Headlines

Americans tune into ‘cancel culture’ — and don’t like what they see

U.S. agrees to pay Pfizer and BioNTech $2 billion for 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccine

Price tag of Biden campaign promises nears $10 trillion

Senate transcripts: Joe Biden Quoted N-word 13 times in 1985 hearings

Feds assemble ‘Operation Diligent Valor’ force to battle Portland unrest

Existing home sales surge nearly 21% in June — a record monthly gain

Google appears to blacklist major conservative news sites

At least 14 wounded following shooting outside Chicago funeral home

Liz Cheney defends pro-Trump bona fides after GOP attacks

State Department orders China to close consulate in Houston — China vows retaliation

Gold and silver prices spike

Hollywood dunks on Trump after he offered well wishes to Maxwell


STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Headlines

Democrats want to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal. It’s not that simple

‘It never stops’: US farmers face extreme heat after floods and trade war

Military eyes 16year olds as ranks and candidates dwindle ...

Powerline blog: Ilhan Omar’s family faked asylum, married brother

RNC more than doubles DNC’s fundraising in June

Silver had its best week since 2016 but gold or Bitcoin are better bets, traders say

President tells aids to look for big spending cuts in ‘second term’ ...

Twitter suspends Angel Mom for posting about illegal immigration

Citing discrimination, HUD denies L.A. $80M

Iran denies that the second British ship was seized

Pew: 91% Dems see violence coming ...

Drug overdose deaths fall in U.S. for first time in over 30 years

Precious Ratios

I recently posted a picture and discussion about how the United States used to back some paper currency with precious metals ... see: Real Money. The picture in this blog entry intrigued me to the point that I figured out what the value ratio between gold and silver was in the early 1930s. Roughly a  ten dollar Silver Certificate was equal to 10 one ounce silver dollars whereas a ten dollar Gold Certificate was backed by a half ounce gold coin. Therefore the value ratio of silver to gold then was 20 to 1.

And I also remember that, as a young man in the 1950s, this same government mandated ratio was 32 to 1 because gold was pegged at $32 per ounce when we still had real one ounce silver dollars. Today the spot price of an ounce of gold is $1,287 whereas silver goes for $14.54 an ounce. Therefore the current value ratio between these two precious metals now is roughly 88 to 1.

This suggests that either gold is too expensive ... or silver is too cheap. You decide.

Headlines

Undercover FBI agent got Gillum 'Hamilton' tickets, texts show

Trump directly attacks Fed Chairman Powell, saying 'Obama had zero' interest rates

Gillum hot in Florida ... Up 6

Bolton: Russia 'understands' Trump's real ason for canceling nuclear treaty

RNC moves millions to House and Senate campaign arms

China talks up the stock market amid lurking concerns about share buyback loans

[Nate] Silver: 85% Dems take the House ...

... Pompeo: US revoking visas of Saudi official involved [in Khashoggi killing]

Rock Scott battles the pollsters in Florida Senate race

Former Fed Chairman Paul Volker thinks 'we're in a hell of a mess'

Caravan swells to 14,000 ...

Mike Pence: Honduran [Pres.] Perez told e Venezuela funding caravan

Olympic Medals

In the recent  South Korean Winter Olympics, North Korea won zero God Medals, zero Silver Medals and zero Bronze Medals. However, they did take down first place for the longest tapeworm. When all these Nork athletes return home, the owner of this champion parasite is the only one who will not be given a bus ticket to oblivion.

Copperhead.

Copperhead Snake

I recently had an investment in the largest copper mining company ... along with Carl Ichan. But, after realizing what was happening with the strategic future of this metal, I took my money and ran ... as did Ichan. What prompted my decision?

Copper is primarily used to transmit electricity and information, in minting coinage, in plumbing piping, and in architectural roofing, gutters and other features. Now two of these big uses of copper are on the way out ... transmitting information and household plumbing piping. Increasingly voice and data are transmitted using silicon ... glass fibers. And plastic (PVC) piping is the new and more economical way to move household water. One lone last smaller trend, in micro-electronics, silver and gold are replacing copper because of better ductility and electrical transmission qualities.

So, in the long run, these two major uses of copper will gradually be phased out. Add to this the fact that, in the US, it costs more money to mint a copper penny than it is worth, suggesting that this use may also soon disappear ... maybe even worldwide.

Of course, like often happens on Wall Street, after I (and Ican) sold this copper stock, the price went up ... as did the price of copper! But, like Bernard Baruch once said when asked how he had made so much money, he replied, "I always sold too soon."

Silver Lining

Yesterday morning I watched a compelling interview on CNBC with Kyle Bass, a hedge fund manager who has shorted the Chinese yuan. His argument was that China is just months away from having to devalue it currency by not just 10% but more like 30-40% ... for his reasoning see: CNBC Interview. Then later I read an article that made a convincing case that the Chinese banking system has as much as 5 trillion dollars of nonperforming loans and the government might soon be required to bail them out using its huge sovereign reserves ... for the details see: New York Times Article.

This all sounds like awful news ... not so fast! If the yuan were to be devalued by the amount that Kyle Bass expects, then Chinese products would have enormous price advantages around the world ... and its economy would soar. Also a bailout of the Chinese banking system would clear the decks for a number of new loans to Chinese industry ... matching its explosive industrial expansion with equivalent liquidity. The result would be that China would likely once again be the world's growth engine ... quickly using up the world's existing commodity surpluses. And this would solve much of the deflationary pressures that now overhang the world's stock markets.

Therefore, once again, every cloud has a gold, copper, oil, steel and silver lining.