bluemoon

5 minutes ago, MonkeysUncle said:

Frolics to the NHS. I'll possibly die of something simple and easily curable as their is no way on God's clean earth I go near the Quackery again. I'm a bit bitter still at a prognosis of game over by the weekend.

Ticking towards 9 years later...

I've had major misdiagnoses too as have members of my family. Then of course there is the Covid debacle. With so many instances of this, Occam's Razor is telling me NHS doctors are stupid, dangerous and ignorant - This has gone well beyond a bit of bad luck here or there.

Worst is when people are trusting the NHS enough that they may never know they were misdiagnosed, they just believe what they were told.

12 minutes ago, ZRPMs said:

I've even tried to listen to Radio 4. Had to turn it off, I think they run the perpetual ladies hours now. Every ones a victim unless the person happens to be a white male. My eldest daughter, now in Uni, having not done an hours worth of work in her life. Seems to be intent on collecting as many letters behind her name as possible, not the academic type mind you. ADHD, PTSD,...... etc. To be honest I'm probably best left in the solitude of my own company in my hermitage. However, I have found some kindred spirits on the forum. Whilst surrounded by the ever increasing madness of the world I've found it easier not to interact. 

Just as a recent funny I nearly found myself thrown out of spec savers the last time I went for my check up. In short I got sat down at a desk to fill out the preliminary questionnaire by a young girl with multi-coloured hair, blue, pink, yellow can't really remember now but she asked my name, I answered, then she asked my gender. "Can't you tell" I said. then came "what pronouns do you use?" I couldn't help myself, I said " I'm very sorry but I don't subscribe to this sort of b0l0ck$. If you have any questions that relate to my eye test continue." I thought she was going to cry she looked at the main desk and at that point I thought, Oh great I'm getting thrown out.  Anyway I was called away and with in a few seconds shoved in to an area to wait for my eye test.

 

That is actually quite a scary story, because it means the sheep will follow literally anything these days. It makes me wonder what else these same sheep would be capable of doing to you.

Remember how people ratted on you for leaving your house more than once a day.

Then there is all the people who lost their livelihoods for saying something innocuous but makes the sheep's hair catch fire. Even got convicted, in some cases. The same "crimes" would have been thought perfectly reasonable just 7 or 8 years ago.

1 hour ago, Bigmarc said:

It gets quiet aggressive in there, scares the c**p out of me (probably my point tho)

Dominoes is serious business.

Well I do have YouTube videos set to autoplay at double speed but that's due to time saving rather than attention span. A 20 minute tutorial is very time consuming so if I can slash that time in half, I will.

4 hours ago, Bigmarc said:

In my late teens I lived in a semi remote farm-ish house with my parents. We kept getting ripped off by someone as they kept breaking in to the shed, garage and having our post nicked. At the time I worked away alot so I nipped down to maplins and bought a CCTV set as I wanted to catch who ever was doing this. When buying the equipment I was informed if I want a conviction I have to display signs saying CCTV was in operation (this is why speed cameras are painted yellow). I wonder if this law is still in effect? I am thinking not because of the amount of cameras in people's cars and strapped to cyclists heads. 

We ended up catching the lad after a few days. It was a kid who came around washing cars (use to give him a tena, early 90s) if we wasn't in he would just nick our stuff. He use to sell our stuff to the local corner shop owner (same one we used daily). We also caught a gang of thieves a year later. They lived in a compound in little houses on wheels, police knew who they were but did nothing. 

I find the security camera situation disappointing, I even see them in the changing rooms at my local swimming pool. It use to annoy the c**p out of me sitting in a restaurant whilst eating with a camera on me. 

I can certainly see strategic and polite uses for CCTV. Doorbell cameras are a stupid strategy and very impolite. I was in Currys today and looking over the home security section, reading some of the features of various items. I think the sheep consumers just like their toys, combined with being unhealthily obsessed with safety & authority.

2 hours ago, Charliemouse said:

But the flip side of that is cash has its own problems. The shop has to spend time counting it, storing it, moving it to a bank. All of this costs actual money.  Then of course, since the cash is very portable and essentially untraceable, you have to protect it at every stage from theft by staff, customers and random people with shotguns.  Again, this is expensive.

Most shopkeepers you talk to would rather pay 2% processing fees than handle cash.

In my view this ties in with the reasons people have doorbell cameras these days or CCTV outside their house as though they're a supermarket. Even road users have cameras including those obnoxious cyclists with stupid GoPros on their head, ready to record and report anyone who pisses them off. All these cameras give the illusion of security but why do they feel they need for security? It's because 1) we're constantly being told to live in fear of the next big threat, and 2) we're indeed turning into a 3rd world country with 3rd world crimes on the rise. The semi-amusing thing is crime is rising in spite of the cameras. Criminals won't stop just because people put up these placebo cameras which their consumerism made them think their new toy will keep them safe.

It's the same with digital payments. Hacking of bank or PayPal accounts happens with monotonous regularity. Then of course there is the easy theft of digital payments by the governments either through taxation or inflation. Businesses are still safer off using cash and saving more money that way.

P.S. I saw a till worker in Boots wearing a bodycam the other day which I thought was rude, and then there are the self-service machines at Tesco which display your face up close. Surely any thief would walk out of the shop with their loot without coming to the self service machine in the first place? But it's us who actually pay, who get our faces filmed up close. I always cover the cameras with my glove. Wish I could have done that to that mare's bodycam too, but that would have intruded on her personal space.

Went off on a tangent towards the end but hey this is the random rant thread! I do want to slap those Go-Pro cyclists though, they're just looking to start trouble!

1 hour ago, Silverlocks said:

Lots of bullion dealers in Hatton Garden.  There's a load of jewellers, PM dealers and suchlike around the area.

Any of them not requiring ID from you if buying a couple of Sovs in cash? There are a couple in London like that but don't know about the Hatton Garden ones.

On 02/03/2023 at 18:37, Bigmarc said:

Next week will be buying a car on behalf of mother in-law. Will have 9k going through my account for a few hours and I am already hearing myself up for a fight.

What happened in the end?

Forgive my ignorance but are HGM the same as Bairds or is is just coincidence that Bairds are in Hatton Garden?

1 hour ago, watchesandwhisky said:

Without wanting to be a downer in this exciting time for many, a few observations...

When doing some early morning shopping on my day of today I heard three builders walking round Tesco's talking about buying gold bullion, when I'm at work I regularly hear a radio ad saying "golds gone galactic" and offering to buy your gold.. When delivering the mail I recently saw a leaflet drop to over 800 houses offering to buy any gold and silver or old watches and medals.. When I was delivering mail at a residential park home two blokes were going door to door trying to buy gold. 

This is precisely what I saw happen back in 2012 before a rather large price reversal of 35% ish over the next two years. 

A lot has happened since 2012, past performance is not indicative of future performance ect - Just an observation. 

 

I had a similar post all written out last Thursday then decided against posting it because I didn't want to be the miserable git spoiling the party! But now that you've given me cover, we can do a little crossfire...

Yes the hype I'm seeing in public is familiar to the last bubble. The optimism on this forum reminds me of the Kitco forums when I was on there after the 2011 bubble burst. There was huge anguish and despair from people who bought at the top and were losing their money. I even remember one thread title on there that was "AAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!" - That's how painful it is to lose money after you jumped on the bandwagon. I've seen this sheepy FOMOness not only in silver in 2011 but also twice in Bitcoin's 2 bubbles so far.

Lesson here is be sensible, don't celebrate and don't have visions of buying a mansion just yet. Keep making money and putting it into the gold safe haven using cost averaging.

I'll get my coat!

Watches, art, jewellery are also assets to keep outside the system. Wine too. Lots of things actually.

Bitcoin rallies even if you happen to fart in it's direction, I'm not sure it's to do with the fiat collapse, the gold rally is definitely more connected.

I echo @flyingveepixie's comments RE: the sheep, some are taking notice but just a few official looking press conferences from Downing Street telling them it's all under control will convince them to leave their bank balances where it is.

7 minutes ago, scotwasp said:

I know buying gold now is probably nuts, but if your strategy is to buy every month to flatten your risk curve then you have to hold your nose and buy I guess, or should I abandon the strategy this month? 
what your views?
 

If the rule of thumb is to go against sentiment, the sentiment is very bullish. YouTube pumpers are mega-hypey right now, talking like the Bitcoin YouTubers from a couple of years ago... even the sheep in public are taking notice. Even though I bought, I woudn't be surprised if the shorters come in soon and leave a bloodbath.

2 minutes ago, MrStacker said:

A lot of folks get their main bonus pay end of this month. I was hoping to grab a tube and some other pieces but I honestly don't think I will at the current rate. Gold is gold and it will always hold its value but right now I will ponder more... and watch the price increase more and regret not buying hahaha

 

Yes it does look overbought from a technical perspective. I bought today anyway. Even if it dips from here, it still won't be as bad as 12% inflation per year like fiat is doing.

8 minutes ago, FlorinCollector said:

Ok I take it back the working man won't be reducing to a half sovereign it'll be a quarter sovereign at this rate

Jokes aside it's a fair point. How easy will it be to sell Britannias on this forum when they're £3,000? I wonder how many people here manage to shift gold 100g bars.

I was going to buy last week just before this spike happened, since then I've been waiting for another dip. At this point I should probably just buy. Today's high prices may be next month's dip, so I may as well just get it and be done. If it dips now then whatever, it will come back up eventually. Not what I normally do though, I don't like being rushed!

5 minutes ago, EdwardTeach said:

Are they calling it a bailout this time? Like the US is not in a recession because they say it isn’t and a man can be a woman etc.

 

 

It's the banks bailing all of US out, obviously!

Forgive me for being the miserable sod in the room but I don't actually care about new highs, only insofar that it's protecting the purchasing power of what we have. We won't get rich with these ATHs, we can play with bitcoin if we want to do that.

That said, I am happy that I'm up on my purchases over the years. Rather bummed that this spike has happened now just as I was preparing to do some more buying. We can't have everything I guess. Will wait a bit.

8 minutes ago, Dankanugget said:

Oh wait ..good old internet will save me for transfers…oh no power cut!

You could just buy gold with it now? Just a thought.

2 minutes ago, Dankanugget said:

I agree I’d better get down to nationwide in the morning.

Hope it's not a long queue for you, that would be scary.

With the sentiment here calling gold to go up, is that not a sign that it will go down?

11 minutes ago, Paul said:

We need trump to do some tweeting to get us through £1600 and on the way the £2000oz +

Or Elon.

1 hour ago, Earthmetal said:

I like the idea, but I'm unsure of the practicalities of paying council tax, gas, electric water, bills etc.

1 hour ago, flyingveepixie said:

Make small deposits as and when you need to pay bills...? 🤔  It might be a pain in the butt doing it tht way but with things going in the direction they are the banks can't be trusted.

flyingveepixie has the right approach. You can also pay those bills at the Post Office in cash.

2 hours ago, EdwardTeach said:

Very interesting. I did not know this.

It's been quite liberating for me since I switched about 4 years ago. I took an existing Android phone like Google Pixel then installed GrapheneOS over it. GrapheneOS is an Android operating system but non-Google. There are others like LineageOS or Brax2. Android is it's own system, people confuse it for being Google itself but it's not. If installing GrapheneOS replacing your Google Android is too technical then you can buy it pre-installed on eBay or get a phone shop to do it. There are YouTube tutorials too.

From there it's just choosing the right apps. I don't use Whatsapp because it's tracking your contacts, location, profile picture and running that all through its Facebook ecosystem. I use Signal Messenger which works exactly the same way but is open source so users can know it's fully private and doesn't do any tracking.

A VPN is the last main protection. It just makes sure your ISP can't see what apps you're using or what sites you visit. ProtonVPN's free version will do.

If you wanted to cut all ties (I don't do this), you can pull out the SIM card and use only Signal Messenger for calls and texts. But I'm not on the run lol.