KDave

Consider the quote*,
'Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!'
and it is quite worrying!
 
*possibly Rothschild?
Usually @Minimalist weighs in here 

I am far from a conspiracy theorist but I see real risks to individual freedoms where CBDC's are implemented.
Governments and their agencies cannot resist databases and monitoring of citizens.
Best
Dicker

It's worrying because 1) Zero privacy on transactions, everything recorded 2) They can place expiration dates on each unit of currency forcing you to spend within a certain time period 3) They can assign 'types' to each unit of currency, i.e. this is a groceries unit, this is a unit for paying rent, etc

Fabulously catchy name. Why has no one thought of that before!
Sh*tcoin would be better IMHO. 
Cr*pcoin - I could go on all day! 

All of this has been planned a long time ago in a far off galaxy - nout we can do about it. 
Looking sat some of the dimwits on the streets I am starting to think that little bit of totalitarianism, might benefit them.  

Looks more like an alien than Canute

Bloomberg published this chart, showing how in recent months money has been flowing into BTC funds and out of gold funds. There are two separate scales.

I modified the chart to put both on the same scale. It is true that money has being flowing out of gold funds, but only a fraction has been flowing into BTC funds.

Ive mentioned it before GCL gieger counter 

GameStop reported earning last night - crappy figures as expected. The stock is tumbling - as expected as reality sinks in. The chatter on Reddit is so inane - a lot of naïve people will have lost a lot of money. The company is not a viable concern but it has been viable for me to keep selling calls - i suppose it was good whilst it lasted.
Look at this insanity.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/mc5ku7/this_is_how_i_start_my_day_also_watch_it_again_as/
 

Holy moly, @1stsovereign.............that’s absolutely filthy. Should be R rated with ID checks needed to view it.......you can go to jail for sharing films like this.

Beginning of the weekend treat The Three Graces:
 

I'm not usually a big fan of drawing lines on charts. I've tried to understand technical analysis, but it looks pretty wooly to me. I do believe in the bubble curve, and the gold price peak in 2011 was a classic example of the bubble curve in action. So, just for the sake of a pessimistic assessment of gold's prospects, I made the chart below on the basis of the conjecture that 2020 was also a bubble. So what would happen if we have a long term uptrend, starting from 2000-2002, and a bubble in 2020 which pops this year? The two blue lines show possible upward trend lines. The two magenta lines show possible trajectories for gold, one on the basis that the bubble is popping straight down, the other on the basis that bubbles usually have a second smaller peak. The result is that we could see gold fall to $1400 to $1600 by the end of 2021. As I say, bear in mind this is a pessimistic view, which assumes that 2020 was just a bubble, so it might be regarded as a worst case.

If it wasn’t for my oilers and precious metals, my portfolio would be totally under water at the moment. Even my HSBC world tracker is displaying numbers in red, who’d  have thought!
Actualy BTL equity will be up also I guess but tend to forget about this. Really starting to see the benefit of the aft discussed, diversified portfolio. 

Given the fact there is more middle east geo political tensions. I expect oil to rise at an even faster pace. It was the Yemini attack on a Saud Oil facility that pushed brent over the 70 mark. Its going to get worse before it gets better. Having personally spent a lot of more my former career in the middle east, its a hotbed of problems. ISIS to boot and Turkey helping ISIS smuggle oil also. Erdogan is a mass loon, and should be kicked out of NATO. The turkish Lira is absolutely broken also, and is as bad as Greece.
Western intervention will only make it worse. OPEC countries squabbling over production rates and USA cant produce as much so they will have to buy, again pushing prices higher. Throw in the commodities super cycle in also. Its not looking good if you drive your car a lot or your business is dependant on it.
 

It's all about money
Lets say for every hour you work you  get one pebble
That pebble represents an hour of your life you gave up, you can swap it for food  or if you save up enough pebbles you can swap them for larger items
Whats good about the pebble is you don't have to spend it right away, you can work your whole life until you're not as physically capable, retire and still have thousands of hours of work saved up in pebbles
To have a civilised society you need money to facilitate trade and to be able to store and log your hard work
You can't use pebbles of course because you can find them anywhere, what's not just anywhere? gold
We can all agree we need money and we can all agree gold is perfect for it, that's why it has value, the value is the tool of money
Its obvious why oil has value
It's obvious why electric has value
Money is just as important to humanity that's why gold has value 

Anyone who thinks inflation is less than 2% must be living in their mother's basement.
If you own/rent a house, pay the utilities, run a car (or two) and put enough food on the table for a family of four, then you know inflation is hovering around 10%.

Yes when real return is shown to be negative due to inflation, then gold will be back on the menu. 

The Fed is controlling the yield curve to put a brake on bond yields. 
 

Yes when real return is shown to be negative due to inflation, then gold will be back on the menu. 

This is TLT (30 year US bonds) and Gold
If bond yields continue to go up expect gold to come down
I wouldn't be shocked if it comes down another 5-10% in the next few months but who knows, will depend on the new normal - how well the vaccines seem to work and how optimistic people are on global economy recovery
I personally think at some point this year an event will happen or a signal will appear that things aren't going to get back on track and that's when gold will kick on but who knows

 

Back to the forever wars we go! 

All glitters isnt gold ask gary glitter the dirty old nonce 

It's the yield curve. Not looking good for the fed. 
Buying opportunity coming. 
With energy (oil) think long term. Think 3 digit oil. Think 200+ a barrel in a few years. Today doesn't seem so bad then, insignificant. 

Very interesting point!
To be fair to them and applying some real politik, if they were not doing it to someone else, someone else might be doing it to them (or us). Better our side bombs someone else's kids rather than the other way around.