Silver Readies For Biggest Monthly Gain In Nearly 7 Years

Silver Readies For Biggest Monthly Gain In Nearly 7 Years

May 22, 2020  By Myra P. Saefong

Silver’s rise may be ‘overdone’: analyst

Silver futures have climbed by 50% from their March settlement low AFP/Getty Images

Referenced Symbols  SIN20 +1.87%    GCM20 +0.74%

Silver has far outperformed gold so far in May as improving demand has set the metal up for its biggest monthly percentage climb in close to seven years.

“Silver has a well-documented habit of coming late to gold’s party, only to then dramatically outperform the yellow metal,” said Brien Lundin, editor and publisher of Gold Newsletter.

The most-active July contract for silver futures SIN20, +1.87% settled at $17.693 an ounce on Friday. It trades about 18% higher month to date, which would mark the strongest monthly percentage climb for a most-active contract since August 2013, according to FactSet data.

By comparison, June gold GCM20, +0.74% has seen a more than 2% monthly rise, based on its Friday settlement at $1,735.50 an ounce.

“Once gold has somewhat run its course and starts to look expensive, a lot of people turn to the cheaper counterparty, namely silver, which has attracted fund and investor money,” said David Govett, head of precious metals at commodity brokerage Marex Spectron.

Quarter to date, silver futures are up around 25%, while gold pales in comparison with its nearly 9% rise.

Prices for silver have seen a “supply side tailwind” because of the amount of supply that temporarily came offline, said Rohan Reddy, analyst at global exchange-traded fund provider Global X.

An estimated two-thirds of the world’s silver mining supply was affected by COVID-19 related shutdowns, with large silver mining countries like Mexico and Peru shutting down for an extended period, he said, adding that Mexico is only now beginning the reopening process for mines. The “supply-demand imbalance” challenge may persist until “governments and private companies feel comfortable in beginning full scale mining reopenings.”

The tighter supplies fed higher prices, with silver up by 50% from their March settlement low, when prices dropped to $11.772, their lowest finish January 2009.

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

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/silver-readies-for-biggest-monthly-gain-in-nearly-7-years-2020-05-22?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo

Opinion: Gold Prices Could Move Higher If………

Opinion: Gold Prices Could Move Higher If………

Opinion: Gold prices could move higher if these 2 things happen with the economy and market timers

May 22, 2020 By Mark Hulbert

Stronger consumer spending and more pessimism from market timers could set up a gold rally

Referenced Symbols GC00 +0.74%  SPX +0.23%   GDX -0.30%

Why hasn’t the Federal government’s extraordinary fiscal and monetary stimulus led to higher inflation and bigger increases in gold? Imagine if we were told last February that $5 trillion would be injected into the U.S. economy by May — a $3 trillion increase in the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet and $2 trillion in Congress’ fiscal stimulus (the CARES act). I would have expected both gold prices and inflation expectations to explode.

Yet they instead have reacted with little more than a shrug. According to the Cleveland Federal Reserve, expected inflation annualized over the next 10 years has fallen to 1.16% from 1.62% in February.

And while gold GC00, +0.74% has rallied after initially falling along with the S&P 500 SPX, +0.23% in late February and early March, its price now is almost 3% below its mid-April high — including a 1.5% decline on Thursday of this week alone.

Cautious consumers

The first factor that helps to explain these otherwise inscrutable reactions is the declining velocity of money — how often money changes hands. That’s because increasing the supply of money, as the federal government has done, will be less stimulating to the extent people are less inclined to use it.

There’s no doubt that the velocity of money has fallen. In fact, as you can see from the chart below, it has plunged. Part of the reason that the velocity has fallen is that many of us have been sheltering in place and therefore have had fewer opportunities to spend than previously.

But we’re also reticent to spend because we’re worried about the future — whether we’ll have a job, whether a crashing stock market will sabotage our retirements, and so on.

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

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-prices-could-move-higher-if-these-2-things-happen-with-the-economy-and-market-timers-2020-05-22?mod=mw_more_headlines

The Three Sides of Risk

The Three Sides of Risk

May 19, 2020 by Morgan Housel

I grew up ski racing in Lake Tahoe. I was on the Squaw Valley Ski Team, and it was the center of my life for over a decade. At a conference a few months ago I was asked what skiing taught me about investing. This was on stage, where you can’t ponder your answer – you have to blurt out whatever you can think of.

I didn’t think skiing taught me anything about investing. But one incident came to mind.

“Well, let me take this to a dark and tragic place,” I said before telling a group of 500 strangers a story I hadn’t talked about much in almost 20 years. A dozen of us had grown up skiing together. Most had known each other since we were young children.

By 2001 we were in our late teens, having spent the majority of our waking hours over the previous decade never far from each other. We skied six days a week, 10 months a year, spending summers on the glacier of Mt. Hood, Oregon and in New Zealand, where the seasons mirror our own.

Skiing took precedence to everything. Most of us were in an independent study program that let us bypass traditional high school. After skiing all day we read a few books and filled out a few forms in the evening in what – to our amazement – led to a diploma.

The amount of time we spent together created a relationship closer to siblings than friends. Ski racing is an odd hybrid between a team and individual sport. You train and travel and eat as a team, but the sport itself is individual. Our race results did not rely on each other; our daily sanity did.

Any group of a dozen teenagers will find a way to butt heads. Half the time I think we hated each other. Twenty years later, few of us keep in touch.

But of the dozen teenagers who, by 2001, I had spent the majority of my life with, four of us had become inseparable best friends. This is the story of two of them – Brendan Allan and Bryan Richmond.

You take amazing things for granted when they become routine. Squaw Valley is one of the largest ski resorts in North America, was home to the 1960 Olympics, and attracts a million visitors a year. It’s staggeringly beautiful. To us, it was just an extension of home.

Ski racing required four hours a day of training, which felt like work to us. The rest of the time – another four hours a day, six days a week – we just skied around, unstructured, having a good time. We called it “free skiing.” Everyone else just calls it skiing.

On February 15th, 2001, we had just returned from a race in Colorado. Our flight home was delayed because Lake Tahoe was blasted with a blizzard vicious even by its own standards. You can’t race or train when there’s a blanket of new snow – racing requires hard-packed ice. So it was time for a week of free skiing.

Earlier that month Tahoe received several feet of light, fluffy snow that comes from Arctic temperatures. The storm that hit in mid-February was different. It was warm – barely at the freezing point – and powerful, leaving three feet of heavy, wet snow on top of the light powder that came before it.

We didn’t think about it at the time – we didn’t think about much at age 17 – but the combination of heavy snow on top of fluffy snow creates textbook perfect avalanche conditions.

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

https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-three-sides-of-risk/

5 Lies You’ve Been Told About Generational Wealth

5 Lies You’ve Been Told About Generational Wealth

Posted in Dinar Recaps Archives on 7/20/2019

By Pavithra Mohan

From TNT -- Ify: This Article explains why RayRen continues to say NOT to gift large monies but to Educate your children, grandchildren... Article on Generational Wealth:

Here’s what you have wrong about people who inherit money.
5 Lies You’ve Been Told About Generational Wealth

The markers of generational wealth are manifold, from the promise of a good education to the security of homeownership. Wealth begets further wealth, but not always through inheritance of assets.

“Much of the transmission of wealth to the next generation goes through these earlier life processes, such as supporting children’s education, supporting their ability to purchase a home, or to get married,” researcher Fabian Pfeffer wrote in a recent study at the University of Michigan. “All of these—education, homeownership, marriage—in turn help you accumulate wealth.”

But the extent to which family money helps future generations retain and build on their wealth—or acquire financial literacy—is less marked than you might imagine. Here are some of the commonly held misconceptions about the beneficiaries of generational wealth.

1. Their Wealth Lasts Many Generations

We don’t have to look further than one Donald Trump to see how wealth can trickle down and set up future generations for success. But generational wealth is actually harder to maintain than America’s richest families might lead you to believe: About 70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the second generation, and 90% do by the following generation.

One reason that happens is the next generation may not be equipped to manage the money they inherit. But it’s also that family wealth can be diluted as it is divided amongst children, especially if each has a different stance on how to invest or manage the family finances. (Think of the family jockeying on Succession.)

Some financial experts even recommend that—not unlike businesses—families come up with a “mission statement” to establish financial values and goals, in an effort to preserve wealth across future generations

2. Their Parents Talk To Them About Money

You might think parents with money share their financial know-how with their offspring. But that’s not necessarily the case. “Some parents don’t want their kids to feel like they have a huge landing pad or that they may not need to work,” says Emily Green, a financial adviser at Sallie Krawcheck‘s investment platform, Ellevest.

To continue reading, please go to the original article at

https://www.fastcompany.com/90372281/5-lies-youve-been-told-about-generational-wealth

Social Security Will Run Out Of Money In 2029 Because Of Covid

Social Security Will Run Out Of Money In 2029 Because Of Covid

Notes From The Field By Simon Black   May 18, 2020  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics released some alarming data earlier this week that surprisingly had absolutely nothing to do with Covid for a change.

The report showed that the birthrate in the United States last year declined to its lowest level on record ever since the government began collecting data more than 110 years ago.

This new record low birth rate breaks the previous record set in 2018, which broke the previous record set in 2017, which broke the previous record set in 2016. . .

You get the idea. This has been a long-term issue: people just aren’t having babies anymore. And it’s not just in the Land of the Free.

Fertility rates are low all over the developed world-- far below the ‘population replacement level’ of around 2.2 children per mother.

(This is the number of children that demographers say will maintain a steady population.)

In the United States, the average number of births per mother is currently about 1.7. In Australia it’s also around 1.7. In Spain, it’s just 1.5. In Japan, 1.44. In Italy, 1.31. In South Korea, 0.92. And in Singapore, just 0.83.

This list goes on and on. And the fertility rates in most of these countries are hovering near record lows.

Even many large, developing countries have low or declining fertility rates.

In Brazil, for example, the average woman has 1.74 children, which is below the population replacement level. And the rate has been falling steadily for decades.

Even India’s birth rate has been declining, down to just 2.24-- less than half the level from the 1980s.

And these statistics were pre-Covid. It certainly stands to reason that with all the economic uncertainty and virus fears, people will delay having children, and potentially have fewer.

This is pretty normal in any economic crisis; according to IMF data, birth rates worldwide plunged following the Great Recession of 2008/2009.

Now, it’s not like a low fertility rate means that some country is going to vanish into the history books.

In Spain, the population declines by an average of just 0.21% per year. And Japan’s population declines by roughly 0.12% per year.

These are trivial numbers… unless you’re thinking about Social Security and national pension funds.

The idea behind most social security programs around the world is that everyone with a job gives up a portion of his/her wages to pay monthly benefits to people who are currently retired.

We do this for our entire careers, with the promise that, when we reach retirement age, the younger generations will pay for our benefits.

This scheme clearly requires a steadily rising population in order to be sustainable:

If you have 1 person receiving benefits today, you’d need 3-4 people paying taxes to support that single beneficiary.

After a few decades, those 3-4 would be retired, requiring around 10-15 workers to support them. And when those 10-15 people retire, you’d need 30-50 workers to support them.

It’s easy to see why low birth rates and declining populations can cause these social security programs to fail.

But Covid is having an even deeper impact on these programs. Because in addition to making the fertility problem worse, Covid has also vanquished tax revenue.

In the US, for example, Social Security is funded almost exclusively by payroll taxes. So when tens of millions of people lose their jobs, payroll tax revenue declines, and Social Security runs a big deficit.

I’ve been writing about this for years: Social Security is already in deep trouble.

The program’s Trustees (which include the Treasury Secretary of the United States) write in their most recent annual report that Social Security’s trust funds will run out of money by 2035.

Again, though, that was pre-Covid. Financial crises tend to make these things a lot worse.

Back in 2007, the last year before the Great Recession, Social Security projected it would run out of money in 2041.

But the financial crisis took such a toll that, after it was over, they revised their projected insolvency date down to 2035.

Social Security hasn’t updated its projection yet to incorporate the Covid impact, and they probably won’t until next year.

But the Bipartisan Policy Center ran the numbers using Social Security’s own financial model. And according to their analysis, Social Security is now set to run out of money in 2029.

That might seem like a long time from now, but from a retirement prospective, it’s just around the corner.

And options for Social Security are extremely limited; the government will either have to (a) radically increase payroll tax rates, and/or (b) make drastic cuts to the monthly benefit they’ve been promising people for decades.

Neither option is good, and most likely they’ll end up doing a combination of both. But not yet.

As this pandemic has proven, they’ll wait until it becomes a major catastrophe before even acknowledging the problem, and then they’ll overreact with worst Draconian measures imaginable.

But any rational person who thinks long-term, however, still has time to plan.

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

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/social-security-will-run-out-of-money-in-2029-because-of-covid-27781/

I Got Better With Money Once I Cared

I Got Better With Money Once I Cared

March 6, 2020 By Big Freddy Smidlap

Sometimes in life you need a reason to do better

Last week I gave you a year by year chronological account of when I Used to Be Terrible with Money.  This follow up explains some of the rationale and motivation to get better with the All American Greenbacks.  It was never a question of understanding or ability before 2005 but more a matter of motivation.

Here I was at 37 years old and just married and newly employed as a low level chemist at a good paying contract job with Big Brother Corporation.  I also had accumulated $40,000+ in student debt that went all the way back to the 1980’s!  Of course I disclosed all of this to Mrs. Smdlap when we even started discussing getting hitched in holy matrimony. 

In the time since I had moved to her place in Buffalo we had survived mostly on her decent salary at an independent record label plus whatever I scraped together form a series of crappy jobs.  I saw this doubling of our combined income as a grand opportunity to set everything right and atone for my financial sins of the past.  This part is key:  you will get some opportunities in life.  You might as well seize a few of them!

I might not have seized the opportunity as tightly had it not been for one big catalyst.  During my 18 year stint of not caring about money or much about the future it was only about me, myself, and I.  I didn’t produce any rug rats or curtain climbers or yard apes and was a happy solo artist in life. 

Then I married a person who was always pretty responsible with money and lived in a $300 art studio apartment in the ‘hood for years to afford a downpayment on the house where we lived. 

She paid off her own student loans just few years after college on a crappy art school graduate/record store employee paycheck and worked her way up from the bottom of the record business.  I like to call this kind of activity paying dues.  Nobody told me I needed to straighten out my finances.  I just naturally felt a certain responsibility to do the right thing now that I was half of a dynamic duo.

Here is the rest of the redemption story as best as I can recall.

2005:  I had just started my temp job the previous fall and even though it paid less than my coworkers were making it was still the most I had ever made.  The first thing I did with my first few paychecks was buy myself a Weber gas grill (we still have and use it 15 years later) and a bicycle. 

Other than those two purchases we basically just kept living pretty dirt cheap compared to our income.  The single biggest thing we did to seize the day in ’05 was to implement the The Smidlap Bucket System for Major Expenses.  We were never going to be the ultra frugal nerds who saved 97.4% of our income and merely existed in the world. 

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

https://freddysmidlap.com/2020/03/06/i-got-better-with-money-once-i-cared/

Here’s Why Stashing Some Gold Could Soon Be Illegal

Here’s Why Stashing Some Gold Could Soon Be Illegal

Stashing some gold? Here’s why that could soon be illegal, according to one notable hedge-fund bear

 May 20, 2020 By Shawn Langlois

‘It is no surprise that people are buying gold. But the authorities may attempt at some point to de-monetise gold, making it illegal to own as a private individual. They will only do this if they feel the need to create a stable unit of account for world trade.’

That’s Crispin Odey, a European hedge-fund manager known for stealing headlines with his doomsday predictions, explaining in a note posted on Bloomberg News on Wednesday why he believes that private gold ownership could be banned if the government loses control of inflation.

Odey said that when the economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, which he has likened to the Great Depression, central banks won’t be able to contain inflation.

“History is filled with examples where rulers have, in moments of crisis, resorted to debasing the coinage,” said Odey, who has raised his gold position in his flagship Odey European fund all the way up to 39.9% as of the beginning of the month from 15.9% at the end of March.

The fund cashed in on the initial market crash with a 21% surge in March, according to the letter. It dropped 9.5% in April as investors warmed back up to a risk-on approach.

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

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stashing-some-gold-heres-why-that-could-soon-be-illegal-according-to-one-notable-hedge-fund-bear-2020-05-20?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo

Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, Or Do Without

Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, Or Do Without

The Three Year Experiment  Make It Work

Earlier this school year, my cell phone was stolen.

I’ve never really been sure what happened, and the police have never figured it out, but here’s what I do know.  When I left my garage for school, I had my cell phone in the car with me. Sometime between the time I arrived at school and 10:30, when I realized I didn’t have my phone, my phone was stolen. We (meaning the police, the school administration, and I) believe I left my car unlocked and someone came into the parking lot and stole my phone. I looked up the phone on Find My Phone when I got home that night, and it took a joy ride down to the airport before going dark, forever.

Obviously, I was bummed. Not only did I lose my Iphone 7, which I’d bought the previous summer, and all the pictures in it, but I also had to get a new phone. I did not want to spend another $350 (which is what I’d spent to get the refurbished Iphone 7).

But I needed a phone. Even during my experimentation with Digital Minimalism, it was obvious that I needed a phone.

Enter Mr. ThreeYear with a solution. He pulled out my old Iphone, which had a cracked screen, and suggested we take it to get the screen fixed. We took the phone to UBreakIFix, which is an electronics repair store about 15 minutes from our house.

We got a quote for a new screen and a new battery. Because the phone was an older model, both repairs came to less than $100. We went ahead and had the phone repaired, then picked it up later that evening.

We also ordered a new case online from Amazon.

By the time we were finished, it felt like I had a new phone. Sure, the camera wasn’t quite as nice as my previous phone, but it worked, and I paid around $110 to have it refurbished, versus over $350.

Use What You Have

One of the lessons Mr. ThreeYear learned well as a kid growing up in a third world country was that when something breaks, or when something’s stolen, you have to figure out how to move ahead with what you have.

Like the frugal lessons I learned from my in-laws, I’ve learned a lot about making it do from my husband.

They didn’t know the WWII-era proverb growing up, Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without, they just lived it. Making do was part and parcel of my in-laws’ DNA.

When something broke, instead of rushing out and buying a new version, they fixed it.

Since we’ve collectively been in quarantine as a world, I have no doubt that this old proverb has been lived out by millions of people around the planet.

As a nation, we’re not used to facing shortages, but since March we’ve had to make do with shortages of toilet paper and paper towels, alcohol, Clorox wipes, dish soap, and now meat (good thing this was the year we’ve opted to eat more vegetarian!).

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

https://www.thethreeyearexperiment.com/make-it-do/

Have I Told You I Used to Be Terrible with Money?

Have I Told You I Used to Be Terrible with Money?

February 25, 2020 By Big Freddy Smidlap

I wasn’t a stupid dumb dummy about money.  I just didn’t care!

Let’s take a chronological journey year by year to see what not caring about finances looks like.  I took the hard way.  I hope you took the easy way or at least easier than I did.

1986 – Start college 800 miles from my rural home in Northern, NY State.  College was in Norfolk, VA and as soon as I got there I found out you could just sign up for unsecured credit cards right on campus.  I must have signed up for 2-3 cards with about $1,000 limit each.  That might have been a nice way to build credit but I went and used them.  I don’t know what I bought.  I think the student loan this year was about $2,500.

1987 – More college in Virginia.  I had fine grades and was in an Academic Honors Program.  I also had a full tuition scholarship but borrowed another $2,500 for room and board.

1988 – Transfer colleges back to Upstate, NY to a fancy liberal arts school.  I probably borrowed another $2,500.  I did OK in school here but started spending on those cards to go out and socialize with a substandard girlfriend.

1989 – I must have gotten antsy and I quit school.  A friend invited me to move to Buffalo, NY and hang out and sleep on the couch in a house with a bunch of the track team.  At least housing was cheap but quitting school was another $2,500 loan with zero credits to show.

1990 – I worked a series of temp jobs in Buffalo and got hired at a cruddy environmental lab.  It seems like every future or starting chemist had to pay their dues with this garbage work at some point.  At least most of my chemistry friends did.  To this point I had never made more than 4 grand in a year but this big year it was almost $12,000!  I still spent on those credit accounts I opened in the 80’s. 

I didn’t pay anything on those student loans that were accruing at over 8%.  Interest rates were high in those days.  I spent most of my money eating at Denny’s or on beer.  I hadn’t discovered the glory of wine yet.  My share of rent was $150/month in a nice apartment and I had a car.  My best friend and I got fired from that lab job the day before Thanksgiving and that was a blessing.

Happy Thanksgiving, you boys are fired!1991 – We had spent the winter needing heating and electric assistance from the gub’mint due to our unemployment claims being delayed.  We still had cable and never fell behind on rent.  We played darts, watched a lot of Beavis and Butthead and continued to eat late night at Denny’s.  I moved to my benevolent Uncle’s place in my home town. 

The economy was tough and it was hard to get a decent job without having finished school.  Student loan and credit card interest continues to accue.  I didn’t care.  I was a fry cook and grill man at a chain pub called The Ground Round.

1992 – I would do anything for a J.O.B. including answering jobs ads in the Boston Globe.  I landed another crap job in another crap environmental lab outside Boston.  That’s a very expensive city.  I lived in a boarding house  full of dope fiends and degenerates who were mostly harmless. 

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

https://freddysmidlap.com/2020/02/25/have-i-told-you-i-used-to-be-terrible-with-money/

Life Changing Economic Theories, Applied To Personal Finance

Life Changing Economic Theories, Applied To Personal Finance

The Woke Salaryman

 My parents always insisted that I should make economics a core part of what I learnt in school.

So when I went to Ngee Ann as a Mass Communication student, I absolutely disappointed them.

That said, it’s never too late to start learning.

As part of my commitment to becoming a specialist with a generalist skillset, I’ve started to pick up economics along the way by reading articles and watching videos, just to see what I’m missing.

And it turns out, my parents were right. I was indeed missing out on a lot. Here are six theories that made me wish I went to JC and learnt the subject earlier.

We’ve reframed these so that it applies to individuals instead of entire countries or geopolitical regions. Here’s to hoping it helps tweak your perspectives.

They certainly changed mine.

Law Of Diminishing Returns

Simply put: Allocating more time/resources/energy into something usually means a positive outcome. But there comes a point where adding more just doesn’t have a big impact anymore.

How you can think about it: If you work 8 hours a day, you are an acceptable employee with okay performance.

12 hours a day? You might be an exceptional employee with high performance. You might even get an increment because of your effort.

After that, it doesn’t make sense to work any harder or longer, at least when it comes to money. Your boss won’t pay you even more if you work 24 hours a day.

Likewise, you might be happier if you had a million dollars today. Even happier if you have 10 million. But subsequent millions? They won’t make you as happy.

That is why money rarely is the sole solution to a contented life.

Paradox Of Plenty, Or The ‘Resource Curse’

Simply put: If you have a lot of resources, but become overly reliant on it and don’t develop your own skills, then you’ll fall behind someone with fewer resources but with the right attitude.

How you can think about it: The reverse implication here is this: you might be born in a poor family, but if enough rich kids suffer from the paradox of plenty – and they will – you will not need to remain poor forever.

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

https://thewokesalaryman.com/2020/05/05/life-changing-economic-theories-applied-to-personal-finance/

House Cats or Human Beings?

House Cats or Human Beings?

Notes From The Field By Simon Black   May 18, 2020  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

One of the more flummoxing aspects about living in Puerto Rico is that the political leadership is never-ending parade of highly corrupted, certifiable idiots.

The latest Governoramus of Puerto Rico seems hellbent on destroying every remaining scrap of prosperity on this island, all in an effort to indulge her ego-maniacal God complex.

Puerto Rico was the first places in the US to order a full lockdown, and it may very well be the last place to open up; the governoramus ordered everyone to shelter in place starting March 15th, and the order is still in effect.

The rules have been completely ridiculous, too. Going to the beach was outlawed. But it’s perfectly acceptable to stand in a crowded line at the grocery store.

One of the great things about Puerto Rico, though, is that nobody cares. People here happily ignore their idiot politicians.

Puerto Ricans naturally distrust their government-- local politicians and bureaucrats have been robbing and stealing longer than anyone can remember.

For example, the FBI recently came down here and arrested a number of top government officials for stealing federal aid that was supposed to have gone to Hurricane Maria recovery efforts.

Earlier this year when the island suffered a series of earthquakes, the US government sent emergency supplies. But as soon as those relief supplies ended up in the Puerto Rican government’s hands, they mysteriously disappeared.

Just last month, Puerto Rico’s government entered into a contract to buy faulty, overpriced Covid test kits from two companies that have personal and financial ties to the current administration.

Basically it was tens of millions of dollars (which is a lot of money for this place) of BS contracts that went into the pockets of friends of the ruling party.

The list is really never-ending. And people here know it. Puerto Ricans have no illusions that the government is on their side. They know that many of the people in charge are either incompetent, or criminals, or both.

And that’s why nobody here cares what the government says.

A friend of mine sent me a video from a local beach on Sunday showing thousands of people out enjoying the sun and sea in open defiance of the lockdown rules.

I really hope this attitude spreads worldwide.

And to me, that’s one of the many silver linings of this pandemic: more people may finally wake up.

At this point there are realistically two groups-- the human beings, and the house cats.

The human beings are sick and tired of these lockdowns. They understand that the world is a scary place, that there are risks.

But they’re still willing to live their lives.

It’s not about taking unnecessary risks or being reckless; they just want to be treated like human beings who are free to make their own decisions without insane government overreach.

The other group just wants to be house cats.

House Cats love being locked down and want more of it. They like government intervention. They love endless money printing and free benefits. They love being taken care of and suckling from the maternal teet of government.

They love cowering in fear in their homes and being told what they can/cannot do.

The biggest difference, though, is that Team House Cat thinks everyone else should live by their rules... and their hysteria.

Team Human thinks that everyone should be free to make their own decisions. Anyone who wants to stay home can stay home, nothing wrong with that. Anyone who wants to go out and take a risk should be able to go out and take a risk.

But most governments are on the side of Team House Cat. And it’s probably going to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

China is experiencing a second wave of outbreaks and has reacted aggressively to lock down more than 100 million people already.

Sadly, nearly the rest of the world seems to want to copy the Chinese government.

(The Chinese central government has also told local housing officials that they will be ‘removed’ if there are Covid outbreaks in their sectors, though it’s unclear whether ‘removed’ means ‘fired’, or ‘disappeared.’)

But the silver lining here is that Team Human is growing by the day; tens of millions of people are starting to see first hand just how disgusting government overreach can be.

So by the time the dust from this pandemic settles, there might just be enough human beings to restore a sense of sanity in this bizarre world of ours.

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

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/house-cats-or-human-beings-27778/