In the ongoing saga of Musk vs. Twitter, we first heard that the iconic billionaire founder of X.com aka. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Hyperloop, etc. started acquiring significant quantities of shares of Twitter. On March 14, 2022, he had a 5% stake in the company. By April 1, he had 9.13% of the total outstanding shares, valued at the time at $2.64 billion, making him the largest shareholder in the company.
Elon Musk Ambushes Twitter Read More »
Why Governments Villainize Assets That Protect Against Inflation
For years, in an effort to drive down prices, gold was attacked as a “barbarous relic” that paid no interest. But it was the only financial asset that wasn’t simultaneously another person’s liability. When an asset is also a liability it’s always possible that the liable party will be unable (or unwilling) to make good on that liability. In that case, the asset becomes worthless. But if you hold physical gold it will always be worth something. The price may fluctuate wildly, but it will never be worth zero. Being a commodity with many real-world uses (in addition to just jewelry), gold also tends to maintain its value during both times of inflation and deflation, plus gold tends to appreciate faster than inflation in times of crisis.
For years it seemed that governments around the world wanted to discourage their citizens from owning gold (while simultaneously hoarding it for their own treasuries). One reason for this seemingly duplicitous behavior is that without an alternative, citizens are forced to spend (and save) using the government-sanctioned currency. If you have the alternative of opting out of depreciating currencies most logical people will do so, once the benefits outweigh the costs.
Another reason governments dislike alternatives to the official currency is that alternatives reveal the true value of the government currency. Governments with perpetually high inflation rates like Argentina often will publish dubious “official” inflation rates in an effort to convince their populace that inflation isn’t as bad as their pocketbook tells them that it is. But with a non-shifting yardstick like gold, their lies become apparent. So they discourage gold ownership and thus leave people foolish enough to listen to their lies, defenseless to the ravages of inflation.
Now with the advent of cryptocurrencies governments have a new villain to demonize. It almost seems that gold has fallen out of favor and crypto has become the new gold. Millennials seem more likely to turn to modern alternatives like bitcoin rather than the antiquated (and time-tested) gold. And it is easy to see why. In recent years gold has remained relatively stable while crypto has skyrocketed.
Can Ruthless Governments Make Crypto Worthless? Read More »
Everyone knows that Gasoline and Crude oil are currently expensive right? I recently updated several of our charts and when I got to the Crude Oil vs Gold chart I was in for a shock. According to that chart either Gold is expensive or Crude oil is cheap. Not as cheap as it was in 2020 but still historically cheap but it is actually simply approaching the long-term average ratio.
The thinking of the ratio is this… if the value of dollars is constantly changing the best way to tell if a commodity is expensive is to compare it to other commodities. Historically, gold has been money so what better commodity to compare to?
Looking at the chart of Gold vs. Oil we see that oil is still relatively cheaper than gold. Now as we have said many times Gold is a Crisis hedge so in times of crisis, gold appreciates. Therefore, we would expect gold to currently be expensive and it is, but it is not currently at all-time highs. Read the Full updated Gold vs. Oil Article here.
In What Universe is $100+ Crude Oil Cheap? Read More »
As Russia defies worldwide opinion and executes one of the largest unprovoked attacks since WWII it is receiving some non-military pushback. Throughout history, there has always been an economic component to warfare. Waging war is an expensive proposition not only in human lives but financially as well. And often the “winner” ends up a loser when it comes time to pay the piper. Bankers have been known to finance both sides of a war and even to finance enemies when a country refuses to pay what they owe. Kings have had to grovel before bankers to finance wars and inflation has financed more wars than can be counted.
Economic Warfare Deployed Against Russia Read More »
the Institute for Family Studies published research saying that U.S. birth rates have fallen to all-time lows. And it wasn’t just in the U.S. birth rates were declining worldwide and this was pre-pandemic. So, with all the people staying home with nothing to do during the pandemic there was a massive increase in births right? No, not really. Research from the World Economic forum expects 23 countries to lose half their population by 2100 including Spain, Portugal, and Thailand.
The Surprising Implications Of Declining Global Birth Rates Read More »
Entity extraction, aka. “entity recognition”, allows computer systems to grab chunks of data from documents and enter them into separate fields in a database. For instance, they can sort through emails, webpages, or even massive WikiLeaks documents and find names, places, addresses, phone numbers, or key phrases and sort them into useful databases.
Entity extraction uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to find mentions of specific data and turn them into structured data. How this data is used can be either “good” or “bad,” depending on your frame of reference. Government agencies can use it to sort through massive quantities of data to track down terrorists. Advertisers can use it to target you with ads that you might be interested in and not show you advertisements that are just a waste of your time. And thieves and scammers can use it to find potential targets.
What is Entity Extraction and Why Should You Care? Read More »
For the last year, the media has been blaming the Semiconductor Chip shortage first on COVID and then on a supply chain nightmare. On January 25th2022, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a report on its findings into the issue.
Technology And The Semiconductor Chip Shortage Read More »
There are a variety of new construction methods that are just coming into their own and each has its own advantages and disadvantages but they also have a variety of advantages over conventional “stick-built” houses. One thing that keeps us building the old way is simply that so many builders are familiar with the old methods. As more customers demand these new systems, and more builders use the new systems, they will begin to gain momentum and we will see a greater percentage of non-traditional houses.
Remarkably Quick And Easy Alternative House Building Methods Read More »
Imagine being able to build all the walls of a whole house in just 12 hours! That is exactly what 3-D printed houses are promising. The house’s 3D printer process uses concrete in the construction which has many long-term benefits, including strength, and durability in addition to the rapid construction process. Walls are typically two or three layers thick with airspace in between which is then filled with an insulating material making the houses airtight, energy-efficient, and strong.
Are 3D Printed Houses the Trend of the Future? Read More »
Social Media has come a long way since the early days of Facebook and Twitter. But recent years saw some cracks developing in their monopoly on the Social Media scene. The fact that Twitter could censor the words of a sitting President offended First Amendment advocates who in turn tried to form alternatives like the Social Media platform Parler. However, because of the wide reach of established hosting platforms, they soon realized that what they thought they owned was really just rented, and their landlords at Apple Cloud communications company Twilio could simply terminate service to Parler.
Will 2022 Be the Year of Massive Social Media Upheaval? Read More »
