upon success until it didn’t. I’m sure that the last investor that said that before the crash had Bernie Madoff in mind.
I understood that my boss was making the same argument folks make when they say – Trump is a successful businessman as proven by his net worth, therefore, he will make a great president.
I was saying the same thing about Mucky, a man who doesn’t believe anything he hasn’t got proof for. However, your points above are a good reminder of the old caveat emptor. As LLPOH has repeatedly said, you have an obligation to do your due diligence.
I think Stucky himself has said that if you plan to vote for Trump check out the facts first.
Regarding Stucky or Trump, considering the alternative and you’re confronted ‘with the devil or the dark blue sea’, the devil may be the better choice.
Myself, I plan to vote for Harry S Truman. I know what you’re thinking-he’s dead. Ya! but I don’t like to make snap decisions.
@Homer: Yes, I’m a big trader in precious metal MINERS. I’ve been trading mining stocks since 1973. How long have you been doing it? I have developed a trading program called The Market Trend Trader which I used to market at $5k a pop but it got too be too much work. Money was great and the Trend Trader generated automatic “buys” and “sells” so not much brainwork was involved — except for the developer, which was me. It took five years to develop working full time on it. Right now, the rights to it have been given to my Grandson (an Annapolis Grad working up near Mammoth mountain training Special Forces in Winter Ops..
I am anything but a bottom feeder, friend. I skim the tops, making a profitable long trade on average for every three losers. I lose 2-3% on bad trades and make 100% -500% on the winners. That takes me way off the bottom. I don’t care a crap about the losers – they are a fact of life in trading. I do not short stocks. Short trades can lose 100%. Long trades can make reasonable gains and minimal loses.
As I said earlier, I will devote a future Muck’s minute to the art of trading stocks for profit (it is almost never FUN because of the possibility of losses and the work one has to do to check and act on your stocks on a daily basis while taking the international pulse at the same time.
Also, your comment about buying the hard assets with profits from paper trading is obviously short minded. There are all manner of hard assets – PM’s being only one. Good farm land is a hard asset (also subject to confiscation but you’ve got to trust someone), 1963 Corvettes are another. If PM’s are not available at any price, by then TSHHTF (i.e. Has Hit) and you’d better have your stash already in place. Just shift you ideas into a new branch of hard assets — like cases of 2oz bottles of booze in the cellar or some high class working tools or invest in some education they can only take away from you with a bullet. Education is a hard asset too!
Be inventive and don’t get stuck down one path which may turn into a dead end..
Muck
Muck About, when I said you were a bottom feeder on the information chain, I didn’t mean it as an insult. What I was saying was that you, me, and and most others get their information on the market after it’s been packaged, distilled and pablum fed to us. We are not insiders moving markets and then letting out only the information that would benefit us. The market moves on information or is it information moves the market? I could never get that right.
I have more respect for you than to call you names. But if I read something that I take offense, I’ll certainly point it out, but respectfully. Attacking ideas can be fruitful, attacking personalities rarely does.
MuckAbout–Ever hear of Dome Mining, I bought at the very bottom? That long–much longer than 1973. But in all fairness, I was never a trader. I’m not made for it, it takes a special type of person to do that. Traders and especially ‘day trader’, I have heard, have a death wish. Not many do
it successfully.
I use to ski at Mammoth Mountain a lot, The winter ops is off Bridgeport, but who ever heard of Bridgeport.
Being a successful trader is good, but that doesn’t mean that you are going to be a successful trader tomorrow. I can read charts, too, and see patterns that tend to repeat. Dines was a technical analyst and great chartest. However, reading charts to determine forward action is only one reason. How those peaks and valley came to be is more important in a manipulated market. What is the chart really saying? It’s been said that all markets are manipulated and always have been. But, not to the extent as is happening today, I think.
Muck About, what you say about being prepared now is good advice because when TSHHTF your choices will be severely limited.
I take issue with you about other hard assets. Yes anything tangible will be better than depreciating dollars or an outright devaluation when money looses confidence. Some tangible assets will be better than others. I’m talking about productive assets. Of course, if you have more money than Scrooge McDuck, 80 million for a Van Gogh might be worth it. It’s a one of a kind and will probably hold a lot of value. But what determines value is demand and it might be 50 year in the future before it is even saleable. (the next inflation).
Muck About, I know you know, but may not have thought about it, but the asset that is the most valuable is the asset that’s most in demand. How’s a 1963 Corvette fill that bill? The asset that’s most in demand is MONEY. I know there is barter, but most exchanges don’t happen without money. Which asset will fill the bill when the money substitutes fail which they will? A 1963 Corvette or PMs which have been money through out the ages? One only chooses ‘second quality’ when ‘first quality’ is unavailable. Choose ‘first quality’ while it’s still available.
Ya! I always thought that ‘little shooters’ were a good trading item and like owning a whore house was always going to be in demand.
Muck About, the strategies of the ’50s’, thru 2008 may be of little value in a world economic collapse, in a world where every trade is ‘front run’ and the government manipulates every sector of the economy for political reasons rather than economic reasons that you would have in a free market.
Just say’in.
Muck About, what I realized a long time ago about trading is that for every winner there is a loser, it’s a zero sum game with the house taking its commission on the trade and that bothered me.
It’s not like Homestake becoming Barrick where there was productive growth that all could share, a bigger pie so to speak. Today, with a diminishing pie if somebody wins someone definitely loses.
Who can determine real value today. The secrete to trading is to determine what’s going to be in demand tomorrow and how the government’s and all those in the economic establishment are going to game it and, then, ride it to the hilt. I’m too stoopid to figure it out. Maybe I’d be lucky until I’m not.
Successful investing in the extreme can lead to hubris, think O.J., that one is deserving without reason, entitled.
I never thought that I had good karma. Bill Gates had good karma in some respects. Every evil intent and I have had a few have backfired on me. I think more wisely now. One must constantly challenge one’s belief because sometimes they get so out of whack. Introspection is the key to future success. And, like dirty Harry says, “A man has to know his limitations”.
Every time I get the urge to invest in the market, I lay down for a while until the feeling passes.
Hey Muck:
When it comes to trading markets, much less those that are Jerry-rigged, I know < than you have forgotten.
Since the debt is out of control well into the precipice stage, I think it's likely that one effective can kick would be a forced conversion of all U.S. retirement assets into treasury debt and although it would wreak havoc in other markets & cause a lot of angst, it would not be met with any significant resistance. I say this because historically empires don't just collapse all at once, rather they tend to slowly slide into the abyss. YMMV.
I guarantee it would be met with a great resistance by me. I’ve said it once and people a lot smarter than I have said it many times: Bonds (including Treasuries) are “guaranteed instruments of poverty” and this was first said when interest rates were “normal”. Inflation exceeds honest returns and you lose money every years. Eventually the bond/t-bill or whatever is worth zero. Doesn’t happen in a day, which is why inflation (default on the value of the currency) is a “hidden” tax that never stops.
It’s been doing it since 1913 (with the advent of the Federal Reserve and continues even worse today with the Federal Reserve and Government trying their very best to hide it using boiled and phony numbers dreamed up from thin air (just like the money/debt) to try and fool the public. The public at large ain’t the sharpest bean on the pole but sooner or later when food starts to be too expensive to buy and a few luxuries are completely beyond reach, it will register that their money is worth-less again, over time..
I agree about slow.. Slow, slow, slow – then BANG..
Muck
Just for shits and giggles….and to clarify something Muck commented on a while back…The Weimar Germany economy collapsed in the early 20’s. Hitler got elected in 1933. WWII began in September 1939.
So it wasn’t that Germany’s hyperinflation occurred and then the war broke out. You probably know this, but just wrote it wrong.
In America’s case, when the currency collapses, we turn into Yugoslavia 1991 at best, or all against all at worst.
@Lys: Nothing bulky and ponderous and requiring human action over a broad front happens over night. But seeds are sown, some sprout and grow but all takes time to bear fruit if you can call Hitler and the National Socialists fruit.
I don’t know about states breaking up the Union – although a modified version of that is Jim Kuntsler’s view on the subject. That’s too far out for Ol’ Muck to contemplate.
Muck
lysander, he was giving a very general explanation, sort of like when people say that the big bang happened and then the universe came about. Hawking gives a more detailed account.
I like Muck’s Minute reads, my mind can no longer grapple with long tracts.
“Just the facts, Ma’am” – Joe Friday
Best precious metal to have is lead and not in your water. Yeah, and junk silver dimes and quarters are good too.
@ SpecOpsAlpha ……What you said is spot on. Food and ammo is the ticket.
Ya Im also up about 40% on Couer Mining. I’ve had it for a couple years. Yamana Gold, too, which for some reason is still in the dumps, its the only mining stock I hold that is currently still in the red. I agree that these are stupid things to buy and hold, but I did it anyway. Didn’t know what else to do wit the money since I didn’t want to pay all the penalties for taking the money out early. There’s not much in there anymore, though, I pulled out all the principle I could, penalty and tax free a while back.
@Gator: I do a lot of trading by using my IRA account. Cool move tax wise because I can do it tax free – if I make a nice gain, I pay no capital gains on it all. Then, as a fixed income oldie, I can withdraw just enough from the IRA to stay under the lower limit on even filing taxes at all.
And yes, you’re getting smarter.. Do not hold PM miners for the long run. For those who were aggressive enough to buy around the first of this year, some have made 300% (like moi)and the bull is still snorting and pawing the ground. I’m sure this will eventually come to the Fed’s attention and they will, yet again, try and plow under paper futures to try and hold down the price.
Not sure they can this time but the old saying “Don’t fight the Fed!” is still good advise in the short term. They will lose in the long term but then we’ll all be dead (and that was Keynes!)…
Muck
Jeebus – did I promise to write a Minute on the subject of trading? Holy crap – other people get paid to do that and Jim gets it for free!
Don’t hold your breath guys, that Minute will take some time to generate and if there is anything I hate it’s working too hard for free!
Muck