“Boot strapping” is an electrical term used to perform a “black start” or a complete “cold start” of a complex electrical grid after a catastrophic failure. The East Coast blackout of 1965 was one such occurrence. Another was on the Gulf...
When considering the space requirements of $1,000,000, the first question is in what form? I will try to illustrate the volume and weight of $1 million dollars in three forms: $100 bills, gold eagle coins and silver eagle coins.
This story is about one of the world’s largest gold hoards stored in one of the largest most secure vaults ever built. The French stored their 2,500 tons of gold in their secure underground vault in Paris. When the Germans began their...
During WWII the Germans were in need of money to buy foreign materials to conduct the war. It is estimated they stole almost 500 metric tons (around 16 million troy oz equal to $23 billion USD @ $1,450 / oz) from various governments. Most...
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1. Last month Bill Bonner wrote an interesting article about trading the Dow/gold ratio. He recommended selling the Dow and buying gold when...
The first part of home storage is just basic home security. Your home does not have to be a fortress but it needs to have better security than the other homes in your neighborhood so that criminals just pick another one. The obvious ones...
What is truth? I suppose that question has caused more than one person to sit and think for a while. In today’s society we have more information at our fingertips than ever before. The great libraries of the world cannot compare with the...
I have been watching the parade march by…and after months of contemplation I have the following comments concerning the next two to three years.
With the zirp, (zero interest rate policy) savings and bonds are not paying any significant interest. In Germany some bunds are paying negative interest rates. Few stocks are paying big dividends and most pay none at all. Everyone is...
Negative interest rates will only work if the people cannot remove their funds in the form of cash. Once cash is removed from the system then “money” is captured within the banking system and they can charge whatever negative interest...