I have a buddy who owns a gold and silver business, you know, the kind that buys and sells coins, jewelry or anything made of gold or silver. I saw him yesterday and when I asked how’s business, his reply was stunning. It seems that in January of this year alone, consumers purchased a record 13 million ounces of silver! He also trades (buys and sells) in what is called “junk silver” meaning those coins that were minted in 1964 or earlier when they still used 90% silver in the coins. He told me that he’s never seen anything like it as it’s almost dried up. He can’t get enough as people are buying any and all he has whenever he gets it. It seems people are taking their paper money and savings and putting it into precious metals.
I have another close friend who works for one of the big Wall Street banking firms. He’s from Colorado, was in the N S A (the national security agency). He told me talks are underway to put in limits on how much cash anyone can take out of their own bank account on a daily basis. He said this law could go into affect within 60 or 90 days and the limit could be somewhere between $500 and $2000 per account! If true (and I have no knowledge of this just what my friend who is pretty high up with one of the big banks says) that means that any of us as a family would be restricted or prevented from taking our own money out of our accounts. Supposedly this is being floated with the current situation in Cyprus where the government decided to tax everyones account between 7% and 10% to get out of debt. Naturally this caused a run on the banks which are now all closed until at least next Tuesday and rioting has begun in the streets.
So there you have it, take it for what you will. When I asked my friend, who’s quite well off, what he’s doing with his money, he told me, and I quote “I’m slowly taking it all out of the stock market and then slowly taking all my cash out of the bank day by day so no one notices”. When I asked him jokingly if he’s putting it under his mattress he replied, “no, I’m buying silver and gold coins and hiding those”. I was shocked as this kind of explains why there’s no silver anywhere. I asked him how much he bought and while he wouldn’t give me an exact number he did say it was in the mid 6 figures. So here’s a guy who’s high up in one of the big Wall Street banks who has taken all his cash, which is somewhere in the $500,000 range, and turned it all into gold and silver ounces. He told me he believes, and so do his bosses, that the best case is the U.S. dollar will have a bad fall in value and worst case is that it’ll crash and/or you won’t be able to take your own money out of the banks when the public figures it out and a run on the banks starts. He also said his parents won’t listen to him even though he works where he works and that they’ll probably lose all their money which is in stocks, 401K’s and mutual funds. The misses joked that we’re lucky we don’t have to worry about all that stuff as we have no money in the market!
Anyhow pretty scary from my perspective. Many of you will think all this is nuts and do nothing but what if he’s right. What if you woke up one morning and you couldn’t get more than $500 out of your own bank account, what if the market crashes (it’s happened before people) and all your savings on paper is suddenly worthless, what would you do?
Just saying, think for yourself.
Now to yesterday, Mom went to lunch with both boys yesterday while I was running errands for work. The kiddos are out of school at noon today and don’t go back until a week from Tuesday, Spring Break is here! I have a sales meeting this morning at 9am and then have a couple of other stops this morning. Mom’s taking the boys on a hike with some other kids right after school up on Table Mesa.
We’re supposed to get more snow tonight which is ok but the timing is not the best with it being the first day of Spring Break. Â We’re going to probably go to Steamboat next Tuesday or Wednesday for a few days. Not much else going on.
The youngest is here on the couch with me and it’s almost 6am. I need to get the oldest up as he has tinikiling at 7. Hope everyone is doing well, have a good weekend and God Bless.