Warren Buffett Says This Is How You Stay Financially Healthy In The Pandemic

Warren Buffett Says This Is How You Stay Financially Healthy In The Pandemic

Doug Whiteman  Tue, March 2, 2021

Warren Buffett isn't letting the pandemic get in his way.

The 90-year-old investing legend has gotten both his COVID shots, and so has his longtime business partner, Charlie Munger, according to a report by Bloomberg.  Though Buffett wasn't able to immunize his company from the coronavirus economy, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has been making a strong recovery. Profits were down 48% last year at the massive conglomerate, but earnings during the final quarter of 2020 jumped 23% from a year earlier. 

So, all in all, the billionaire businessman would seem to be weathering the crisis just fine. You can, too — if you follow his lead.  Here are six lessons from Buffett on how to protect your money as the pandemic hangs on.

1. Pounce on low interest rates

With interest rates falling, Buffett says it's a great time to borrow.   Buffett became one of the richest people on Earth by taking advantage of opportunities. In the last year he has been pointing out fantastic opportunities for borrowers, thanks to the Federal Reserve's response to the COVID crisis.

The Fed "did the right thing" by cutting a key interest rate almost to zero in response to the virus, Buffett says. The central bank continues to hold rates down, and that's helped keep other borrowing rates low.

"This is a very good time to borrow money, which means it may not be such a great time to lend money, but it’s good for the country that it’s a good time to borrow money," he said during Berkshire Hathaway's online shareholders meeting last May.

How you can be like Buffett: If you're a homebuyer or homeowner and have a solid credit score, grab one of today's historically low mortgage rates while you can.

Though rates have been rising in recent weeks, you can find new and refinance mortgages at 3% or lower — if you shop around and compare mortgage offers from multiple lenders.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffetts-6-rules-stay-231800460.html

A Healthy Obsession with Money

A Healthy Obsession with Money

By Retire Before Dad

I’m obsessed with money.

I think about earning, saving, and growing money most of the day. I’ve written about money for more than seven years. Saying someone is obsessed with money might conjure to mind words like greed, fame, power, influence, and opulence.  Picture a celebrity flashing fancy clothes and jewelry on Instagram and their millions of envious followers.  Or a hedge fund manager posing in front of a Hamptons mansion for a Fortune Magazine feature. How much is enough?

Money and politics? Barf.  But money is a powerful tool for good.   Sites like GoFundMe help us support families in our communities when they suffer a trauma.  International charities such as Doctors Without Borders and World Central Kitchen can’t operate without generous financial donations.

The pursuit of money for abuse of power or to oppress others is a stain on humanity.  But a healthy obsession with money, for individuals, leads to smarter money decisions.  Years of making smart money decisions will eventually lead to personal wealth.   Wealth provides financial security, the ability to purchase useful things and meaningful experiences, and the opportunity to give to others — all of which make our lives better. But the reason I’m obsessed with money is that it gives me options.

Options When Unemployed

In late summer 2017, I learned that the project paying for my employment would endure deep funding cuts. Management had to reduce staff.   I was particularly vulnerable as a subcontractor.   Though my experience and tenure might have been enough to carry me through the cuts, I asked the project managers to let me go.  They dropped me, forcing my employer to lay me off (I wasn’t happy with my employer, but that’s a different story).

It all happened within a few days. I didn’t have a new job to fall back on.  I wanted to leverage my expertise to build on my career, finding a better employer with excellent benefits and growth opportunities.  That kind of job wasn’t immediately available. I had to wait for it.   We had about $19,000 in emergency savings and $1,000+ of monthly income from investments and a rental property.

Instead of heading to the unemployment office, I focused on my side business to earn supplemental income. Sufficient emergency savings, investment income, and side income gave me the option to be patient during a potentially precarious situation.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.retirebeforedad.com/healthy-obsession-with-money/

Buyer’s vs. Seller’s Market: What Do They Mean?

Buyer’s vs. Seller’s Market: What Do They Mean?

Lauren Ward  Contributing Writer  Last Updated: March 2, 2021

When you’re buying a house, it’s important to know what type of market you’re in: a buyers market or a sellers market. Each type of housing market offers its own set of unique opportunities and drawbacks depending on what side of the equation you’re on.

In a buyers market, the market is more favorable toward buyers due to an abundance of inventory, a low demand for housing or other factors that cause home sales to be slower than normal. This type of market works in the buyer’s favor because they can ask for extra concessions, lowball the offer or generally push the purchase to be more favorable to them. A sellers market, on the other hand, means that you’ll be competing with other buyers for the homes on the market. In this case, the seller calls the shots due to high demand for homes.

Though much of the country would be considered a sellers market right now due to extremely low interest rates on mortgage loans, that could always change in the near future. The pendulum swings constantly, and it’s not always clear where it will stop. So, if you’re considering a new home purchase in the near future, here’s what you need to know about a buyers or sellers market to make the most of the market you happen to be in.

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What is a buyer’s market?

A buyers market is when there are more houses for sale than there are buyers. People aren’t buying at a fast enough rate to keep the market from flooding with inventory — which drives the market to be more friendly to the buyers that do exist.

In a buyers market, sellers must often lower the asking price on their homes to be competitive. If they don’t, they run the risk of their house sitting on the market for too long, which can cause financial issues or issues with getting a loan for the house they’re moving to. Therefore, not only do homebuyers get to enjoy deflated prices in a buyer’s market, but they also stand a good chance of having their lowball offers being considered.

What is a seller’s market?

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.thesimpledollar.com/mortgage/buyers-vs-sellers-market-what-do-they-mean/

Warren Buffett: “Retirees Face A Bleak Future”

Warren Buffett: “Retirees Face A Bleak Future”

Notes From The Field By Simon Black

March 2, 2021 Cancun, Mexico

Warren Buffett minced no words in his most recent annual shareholder letter (which came out over the weekend) when he told investors that “retirees face a bleak future.” Buffett was referring to the pitifully low interest rates that dominate fixed income investments (like bonds and annuities).

In September 1981, he writes, investors could buy a 10-year US government bond yielding nearly 16%. Now, inflation was a lot higher in the 1980s than it is today. But even after adjusting for inflation, the average annual yield for any investor who held that 1981 bond to maturity over the next decade would have been 5.7% per year.  Today, that same 10 year bond yields just 1.4%. But the official inflation rate in the United States is also 1.4%. This means that, after adjusting for inflation, your net yield today is ZERO.

What’s even more incredible is that there are obvious signs inflation may be on the rise; for example, the most recent Producer Price Index of wholesale price inflation reached its highest level since 2009.

Yet simultaneously the Federal Reserve keeps saying that they want to keep interest rates low. And they’re doing their best to push the 10-year yield even lower than 1.4%.

In other words, inflation could go higher, and interest rates lower. So anyone who buys bonds will actually suffer a negative yield after adjusting for inflation.

And this is precisely what Buffett was talking about.

Retirees-- along with pension funds and charitable endowments-- often buy fixed income investments (like bonds) because of their perceived safety and predictability.

The stock market can be all over the map. Some days it’s up, some days it’s down. But bonds (in theory) are stable investments that pay a fixed sum of cash, every single month or quarter.

But it’s gotten to the point now that those ‘safe’ investments can actually cost you money, especially after adjusting for inflation.

Anyone who actually wants to earn a halfway decent return on investment must now seek out riskier and more volatile assets.

Stocks are the next best choice for most people. But the stock market has become absurdly overpriced. There are still undervalued gems, but they’re more and more difficult to find.

Coca Cola is a great example of how overpriced the market is; Coke’s earnings actually peaked in 2010, more than a decade ago. At that time, the company earned $2.53 per share and had $14 billion in long-term debt.

Its earnings have been in decline ever since. Last year Coca Cola earned $1.79 per share, a decline of 30% from its peak in 2010. And over the same period its long-term debt has nearly tripled to $40 billion.

Revenue is down, earnings are down, free cash flow is down, debt is up. Any rational person would look at this data and conclude that Coca Cola’s stock price should have been in the dumps since 2010.

But that’s not the case. Coke stock has more than doubled, and it’s not far off from its all-time high.

This makes absolutely no sense, yet it exemplifies the sorts of risks that stock market investors have to take today, simply because-- as the saying goes-- “There is no alternative.”

If interest rates were at normal levels, no sane investor would pay record high prices for a declining business. But this is what people feel compelled to do with their money now because it doesn’t seem like they have any other option.

Buffett knows this, and he has routinely lamented the overpriced stock market for the past few years in his annual letters, along with outrageous fees charged by big funds and Wall Street investment banks.

To Buffett, stocks aren’t securities to be traded. Instead, they represent shares in a business, and shareholders should view themselves as partners in that business. And the best investments are “wonderful,” well-managed businesses that can be acquired at a discount.

This year Buffett summarized his ethos by saying:

“Productive assets such as farms, real estate, and yes, business ownership, produce wealth-- lots of it. Most owners of such properties will be rewarded.”

One issue Buffett didn’t mention in this annual report is the sad state of finances for nearly every pension fund in the world… and that makes retirement prospects even more bleak.

Social Security, for example, is underfunded by tens of trillions of dollars according to the program’s Trustees (which include the Treasury Secretary of the United States).

Social Security’s finances have been so mismanaged that the trust funds are set to run out of money as early as 2029. And it’s not like the federal government (which already runs a multi-trillion dollar deficit) is in any position to bail out the program.

So retirees really do face bleak prospects.

This isn’t intended to be a downer, but hopefully a call to action. Because there’s plenty you can do about it.

Only a handful of people in the world have the ability to set interest rates and inflation policy, or to manage Social Security back to health. Chances are you’re not one of them. Neither am I.

But we do have the power to use every tool at our disposal to fix these challenges for ourselves.

And that’s the bottom line: unless you want to be like Buffett and still be working in your 90s, you absolutely have to set aside more money for retirement.

There are plenty of ways to do that. For example, anyone with the ability to generate side income can set up a solo 401(k) and set aside north of $50,000 per year for retirement in an incredibly tax advantaged way.

That side income can be just about anything; you could sell products on Amazon, start your own website, consult, drive for Uber, flip real estate, etc.

Whatever your talents and skills are (and I’m sure they’re numerous), you can set up a robust retirement structure and dramatically boost your retirement savings.

You just need the right information… and the willingness to take action.

To your freedom and prosperity,  Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

https://www.sovereignman.com/investing/warren-buffett-retirees-face-a-bleak-future-31198/

P.S. Join the Official Sovereign Man Telegram Channel: https://www.sovereignman.com/tg

When Everyone’s a Genius (A Few Thoughts on Speculation)

When Everyone’s a Genius (A Few Thoughts on Speculation)

Feb 24, 2021 by Morgan Housel

The end of a speculative boom can be inevitable but not predictable. Unsustainable things can last a long time. Identifying something that can’t go on forever doesn’t mean that thing can’t keep going for years. Years and years and years.  Part of it is emotion. During the Vietnam War Ho Chi Minh said, “You will kill ten of us, and we will kill one of you, but it is you who will tire first.” Emotional trends aren’t beholden to logic, which can keep them going far past any point of reason.

Part is storytelling. Unsustainable trends have life support if enough people think they’re true, and once people believe something’s true it gets hard to convince them it’s not. Or put differently: If enough people believe it’s true it’s just as powerful as actually being true.

Every investor is making bets on the future. It’s only called speculation when you disagree with someone else’s bet.

In hindsight there was as much speculation in the 1990s that Kodak and Sears would keep their market share as there was that eToys and Pets.com would gain market share. Both were bets on the future. Both were wrong. It happens.  Of course there’s a speculation spectrum. But let’s not pretend that others speculate while you only deal with certainties.

The willingness to believe crazy things increases when it feels like the world is dangerous and falling apart. Chronicling the Great Plague of London, Daniel Defoe wrote in 1722:

The people were more addicted to prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives’ tales than ever they were before or since … almanacs frightened them terribly … the posts of houses and corners of streets were plastered over with doctors’ bills and papers of ignorant fellows, quacking and inviting the people to come to them for remedies.

Optimism always overshoots. It has to. The correct price of any asset is what someone else is willing to pay for it, because all asset prices rely on subjective assumptions about the future. And like a blind man who doesn’t know where a wall is until he bumps into it, markets cannot know exactly how much people are willing to pay until they go a little too far and say, “Ah, in hindsight, that was the limit.”

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/speculation/

About the Kids

About the Kids

Richard Quinn   February 27, 2021

Should leaving money to our children be a formal part of our financial strategy—or should we focus on our own wants and needs, and let the chips fall where they may?

My wife and I have four children ages 45 to 50. They’re all married and, between them, have 13 children ages five to 17. They’re also all college graduates, with almost the entire cost paid by my wife and me. Three have master’s degrees. Arguably, we did our job when it comes to our children. They were given every opportunity.

Since graduating college, however, all four have had more employers than I did in 50 years. None has a pension. Only two have a 401(k), one with the employer match suspended. Raises have been scarce. One son works on commission.

Like many Americans, they’re caught in the crunch of saving for both their children’s college and their own retirement. They’ll have kids in college—some just starting college—when they reach retirement age. By contrast, I was age 55 when my youngest graduated college.

Here I sit with a pension, Social Security, no debt and investments I don’t plan to spend. Instead, those investments will be liquidated only if I predecease my wife and she needs the money or if there’s an extreme emergency, such as long-term-care expenses in excess of what our insurance will cover.

I’ve made it clear in the past that I’m big on reasonable frugality, living within your means, personal responsibility and so on. And yet I very much want to—and am planning to—leave as much money to my children as possible.

Is there any contradiction between my advocacy of personal responsibility and my determination to help my kids?  There would be if I concluded my kids weren’t responsible individuals. But that isn’t the case. I don’t expect them to be exactly like me and I hesitate to hold them to my somewhat unique standards.

What if they violate my financial philosophy with the money we bequeath? I can’t do anything about that. But in any case, they won’t be receiving enough to become beach bums.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://humbledollar.com/2021/02/about-the-kids/

The First Rule Of A Happy Life

'The First Rule Of A Happy Life,’ according to 97-year-old Charlie Munger

Adriana Belmonte· Senior Editor  Fri, February 26, 2021, 9:16 AM

What makes for a happy life?

Well-managed expectations, according to Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) Vice Chairman Charlie Munger.

“A happy life is very simple,” the 97-year-old Munger said during the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of the Daily Journal Corporation (DJCO). “The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. That’s one you can easily arrange. And if you have unrealistic expectations, you’re going to be miserable all your life."

Munger, who is the chairman of the Daily Journal's board, added that "I was good at having low expectations and that helped me. And also, when you [experience] reversals, if you just suck it in and cope, that helps if you don't just stew yourself into a lot of misery."

Daily Journal Chairman & Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger on the secret to a happy life: “The first rule of a happy life is low expectations.”

Munger’s close colleague, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, previously expressed a similar sentiment during the 2020 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting when he noted that " the American magic has always prevailed, and it will do so again.”

'Do it right the first time'

Munger noted that living his life much differently probably wouldn't have changed his longevity much.

“I think I’m alive because of a lucky genetic accident,” Munger said. “I don’t think I can teach you how to retroactively get a new accident yourself. ... I don’t have any secrets. I think I would have lived a long time if I had lived in a different life.”

 To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://news.yahoo.com/charlie-munger-rule-happy-life-141605326.html

Cryptos versus Precious Metals

Cryptos versus Precious Metals

The Final Wake Up Call By Peter B Meyer 2-25 21

Cryptocurrency

Look at bitcoin. In the early stages, people thought of it as a bet on a new money system, in which the cryptocurrency, despite having no physical existence, but limited by mathematical wizardry, would prove superior to gold. That could still turn out to be true, or, it could turn out that the price action in bitcoin is really just another of the many manipulation tricks coming out the box of the Central Bank controllers. As a result, when the central bank money system blows up, bitcoin and all other cryptos could go with it.

 Bitcoin is not backed by gold or any other valuable asset, it relies on the continued existence of a worldwide electronic Internet, and never can reach a stable monetary value necessary to substitutes currencies. In the event of war, the Internet will go down instantly, every bitcoin owner loose control for immediate use. As Bitcoin is quoted hourly, and its price does not suffer from constant manipulative attacks, as Gold and Silver do.

This gives the impression Bitcoin is accepted by the Deep State-cabal. Because if they accept the existence of Bitcoin, it means that Bitcoin does not present a threat to the fiat monetary system upon which the World depends today. And it is further used to camouflage the large-scale printing of money that drives up prices on Wall Street, real estate, and Bitcoin.

 Bitcoin at $55,000 seems insane, it has made the average crypto wallet rise more than 20 times. Crypto holders should learn something about the Dutch tulip mania of the 17th century. But so far, it seems to be one of those lessons that is not useful to be learned at all.

 Moreover; there is no way to add up bitcoin’s anticipated earnings and discount them to present value. There are no earnings. Never will be. Which makes the Bitcoin a macro play, probably an exceptionally reckless gamble. Bitcoin has gone up 80% this year. The Fools are betting that it will go up more. Why? Because it has gone up! Pure hogwash. In other words; You buy something, hoping that there is a greater fool who will later buy it from you at a higher price. This is not a serious investment, ask yourself, who is the greatest fool?

All, this let us be known that the Deep State central bank knows they can deal with Bitcoin at any time, when necessary. In other words, there is no real security in owning Bitcoins.  There is talk; of the great security that Bitcoin offers, free from outside interference, but the practice is different, considering the manipulation of the central planners, about which there is no information yet, nevertheless, well-informed people say that Bitcoin is a superior form of money. If so, it will soon make the other forms, including gold itself, obsolete, just as the combustion engine car is being supplanted by electrically powered vehicles. Which is also false.

What many don’t realise, that more “stimulus” will not help jump-start the economy? “We should be investing in deficit spending in order to generate economic growth, like Tesla shares were valued at about $200 billion, this company is worth about as much as the GDP of Turkey.

More, the existence of Bitcoin is at the lowest level of physical subsistence, since it is only an electronic charge. When is granted this electronic charge is a monetary value, this requires a jump in imagination. If Bitcoin is money, it is imaginary money, and is consequently nothing else than dream money.

 Bitcoin has a monetary value, only because the – unknown – founder said that it had monetary value, and a few simple souls accepted that statement. Once, statements like lies are frequently repeated the mantra “Bitcoin is money”, it has “monetary value” starts to take hold. However, fundamentally Bitcoin is nothing more than a satisfying gambling game to play.

But life is more than playing games. When time comes, people need to have some real money in hand, in a life-or-death situation, Bitcoin will show how many fools populate the World, like already has been demonstrated by the millions of wearers of a useless face mask.

 Indications Of Market Intervention

Otherwise, a logical analysis of daily action in the gold market reveals constant intervention by the banking Mafia, to drive the price of gold down: a free-market price of gold would have the undesirable consequence of revealing the worthlessness of the reserve currency – the US Dollar, which cannot be allowed to happen, it underpins the worth of the currencies of the rest of the World.

 In an authentic free market, most buyers of gold and silver want to obtain as much of precious metals as possible, in exchange for the currency they offer in payment. Therefore, most rises in the price of gold take place slowly; thus nearly vertical rises in the price of gold as registered on graphs, always indicate market intervention.

It proofs; a true free market for gold and silver does not exist. There are banking entities that work hand in hand with the Central Banks of Britain and the US, to control the price of gold and silver, by preventing its price from rising, or by bringing its price down to discourage owners and prospective owners from investing in gold and silver.

A tell-tale sign of ‘Official Intervention’ in the PM markets are the swift collapses in the price of gold and silver, which take place frequently. To the contrary, “bona-fide” sellers of gold wish to maximise their Dollar profits when they sell their gold – they never “unload” their gold and or silver on the Market, all at once.

 The ‘Official Sellers’ of gold do not care about “maximising their currency profit”. They are interested in only one thing: to bring down the price of gold and silver as fast as possible, in order to scare away potential investors and “flush out” weak hands. Thus, the tell-tale signs of Intervention appear in the the daily graphs of the price of gold, as near vertical falls in the price of gold and or silver.

Official intervention presents itself, as clear as day, at 8 a.m., when the price of gold is $1803, and gold is driven directly – and unprofitably – to $1775 from about 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. They have successfully driven the price of gold down $220 Dollars, from $2,000 down to $1780: a neat 11%.

Whether the price will rise, or be driven further down, remains to be seen. The problem for the “Controllers” is that the lower the price of gold goes, the more attractive it appears to buyers! At $1780, the buyer gets 12.35% more gold than he did at $2,000. A true bargain!

Money Must Always Be A Commodity

When gold is put alongside the present political context in the US; – Where are rumours that President Trump is not going to concede the electoral victory to Biden. – Then Trump could take very ugly measures against his political enemies by proven reject the results of the recent election. Implicating the removal of Biden via art 25 of the Constitution, as DS in the past unsuccessfully applied when he was in office. When Trump is declared the winner and remains in Power it will be with the consent and support of the Military.

Real money is based on gold. While silver is also seen as real money, though not as apt as gold. Money is, has always been, and always will be a commodity. Cryptos, like Bitcoins, as well as fiat Dollars and all other fiat paper currencies today, are not and cannot be real money in this sense, because these are not linked with commodities. Bitcoins and Dollars – and all Cryptos and currencies for that matter – are not “commodities”; they are nothing but numbers without substance. Thus, not suitable as money.

Cryptos Have No Independent Existence

The rate at which the human race is getting richer, the rate of technological innovation, the Central Banks’ interest rate policies; all are irrelevant. What counts is the faithful rendering of who owes what to whom.

If nothing changes, you should be able to buy a similar tool for today’s price of $50, for the same price years later. If, on the other hand, technological progress cuts the time needed to make a tool in half the time, you should be able to buy two tools. And if productivity has doubled, a toolmaker should be able to turn out twice as many — two — in one day. But the basic relationship between you and others is unchanged.

Think further; Cryptos like Bitcoins have no stated value. You do not know the total value of your Bitcoins, until the moment you have exchanged them for a quantity of fiat money. So, Bitcoin has no independent existence such as fiat money has. Because, Bitcoin’s worth depends on the existence of fiat money in which to transact exchanges. As long as there are more buyers of Bitcoin, than sellers, the value of the Bitcoin will continue to rise, and that will bring in still more buyers and its value may rise to the skies.

But when the moment comes – as it always does – when there are more sellers than buyers, then the value of the Bitcoin will fall. When the holders of Bitcoins begin to see a trend of declining value, there will be nothing and no one to stop the trend: Owners of Bitcoins will rush in panic to sell their holdings – to other holders of Bitcoins – before its value falls even further. With more and more owners trying to sell, there will soon be no buyers: no one will want to catch the falling knife! The value of Bitcoin will fall to practically zero.

When the famous Tulip Mania of the 1600’s was over, the losers at least had their tulips to look at. The Bitcoin rise in “value” that took months – or even years – will be over in a matter of hours. Bitcoin will become a phenomenon in history of mass speculation that amounted to ultimate mass grief.

Main Interest Lies In Making Dollar Profits

So, it is correct to conclude; Bitcoin and for the same reason all other cryptos are nothing more than a distraction, created by the central planners to direct widespread public worry away from concern about the eventual collapse of the Dollar’s value.

Bitcoin – and its imitators – serve to distract the attention of investors away from investing in gold and silver. Bitcoin functions very well, as a distractor of attention from investing in gold, because to “invest” in Bitcoin is to use the Dollar to invest in what is essentially, nothing tangible, as is physical gold. And even more important; Bitcoin presents no danger to the Dollar’s value.

The majority of investors has little or no interest in gold. Their main interest lies in making Dollar profits. The rising price of Bitcoin attracts the attention of investors – and that is it purpose: “Think Bitcoins, and pay no attention to investing in gold.”

The prices of the precious metals – gold and silver – are under strict control by the syndicated Rothschild Bankers.

President Trump and his Team know very well, that the real money power in this world is in the hands of the Rothschild owned and Jesuit controlled International Bankers mob. The time when it was necessary to prove the existence of this control, ended long ago. Today it is an unquestioned fact. However, most analysts of the precious metals market continue to bury their heads in the sand of falsity, for various personal reasons. That is, why they only comment on “market behaviour”.

If, in spite of this situation, the price of gold continues to rise because of a gravely increasing amount of world debt issued by Rothschild bankers cartel, the small minority who have been accumulating gold and silver in a inactive market is going to turn into a mass of buyers who want to make a profit, and panic may take place which will take the price gold to unsuspected heights. “Wait and see” before buying, may turn into “Do it now!”

 About a hundred years ago Von Mises already explained how this will end:

 “There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system is involved.”

If there were any trick left that would save a nation from the effects of overspending, corruption and “printing” money to cover its debts, the Deep State would have discovered and applied it already long ago.

The only way out of this crisis is the abolition of all central banks and their economies. To introduce QFS and the people’s economy as soon as possible. Without taxes, so that all the money earned is yours to spend or save as you see fit. No controllers, just enjoy life for the benefit of all.

Be assured, we the Patriots are going to win the fight against the Deep State. The cards have been shuffled and dealt. The game has set its course for the home run to the finish. Nothing can influence anymore the positive outcome. It is taking longer than expected because not enough people have awakened yet. Help to speed up the awakening in the name of all the awakened.

If you found this information interesting, explanatory, valuable, and/or insightful, please share it with everyone you know to help awaken and prepare them. And don’t forget to put up your national flag showing the world you are awake, and motivate the silent awake majority to follow suit.

The more flags out show the cabal is losing their grip of power over us. There is much more enlightening information to follow! You are invited to subscribe free of charge as well as participate in the discussion on the Final Wakeup Call website at http://finalwakeupcall.info/ .

Unity is Power

Our liberation process cannot be stopped anymore. Uniting with others who are like minded people creates and shapes our best reality. Worldwide networks of awakening people are being created, such as in Spain in the Marbella / Malaga area, which attracts an increasing number of participants. In just a few months of existence, the group has grown to over 530 members. If you would like to apply or learn how to start your own regional or local group, please contact FWC via email. Our future lies in our own hands specifically in small communities that become the foundation of our self-managed society.

Stay tuned there is more to follow…

http://finalwakeupcall.info/en/2021/02/24/cryptos-versus-precious-metals/

“Nobody Owes More Than The Law Demands.”

“Nobody Owes More Than The Law Demands.”

Notes From The Field BY Simon Black February 24, 2021  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

There used to be a show from the 90s called America’s Funniest Home Videos, where host Bog Saget would show silly home movies that people sent in from across the country.  The videos typically featured people doing stupid things. And if the video was funny enough, someone could have won the $100,000 grand prize.  All of that was pre-Internet, of course. Now there are people amassing fortunes on YouTube with audiences that rival hit TV shows.

Today, a nine year old boy named Ryan Koji is the highest earning YouTuber. Last year he raked an estimated $30 million from about 12 billion views, all from videos of him opening and playing with toys on camera for his 42 million subscribers.

Another YouTuber named Logan Paul earns $10-$15 million per year, just for being generally annoying and obnoxious on camera.

But he certainly doesn’t keep that much money, because he lives in California. So between federal and state taxes, his income tax burden is around 50%.

And Logan Paul said that high tax rate is the main reason that he is moving to Puerto Rico.

He’s applied for a tax incentive we have discussed many times: most, if not all, of Paul’s income should qualify under the Export Services Act (now called Chapter 3 of Act 60) to be subject to just a 4% corporate tax rate. That could save him $5-7 million PER YEAR.

According to the rules, he will still have to pay himself a reasonable salary. But even that amount will only be subject to Puerto Rico’s top income tax rate of 33%.

The rest will be taxed by Puerto Rico at 4%. And his US federal tax rate will be ZERO.

That’s because bona fide residents of Puerto Rico, a US territory, don’t owe federal taxes on income that’s sourced in Puerto Rico.

And that makes Puerto Rico a phenomenal tax option for US citizens; it’s one of the easiest ways that investors and entrepreneurs can legally slash their taxes.

Like any place, Puerto Rico has advantages and disadvantages. The infrastructure is horrendous, and government corruption is so profane it’s almost comical.

But I’ve been living here under the same tax incentives for a couple of years now, and I can honestly say that the benefits definitely outweigh the drawbacks.

And over the last year there’s been a surge of people moving here, mostly from the US. They’re business owners, entertainers (including some hip hop stars), fund managers, and self-employed professionals (like doctors, lawyers, etc.)

They’re pretty much all here for the tax benefits. They expect taxes in the US, both at the federal and state levels, to increase. So moving here is a no brainer.

It’s not like you need to be earning millions of dollars to benefit from these tax incentives either. There are plenty of location-independent, middle class workers living down here, many who came during the pandemic.

They have regular jobs, and basically asked their employers to start paying their Puerto Rican companies. And, poof, overnight, their tax rate went to 4%.

It’s not just Americans; in Europe, many people have found that one of their best options to save on taxes is moving to Andorra-- a tiny independent nation with a population under 80,000 nestled in the mountains between France and Spain.

Andorra’s tax rate is just 10% and the country has fast fiber optic Internet; and that’s one of the reasons why Andorra has become popular with YouTubers.

In fact several Spanish YouTubers moved to Andorra recently, escaping Spain’s 54% top income tax rate.

In response, Spanish media unleashed an onslaught of hatred, condemning the YouTubers as unpatriotic.

One popular television personality said, “I think it’s unsupportive. Railroads and pensions have to be paid for.” And another newspaper published an article criticizing a fitness star’s “unlikely excuses” for moving to Andorra-- as if she needs to justify her personal decision to move.

Of course, some YouTube celebrities thrive on controversy, and they’re likely hoping to face criticism for their decision to avoid taxes in a completely LEGAL way.

Logan Paul, for example, explained to his audience:

"It's getting crazy here in California you know, paying taxes and for what? Because, the potholes in the streets are not fixed. There are homeless people everywhere, a dearth of employment, Covid not handled the right way... I don't love it."

And that’s the real point. It would be one thing if the taxes you paid were curing cancer. But they’re not.

Tax dollars are, at best, being squandered by an inefficient bureaucracy. At worst, they’re being used to oppress the very people who pay those taxes.  There is no moral obligation to pay more, when there are legal ways to pay less.

A famous judge named Learned Hand settled this long ago when he wrote:

“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes... there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible... nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.”

Moving is one of the ways to legally reduce what you owe. But that doesn’t mean you have to move across the ocean.

Sometimes it makes a big difference to simply move to a different city, province, or state, like leaving California or New York, for Texas and Florida.

But even if you’re not willing to move, there are still ways to legally reduce what you owe. 

You could, for example, maximize your deductions, like maximizing contributions to tax efficient retirement accounts.

That one is a no brainer since it delivers the multiple benefits: you can contribute pre-tax income to reduce what you owe, plus you ensure you’re not depending on Social Security program for retirement, which is on track to run out of money by 2029.

To your Freedom & Prosperity Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/nobody-owes-more-than-the-law-demands-30987/

P.S. Join the Official Sovereign Man Telegram Channel: https://www.sovereignman.com/tg

Some Clear Thinking On $50,000+ Bitcoin

Some Clear Thinking On $50,000+ Bitcoin

Notes From The Field By Simon Black  February 22, 2021 Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

There are famous stories that come out of the Great Depression in which very astute financiers sold all of their stocks just before the big crash of 1929.  Joseph Kennedy famously dumped his portfolio after receiving stock tips from a shoeshine boy. And Bernard Baruch, one of the wealthiest financiers on Wall Street, said after the crash,  “Taxi drivers told you what to buy. The shoeshine boy could give you a summary of the day’s financial news as he worked with rag and polish. An old beggar who regularly patrolled the street in front of my office now gave me [stock] tips. . .”

Now, these comments make it seem like taxi drivers and shoeshine boys don’t have financial sense. And that’s wrong.

Someone’s profession and their level of financial sophistication don’t necessarily go hand in hand; there are plenty of astute janitors, and plenty of idiot fund managers.  But I did think about Baruch’s remarks recently when an Uber driver started talking to me about cryptocurrency.

Again, his opinions are just as valid as anyone else’s. But what I found remarkable is that the only thing he knew about his portfolio was how much he’s ‘up’.  He told me about how he’d invested in a few small tokens, and that’s he’s up 3x on this, and 5x on that, and 2x on another.

There was zero discussion about the technological merits of any particular coin. He didn’t talk to me about what made their software better, or the unique proposition that any of them offers to the financial system.

He didn’t even know the basics of what he had purchased. All he knew was how much he was ‘up’, and that his portfolio was going to keep going up.

And that’s the thing about crypto: there’s a level of fanaticism that we’ve not seen before in modern history with regards to a single asset class.

There are pro-crypto people who are self-avowed “HODLers”, which is crypto-speak for “I will never sell ever… regardless of technological competition or radical changes to the marketplace.”

This is a completely emotional position to take.

But the fanaticism is on both sides. Equally, there are anti-crypto people who still claim that it’s a scam, or ‘worthless’.

Just this morning in the Wall Street Journal, in fact, some reporter wrote that Bitcoin’s “fundamental value is zero.”

This just screams ignorance. Bitcoin is software. Software is technology. And any technology that (a) serves a real purpose, and (b) has a large number of users, is by definition NOT worthless.

Bitcoin has tens of millions of users and provides actual utility, i.e. transferring value from one user to another.

Bitcoin is no more ‘worthless’ than SWIFT-- the organization whose completely outdated technology facilitates international wire transfers.

Yet with Bitcoin at $50,000+, the fanaticism has reached epic levels, and people on all sides are screaming about it. One group insists that it’s going to zero. The other insists that it’s only going up.

It’s hard to make sense of the market with so much noise, so I wanted to make a few rational comments.

[EDITOR's NOTE: Bizarrely, Sovereign Man's email service provider is refusing to send out this email in its entirety because it focuses on cryptocurrency. So, click here to see the rest of Simon's remarks on our website.]

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/investing/some-clear-thinking-on-50000-bitcoin-30936/?inf_contact_key=8ad9b2d98ced9b13f54618b72178abeb16358d5485884e2f31e6019a0d26c8b0

Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

Gold Is One Of The Few Assets That’s NOT At A Record High

Gold Is One Of The Few Assets That’s NOT At A Record High

Notes From The field By Simon Black

February 23, 2021   Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

On December 24, 1943, in the midst of World War II, General Dwight Eisenhower formally took command of all Allied forces in Europe.  This was a big deal after such a pivotal year.   1943 saw Hitler suffer a devastating loss in Stalingrad; and by the end of the year, he had nearly lost Italy.  The Allies could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Victory was within reach, and they were already working on a plan codenamed Operation Overlord-- the invasion of Normandy-- that would begin the final push against Hitler in the summer of 1944.

Eisenhower’s appointment was the ultimate admission of US military supremacy; as Supreme allied Commander, he outranked everyone, including British and French generals.  But the US was the natural choice to take charge.  At the time the US government was pumping everything into the war effort. Military spending was already at a record high in 1942, the first full year that the US was involved in World War II.

But by the end of 1943, military spending had tripled.

The US national debt exploded as a result, surpassing 60% of GDP. That was an unconscionable figure, more than twice as much debt than the US racked up during the Civil War, or World War I.

Money was tight, and the Treasury Department did everything it could to raise cash. Tax rates soared, with the highest marginal rate hitting 94%. They were constantly pushing the public to buy War Bonds.

But most importantly, the Federal Reserve vastly expanded the money supply, essentially ‘printing’ whatever money the federal government needed to pay for the war effort.

1943 was a record year for monetary expansion, in fact. “M2 money supply,” a key measure of the amount of money in the financial system, grew more in 1943 than almost any other year in US history, before or since.

And then along came Covid.

Last year the US federal government spent so much money on Covid relief that the national debt increased by an astonishing $4.5 trillion. And they’re about to pass another $1.9 trillion spending package on top of that.

Bear in mind that the Congressional Budget Office’s projected ‘baseline deficit’ for this fiscal year was already more than $1 trillion. So now they’re piling even more on to that amount.

Just like in the 1940s, it’s the Federal Reserve that’s picking up most of the slack.

Last year the Fed printed so much money that M2 money supply increased the most in any year since 1943.

At least in 1943 they were fighting the Nazis; in 2020 they conjured ridiculous sums of money out of thin air to pay people to stay home.

Plus the record-setting money expansion is set to continue this year.

Based on the monetary programs the Fed is already executing, M2 money supply will increase by another $2.3 trillion this year, or roughly 12%.

And that’s before they do anything new. If Covid-21 mysteriously surfaces, or the government decides to spend another $2 trillion in stimulus, or they pass the Green New Everything, the money bubble will expand even further.

I cannot understate this: this extraordinary expansion of the money supply is risky. And the primary risk is inflation.

It’s a simple concept-- the more money they create, the less valuable the rest of the money becomes.

And we’re already seeing some early signs of inflation and dollar weakness. For example, the dollar is down against nearly every major currency over the past six months.

Also, last week the Labor Department announced that January’s Producer Price Index reached its highest level in more than a decade.

Plus, several commodities, ranging from copper to cotton to crude oil, have surged in price, with the CRB Commodity Index up 15% so far this year.

Commodities are essentially raw materials that make up the products we consume-- everything from mobile phones to new home construction.

So when commodity prices increase, it costs more to produce the goods that we consume… and that often means that companies have to charge us more for their products.

This is inflation.

It’s noteworthy that the Federal Reserve has already announced that they’re willing to allow higher rates of inflation if prices start to rise.

So they’re not even being vague about their intentions.

This raises the obvious question: how is someone supposed to protect their savings at a time when both the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve are waging holy jihad against the dollar?

There is seemingly no amount of money too great to print, no amount of debt that’s off limits.

Typically in an inflationary environment like this, it makes sense to own high quality assets. This is a big reason why the stock market has been doing well.

But a lot of people may be understandably uncomfortable buying stocks at near record-high valuations, i.e. paying 1,000x earnings for a mature, listed business.

The average company in the S&P 500 carries a Price/Earnings ratio of nearly 40 right now, nearly 3x the long-term median. It’s only been higher just prior to the dot-com crash, and the Global Financial Crisis in 2008/2009.

The same goes for real estate; with interest rates so low (again, thanks to the Federal Reserve), the cost to borrow money to buy property is practically nothing. And this has driven up the price of real estate because people can afford to borrow (and pay) more.

Whether stocks, real estate, or anything else, it’s hard to find refuge in an asset that’s already surged to an all-time high.

Ironically, one asset that’s NOT at its all-time high is GOLD. This is almost comical considering the inflationary environment that we’re in, and the fact that gold is a traditional inflation hedge.

Many commodities, stocks, real estate, cryptocurrency, and bonds have soared in price. But gold is actually down over the past ~6 months. So by comparison, gold is relatively cheap.

To Your Freedom & Prosperity  Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

P.S. Join the Official Sovereign Man Telegram Channel: https://www.sovereignman.com/tg

https://www.sovereignman.com/investing/gold-is-one-of-the-few-assets-thats-not-at-a-record-high-30953/