In our section where we recommend The Regular Sunday Reads that we come across, we showcase some essential reading for everyone who is Fed Up with the Stupid News.
Today we cover a book by Austrian School of Economics co-founder Milton Freedman. The book can be freely accessed on Sribd. Enjoy and Continue a Great Weekend with a Great Read!
Why Government Is the Problem by Milton Friedman by Hoover Institution
The International Gold Bars Collection is at the Bank of England Museum from 19 February to 14 May 1998. The article below outlines basics of exhibits and general precious metals information for well-versed investors. More related information can be found in the Gold and Silver Bullion & Coin Investing Guide available here as an audiobook edition.
Most gold bars are classified into two ‘types’, depending on their method of manufacture: cast and minted. Cast bars are those made by the pouring of molten gold into a mould of specified dimensions. Markings are then applied manually or by a press. Minted bars are made from gold blanks that have been stamped out to the required dimensions from a flat strip of gold. Markings are normally applied by minting presses (as in the case of gold coins).
Gold bars can be denominated in different units of weight to accommodate the preferences of different geographical regions:
* Grammes – International
* Ounces – Mainly English-speaking countries: USA, UK and Australia
* Tolas – Mainly India, Pakistan, Middle East, Singapore
* Taels – Mainly Chinese-speaking countries: Hong Kong, Taiwan, China
* Bahts – Thailand
* Chi – Vietnam
* Dons – Korea
Grammes Troy Ounces
100 g – 3.2151 oz
1 oz 31.1035 g –
10 tola 116.638 g 3.75 oz
5 tael 187.145 g 6.017 oz
10 baht 152.44 g 4.901 oz
5 chi 18.750 g 0.603 oz
10 don 37.500 g 1.206 oz
Twenty-seven internationally accredited manufacturers produce small cast bars in grammes (500 g or less) and ounces (20 oz or less). In grammes, 10 weights are available, from 500 g to 10 g. In ounces, 7 weights are available, from 20 oz to � oz. The smallest cast bar in grammes weighs 10 g, first made in Brazil by Degussa (since 1985) as well as subsequently by Ourinvest and CRM.
The most popular small cast bars in Europe, Brazil and Japan are 500 g, 250 g and 100 g bars. Ounce bars are preferred in English-speaking countries: USA, UK and Australia.
The smallest cast bar in ounces is the � oz ‘button’ bar made by the Perth Mint (Australia) since 1976.
The manufacture of minted bars worldwide is dominated by 4 accredited manufacturers in Switzerland, providing around 35% of all minted bar types available.
* Argor-Heraeus – Subsidiary of Union Bank of Switzerland
* Metalor – Subsidiary of Swiss Bank Corporation
* Valcambi – Subsidiary of Credit Suisse
* Pamp SA
The three Swiss manufacturers, which are subsidiaries of banks, normally issue their bars internationally with the brand name of the bank.
Since 1974, an innovation of Credit Suisse, many minted bars have a plain decorative design (incorporating the name of the issuer) on the reverse side of the bar. An example of this is displayed in the Exhibition.
Minted bars are a modern phenomenon. Among accredited refiners worldwide, Argor-Heraeus (Switzerland) is believed to have been the first to issue a range of minted bars, in 1952. Now, 23 internationally accredited manufacturers produce minted bars in grammes or ounces.
In grammes, 16 weights are available, ranging from 500 g to 0.3 g. In ounces, 8 weights are available, from 20 oz to 1/10 oz. The Exhibition displays the world’s largest minted bars: the 20 oz and 500 g which are manufactured by Johnson Matthey (Canada).
Tanaka (Japan) has manufactured the world’s smallest minted bars, mainly for the jewellery industry since 1990. They weigh only 0.5 g and 0.3 g. 1 g minted bars, first issued by Credit Suisse (Switzerland) in 1980, are manufactured by 12 accredited manufacturers worldwide, including Degussa and Heraeus.
All bars record the assayed purity of the gold content, expressed in units per 100, 1000 or 10000.
Although there is an international trend to 99.99% gold bars, standard bars still vary among countries. For example:
* Dubai – 99.9%
* Iran – 99.5%
* Hong Kong – 99%
* Thailand – 96.5%
Large 400 oz (12.5 kg) ‘London Good Delivery’ bars, held by central banks, normally have a minimum purity of 99.5%.
(Source of gold bar information and photographs: “The Industry Catalogue of Gold Bars Worldwide” and Gold and Silver Bullion & Coin Investing Guide; please note that the link is to its audiobook edition).
MEGA offers a one-of-its-kind solution for securing your stored files, whether for personal or business use. The cloud-storage platform comes with a free Starter Plan, and there are also numerous paid-for plans that scale up to both power users and commercial use requirements.
It’s the much better (and smarter option) than, say, Google Drive or Dropbox. (Read up on Privacy basics here if you didn’t know that and need to look up why Dropbox/AmazonS3 is not really a good idea.)
It is also worth mentioning that the MEGA secure storage platform seamlessly integrates with a wide range of devices, including NAS devices like QNAP and Synology, and has browser apps as well as standalone apps for all major operating systems. MEGA also offers MEGAcmd, a very neat command-line tool, to address the needs of IT professionals or programmers as well.
For marketers, MEGA Secure Cloud Storage offers a great alternative to much-hated Google Drive and Dropbox — both of which are infamous for their surveillance and lack of real control over user data. (To learn more about these concerns, read DuckDuckGo’s educational articles on Privacy and how to use alternatives to Google products in order to claim back your legitimate self-control over your data on the internet.) MEGA Secure Cloud Storage convincingly and masterfully addresses these concerns and offers an alternative option for all of us who want to be in charge ourselves (rather than any corporations, governments or faceless entities so wholly unrelated to us).
With MEGA Secure Cloud Storage, it is easy to store your Lead Magnet or Free Downloads or other materials online. Simply link to your storage location, and your users and sign-up followers or anyone you want to share files with if you have an automatic onboarding process for your new users. (Or you can do it manually, if we’re talking smaller numbers of fellow traders or similar here.)
MEGA Secure Storage is a great offer from the New-Zealand-based startup that had been founded by Kim Dotcom when he came to the country in search for greener pastures.
MEGA offers a unique safety feature where encrypted files — that cannot even be accessed by the company’s tech people — can be safely shared across the internet, including unsafe (unencrypted) simple emails or mobile text messages if need be. This is achieved by cleverly dividing the stored file’s URL into a public part and a private-key part that can be disguised or can be sent separately for security reasons.
Give it a try and see for yourself how this works!
To make gold and silver bullion and coin investment information more accessible and even easier to follow, we have launched a brand-new Channel featuring some of our content in video format on Youtube. The content we publish there is suitable for both novice as well as more experienced investors. Videos will focus on one topic singled out for further explanation in a high-quality and entertaining format.
Go to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7hLtn5yGp3gKQytlXZuUVA and Subscribe to this Channel. Also hit the notification bell in order to be notified about upcoming videos.
This is a matter of personal preference as well as your investment plan and overall economic situation. While bullion bars are generally cheaper in terms of premium over precious metals content, they are also larger (less divisible) and may in a severe situation be not as easy to sell as widely reckognized bullion coins. With large amounts to be invested, holding bullion bars makes sense. Medium-sized 100 gram gold bullion bars have almost the same low premium as the larger Kilobar variety and may thus be the choice for average investors. Smaller than 100 gram bars are not usually recommended for physical bullion investment purposes. Bullion coins have the added advantage of superb fungibility, particularly the popular internationally traded coins. In silver, it should be noted that silver bullion coins are treated more favorably than silver bullion bars and that there are a few more countries having silver bullion coins either totally exempt from VAT or sales tax or applying a low rate (e. g. 7% in Germany). This fact may also affect whether you buy bullion bars or bullion coins. (For details, see Do I Have to Pay Sales Tax… section, above.)
How Do I Buy and Sell Physical Gold and Silver?
Do I Have to Pay Sales Tax (or VAT or Similar) on Precious Metals?
Should I store my precious metals locally or overseas?
How Much Should I Pay for Physical Bullion?
Can I Earn a Higher Profit With Numismatic Coins?
What Is a Reasonable Premium Over Spot?
Should I Buy Bullion Online?
Should I Buy Bullion Over the Phone?
Should I Buy Bullion Using eBay or Amazon Marketplace?
Is Confiscation of Gold a Real Risk?
Are There Any Reporting Requirements for Gold or Silver?
Should I Buy Vaulted Allocated Gold or Silver?
Christine Lagarde, chair person of the IMF, has called for making the “Cyprus Solution” of confiscating portions of savers’ cash in bank a common government policy.
Piggybacking on last week’s call by the IMF for setting up an agency that would be responsible for either closing or salvaging troubled banks across the continent, Mrs Lagarde’s proposed “funding” such an agency with money drained from savings held by bank customers. Mrs Lagarde’s ingenuity and arrogance seems to be boundless, to say the least. (It is equally obvious that her knowledge of real-world economics, on the other hand, is painfully limited.)
The proposed move which can only be seen as a departure of “civilised” nations’ governments from the rule of law is nothing short of an announcement that governments will be committing outright theft in the near future. Gone are the days when they at least tried to conceal their acts and disguise them in the form of taxes, even frivolous ones, for some “common good” — which in light of the real purpose for tax money being spent on, namely paying interest on bonds issued for central banks’ and private banks’ money creation also known as “fractional reserve lending”, had become increasingly questionable anyway.
Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister of Germany, had already suggested that governments should help themselves at will after the Cyprus precedent earlier this year.
Under the proposed wider scheme, a suggested figure of ten percent of savings should be confiscated in order to bail out struggling banks (that are cash-strapped although they already hold client monies but only failed to manage their affairs properly). It should be noted here that client monies held at banks were already subjected to taxation (in order to pay for the ever-day business of the banks which is money creation through “fractional reserve lending”, resulting in inflation which is effectively another “tax” and takes another percentage out of the value of those monies; as a result, private households already paying twice for government and banking mistakes at present ought to be forced to pay for them out of their pockets for a third time). Any bank holdings, including even smallest amounts, ought to be affected equally.
Tiny little details like whose property cash in bank is and that savers are only loaning out their money to the bank to receive some interest in turn (or not) do not seem to matter here. Neither does property law (nor criminal law), as it seems.
Whether or not this is a good idea and will increase stability in society at a time of possible turmoil remains to be seen. One might be tempted to make an educated guess though (which obviously is a lot more than an IMF head is capable of).
That move should make it obvious to anyone that Asset Protection is a necessity for each and everyone, starting with “fortunes” as little as €500 or €1,000 or currency equivalent. No one likes nor can afford to lose ten percent of their holdings, be it an actual loss of €50 or €5m, and therefore needs to prepare appropriately for their individual situation. Suitable strategies include cashing out of any bank holdings, bonds, stocks, mutual funds, ETFs or similar — in fact everything that needs to travel as paper money through a bank account — and moving these amounts into tangibles. Real estate is only a partial solution as it may be heavily affected by any ensuing additional economic downturn (or breakdown) with prices particularly for overvalued residential properties vulnerable to severe corrections and losses. Commodities-based investments as well as anything of intrinsic value might be suited best for weathering any economic storm as is investing in businesses that provide essential products or services and will be operative even during “hard times”.