Sierra Madre Precious Metals

In the 19th century, notes Murray N. Rothbard, debates on monetary issues were highly public and intensely controversial. Do you favor the national bank? The gold standard? Bimetallism? What is your opinion of the free silver movement? What is most important: a highly liquid money stock that can prop up commodity prices, or a sound dollar that promotes thrift and discourages debt accumulation?

Should the monetary system reward debtors or creditors?

These were issues debated in the nation’s newspapers, discussed in political meetings, and raged on the streets. Every educated man had an opinion. Part of the reason is that, frankly, people were much better educated in those days. It is astonishing to think of today, but average people had the mental equipment to enable them to understand these complicated issues, if not always to arrive at the right conclusions.

The federal government had long been involved in money precisely because this is one of the first areas a government likes to get its grubby hands on when it takes power. The US government was no exception, despite constitutional provisions that would appear to restrict its monetary power. Continue reading →

Policymakers have a terrible habit of ‘solving’ problems by pretending they don’t exist. This is how they ‘solved’ the bank crisis last year. But as I point out below, the fundamental problems didn’t go away. And now that the Fed stopped pretending, we already have our first bank failure.

It’s barely been a year since the 2023 bank crisis in which several large banks, including Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, failed.

At the time, I wrote that the bank failures weren’t over, and that there would be more. Continue reading →

Will the Second-Most Powerful U.S. Bank Finally Explain Why It ‘De-Banks’ Christian Customers?
Bank of America is being advised to quit punishing customers for their beliefs, or else consider a name change, but first it has to come clean about its motives.

Bank of America, the second most powerful bank in the U.S., is being questioned by a coalition of state attorneys general for allegedly refusing service to Christian customers and to politically conservative groups.

Closing just one account of an unwanted customer is harder to notice, the Kansas attorney general said, but it has now happened “again and again and again… (Continue to full article)

Biden Calls for 44.6% Capital Gains Tax Rate, Highest Capital Gains Tax Since Its Creation in 1922
More units of public debt mean weaker productive growth, higher taxes, and more inflation Under the Biden proposal, the combined federal-state capital gains tax exceeds 50% in many states. California will face a combined federal-state rate of 59%, New Jersey 55.3%, Oregon at 54.5%, Minnesota at 54.4%, and New York state at 53.4%.

Worse, capital gains are not indexed to inflation. So Americans already get stuck paying tax on some “gains” that are not real. It is a tax on inflation, something created by Washington and then taxed by Washington. Biden’s high inflation makes this especially painful.

Many hard working couples who started a small business at age 25 who now wish to sell the business at age 65 will face the Biden proposed 44.6% top rate, plus state capital gains taxes. And much of that “gain” isn’t real due to inflation. But they’ll owe tax on it… (Continue to full article)

US banks shut a total of 36 branches in just one week – is YOURS affected?
American banks notified their regulator that they would close 36 branches in just one week this month – with TD Bank and Wells Fargo alone responsible for 28.

Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Citizens, US Bank and Liberty Bank in California arebehind the closure of the remaining eight.

TD Bank’s batch of 20 closures, reported to the Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) between April 7 and 13, are mainly along the East Coast… (Continue to full article)

It has yet to be fully unveiled, but the United States has been robbed blind by the powers that be, which have underwritten Americans’ financial assets as collateral for the coming pop of the derivative and financial bubble. Continue reading →

What’s Behind the Latest Government Scam to Rob You Blind?

“The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.” ~ Lysander Spooner, American abolitionist and legal theorist

September 14, 2016 ~ If a cop wrongfully attacks you, you cannot fight back.

If a SWAT team wrongfully raids your home, you cannot defend yourself.

If a highway patrol officer wrongfully takes your money or your valuable possessions, you cannot get them back without a lengthy, costly legal battle.

It used to be that the Constitution served as a bulwark against government abuses, excesses and wrongdoing.

That is no longer the case. Continue reading →