The observation of modern finance through the lens of sound money requires an onion peeler. Each time I imagine onions, I think of my soft contact lens patients; the ones who abuse them. I think of the patients who wear them too long or through periods of mild irritation or redness and practice poor hygiene.
Soft contact lenses mask normal corneal sensitivity. They act like tiny onion goggles. With soft lenses in place, one can literally chop onions and not feel the normal irritating sensation at all. The problem is they tend to be the last to know about the trouble.
They can tolerate the underling problem before it becomes a bigger issue like an infection or inflammation - which can lead to permanent damage. But when the pain breaks through it’s never pretty. Everyone is miserable. People generally consider vision one of the more important senses.
Financial ignorance will be worse.
Many are in a position to understand. They know better. They are either dependent on it muddling along or observers view the state of financial risk as an odd curiosity —a phenomenon too complex to grasp — and, therefore, outside of their control.
Something they saw or learned about in a documentary. Yet they should be hearing a voice inside blaring a warning.
When something tied directly to each and every part of modern civilization and personal survival has become unrecognizable and alien it is time to act. No one knows when the years of erosion and irritation will reach the collective ‘financial pain threshold’. Or how that final awakening will be triggered for the masses.
You’ve probably had these conversations many times. I count in the thousands — and often it’s same people who are also abusing their contact lenses. For me, it’s invariably that suspicious, sideways glance that says, “What’s with all the passion about this? So you recommend silver as an investment?”
That usually ends the discussion - politely for most. Of course, silver is not an investment in the conventional sense of the word. It is a store of value that can be used as a medium of exchange and as a unit of account.
Yes, silver contains multiple personalities. It’s an industrial metal - in a big way. With many thousands of uses, silver’s industrial ‘persona’ is just slightly less important to modern culture and civilization than oil.
Obviously, this puts a massive constraint on supply; especially compared with gold.
No government stockpiles of silver exist. The largest remaining ‘official’ storage is tied up and held in possession by a massively bloated financial system that literally controls nearly aspect of government, politics, and popular opinion.
Bloated with paper.
At this moment…Silver and gold are a bet on the stupidity of the modern economists that frequent academic establishments. Although it isn’t even that personal. The metals are a cheap option against the money captured finance and money printing gone wild.
A put against the insanity of the political system and as if that were not enough, the pricing mechanism (like all financial derivatives) is a “legalized” price fixing drastically covering the truth about physical supply and demand.
One could hope that wading ankle high into the world of precious metals ought to be enough to shift perspective. The act of even a small acquisition - the buying, the holding, the transaction - considering each aspect even in the simplest sense is illuminating.
With the ‘known knowns’ of both now and yesteryear accessible to all. To measure a ‘return’ with anything other than ounces at this stage in the game is absurd. Euros, Rubles, U.S. Dollars, Zimbabwe dollars - it makes no difference.
No one is suggesting putting all of your eggs in one basket. That will not change anything, nor will it protect you - ultimately.
Disaster prep at some level is available to almost anyone. Those with the means have no excuse - and therefore will hold on the strongest and the longest, assuming they can make any problem go away.
I worry that the status quo having a strong enough voice to rise up against this is a false hope.
Because what happens when that collective worth of the status erodes overnight? Its purchasing power - its leverage — disappears…
When they become the "disenfranchised".
