If you are a longtime follower of SchiffGold news, you may recall that back in 2016, a piano tuner in Shropshire England discovered 13 pounds of gold stashed inside a piano. At the time, I said the story should be filed under the category of “worst places to store your gold.” I haven’t changed my mind on that, by the way.
Anyway, this week, there was a story about this find that updates some of the details.
Talk of hiking the minimum wage at the national level has ramped up in recent weeks. With the Democrats controlling the House and the Senate, and Joe Biden in the White House, it seems increasingly likely that we’ll soon see a federal $15 per hour minimum.
In other words, it may soon be illegal to take a job that pays less than $15 an hour.
In the Friday Gold Wrap podcast this morning, I talked about the minimum wage. Making a point about how raising prices lowers demand, I pointed out that McDonald’s wouldn’t sell many $15 hamburgers. But you know, there is a way Micky-Ds could make that work. Wrap those burgers in gold.
If you’re following the markets at all, you know that the price of GameStop stock skyrocketed this week. As the story goes, it was primarily driven up by retail investors on platforms such as Robinhood, and pushed by social media posts, particularly on Reddit. Now, these so-called Reddit-Raiders have set their eyes on silver.
Bills introduced in the Mississippi House and the Tennessee Senate would repeal state sales taxes on precious metals bullion. This would not only relieve some of the tax burdens on investors in those states; it would also take a small step toward treating gold and silver as money instead of commodities.
This year will mark the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon severing America – and the world – from its last tie to the gold standard. The rapid devaluing of the dollar is the most obvious result. But another consequence has been an enormous national debt that continues to grow at a staggering pace. Most people don’t realize it, but this is a direct and intentional result of the current fiat money system.
During testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Treasury Secretary-nominee Janet Yellen talked out of both sides of her mouth. She acknowledged that too much debt is problematic, but in the same sentence, insisted we need to “act big” to rescue the economy.
Peter Schiff recently explained how the Federal Reserve has rigged the US Treasury market. Well, the European Central Bank has taken bond market manipulation to the next level.
According to a Bloomberg report, the ECB is buying bonds to control the yield spread between debt issued by various EU countries. As a result of this central bank mechanization, the spread between the yields on German and Italian bonds has remained “remarkably stable” despite the Italian government teetering on the verge of collapse.
The US government ran the biggest December budget deficit in history last month.
The December budget shortfall came in at $143.6 billion. That compares with a $13.3 billion deficit in December 2019, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.
The last time I wrote about gold smuggling, I was impressed by the pain a man was willing to endure in order to hide gold from authorities. He literally stuck gold bars up his rear — two pounds of gold.
Ouch.
But today I have a different kind of smuggling story. It is impressive not because of the smugglers’ dedication and ingenuity, but their sheer laziness.
