Lies, Malinvestments And Parasitical Jobs

Over the past couple weeks I have noted various examples of lies, malinvestments and parasitical jobs -- all of these are symptoms of things going wrong, things clearly bad for our economy and our country.  All three have always existed, of course, and in due quantity, but in my opinion these are much higher than what seems to be "normal".

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Lies are bad because they send out bad signals, bad signals that often cause wrong actions to be taken, not just to cover up bad behavior...  I have no desire to explore the topic of current lying too much, as everyone knows about this, but I would like to explore these for a moment to demonstrate their impact.

There are three sets of almost monumental scale lies coming from the Obama administration that almost demonstrate for themselves not just the lies, but the impacts.  The first set of lies are those on Obamacare itself, a subject I explored a time or two before.  It seems that much of the administration KNEW that there would be a number of bad impacts upon our healthcare, but they went ahead with the w hole program anyway.  They KNEW that insurers would make a lot of money (for now, we will see later on if the insurance companies get ground up).

They KNEW that many doctors would "opt out" of various care options.  They KNEW that people would have trouble signing up at the website (they knew it was unfinished and not ready, but they launched it anyway, with great fanfare...  And yet all we have gotten are lies about how many have signed up, how many have paid, what the exact status of each state's programs, etc.

The Obamacare lies add up to a lot of money!  As well as huge negative budget numbers in the years to come.

The IRS targeting scandals are another set of lies and cover-ups.    Apart from targeting "Tea Party" groups (who, as a whole, are very pro-liberty and pro-small business, the latter being about the only source of private sector hiring), we must examine what regulatory uncertainty means for future investment, a topic Jim Rickards explores in his new book (The Death of Money) at great length.  Regulatory uncertainty is one of the major preoccupations of any prospective investor, say, in building a factory or an business that needs an extensive physical presence (eg, warehouses).

Regulatory uncertainty is one of the major reasons why few businesses are building in California (except relatively "clean" ones like software companies, internet companies, etc.), in fact many businesses are leaving California and New York...

Finally, it looks like Benghazi is going to turn out to be another (major?  who knows?) scandal.  Apparently all the important players, perhaps including President Obama himself, knew that the riot leading to the deaths of four Americans had nothing to do with the "video", it was a well-planned terrorist attack, they knew it essentially in real-time, yet they LIED about it not being an Al-Qaeda attack, just "furious Muslims" reacting to the video.  All on another September 11, just when the Obama re-election campaign was in full throttle...

All of these lies have consequences, that is one thing your ever-becoming more humble host here realizes.  Actions have consequences.  Lies are actions, are evil.  These official lies make America a less attractive to not just prospective foreign investors, but to those of us who live here as well.

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Malinvestments is another topics I can only lightly address.  A "malinvestment" is one where an investment actually winds up squandering more capital than it creates.  Three large-scale malinvestments immediately come to mind:

-- The bank bailouts and endless QEs, from 2008 until even now
-- Overinvestment (investment past a certain level becomes bad) in US housing
-- Chinese epic-scale malinvestments...

I can think of very few people that I know who were (are) in favor of the bank bailouts, at least since the the immediate acute phase of the 2007 - 2009 Financial Crisis was over.  Those days in 2008 were scary, and no on really knew what was going to happen, so it is perhaps forgivable among among our regulators and Congress to have granted that immediate financial aid (TARP) to stanch the the great bleeding we all saw, even if the Great Recession happened for various reasons that many saw coming (housing bubble / subprime scandals / over-borrowing and scandalous reliance on government).

What seems to be clear is that we should have let a few more banks go under.  To have had a short & sharp recession (like 1920), and gotten it over with (1921 on).  Instead, we have a dismal recovery with endless huge deficits as far as we can see...

The housing bubble speaks for itself.  Fewer Americans own their own homes than before.  Housing prices have only recovered to 2006 levels in certain hot areas (NYC, San Francisco, parts of Miami, etc.).

And we have yet to see what is going to happen in China...  China has spent immense, almost indescribable amounts of money on little used highways, train stations, and even cities.  There are various experts who believe that the Chinese infrastructure investments will eventually create more than has been destroyed ("that people will eventually move into those empty cities"), but I don't think so.  Mish (globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com) has written at length on China, as well as having quoted, numerous times and at length, with respected China analyst Michael Pettis.  I highly recommend Mish's blog for its "truthiness", Mish has a sharp eye out for those government entities that spend money poorly...

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Parasitical jobs are the latest thing to cross my radar.  By "parasitical jobs" I mean those that destroy capital, that make our country a worse place.  And yet they legal.

I have been the (perhaps clueless,but still) victim over the past year of the mania for getting my vehicle towed away or "booted".  In both cases, it was legal and there signs...  Guilty!  But, in both cases, I parked in a large lot, at night, far away from the bank (in one case, and Suntrust was closed) and the restaurant (Wendy's, beware of Wendy's!).  In both of these cases, the owners likely have had a deal going with a local towing company and local immobilization company (attaching the "boot" to the from wheel immobilizing a car).  Legal, but nonetheless a scam.  A scam, that adds nothing to our country, to the contrary, it wastes people's (the victims) time and resources while enriching the towing companies and providing a "supplemental" though sleazy income to the owners of vacant parking lots...

Don't get me wrong, towing and booting service providers have their uses, to remove broken-down vehicles (tow trucks) and free-parkers who would take up parking spaces of businesses (or governments) who have legitimate business providing services to those who need to park there.

There are bankers and lawyers who similarly are needed in our economy.  But, a certain percentage of those are parasitical as well...  I leave it up to my readers' imaginations for examples...

***

Sometimes these things make me want to just scream!  Or run away, run away to see nothing but things like the below.  I am traveling at the moment but caught these creatures of God late one afternoon on a road less taken (*click* on the image for a better view):

(Wild turkeys, miles from the nearest town...)

Now that I think of it, maybe these were the perfect creatures to show here, smile,,,  I feel better already!

Fun With Bitcoin For Beginners: Part Seven

(As it has been since January since I last wrote on Bitcoin ("BTC"), there have been several changes in the BTC Community and it is possible that some of you have may have forgotten some of the information, review my posts in November, December and January in needed)

Despite the over 50% drop of Bitcoin prices in recent months, it is not going to disappear anytime soon.  Just a few minutes ago I caught the below transaction of $1,009,441.35.  The transaction costs were 22 cents (well under one thousandth of 1%)...!  The hash code for this transaction is:

9f3c9177f97484b3e6a3951889bcd0ae1a2949926ba4ea1c2b3d7192a198f71c

^--- Just click that link, and look around blockchain.info for more about it.

Here is a map below of the propagation of that million dollar plus transaction among "Bitcoin Nodes" around the world, *click* the image for a better view:

Note that Europe is also big in BTC, many nodes, also note there in the "Gulf of Guinea" near bottom right, that there are 37 nodes that relayed this transaction.

Quick Contest: Why are there so many nodes there in the Gulf of Guinea?  The winner gets 0.05 Bitcoin! The Winner is the first one to provide a plausible explanation by comment only here at my blog, so get going!

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In recent days I have had the chance to try out two BTC "mixing services".  In easy language, mixing services take the ID numbers of various peoples' Bitcoins "going in", and shuffle them together via one or more algorithms to make the origin of Bitcoins com "coming out" more difficult to track.

The Blockchain, you will recall, is the public ledger of Bitcoin transactions.  It is only "somewhat" anonymous, anyone's BTC wallet is posted there along with some details, as visible in the above million dollar plus transaction.

There are two ways that I know of (and there are more) to insure better privacy.  One way is to create wallets and use new wallets regularly.  That helps, particularly if you tell no one (not even the person or exchange where you got your BTC) about your new wallets...

And the other way is to use the mixing services.  There are a number of these, and I suppose they could be divided into two broad classes: gambling sites (where when you win a bet, your BTC comes back "mixed") and the regular mixing services.  As a relative beginner myself, I went ahead and chose to use two mixing services I had seen advertised:

sharedcoin.com  (which seems to be affiliated with blockchain.info)

bitmixer.io

***

blockchain.info is apparently NOT any kind of "official service" of Bitcoin and the Blockchain itself (there are very few "official anythings" with Bitcoin, it is a p2p network that no one runs), it is a free service that allows anyone to poke around some of the infrastructure of BTC.  The service seems to be very respected by the Bitcoin Community, my source "Bitcoin Insider" had good things to say about them as I was learning how to perform basic tasks under his instruction.  An option of using blockchain.info is included with the MuliBit Bitcoin client.

blockchain.info allows anyone to enter a BTC wallet and check for "taint", a measure of how strong the link(s) are between BTC received and from where it came.  Taint is measured as a percent from 0% - 100%, I am guessing that a high level of taint ties the sender and the receiver rather closely.    Two quotations from blockchain.info's taint analysis page:

"The data can be used to evaluate the anonymity provided by a mixing service."

and

"The more "taint" the stronger the link remains." (the link between sender and receiver)

In the above hash-coded transaction, here is the recipient's wallet and the associated "taint", again this is all publicly available information:

https://blockchain.info/taint/1AvMFLLHSqJToYdizu1erS1iGcXaQgUVJg

If you click that link, you will note a large number of wallets with 50% taint, a rather strong link (per sender -- notice many senders though -- so the transaction seems to be pretty anonymous), but you will also note a much larger number of wallets (from senders), making this transaction an even harder nut to crack...  I am not skilled enough to make any further remarks about the "taint" of this transaction nor if the sender or receiver even used a mixing service.

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IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES!  These are my experiences only!  Your mileage may vary!  Mixing BTC is at your own risk!  What worked today might not tomorrow!  I suggest sending very small amounts only as you get started and build confidence.

I first tried out sharedcoin.com, a frequent advertiser at blockchain.info, and because they use the same logo of a capital "B" with pieces coming off, I inferred that they are affiliated.  I also guessed that they were likely legitimate as they have been advertising there at blockchain.info for sometime.  I would like to thank "Peter R" for giving me some instruction in first using this mixing service.

-- Start by opening a new wallet at blockchain.info (unless, of course, you already have one).

-- Open your wallet, and click "Send Money", here's a picture (images below edited for privacy), note: choose "Shared Coin" (at left in blue):

-- Enter the to and from wallet IDs and number of repetitions (three seems to be enough)

--  Click blue Review Payment button, you will then get this, it took 6 minutes for sharedcoin to round up some other participants:

After you are done you can check out your transaction, mixed with other people's:

Some text re receipt of the BTC from my MultiBit wallet, there is a LOT of text (again edited):

Seen by 7 peers. Appeared in best chain at height 299xxx, depth 1, work done 3436405.
     in   [304407fc9b0fc13c33c556ec057491bb50a0855ae

Total elapsed time: about 25 minutes.  Of course, I have been writing this part of the article while mixing the BTC, but 25 minutes, perhaps up to 45 minutes would be about right.

***

Using bitmixer.io is different (duh!).  First go to their home page, click the green box ("Start Here").  Then type in recipient address.  Then you will see the below box, click "Mix my coins!":

You will then get a new wallet address (you just have to trust them not to steal your BTC, this is my second go 'round with them) in the orange box, as below:

You then return to your original (sending) wallet.  Then send your BTC to the "orange" wallet that bitmixer created for you.  It has now been some 15 minutes, and my receiving wallet is waiting on confirmations.  Last time I sent my BTC through bitmixer.io, it took some 35 minutes total.

Update: This time it took almost an hour for everything to come through.  Hey, now you know!

Note that bitmixer gives you a 4-length alphanumeric code.  This allows you to send more BTC to that same wallet address for 24 hours, the code ensures that none of your older (first transaction) BTC gets mixed in should you want to send more BTC within that 24 hour window.

***

Look around the sites and FAQs of the mixing services for more information.

Gold Mining Companies

Gold itself has always been my favorite investment in the "precious metals space". Just the gold itself. I favor it above all of the other PMs as well as the gold miners.  Gold mining is an interesting business, I saw that for myself last June at Malartic (Quebec).

While gold mining is an interesting business, the mines, as investments, have other risks associated with them that gold itself does not (and opportunities, of course, as well).  FOFOA has taught us that in the event of a quantum leap upwards in the price of gold that it seems unlikely that the nations where the gold mines re would allow the miners to reap "windfall profits" from a much higher price of gold.  He believes that host countries would not have to nationalize the mines, it would be easier (and less confrontational of foreign capital and mining expertise) just to tax them much higher.  So, he argues that gold itself is less risky and has a higher potential gain than the gold miners.

Nonetheless, a basic understanding of gold mining is useful in having a more complete overall understanding of gold.  Gold miners produce over 2000 tonnes (1000 kg / tonne) each year, the only otehr "production" comes from recycling which accounts for some 500 tonnes (figures approximate).

I compiled the below table from various sources.  The first group (11) are from wikipedia as the source of the "Big 10" (by market capitalization in 2013: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_gold_companies), there listed as well with asterisk is Agnico-Eagle, which was number 10 in 2010 and which 24hgold.com still lists as tenth largest.  Ticker symbols and P/E Ratios came from Barron's, Bloomberg and marketwatch.com.  Gold reserves came from 24hgold.com.  Note that gold mining is BIG BUSINESS, the total market caps of the all of the below (ex. FCX and Norilsk -- as they mainly produce other metals) is over $132 billion.

There is some subjectivity (as well as probable errors) below, as the information I gleaned was sometimes contradictory.  I chose companies that were LARGE, that "I had heard of", that had operations in Peru, that American investors (in most cases) could easily buy shares of, and one or two other criteria.  But, even with some subjectivity as well as likely small errors, there are certain key things that jump out, especially the current losses being suffered by most of the miners...

Market Gold Cap, $ bn Reserves P / E Company Ticker  2013 million oz Ratio GoldCorp GG 23.0 23.01 loss Barrick ABX 19.4 80.26 loss Newmont NEM 16.1 83.33 loss Polyus Gold (PGIL.L) PLZLY 9.0 74.77 loss Newcrest NCM.AX 7.2 60.45 loss Yamana AUY 7.2 12.99 loss Kinross KGC 6.1 38.27 loss AngloGoldAshanti AU 6.0 71.36 loss GoldFields GFI 5.9 64.50 loss El Dorado EGO 5.4 5.85 loss * Agnico-Eagle AEM 5.0 18.28 loss B2Gold BTO.TO 1.91 2.91 49 Osisko Mining OSK.TO 3.16 10.74 27 Buenaventura BVN 3.50 3.73 loss Freeport-McMoran C&G FCX 39.62 47.11 14 Allied-Nevada ANV 0.38 1.89        243 New Gold NGD 2.44 5.97 loss Hochschild (HOCM.L) HOC.LN 1.02 0.43 loss Hecla Mining HL 1.06 0.87 loss Harmony HMY 1.45 51.50 loss IamGold IAG 1.34 11.08 loss Norilsk Nickel NILSY 34.50 38.94 11 Lonmin LMI.L 2.74 20.68 29 RandGold GOLD:US 7.31 11.31 26 Coeur d'Alene CDE 0.88 2.24 loss PanAm Silver PAAS 1.97 2.69 72

The second group (15 miners) I had either heard or seemed to me to be worth taking a look at.  B2Gold and Osisko are both apparently well-run Canadian mid-cap miners.  Osisko is being pursued by both GoldCorp and Yamana, I am not sure how that will turn out.  Buenaventura is a Peruvian company, their largest mine is their share (JV with Newmont) of Yanacocha (the largest gold mine in Latin America).

Freeport McMoran (FCX) and Norilsk Nickel mine other metals that are worth more than the gold -- hence their large market caps (worth over $30 billion each).  Norislk is a big player in platinum and palladium, whicle Freeport McMoran mines a lot of copper.  FCX currently runs the largest gold mine in the world, the Grasberg mine in Irian Jaya (Indonesia), which has occasional shutdowns due to local unrest there.

Polyus Gold is a Russian company with BIG mines in Siberia and the Russian Far East.  They mine 1.5 million oz per year and have the third largest reserves of any gold company.  I would mention in passing that both Russian companies (Polyus and Norilsk) have low market cap vs. gold reserves, this would be so because of the risky nature that investors view see (rightly, IMO) of assets in Russia...

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Related (because so many gold miners are losing money) would be the whole complicated issue of cost per ounce mined of gold.

The most commonly reported such cost is the "cash cost" (still not well-defined in common use).  These figures are often at 24hgold's analysis of each company.  These costs are typically around $560 - $900 per ounce.  Then why are the miners losing money now?  Because their TOTAL COSTS are so high.  Eavan Moore writes a fine article in American Hard Assets (of Sept / Oct 2013, reviewed here:

http://robertmixblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/review-of-american-hard-assets-issue-no.html

Moore writes that if you look at all costs, that would work out to $1250 - $1500 per oz depending on the mine.  So the losses among the gold miners above now seem much easier to understand.  These other costs (beyond the cash costs) include things like overhead, exploration & permitting costs, cost of capital and many others.  Eavan Moore's article is very informative and highly recommended.

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Bottom line for me?  Because I rarely speculate (I almost always lost money on speculating so no longer do it, much...), I would rather have the safest investment and the one offering a likely huge jump in value: physical gold.

BEARISH Column On Silver

Today I enter a realm I have not explored much before: silver!  Most of you, dear readers, already are aware of the bullish case for silver (use is high, silver cannot -- in large part -- be recycled, low inventories, industrial use, etc.), and so because I am not an expert I have not addressed silver in any detail.

Because I have had no authors wanting to write an article on silver, this piece (and whatever else I come up with) is what you are going to get...

Instead, today I present a bearish case on silver, an exploration of a column written in this weekend's Barron's, in their "Commodities Corner" column.  Author Tatyana Shumway "covers metals markets and other topics for The Wall Street Journal".  I have seen her work before she would fairly often do the "Commodities Corner" columns when I used to review Barron's, but I do not keep track of predictions made by Barron's columnists.

OK, but now we will keep tabs on silver's price for a while: silver closed at $19.73 on Friday (kitco.com), so we now have a line in the sand.  [Also a disclosure: I maintain a small position in physical silver.]

She titles her piece (Silver Buried by Supply Glut" and comes out swinging, Shumway"

"Prices are sliding toward 10-month lows, as supplies of the metal are set to outpace demand for the sixth straight year."

OK, I do not follow the world production and demand figures each year, so I have to assume that she knows what she is writing about.  Anyone who is paid to follow metals (and other similar topics) for the Journal are going to have great sources at hand.  She will get her phone calls answered as well...  Shumway quotes an expert:

""Silver has the worst story of all the metals," says Adam Klopfenstein, a senior market strategist with Archer Financial Services,..."

She goes on to write that both silver and gold had both been buoyed earlier this year because of:

1)  turbulence in emerging markets
2)  a safe place to stash money
c)  the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine

But, she thinks that investors are starting to focus on the US economy, where signs of growth might provide incentives to buy other assets.

Shumway then writes about supply & demand:

"On top of the potential for higher interest rates, the silver market has been inundated with with supplies of the metal, HSBC expects a 3.4% increase in the silver supply to 1.09 billion troy ounces in 2014, while demand will remain nearly unchanged at some 938 million ounces."

That works out to some 16% more supply than demand (1.09 billion / 938 million = 1.16).

She then writes that the "All-In Cost of Production" is some $15 - $17 (per troy oz), and then quotes precious metals analyst Howard Wen of HSBC as saying that producing silver is highly profitable when the price of silver hovers around $20 or above.  And the producers are likely to keep producing at these higher prices, furthering the glut.

Shumway then finds another expert (Mike Dragosits, senior commodity strategist with TD Securities) who believes that silver is expected to bottom out at around $18.52 during the second quarter (2014) and rebound to some $19.07 by year end.  Not so great with silver sitting at $19.73...  Dragosits believes that the Fed may boost interest rates too slowly, this would improve the prices for silver (and gold).

***

The above information is one reason why I believe it is important for students of precious metals to read beyond the cheerleading articles so prevalent on the Internet.  This is one of the very few bearish pieces I have ever read on silver...

Is Tatyana Shumway right?  We will see, we have her prediction starting from $19.73!

Gold News And Pictures From Peru

Andina (http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/noticia-perus-gold-exports-to-top-9-billion-in-2014-502070.aspx), a press agency in Peru, recently released the following news item:

Lima, Apr. 14. The value of gold exports from Peru is likely to reach US$ 9 billion in 2014, due to a better outlook for this year in the conditions of the international mineral price, the National Society of Mining, Petroleum and Energy (SNMPE) said on Monday.

Jose Miguel Morales, SNMPE’s head, noted the Andean nation holds a privileged position for taking advantage of a rising gold price environment projected for the second half of 2014.

“Within this environment exports’ earnings from this sector could match the amount recorded in 2012, thus surpassing US$ 9 billion,” he said in statements to El Peruano official daily.

According to Peru-based bank Scotiabank, the downward pressure on the international gold price is expected to finish, giving way to an upward trend in prices.

In that sense, Morales stressed Peru is top performer in Latin America in terms of gold production with output of 165 metric tons per year, while in the global standing, the Andean nation ranks sixth.

Peru's output of about 165 tonnes matches its 2012 production.  Andina published a picture of Peruvian gold bars with the note:

The picture does not make it clear, but if I had to guess, the above gold would be doré bars (typically produced at the larger mines) or from gold mills for the smaller miners.  Note that there are numbers taped to the bars, but otherwise are unmarked or marked only slightly.  They do not have the "refined" and polished look that most gold bars have.

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Doré bars are typically from 55% - 80% or so gold with the balance being silver.  The always useful site goldbarsworldwide.com (highly recommended!) has a description of doré bars here (.pdf, bottom of Page 7):

http://www.goldbarsworldwide.com/PDF/BG_10_Categories.pdf

CNBC (http://www.cnbc.com/id/43974868) says:

Gold mines produce rough gold, called a dore bar. These bars are typically about 80 percent pure gold. The gold is then sent to a refinery, where it is refined into gold of different forms and purity.

The Malartic Gold Mine in Quebec that I visited and wrote about in June 2013 produces their own doré bars of about 55% gold.

Here is a doré gold bar from Peru (produced by Inca One Resources):

http://www.kincommunications.com/clients/inca-one-resources

Inca One Resources is a Canadian company that is buying small gold mills in Peru.  A recent law in Peru is tightening up standards there, so Inca One is buying up small mills in various parts of Peru to conform with the law (as many of the small mill owners are unable to comply with the regulations there in Peru).  Here is Inca One's introduction on their home page (http://incaone.com/):

Inca One Resources Corp (TSX-V: IO) is a Canadian-based mineral resource company and ore processing company with a gold milling facility in Peru, servicing government-permitted small-scale miners. A highly mineral-rich country, Peru is one of the world’s top producers of gold, silver, copper and zinc, with substantial production coming from small scale miners who need government permitted milling facilities to process their ore (such as the Company’s Chala plant).

Inca One is a very small junior gold company out of Vancouver.  They have one mill running now (Chala, some 650 km SSE of Lima, near small artisan miners, whom they hope to have as their ore supplies, Inca One acquired this facility in 2013), I believe the above bar is their ONLY production to date.  They also have a small mine 88 km east of Lima which they appear to want to develop.  Here is Inca One's "Fact Sheet":

http://incaone.com/_resources/Fact_Sheet_mar_13_2014.pdf

***

As Andina mentioned above, Peru is Latin America's number one gold producer and number six in the world.  They are on the verge of displacing South Africa if the latter's production goes down and/or if Peru is able to up their production in the coming years.

Peru has always had gold as a part of its culture, from the pre-Incas (from about 500 BC) until the present.  Some Inca (perhaps pre-Inca, but likely Inca, from National Geographic, 2006), the first item is an Inca headdress:

All of the Native Americans liked nature, the Incas liked making animal images out of gold (from a museum in Munich, Germany, photo via maryldonner.com), these are jaguars:

A Peruvian 20 Gold Soles coin from 1863 (from coinshome.net):

APMEX occasionally has Peruvian One Libra coins for sale, picture from apmex.com:

These Peruvian gold coins are hard to find and expensive down there, as it appears that there is genuine numismatical interest among Peruvian collectors.  I priced a One Libra coin when I was down there that was some 50% over its spot gold metal value, and the coin I looked at was not rare.

***

Peru's largest export is now gold.  Peru's economy is doing rather well now (in contrast to much of South America -- I just ran into my friend who sells capital equipment (pumps & compressors), he told me most of Latin America is slow now).  Gold will be an important part of the Peruvian economy for a long time.

Review of American Hard Assets -- April/May 2014

The publishers of American Hard Assets (AHA) continue to keep cranking out magazine issues oriented toward high-end collectors/investors/consumers.  I am pleased with the progress of this magazine.  As a reminder, here is a link to their website:

http://www.ahametals.com/

At the bottom of their home page they state just who they are aiming at (emphasis mine):

For the high net-worth individual, no other information source in the country brings you the detail and in-depth value on the topics you’re interested in. From the future of gold and other precious metals to all of the different diversification avenues for the hard assets investor, American Hard Assets is the premier source for hot industry topics, as well as the latest in gold and silver news. - See more at: http://www.ahametals.com/#sthash.U53wTswM.dpuf

The website has more news than the magazine, they are trying to keep up with current gold & silver news (a crowded space now on the Internet), as well as news on art, collectibles, Bitcoin (yes, the rich are interested in Bitcoin), etc.

So when are they going to start writing about high-end firearms?  Smile,,,

***

The Cover Story is about precious metals and taxes.  Author Amber Ness starts her article with the rather famous case of Robert Kahre of Las Vegas (what is it about the Feds and Nevada???), where he paid his employees with American bullion coins at face value ($50 in the case of a 1 oz Gold Eagle) rather than the market value (around $1300 today).  In 2003 the Feds came in and busted him and various employees, put Kahre and nine employees on trial, looking at hard time in the pen...  There were a variety of tangled legal issues, and on September (2003) the jury was hung -- unable to come to a verdict.  In 2009 Kahre and three others were found guilty, he was sentenced to 15 years and restitution of $16,000,000.

Amber Ness goes on to describe the "more complicated than you would likely believe" (my terms) of precious metals and taxes.  The single most important (and unfair IMO) is that gains on the sale of any precious metals (that would include the GLD ETF as well) are taxed at a punitive 28% on capital gains.

She provides some examples of how to legally avoid certain tax events.  These would include buying American Gold Eagles, keeping purchases and sales below certain levels, and giving away (to your children say) an amount under $13,000 ($14,000 to minors) without tax liability.

These tax laws are very complicated.  Ness provides a commendable overview of this.

***

In "World News Updates" are short articles on:

-- China overtaking India as the world's largest gold consumer
-- A large diamond (128 carats) being sold by Sierra Leone
-- The one tonne (world's largest gold coin) Australian goes on display in Hong Kong
-- The interesting news that JP Morgan now holds the largest amount of physical silver in the world

***

AHA prints an article from Forbes.com about Bitcoin's legality around the world.  About 35 countries are listed with comments.  Note that laws about BTC are changing all the time.

Note also that AHA is following Bitcoin pretty closely.  Why?  Because the rich are too...

***

Judith Rosby writes a fun article on how 2013 was a record-breaker in various ways in the diamond business.  She writes up 12 cases where record amounts were paid for various classes of diamonds, most of them in this article were colored diamonds.  The highest price?  $83.187 million for a flawless pink diamond, 59.60 carats...  Almost all of these diamonds went to auction, so we know the prices.

[Ed. Note: IMO, unless you are both very rich and very knowledgeable (or have a pro on your side), diamonds are extremely tricky and risky...]

***

Gabe Benson writes "Winning and Breeding: Investing in Horses".  Horses is a hobby for the 1%...  Benson writes a good introduction to racehorses, especially the costs and major issues (pedigrees, buying & selling horses, racing, stud fees, etc.).  He covers the various costs and other issues that horse investors must cope with (a champion class racehorse costs over $60,000 for stables, vet bills, training, etc.).

I enlisted an insider ("Lady Who Knows Horses" from here "LWKH") I know.  She has owned (partly, with some others) horses, including racehorses as well as breeding horses.  She has been at this some 15 years and has loved horses most of her life.  I asked LWKH to put some color into this hobby of buying horses, as the article sketched the numbers fairly well, but provided little insight into the lifestyle...

LWKH told me that most horse owners lose money on the hobby, even if they are paying attention to horse pedigree...  They do because they love horses!  Relatively few make money.  For some, there is the social activity of being around other rich folks with similar interests (which explains many hobbies of the rich that are net financial losers).  The people who are investing in horses are those, who like hobbyists everywhere, do so because they are interested!

***

The next article (by Jeff Patton (pseudonym)) is completely different: "Drugs and Money: It's What Makes the World Go Round".  Patton points out the growing fascination among Americans on the drug trade, see the popularity of "Breaking Bad" ("Better call Saul!").  He passes along a UN estimate of illegal drug sales being some $321 billion (2003).

"Patton" (who has worked for a government agency dealing with illegal drugs), his article provides a nice overview of the illegal drug business for those unacquainted with it...  Methamphetamine has been growing (worldwide, but especially the USA).  Cocaine and terrorists are related (Colombia and Peru).

He spends some time discussing money laundering and the threat (very real) that drug smuggling techniques could be used by terrorists to bring in weapons of mass destruction into the USA...

***

Gabe Benson writes another interesting article in this edition of AHA: "A Different Kind of Search for Treasure Under the Sea".  He provides photos of nodules and equipment being used to examine them and bring them to the surface of the sea.

It appears that there are tremendous amounts of many metals down there in these nodules (a product of super-heated water and matter vented out from below the ocean floor.

There are numerous companies working on seeing if they can mine these treasures profitably.  But there are numerous problems (technological and political).  Benson believes that it will be years until there is any full scale production).

***

Jonathan Kosares (of USAGOLD) writes an article ("Black Swans, Yellow Gold") that looks at historical price changes of gold in periods of deflation and disinflation (low inflation).  Kosares mentions that NO ONE can predict the future, it is NOT a guarantee that we will have (hyper)inflation.

Gold performed very well in our Great Depression.  And gold has performed very well since 2001.  Not so well in the past year or two though!

Kosares recommends look at holding gold to ensure one's financial safety in other economic conditions that may be hard to foresee...

***
Watch expert Ed Estlow focuses on watches that pilots and astronauts wear in his latest: "Watches of the Skies".

Back in the past, when worldwide navigation devices were not available, airplane pilots often had to calculate themselves where they were...  Because of the limited amounts of space in an airplane cockpit, many pilots wore special watches  that allowed them to check time zones and even use some watches as engineers long ago used slide rules...

These watches have become popular now.  World leader Rolex makes number of these kinds of watches, but there is a lot of competition for these multi-purpose watches with large dials (they are easier to read).  Many of these are waterproof watches as well.  I saw these kinds of watches all the time when I worked in the oilfields decades ago.

It was Estlow's article that first alerted me to the new Rolex "Sky-Dweller" watch that I wrote about in my last article ("Peak Wealth?").

Nice article!

***

Jared Paul Stern writes a piece on a new gold (and a silver one as well) coin celebrating tthe National Baseball Hall of Fame.  These coins will be very unusual in that they are bowl-shaped (resembling a catcher's glove on the "heads" side).  Only 50,000 of the approx 1/4 oz gold piece will be made.

***

Elena Mannes writes "Treasure Assets", an article mostly about art and the wealthy.  Art prices go up and down.  There are tax considerations.

***

Jason Vaile writes a (mostly) tongue-in-cheek article "How to Break into Fort Knox", the repository where out national gold is stored.

Well, it seems there are four fences (at least one electrified), land mines, cameras (covering every square inch near the depository building), motion detectors as well as roaming and stationary (in towers) armed guards.  The U.S. Mint Police are armed with machine guns.  The whole facility is surrounded by a US Army base.  The building itself is built like a fortress, it is believed that it could withstand a direct hit by an atomic bomb...

Vaile writes the following: "More recently, in 2010, Ron Paul asked for an outside audit of the vaults' contents.  This request was promptly denied by the Treasury Department, saying it would be "too expensive.""  Mmm-k.  Too expensive.  Sure.

***

In "Mining News" there is a short article on Goldcorp trying to take over Osisko Mining (Osisko is the owner of the Malartic Gold Mine that I visited and wrote about in June 2013).  Osisko is still in play.

Also in Mining News are notes about platinum mine unrest in South Africa (also still going on at present) as well as notes on some small mining company results and an article on new mining laws passed in Quebec.

***

John Garibald ("Hindsight") writes that the Fed's QE program as well as uncertainties with the Taper are causing problems in emerging markets.

I read something similar lately about how the Fed machinations have been affecting Brazil, so it is likely true what Garibald writes: that the hard-to-predict flows of money to the emerging markets is now flowing out.  We are near an emerging markets currency crisis he writes.  Even with differing emerging countries' responses (he says that India is essentially ignoring Fed policy as Argentina fires up the printing presses...), few of them will escape.  He does not mention China here, but the news has been getting worse from there as well.

Peak Wealth?

Have we arrived (or even passed) "Peak Wealth"?  By Peak Wealth, I mean that on the average maybe we (in the G-7 countries, let's say) that there is NO more money to be made, NO more advances in standard of living, NO more confidence in the future (so people won't borrow) in the foreseeable future.

This is something I have been thinking about lately.  One source of ideas has been the new book The Demographic Cliff from Harry S. Dent, Jr.  I have not finished it, but he writes that we have indeed passed peak wealth (my term here) for demographic reasons.

His major point is that most countries in the world face a demographic problem that will lower spending power by consumers ("peak spending" happens around age 48 for example).

I will have more remarks in the near future when I have finished the book and better digested it.

***

Yet we see, almost everywhere, signs that prices for high-end goods can still be very high.  As an example, the picture below is the NEW Rolex watch that I had a chance to see at a high-end (very high-end) mall near us the other day.  The watch is the Rolex Sky-Dweller, it is a watch aimed at high-end pilots and those who like those kinds of watches.  This picture is from eBay, where they have (had) one for sale.  This is the only model I have seen.  Before you read on, LOOK at the picture carefully, there are a number of interesting little features, but I would like you to GUESS the retail price of this watch (answer further below):

The watch is made from white gold (only, apparently), not in stainless steel like you can get in many other models from Rolex.  The crown bezel is also white gold.  Features:

1)  the normal "hands, that show the current time of about 10:11

2)  the little red outlined triangle marks "military time" normally set at GMT

3)  above the date ("28") is a "fisheye lens", often seen in Rolex watches for men

4)  Do you see the tiny black rectangle just SW of 8:00 ("VIII")?  That marks the EIGHTH month (August in this case), so the time is 22:11 GMT on August 28.  If you look closely, you will see small WHITE rectangles beyond (toward the rim) of each hour, the watch moves the black one each month.

The price?  I was going to guess $12,000 or so based on looking at it through the window and assuming it was stainless steel.  But, when I went to ask at inside the store, the salesman told me that it was in white gold, which set my mental gears running to recalibrate, $25,000...?  The actual price: $49,000!!!

So, there is some lag in sectors.  The middle classes are getting squeezed, even the lower part of the 1% are not making gains (except those with lots of stock).  Who's winning?  The 0.01%, the demographic that the Rolex Sky-Dweller is aimed at...

***

Stocks are near their all time highs.  PEs are a relatively high (but not extremely high) 16:1 (S&P 500).  Net margin (borrowing money to buy stocks).  Real (after inflation) S&P 500 growth (starting in 2005) data in is blue (note that in real terms, the S&P 500 is NOT at its all time high, close though), margin (danger!) is in red:

(Thank you "Rocky Racoon" who sent me this from author Danielle Park at dshort.com), her article with above graph and more is here):

http://jugglingdynamite.com/2014/03/31/equity-market-more-suicidal-in-2014-than-2000-or-2007/

Residential real estate has been going up.  The Purchase Price : Rents Ratio is also very high, see Zero Hedge article here:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-01/housing-bubble-still-raging-these-20-buy-rent-cities-and-burst-these-20-others.

The above article compares prices vs. rents that investors could get from buying in various markets.  It looks like real estate is in a bubble again, and unless interest rates stay low AND the Federal Reserve keeps printing (both are very possible) that real estate as a whole will not add to our national wealth...  There are reports that China is stepping to buy US real estate, reports are coming from Detroit (as well as NY state and Alabama) that China is buying LAND and even businesses (as well as investing in new production plants) with all of those dollars they hold.

***

Back to my contention that we may be near or even beyond "Peak Wealth".  An anecdote that some you (esp. in the USA) may enjoy, what I saw (but had no camera, argh!) when I took my wife to a low-end mall to get her Driver's License renewed.  There were several vacancies (OK, nothing unusual, retail is being hurt, yet we hear little about that), but what WAS unusual were the TWO groups signing-up people for Obamacare..., at the mall!  Both groups wearing green polo shirts, in front of computers, helping what "looked like" poor folk get signed up.  I saw some 50 people (total) working to get "their Obamacare"...

Famed uber-bear Jim Quinn has an article just out on Obamacare, Zero Hedge has it here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-02/guest-post-obamacare-ship-fools.  In which JQ asks how many of those well-trumpeted 7.1 million enrollees have actually paid for their health care insurance?  Hmm?

More expensive and lower quality health care is anotehr symptom that our country may have passed its Peak Wealth.

***

The "BRIC" countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) seem to have hit a wall, the case of China is especially important as that country has been the largest contributor to world growth for years now.

China now has huge debts.  Yes, they have built lots of new infrastructure (too much?).  But, the "low hanging fruit" may have already been harvested (Germany and Japan grew quickly when they rebuilt their economies after WWII, now not so much)...  China is very polluted and has bad demographic problems.

Russia is hurting somewhat as well.  While the sanctions on Russia (re Crimea & Ukraine) are biting a little, one thing that seems to be true historically is that the Russian people can deal with adversity.  But, Russia is vulnerable to a drop in the price of oil (which a recent Barrons Cover Story said could happen), and also has bad demographics...  They also have Muslim countries as neighbors, not to mention China...

India is the "BRIC" country that has performed the most poorly in the past several years, in part due to a reluctance to reform their economic system as well as deal with their large-scale corruption problem.

Brazil is hurting because China is buying fewer raw materials now (Peru faces a similar risk).  Brazil is also spending large amounts of money to host the World Cup and the Summer Olympics (in 2014 and 2016).  Brazil has been lately scaring off outside investment under the somewhat erratic President Rousseff.

In summary, don't look for the BRICs to rescue the world economy as they have their own serious problems.

***

Europe will not be sharing in any net wealth generation either.  Their demographics are worse than ours!  And their systems are inflexible.

Enjoy what you have.  That may be about all you are going to get.