What Did You Do Today?

I haven't posted about it here because I'm waiting until we have a section for income, tax, and finance issues.

I've been watching the precious metals market since I got more seriously curious last July. Concerns about holding cash from retirement account distributions and claiming my SS at 70 this year got me thinking. Especially with bank interest on savings dropping hard soon, inflation, and bank instability signs flashing.

From July to November I noted that online bullion dealers offered free shipping on orders over $199. Then about December it went to orders over $499.​
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I just heard that one large online bullion retailer has now set a minimum order level at $10,000 due to extremely high demand.​

Investors were already rotating out of the stock market. While at highs overall, that's almost entirely due to a small group of very high-flying stocks. Bonds aren't looking good, so there was a move into cash (CDs, money-market certificates, etc.). More recently a number of large investment advisory outfits have modified recommendations from the old 60/40 rule to some variation of a 60/20/20 or 50/25/25 rule, adding precious metals to the mix of stocks and bonds.

So now cash is looking dicey. Under the mattress inflation eats it, in the bank inflation eats it a little slower (and presents a risk of negative interest rates, new fees to even hold deposits, or bank bail-ins).

But if banks are losing large deposits now hand over fist... well it sounds ominous.
 
It definitely is ominous with the new banking regs going into effect beginning (I think) on Monday. The goal apparently is to eliminate paper silver and gold, as banks have been using paper silver to suppress the price of both gold and silver, but especially silver because it has so many industrial uses. Banks and others holding paper silver and using it as an asset are going to be in bad trouble. When the run begins to cash in the paper silver and there is no silver to back it, people will be very angry. Hopefully you got at least a little @Jacob Petersheim.
 
Jacob Petersheim said:
I haven't posted about it here because I'm waiting until we have a section for income, tax, and finance issues.

I've been watching the precious metals market since I got more seriously curious last July. Concerns about holding cash from retirement account distributions and claiming my SS at 70 this year got me thinking. Especially with bank interest on savings dropping hard soon, inflation, and bank instability signs flashing.

From July to November I noted that online bullion dealers offered free shipping on orders over $199. Then about December it went to orders over $499.​
​
I just heard that one large online bullion retailer has now set a minimum order level at $10,000 due to extremely high demand.​

Investors were already rotating out of the stock market. While at highs overall, that's almost entirely due to a small group of very high-flying stocks. Bonds aren't looking good, so there was a move into cash (CDs, money-market certificates, etc.). More recently a number of large investment advisory outfits have modified recommendations from the old 60/40 rule to some variation of a 60/20/20 or 50/25/25 rule, adding precious metals to the mix of stocks and bonds.

So now cash is looking dicey. Under the mattress inflation eats it, in the bank inflation eats it a little slower (and presents a risk of negative interest rates, new fees to even hold deposits, or bank bail-ins).

But if banks are losing large deposits now hand over fist... well it sounds ominous.
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I think that you could start a thread on this in one of several places, @Jacob Petersheim . It can fit in “income”, “news”, or just as an opinion , whichever you prefer. Then, if later we have a more relevant place for financial discussions, the thread can just be moved.
We have several threads that are in the wrong areas, just because we all started creating threads before the forum had much categories , but that will all work out eventually. So just choose a place and start the thread for now.
 
Yvonne Smith said:
I think that you could start a thread on this in one of several places, @Jacob Petersheim . It can fit in “income”, “news”, or just as an opinion , whichever you prefer. Then, if later we have a more relevant place for financial discussions, the thread can just be moved.
We have several threads that are in the wrong areas, just because we all started creating threads before the forum had much categories , but that will all work out eventually. So just choose a place and start the thread for now.
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Thanks. That works fine. I'm not trying to push for changes.

I'm not in a hurry, but I'm sure we all have issues of funding retirement and living expenses and health care and such. So at some point a category/subcategory would be nice.
 
Don Alaska said:
It definitely is ominous with the new banking regs going into effect beginning (I think) on Monday. The goal apparently is to eliminate paper silver and gold, as banks have been using paper silver to suppress the price of both gold and silver, but especially silver because it has so many industrial uses. Banks and others holding paper silver and using it as an asset are going to be in bad trouble. When the run begins to cash in the paper silver and there is no silver to back it, people will be very angry. Hopefully you got at least a little @Jacob Petersheim.
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Wonder where it is?


eedless to say, I believe that all the gold will be there and accounted for. However, the American public will likely need to wait a long time to find out. Due to the sheer volume (147.3 million ounces in Fort Knox, 56 million ounces in the West Point Mint, 43.9 million ounces in the Denver Mint, 13.4 million ounces in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and 2,400 ounces on display at Federal Reserve banks), this audit could take years. With a team of 19 people, it takes around six minutes to move, weigh, take assay samples, and restore a single bar. A comprehensive audit of the 699,515 bars in the custody of the U.S. Mint (working 24 hours a day) would take around four years to complete. It theoretically could get done in 6 months if the team expanded to 1,280 people working 24 hours a day, but the limited space at all three Mint storage facilities would make that impossible. Either way, personnel costs would be around $53 million. It would cost $232 to assay one bar and approximately $162 million to assay all the bars. And it would cost $41 million to replace all the gold destroyed by the assay process. The total estimated costs of a comprehensive audit would be approximately $256 million.



Now, Elon Musk is much smarter than I am, so I hope he can find a better, faster way to do it, but I am not optimistic.

 
We've taken this thread off-topic, but...
Marie Mallory said:
Wonder where it is?
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As far as I know the silver story is different from the issue of US Government gold reserves.

The US has been disposing of its accumulated silver since the 1980 Hunt Brothers episode. Part of that was through the US Mint's Silver Eagle program along with silver medallions that came along soon after.

There are historical reasons for this. Silver was not a US "thing" until it suddenly was, due to the Comstock Lode. This got hotly political very fast.

There are a couple of interesting and watchable recent videos on this. I'll start a "politics" thread with those. The political "bell" that was struck is still ringing quite loud even today.
 
Don Alaska said:
Try a good therapeutic massage @Bobby Cole. Sometimes a chiro is needed, but I find that massage often helps more, especially if just muscles are involved.
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It went “POP” and I said “crap” or some derivative of that.

Even though the Chiro seemed to get things back into place, I’m still hitting my vibrating easy chair and using Yvonne’s massaging thingamajig that has two / three pronged spinning balls or whatchamacallits and has about a 10” span. It’s kinda brutal and using it feels a bit masochistic but it gets the job done.
 
Bobby Cole said:
It went “POP” and I said “crap” or some derivative of that.

Even though the Chiro seemed to get things back into place, I’m still hitting my vibrating easy chair and using Yvonne’s massaging thingamajig that has two / three pronged spinning balls or whatchamacallits and has about a 10” span. It’s kinda brutal and using it feels a bit masochistic but it gets the job done.
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I think you would find a good professional massage to be helpful though. I once had a massage by a therapist who worked for the Chargers or some Southern California sports team. It was actually quite painful. but it got the job done. My last one was by a guy who concentrated on my back, and it was probably the best ever. I have become a big advocate for GOOD therapeutic massage. I have a "magic chair" too that I got after I was healed from the back surgery. If you can get the chiro to prescribe the massage, it is often covered by insurance. Medicare usually covers it, but the therapists or chiro have to submit a care plan, and not all of them want to bother with that.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Just gotta ask... do people often mail canned corn to you? 🌽
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Thank you for asking that, @Beth Gallagher !
I was wondering that same thing as I mentally pictured Jacob out at the mailbox with a can of frozen exploded corn all over inside. Maybe looking sad because now the corn was no good for whatever recipe he planned to use it in ?
He definitely needs to remind the sender to only send him the cans of corn in warm weather……
 
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Today have errands to run..the bank, post office, pay a bill at clinic, and stop at the store in town to buy as little as possible, before our grocery run next week in Dodge City.
Yesterday we spent the day at eye doctors office in Garden City- 2 hours from here. -- ate some Mexican food, went to Ollie's and bought some new silverware. By the time we got home.. to popped.
 
I spent about three hours in a Zoom type of meeting this morning, and I am happy to be done with that . I applied for a fitness tracker study from the website where I get health surveys and studies from, and they called me at 7 this morning to ask the qualification questions, and then to set up the fitness trackers that i will be wearing for the next month as part of the study.
I actually start wearing the tracking devices first thing in the morning, so today, i will just read through the information they sent me about what to do and how to do it.

I think that this will be a fun study, and I am looking forward to doing this.
But right now, I am ready for a little nap.
I got up around 4 this morning, so i could get everything done that needed to happen before the zoom meeting. I put the kittens in their bedroom and left them there so they would not be jumping on my iPad while I was trying to be in the meeting. Now, they are out and making up for lost time !
 
My goal today is to concentrate on my computer that my son bought me for my birthday. It's stuck in a loop of the recovery mode. It's been sitting dormant for months because I ran out of solutions to try. So far I've gotten a work area set up. I have to bring the extra monitor, keyboard and mouse upstairs from the basement and then just look at it. :rolleyes:
 
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