Spark268

Lest we collectively lose our memories… and minds. 😛

Do you fear the wurst also?

all of this detracts from the fact that a lot of gold was Stollen.

Do I sense your German accent slipping out there?
Have you an alibi for around the time of the heist?

all of this detracts from the fact that a lot of gold was Stollen.

Surely it should have read: "NEIN minute heist"? ☺️

Football, love it or hate it, will dominate news outlets and Zoom small talk for the next month. Both the sport and the politics have entered the debating arenas, but there has been little mention of the whopping prize fund.
Yes, football is one of the world’s largest industries, but is the prize fund just because of the World Cup’s popularity, or is it really not so huge when you consider what has happened to the value of money? No wonder the solid gold trophy is the world’s most sought-after.
For this post, we take a break from the usual and discuss something near to many sports fans’ hearts – the FIFA World Cup!
Moreover, the World Cup will dominate sports fan attention spans over the next month. The opening match of the 2022 event was on November 20; Ecuador defeated the host country Qatar, which was the first time a host nation lost in the opening match.
It was also Qatar’s World Cup debut. It involves 32 teams at 6 different stadiums for a total of 64 matches. This will conclude with the championship game on December 18.  In addition to the pure gold trophy, the winning team will be awarded $42 million in prize money.
  Additionally, the trophy will be passed to the winning team from France, the 2018 winner. The trophy stands at 36.5 cm tall with a weight of only 6.2 kg, with approximately 2kg of that weight the malachite discs at the bottom.
The roughly 4.2 kg of gold would place the metal value (at US$235,000 at today’s price of gold. Amazingly 11 times the US$21,000 cost of that gold in 1974 when the current trophy was made.
Keep in mind this is the gold price only, the trophy’s estimate cost US$50,000 to make. Also, the estimated value has grown exponentially to more than that US$20 million making it the most valuable trophy in the world.
Correlation between The FIFA World Cup and Gold
It is not only the value of the gold in the trophy that has increased over the last 48 years, but the total prize money for the FIFA World Cup has also increased substantially. As mentioned above, the winning team will get $42 million in prize money this year.
Each of the other 31 teams that participate are also awarded prize money. A total of US$440 million is being awarded this year. In addition, each team is awarded money for preparation, a club benefit programme, and a club protection programme (i.e., player’s insurance). This all adds up to a total prize money fund of US$1 billion, compared to the 2018 total of US$791 million.
The total prize money was $20 million in 1982. This was when FIFA first officially announced how much prize money each team would receive.
The increase in the Total Prize Money of US$209 million from the 2018 World Cup to this year’s US$1 billion total amount was the largest increase in actual dollars. However, in percentage terms, it was the smallest increase between events since the official prize was announced in 1982.
The largest percentage increase was the more than doubling (108% increase) from the 1982 World Cup held in Spain to the 1986 World Cup held in Mexico.

Moreover, there are 40 years between 1982 and 2022. During this time the prize pool grew from US$20 million to US$1 billion. If we calculate the annual rate of compound growth for something. This was over 40 years growing from 20 to 1,000 million, we get a 10.27% annual rate of growth.
Maybe this 10.27% inflation rate is a better representation of cost inflation than the government produced inflation indices?  No one could ever definitively answer this question but it’s a great thing to ponder once your team exits (or wins!!) the tourney.
Correlation between The World Cup and Inflation
Come to think of this the 10.27% annual World Cup inflation rate is kind of close to the 7.96% inflation rate. If we calculate the price of gold over an even longer time frame.
Here is our math; gold was US$35 in 1971, and today gold is US$1740 in 2022 being 51 years later. 7.96% was the true inflation figure and growing broadcast rights explain the 2.31% extra growth in World Cup prize money.
Sporting prizes and salaries usually have much to do with business plans for broadcast growth. These do not directly link to official government inflation statistics. Yet to note that World Cup Total Prize packages grew at 10.27% annually. While the World Bank’s world consumer price inflation index has increased on average only half that amount at 5.32% since 1982.
How a Shortage of Rare Earth Metals Will Impact Us All
 
Those inflation rates seem very similar to us if you back out the growth in footie as the most popular human game. So, remember to go for gold by owning physical metals.
Bored of football talk? Worry not. We have a whole channel that has absolutely nothing to do with football, for you to enjoy. Check out GoldCore TV. Here we have a great selection of gold and silver market analysis, commentary and interviews. Great for those who fancy a break from football.

tbh i've always thought silver stacking was very niche, so to me these memes are never getting old
 

I read about this a number of years ago, "I Promise to Pay The Bearer ..." on really old bank notes was written in proper case text which is the correct legal way to write the legal document.
Today, those words on our notes are all in uppercase letters, which means it can't be formed as part of the legal document because it doesn't mean anything.
The notes have margins on the left and right sides of the notes and anything in the left or right sides of the margins are not deemed to be part of the document... if you look at a £20 note today, the "£20" is in the left margin and a "20" without the "£" sign is on the document.  So, what we PROMISE to pay is meaningless and to pay "20" of something - it doesn't stipulate what it is, all we know is that it's 20 of something.
On a positive note, I like the artwork on the notes... now then, where's my monopoly board and money! 😄 

I understand this post was specifically meant for SD deliveries but I thought it would be a good place to add an update regarding an item sent by 1st class signed for.
I recently sent a 100g TSF bar by 1st class signed at the buyers request. This bar went missing and after waiting several weeks in good faith that it may turn up, it still didn't arrive.
I was the sender so I decided to help the buyer by making a claim for him, because I had the original postage receipt. I completed the online claims form, and uploaded proof of purchase, proof of value of the item in the form of the original sales invoice and submitted everything in line with Royal Mails guidelines.
After waiting for apx 6 weeks, and contacting them several times by phone in-between waiting, they eventually sent me a cheque for £53.45 and closed the case. The amount was £50 for the lost item plus £3.45 for the original postage costs.
The 100g bar cost £100 and they would only reimburse £50 stating that was their limit of insurance on 1st class signed.
The moral of this story is that it takes a long time to deal with RM customer services and they are extremely inefficient when it comes to someone trying to make a claim from them. And if you're sending anything with a value over £50 then SD is your best choice for insurance purposes. But as this thread shows us, not even using SD, their premium service, can guarantee a smooth claims process if something goes missing.
I have stopped using Royal Mail for the time being because I think all these strikes and disruptions to service are increasing the odds of something being stolen or going missing.
I cannot think of a more reliable service because the courier companies such as DPD or DHL are just as bad when it comes to missing items so maybe the best option is just to stop sending stuff all together? Or at least keep the number of packages you send to an absolute minimum, at least until things get resolved with Royal Mail and all these strikes 🤷

nope for the past 10 years the price of a physical 1oz silver coin has not really fluctuated to much at all to be fair. 
That spot price we seem to be fixated by has gone up and down like a prozzies knicks 

tbh i've always thought silver stacking was very niche, so to me these memes are never getting old
 

meanwhile, at the JPM headquarters....
 
 

meanwhile, at the JPM headquarters....
 
 

meanwhile, at the JPM headquarters....
 
 

the recent hike of boating and drowning accidents is starting to cause some alarm....
 

Not really a meme of such, but looking for new kitchen lights and found these. 
What do you think? 

the recent hike of boating and drowning accidents is starting to cause some alarm....
 

the recent hike of boating and drowning accidents is starting to cause some alarm....
 

the recent hike of boating and drowning accidents is starting to cause some alarm....