Sierra Madre Precious Metals

“If iss FREE, it muss be fo’ ME!”

The idea of abolishing rent isn’t new, but it has never really been considered anything but a nutty pipe dream. Fortunately, Omar’s bill has a snowball’s chance in…

As the widening gyre that is 2020 continues to turn, it seems that every day some new disastrous and ill-thought-out proposal is made or policy implemented. Among the chaos, the chorus to cancel rent in particular has stuck out for its sheer insolence and the ease with which it has entered the discourse as a sensible policy solution.

The idea of abolishing rent is not new, but until now it has never really been considered anything but a nutty pipe dream. But with the economic carnage wreaked by the virus and ensuing government lockdown still ongoing it has disturbingly come to be viewed as a conceivable policy option. With tens of millions out of work, the ability to pay for basic necessities like housing is obviously a valid concern, but the callousness of the idea of simply expropriating housing from property owners is disturbing and indicative of darker trends coursing through the body politic in these turbulent times. Continue reading →

If our economic numbers were going to improve substantially, now would be the time for it to happen. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have hit a plateau for the moment, the civil unrest in our major cities has been reduced to a dull roar, and millions of Americans that originally lost their jobs have now gone back to work. If we are going to get some glimmers of hope for the economy, this is when we should see them, because the environment does not look promising once the summer ends. Unfortunately, the numbers that we keep getting just continue to directly contradict the narrative that any sort of a “recovery” is taking place. In fact, the Mortgage Bankers Association is reporting that the delinquency rate on residential mortgages shot up a whopping 386 basis points last quarter… Continue reading →

This is why denormalization is an extinction event for much of our high-cost, high-complexity, heavily regulated economy.

A collapse of major chunks of the economy is widely viewed as “impossible” because the federal government can borrow and spend unlimited amounts of money because the Federal Reserve can create unlimited amounts of money: the government borrows $1 trillion by selling $1 trillion in Treasury bonds, the Fed prints $1 trillion dollars to buy the bonds. Rinse and repeat to near-infinity. Continue reading →

While the mainstream media focuses on the upcoming election, COVID-19 and the endless protests going on in our major cities, another great tragedy is unfolding all across the middle of the country. A nightmarish drought, horrific flooding along the Mississippi River and a giant “Derecho” that just hit the farm belt have combined to make this one of the toughest years for farmers ever. And this comes at a particularly bad time, because the stress that the COVID-19 pandemic has put on food distribution systems has already created periodic shortages of certain items around the nation. We definitely could have used an uneventful growing season this year, and unfortunately we didn’t get it. Continue reading →

If everything is going to be just fine, why are officials spending millions of dollars to stockpile giant mountains of food? What has just been revealed about the “new food warehouse” in Washington state should be a major red flag for all of us. Most Americans seem to believe that the COVID-19 pandemic, the enormous economic problems that have erupted and the nightmarish civil unrest that has been raging in our major cities are all just temporary phenomenons and that life will eventually get back to normal. Continue reading →