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Posts Tagged ‘Prepping’

$2,000 Gold, What Does it Mean for You?

Posted in Financial News, tagged , , , , , on August 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »

An employee holds a 1-kilogram gold bar in the precious metals vault at Pro Aurum KG in Munich, Germany, on July 22. Andreas Gebert / Bloomberg via Getty Images

A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.

  • Proverbs 22:3

July 27, 2020 was a historic day for those who follow precious metals.  For it was on that day that gold surpassed its old all-time high in U.S. dollars – the old all-time high being $1,921 – to close at $1,965. 

That was just thirteen days ago. 

Since that time, gold has closed as high as $2,069 and now sits at $2,042, its closing price on Friday, August 7. 

To put that in some perspective, once year ago gold closed at $1,495.  That was on Friday, August 9, 2019. 

Put another way, gold is up over 36% in U.S. dollars in the space of a year.  That’s a raging bull market in anyone’s book.  Yet, oddly, the mainstream financial press has had relatively little to say about it.     

But what about silver?  Glad you asked!

After lagging gold for the past 14 months, silver has recently show signs of life.  Unlike gold, silver has not yet punched through its old all-time high of $50 set back in 1980, or even its more recent near all-time high of $47 set back in 2011.

Nevertheless, silver has been on a nice run recently and is up over $10 an ounce in the past two months.  As of Friday’s close, silver sits at $28.41. 

But the purpose of this post is not to throw a lot a boring numbers at you.  No.  The purpose of this post is to help you understand what these numbers really mean for you.

In short, this is a return to one of the major themes of this blog over the past two years.  It is a warning to take cover.  Tough times are coming. 

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Corona Virus and Economic Collapse, Part 2

Posted in Financial Markets, tagged , , , , , on March 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »

NYSE

The New York Stock Exchange. Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want.

Luke 15:14

“Coronavirus live updates:  Washington state weighs mandatory measures to contain outbreak” is the most recent headline on CNBC. As has been the case with countless other headlines over the past few weeks, it announces another possible government action, this time by the State of Washington, to combat the spread of coronavirus in the U.S.  My point in citing this headline is not to commend or to criticize Washington for its program, but merely to illustrate that coronavirus continues to be the lead story in the American press, a position that for the most part it’s held for at least a month.

Admittedly, the coronavirus story has proven difficult for this author to assess.  A big part of the problem is the lack of credible sources.  The Communist Chinese government is not necessarily the most reliable source of information concerning the state of affairs in the country.  Then again, the Western press, specifically the American mainstream media, is no better, at least in the opinion of this author. For example, two weeks ago the New York Times ran a “helpful” opinion piece titled “Let’s Call It Trumpvirus” which attempted to lay the blame for the current coronavirus crisis on the president.

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The Ongoing Financial Crisis of 2008, Part 5: Biblical Case Studies in Prepping – Fire, Brimstone and Lot’s Narrow Escape from Sodom

Posted in Prepper, tagged , , , , on September 8, 2019| 1 Comment »

Financial Crisis

A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.

    Proverbs 22:3

In a recent article titled “The monetary policy endgame,” Rick Rieder argued that central banks have two ways of creating inflation – inflation in this case being defined as rising consumer prices. The first is to create increased consumer demand through demand stimulus (lower interest rates). Secondly, Rieder argues, central banks can engage in monetary debasement. Continuing with his argument, Rieder contends that he believes central banks will turn to monetary debasement to achieve their stated inflation goals.

So what is monetary debasement? As the Investopedia link puts it, “Debasement refers to lowering the value of a currency, particularly one based on a precious metal, by adding metal of inferior value.”

But even though we don’t have a precious metals based monetary system doesn’t mean that governments can’t debase their currencies. As the Investopedia article on debasement goes on to say, “[D]ebasement [in fiat monetary systems] only requires that the government print more money, or since muc hmoney exists only in digital accounts, create more electronically.”

In light of the coming central bank driven currency debasement, Rieder asks the important question, “How should one position for such an endgame?” Rieder’s answer? “[A]ll of this leads one today to consider assets that can participate in an inherent devaluation of the local currency, which is to say, real estate, and even hard assets that have historic value-relevance, such as gold.”

Rieder’s post is remarkable, not just for what he said, but also for who it is that said it. Rieder is not some tin foil hat wearing gold bug, but is a Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at BlackRock, a New York City based investment management firm that is the world’s largest asset manager with $6.84 trillion in assets under management as of June 2019. Put another way, BlackRock is Wall Street royalty. Further, Rieder’s post appeared on BlackRock’s blog, giving his statements the implicit approval of the firm itself.

Given the decades long propaganda campaign of hatred that has been directed at gold and at those who advocate for the return of gold to the financial system, Rieder’s comments are significant indeed.

There’s a lot to unpack in Rieder’s article, more than what can be discussed in this post. Lord willing, I shall return to his post at some point in the future. But I mention in today mainly to let readers know that mainstream financial analysts are quietly warning that the US dollar – and all other fiat currencies – are in trouble and likely to suffer significant devaluation in the not too distant future.

In light of warnings from Rieder and others, the application of Proverbs 22:3 to our current financial circumstances cannot be overstressed. Here we have a highly placed man at a highly respected financial firm going on record to warn us in advance that the Fed is going to debase the dollar. What is more, he provides for us sound advice on strategies savers can use to protect themselves.

In Scripture, we find several examples of men who were given advanced warning by God of coming disasters, and who, in faith, took action to save themselves and others. In last week’s installment, we looked at the case of Noah. This week, we shall continue our look at Biblical case studies in prepping with a review of Lot’s narrow escape from Sodom.

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The Ongoing Financial Crisis of 2008, Part 4: Biblical Case Studies in Prepping, Noah and the End of the World as He Knew It

Posted in Financial Markets, Prepper, tagged , , , on September 1, 2019| 3 Comments »

Financial Crisis

A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.

    Proverbs 22:3

“US Slaps New Tariffs On China; One Minute Later China Retaliates,” was the headline on ZeroHedge this morning. This, of course, is in reference to the US/China trade war which has been ongoing for the past two years.

Just last week, US stock markets rallies on reports that China was going to be “calm” in its response to the trade war. But in this headline we see that China immediately retaliated when the Trump administration imposed tariffs on $112 billion in Chinese imports. Whether China’s response, a decision to place higher tariffs on $75 billion of imports from the US, will be considered “calm” by American financial markets when they reopen on Tuesday after the Monday closure for Labor Day is a matter of opinion.

In the view of this author, come Tuesday the moves by the US and China to impose a new round of tariffs on each other likely will put downward pressure on US stocks, force money into bonds, drop long-dated US treasury yields further inverting the already inverted yield curve, and cause gold and silver to spike. This opinion comes with the usual caveats that things could change between now and Tuesday morning and that past performance does not guarantee future results.

I bring up the trade war, not because it’s the focus of this post, but just by way of warning that there is a lot of uncertainty in the financial markets, a great deal of which is caused by the geopolitical stresses in the world today, none of which seems likely to be resolved anytime soon.

And geopolitical stresses are not the only things that pose a threat to the well-being of private citizens of the US and the West generally. The Western financial system is in a state of collapse. Deficits and debts are out of control, yet there is no political will to address these issues. To date, politicians and central bankers have largely been able to hide the destructive effects of out of control spending government spending has had on the lives of average citizens, but this will not go on indefinitely.

Speaking of debtors, Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount that, unless they settled with their creditors, they would be thrown in jail and not get out until they paid the last cent. In God’s economy, the books always balance in the end. Put another way, no debt goes unpaid. The once Christian West has managed to rack up the greatest debts in the history of mankind, and these debts most certainly will be paid in full. That payment will come in the form of currency devaluation, loss of standard of living and, probably, a loss of personal freedom as well.

So what are Christians, in particular, Western Christians to do in the face of the challenges facing our nations? In the first place, we must remember who it is we serve. The Lord Jesus Christ is our king and it is in his name we put our trust. Jesus never promised his people that they would have lives of perfect, uninterrupted bliss. On the contrary, he repeatedly warned his hearers that following him came at a cost. But Christ has promised that he will always be faithful and that our Father in heaven will supply our needs.

In the opinion of this author, barring the near-term return of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no possible way for the West to avoid a major financial and political crisis in the next few years. But in light of the promises of Scripture – for example, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things (food and clothing) shall be added unto you” – Christians have no business falling into despair.

This leads me to my second point. Rather than falling into despair, we Christians need to get to work. That is to say, we need to get prepared for what is coming. We want to be the prudent man in the verse from Proverbs quoted at the top of this post and not as the fool who ignores all warnings signs and is punished for his failure to take reasonable action.

Put another way, recognizing potential dangers and making prudent preparations against them is part of the Christian enterprise.

In today’s post, beginning with Noah I’d like to begin exploring some of the major examples in Scripture of prepping and what applications these examples have for Christians in the early 21st century.

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