Sierra Madre Precious Metals

Nearly 12 years ago I penned a similar cartoon to this one. It featured the sad demise of ‘King Dollar’. The earlier cartoon showed the defeated old King Buck surrounded by his decaying kingdom. The forces of real money, gold and silver, rode triumphantly on horses in the background. Continue reading →

“The reputation of economics and economists, never high, has been a victim of the crash of 2008. An even more serious criticism is that the economic policy debate that followed seems only to replay the similar debate after 1929. The issue is budgetary austerity versus fiscal stimulus, and the positions of the protagonists are entirely predictable from their previous political allegiances.

The preposterous claim that deviations from market efficiency were not only irrelevant to the recent crisis but could never be relevant is the product of an environment in which deduction has driven out induction and ideology has taken over from observation. Continue reading →

Did you know that central banks bought more gold last year than any year in the past 55 years—since 1967?

Though most don’t realize it, 1967 was a significant year in financial history, mainly due to the events at the London Gold Pool.

The London Gold Pool was an agreement among central banks of the United States and Western European countries to stabilize the price of gold. The goal was to maintain the price of gold at $35 per ounce by collectively buying or selling gold as needed. Continue reading →

The average U.S. taxpayer spent $1,087 on Pentagon contractors in 2022, according to an annual analysis by the National Priorities Project at the Institute of Policy Studies.
(Photo: David B. Gleason/flickr/cc)

“The main message? Our government is continuing to invest too much in the military, and in militarized law enforcement, and not nearly enough on prevention, people, and our communities.” Continue reading →

We’re not living the American dream.

We’re living a financial nightmare.

The U.S. government is funding its existence with a credit card.

The government – and that includes the current administration – is spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford, and “we the taxpayers” are the ones being forced to foot the bill for the government’s fiscal insanity.

According to the number-crunchers with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the government is borrowing roughly $6 billion a day. Continue reading →

The stress on the financial sector caused by two bank failures in the United States last month is still a threat and should be addressed by a reimagining of the regulatory process, according to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

“As I write this letter, the current crisis is not yet over, and even when it is behind us, there will be repercussions from it for years to come,” the longtime CEO said in his annual letter to shareholders Tuesday. Continue reading →

What would be your immediate concern if you lost your job? In a GOBankingRates survey polling 1,002 Americans, more than half of overall Americans said they wouldn’t be able to afford their basic bills and groceries.

Let’s take a look at the data along with several tips for protecting your finances in the event of a layoff. Continue reading →

The International Monetary Fund warned this week of “vulnerabilities” among so-called non-bank financial institutions, saying global financial stability could hinge on their resilience. The Bank of England called attention to the same issue last month.

And global investors surveyed by Bank of America in the middle of the recent banking crisis pointed to a group of US non-banks — rather than traditional lenders such as the newly defunct Silicon Valley Bank — as the most likely source of a credit crisis.

But what exactly are non-banks and how risky are they? Continue reading →