$1500 gold and no posts yet?

$1,512.05 an ounce gold
$17.17 an ounce silver

 

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Awesome..... I hadn't looked at the charts this week. I remember seeing gold surpass $1800.00 some years ago and feeling like I was some sort of precious metals magnate... Then I loaded up on $30.00 per ounce silver...... It is fun to watch these cycles. And I suppose if your business or financial future relied on the charts this would be of prime importance. Just another cycle is the way I see it anymore. It is fun news though.

 

Well, now there are posts.

The good news: my SDB now contains more value than it did a couple of weeks ago.

The bad news: when gold goes up this sharply, it's generally because of bad news in the real world, the one we have to live in...

 

New tariffs on China probably caused the increase in PM's as the stock market dropped in the same time frame.

 

I want to add that I'm not making a political statement, I'm just stating what I saw in the markets as relating to the price movements.

 

I feel satisfied that my hedge actually kicked in. Hate to see what my 401K is doing right now though.

 

no one posted earlier because they were all busy ==> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49259673

looking at the first picture, the mexico mint is housed in a 7-Eleven ?
lol
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/07/americas/mexico-city-heist-scli-intl/index.html

 

Yeah, I read that too. It's amazing to me how often these types of thefts of gold happen from mints and banks. These are the guys who are supposed to be the most secure.

 

leaving the safe door open *is* a little suspicious even with guards ....

 

The inflation-adjusted minimum wage is actually lower now than it was during most of the 1970s. And that's using the official inflation numbers, which many believe understate actual inflation.

When I was a college undergrad, the minimum wage was around $3.50/hr. I went to a state school, where tuition and room and board combined were $1500-2000 -- per year, not per quarter or semester. There were plenty of people who used minimum-wage jobs to help finance their education, opening the door for higher-skill, higher-wage jobs down the road.

Today, the minimum wage has a bit more than doubled -- and college costs have increased ten times, again using my alma mater as a basis for comparison, and using nominal dollars.

As for productivity, since 1979, worker productivity has increased nearly 70%, while inflation-adjusted wages have increased by 11.4% -- and that's overall, across the economy; as I said above, the inflation-adjusted minimum wage has actually gone down over that period.

So, without an increase in the minimum wage, where has all that profit -- the amount produced, minus the amount spent and the amount paid in wages -- gone?

 

Where did that profit go? It went towards salaries, bonuses and stock options of the executives the top of these companies. Look at the percentage rise in executive compensation since the 1960's - it's ABSURD.

Compare the rise of executive compensation to salaries of other moderately skilled workers and it's even more sickening.

Don't tell me that a bank teller standing on her feet for 40 hours a week, dealing with irate customers should get compensated 1,000% less than management working 60 hours a week. I just don't buy it.

Executive compensation - Executive Salaries, Bonuses, Stock Options & Retirement Packages. Not to mention Executive Sign-On Bonuses and Golden Parachutes.

That's where most of that profit went.

 

Unfortunately you used a bad analogy, because technology is replacing bank tellers. Bank teller jobs are steadily declining. So where does the profit from banks go? To management and especially to investors. But that profit is generated at least partially due to automation, in this case: online banking, ATMs, and the general use of less cash.

https://www.bankrate.com/banking/bank-tellers-disappearing/ But as this article shares, tellers are not just disappearing and being replaced by technology, they are also being replaced by higher skilled workers. Tellers who assume more duties. So a second factor is the increasing need for education and training, and those employees who have it will be compensated better. But those entry level teller jobs at the bottom are declining annually.

 

I picked "Bank Teller" out of a hat.

Sure, automation is taking a lot of jobs away, but not all jobs.

In China (or maybe it's Japan, I don't remember) they have automation for flipping burgers, making sandwiches, frying eggs, waiting tables, and all sorts of food prep that humans do here in the USA. At a certain point automation can take over most unskilled jobs, or even skilled labor. Then what? Only 5% of the population that is most highly educated gets to have jobs and everyone else starves? Okay, that's an extreme example, but even if it's 40% of the population who is educated "enough" to get the jobs out there. Then there's the rest of the population which can and will revolt if forced to live in poverty and virtual indentured servitude. Something's gotta give.

But that's a tangent. My point was that there are many people who work hard, have SOME education but not as much as those at the top, and yet they earn 1,000% or 500% less than the executives. It's wrong, and not just from an ethical standpoint. It's a bad way to run the country. Sure, those who paid more for their education should reap extra benefits. Sure, those who worked hard to get up there should reap extra benefits. But there is a wide latitude to "extra benefits" and that space keeps growing larger and larger. Executive compensation has risen far higher, leaving non-executive compensation in the dust. Middle class compensation has barely risen at all in terms of percentage-wise.

A lot of this has to do with outlawing most "collective bargaining" in the 80's other than gov't and a few other sectors. But now we're getting into politics. And yet, at the end of the day, it is politics that dictates "Policy" and it is "Policy" that creates situations whereby "Collective Bargaining", with all it's faults and corruption, kept wages from stagnating. And all the while Executive Compensation has been rising (percentage-wise). Of course shareholders are major beneficiaries of profit, but so are Executives who as standard practice nowadays get stock options as part of their Compensation Package.

Anyone who took Economics 101 knows that it's the Middle Class that keeps the country from going into an economic depression. If the 1% or even the 10% keep getting richer, and the majority flat out can't afford basic food and housing costs, then as a country we are in deep trouble. As a consumer based economy, if the Middle Class can't spend money, the economy will spiral downhill. When people in the 10% make lots of extra money, they put it into savings, they aren't spending it, and spending it is what the country needs to keep the economic wheels turning.

Executive Compensation has gotten way out of hand. Government dictates everything about fiscal policy in the USA. And I mean everything. If companies cannot police themselves, then it is not a far stretch to have limits to Executive Compensation. It sounds horrifically Socialist. But it's not. It can be done by way of corporate taxes, which is how the government used to keep that divide relatively balanced. Unfortunately, a large part of the country has been convinced that anything resembling a socialist policy will turn the USA into Venezuela. But the sad truth is that Venezuela and countries like it started off as dens of corruption at every level with virtual dictators and that was their downfall, not socialist policies. Every country in the world where corruption is widespread at every level of gov't - no matter what the structure of gov't (capitalist, socialist, democratic, theocratic) - has people living with a lower quality of life due to widespread government corruption. It has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with widespread gov't corruption.

Anyway, "Shareholders" benefiting from all those corporate profits are often people with a 401k and Executives who get paid with stocks (on top of multi-million dollar salaries). How many people under age 40 do you think have a 401k? Not many, to say the least. The majority in this country are struggling with housing and food costs and are not able to make ends meet. I'm not talking about people on drugs or criminals or people here illegally. I'm talking about honest citizens who work hard and pay their taxes. Housing and food and basics have become serious struggles for way too many hardworking people. And speaking of "Bubbles", it may not happen in my lifetime, but at a certain point the masses will revolt. The economy is good now. But at a certain point, after enough "downturns", and "bubbles" burst, sending out $450 checks to every person in the country (as was done in 2008) is not going to cut it and people will storm the Bastille. The 1% and 10% will run to their secure locations overseas and cash out their Swiss Bank Accounts or Cayman Islands Accounts or wherever they put their money these days. It will be the 90% of the country that suffers. And I wonder if even an FDR or a "New Deal" could help turn things around then.

Of course I hope it will never happen. But ethics no longer play any role in the quest for a rise in share price or personal gain. There is no more shame in greed run amok. Our culture has put monetary wealth on the highest pedestal. It's in our movies, our TV shows, our music, our books. When monetary wealth is the highest value and there is nothing greater, people have no reason not to step all over each other to get there. There is no shame in it. Why shouldn't people knowingly be a cog in the wheel that will hurt lots of people, if being that cog or looking away helps their own personal monetary aspirations?

I'm not finished, but I think this rant is long enough.

 

Au79 $1,518.18
Ag47 $17.29

Hedging coming in to play. Tomorrow will be big day. I think the market will tank again and gold and silver will rise. Just my gut.

 

Time will tell...

How do you hedge?

 

Pre opening movement overnight is big today:

Ag = $17.56
Au = $1,534.05

 

<shudder>

 

... aaaand a 40-dollar drop, from $1534 to $1493. Silver drops from $17.50 to $16.84.

Tariffs delayed! All better!