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This is a continuation of the Peak Prosperity’s inaugural livecast called “Informed Consent.” This episode explores the “why now” of the Hunter Biden laptop story, examines the hypocrisy and lawlessness of the ruling class, and discusses the high possibility that this all ends in various forms of collapse. A core theme explored is whether our ruling class are operating from a base position of ignorance or malice.
This is a new format for us, and we would love to hear any feedback you have in the comments below!
Grab a comfortable spot tonight and get ready to break the narratives (and test the censors) as only Chris Martenson can…LIVE.
Tonight, at 7 p.m., we launch Peak Prosperity’s inaugural, exclusive LiveCast: “Informed Consent”!
We’ll be joined by an incredible compelling guest, Grace O’Malley: farmsteader, activist, educator and Peak tribe member.
What makes this different?
As always, the information is deep and data-driven, but this time Chris and his special guest will answer your comments and questions LIVE.
Chris and O’Malley will discuss censorship, the end of the petrodollar (and what that means), the energy crisis in Germany and the rest of the EU, the need for informed consent, resilience and the importance of finding a tribe. And, much more if the Peak Tribe has anything to say about it!
Replays and Part 2
And for you Peak Insiders, there will be a Part 2 made available, because while we’d love to make all of “Informed Consent” available to everyone, we don’t live in a society where free speech is allowed…and you know Chris will dive deeper into the truth than the corporate censors will allow.
As always, a replay will be posted.
Don’t Miss the LAUNCH of “Informed Consent” the new Peak Prosperity LiveCast, Tonight, 7 p.m. Eastern
Vaccine-induced myocarditis in kids is not “mild” even though it has been described, over and over again in the media and by pediatricians, as “mild” or that kids “recover quickly.”
A new study shows that these hopeful-sounding statements are neither true nor scientifically accurate.
More than 2/3rds of all children who presented to the hospital with vaccine-induced cardiomyopathy were shown to have detectable imaging results consistent with scarring of the heart pericardium, up to eight months later.
The sort of imaging used (Cardiac Magnetic Resonance using Late Gadolinium Enhancement – “LGE” – as the contrast agent) that detected the cardiac injuries is highly correlated with both scarring and poor prognoses in other forms of cardiomyopathy. Can we say these children will have equally poor outcomes on par with classic myocarditis? No.
But, neither can we say they will be fine.
For whatever reason, the CDC and NIH are not at all in any hurry to investigate these vaccine injuries, and that leaves it up to parents and doctors to fumble their way through the vaccine decision as best they can.
At the very least, we can say that “informed consent” cannot include “informed” because the information is simply not there. Further, after the CDC just recently admitted to a “coding error” being responsible for overcounting childhood Covid deaths by nearly +25% – which numbers were used as justification for the necessity of childhood covid vaccination – we cannot even begin to form a proper risk/benefit assessment.
More study is urgently needed. Whether or not the CDC and pharma companies will perform these necessary studies is an open question, but it really shouldn’t be. Until they are, despite the risk of Covid to young males being overwhelmingly low, parents should only consider vaccinating their children, especially males, with the understanding that life-long harm may result in some cases.
There are numerous indicators that a recession is on the way. Unfortunately, for the Federal Reserve and its slavish devotion to the stock and bond markets it values far more highly than humans, it is committed to a rate hike cycle and balance sheet reductions.
If it veers off of those even before it gets started, then kiss the dollar goodbye. If it veers off after the “markets” all crater into smoking ruins, then that’s bad too for the rest of us.
The Fed put us all in this stupid, completely avoidable bind by failing to show even a hint of spine anywhere along the way. They failed in 1995, then again in 1998, then in 2000 and then in 2008, and then comprehensively ever since 2011, culminating in their final orgy of printing over the past two years. It’s been always the same response – kick the can down the road, print more, hope that somehow things fix themself (which they never do).
At any rate, combine those errors with the current global realties – supply chain disruptions, manufacturing bottlenecks, limited supplies of some key resources, plus too little oil – and what do you get? A hot mess.
Meanwhile, Russia has been maneuvering for this very moment for a long time. It’s almost as if Putin understands the best way to beat the West is to let the West beat itself. And so, we are.
I still cannot figure out if we are doing this because 100% of the people in leadership positions are completely ignorant about how things really work, or if they are intentionally undermining their own countries on purpose.
That’s an academic distinction because they both result in a ruined future. We can argue about intent later. For now, I want you to get quite serious about your efforts towards resilience. There’s simply no way to avoid what’s coming anymore.
Signal has the reputation of being the most private messaging app. However, some of its leaders’ decisions were controversial. Is Signal still safe?
First, you need to understand the line between cryptography and implementation. Cryptography is basically mathematics. Implementation is the application of cryptography in the form of computer programming code. Another way to look at this is the difference between theory and practice. You can think of cryptography as the theory and implementation as the practice.
The Signal protocol is the cryptography behind the messaging app. The Signal protocol is safe. In fact, it is the gold standard in which other messaging apps implement: WhatsApp, Skype, Google’s RCS and even Facebook Messenger.
The controversies emanate from the implementation of the Signal protocol on the Signal messaging app.
Use of phone numbers
Signal messaging app (and WhatsApp as well) uses phone numbers as the user account ID. To sign up for Signal, you need to provide a phone number.
Some people are not comfortable with that because phone numbers are not anonymous. In most countries, you cannot obtain a mobile phone number anonymously. Every mobile phone number must be verified with an identity check. Even if an identity check is not required (in the US, I believe), you need to supply contact information like email addresses. Once you supply your email address, your anonymity is as good as your anonymity to the email service provider.
Furthermore, to activate your Signal message app account, it needs to send you a text message (or call you), which means you need to switch on your mobile phone. Once you switch on your mobile phone (to receive the text message), it will communicate with telecommunication radio towers, which can be used to work out your physical location.
Syncing of user social graph to Signal’s server
Ideally, messaging apps should not upload any of your contacts’ phone numbers into their servers. If the messaging app’s server does not have your contacts’ phone numbers, then it cannot work out your social graph. That’s the controversy with WhatsApp.
Now, let’s suppose Signal allows you to sign up using a user name that you come up with, instead of your phone number. And let’s say you have built up your social graph of user names in the app over time. Since you cannot store your contacts’ Signal user names in your device’s address book (as a dedicated entry field), then your social graph will be lost if you lose your device, reinstall the app or get a new device.
The most private way to solve this problem is to encrypt your social graph in your device before sending it to the cloud (messaging app’s server) for safe-keeping. The question is, which encryption key should you use to encrypt your social graph? Using the same key (that is used to encrypt your messages) is not an option because if you lose your device or get a new one, the key will be lost. If the key is lost, then you will not be able to decrypt your social graph on your new device. Therefore, the only solution is to derive the key from a password that you specifically come up with for this purpose.
The problem with this solution is that all of us already have too many passwords to remember. If you forget your password, you will lose your social graph. So, most people will come up with easy-to-remember passwords that will be extremely weak cryptographically.
Signal had a unique solution to this problem. To understand this solution, take a look at your ATM PIN. It consists of a 4–6 digit number. Your ATM PIN is extremely weak cryptographically. But that is not a problem because if you enter your ATM PIN incorrectly a certain number of times, the ATM machine will swallow your ATM card. In the same way, Signal implemented a mechanism whereby your Signal PIN is required to access the cryptographic secret necessary for decrypting your social graph (the cryptographic secret, in conjunction with your Signal PIN, is used to encrypt your social graph). The cryptographic secret is stored in a special security computer (called the “SGX“) within Intel’s CPU that even Signal cannot hack.
The important point to understand is that if you supply your Signal PIN incorrectly, the SGX will not release the cryptographic secret. If you supply your Signal PIN incorrectly too many times, the SGX will lock you out of that cryptographic secret. You can read up the details of how Signal implements this here.
To the cybersecurity purists, this feature is unacceptable – no user information should be sent to any servers. Period. However, if you still want to use Signal, make sure your Signal PIN is cryptographically secure – use the alpha-numeric option to enter a long and random text like this:
Then there’s the charge that Signal is no longer an open-sourced software. This is not entirely true. Only a certain part of their server software is proprietary. The app itself is still open-sourced. This has something to do with combatting spam. Signal has written an article explaining why combatting spam requires certain parts of their server software to be closed-source. If you have no time to read the article, below is my summary…
In traditional email spam-fighting, spam filters require insights into the content of email messages to learn how to recognise spam (using AI machine learning). However, Signal is designed to keep the content of your messages private, such that even Signal themselves cannot read your messages. As a result, traditional spam filtering techniques using AI machine learning is not available to Signal. To detect spam, they require insights into the behaviour of spammers. Signal’s servers are designed to analyse behaviours to decide whether a message is a spam or not. But if spammers have insights into what types of behaviour are considered suspicious by Signal, then they can modify their behaviour to defeat Signal’s spam detection. That is the reason why Signal decides to close the source codes of that part of their server.
To the cybersecurity purist, everything must be open-sourced. Period.
What is the link between WhatsApp and Signal?
In 2017, Brian Acton left WhatsApp to co-found a new foundation, the Signal Foundation, the organisation behind the Signal messaging app. Some people are not comfortable with that.
Since Signal is free are you the product?
Signal messaging app is free. But does it mean its users are the product?
Signal is not really a business. It is structured as a non-profit organisation. It relies on donations to fund its operations and services.
Signal’s cryptocurrency feature
Recently, Signal added a cryptocurrency feature into its app. Users can send and receive Mobile Coin cryptocurrency payments via the Signal message app.
This move is controversial.
Contrary to popular belief, BitCoin is not private. Every Bitcoin transaction is publicly recorded on the blockchain. If your Bitcoin public key is ever associated with your identity, all your past and future transactions will be exposed. Mobile Coin, however, is designed to be private. Unlike Bitcoin, it will not be possible to trace Mobile Coin transactions. Therefore, as Bruce Schnier wrote,
I think this is an incredibly bad idea. It’s not just the bloating of what was a clean secure communications app. It’s not just that blockchain is just plain stupid. It’s not even that Signal is choosing to tie itself to a specific blockchain currency. It’s that adding a cryptocurrency to an end-to-end encrypted app muddies the morality of the product, and invites all sorts of government investigative and regulatory meddling: by the IRS, the SEC, FinCEN, and probably the FBI.
And I see no good reason to do this. Secure communications and secure transactions can be separate apps, even separate apps from the same organization. End-to-end encryption is already at risk. Signal is the best app we have out there. Combining it with a cryptocurrency means that the whole system dies if any part dies.
End-to-end encrypted messaging itself is a regulatory risk. Adding a specially-designed private cryptocurrency service increases the regulatory attack options.
So, is Signal still safe?
There are two ways to look at Signal’s decisions.
If you put on the hat of a cybersecurity/privacy purist, then you will feel uncomfortable with what Signal is doing. For some of them, this will be a deal-breaker.
But you have to bear this in mind: if you create a product that will make cybersecurity/privacy purists happy, then this product will be unusable to most people. If it is unusable to most people, then it will not gain mainstream acceptance. Also, if your product makes cybersecurity/privacy purists happy, it will become a safe haven for bad actors, criminals and abusers. Should that happen, then it will attract government attention and a regulatory clampdown.
To decide whether Signal is still safe, you have to understand the rationale behind its decisions and decide for yourself whether any of these decisions are deal-breakers for you. If you want to have an app that is highly usable and easily available through the official app store, then you cannot be a purist. Some compromises and regulatory oversight are inevitable. If you are not bothered by these, then Signal is still a good choice.
Of course, there are messaging app projects that attempt to satisfy the purists (e.g. Keybase.io). But these projects usually have issues like usability, performance, slow development progress and infighting due to philosophical differences. As a result, they will always be confined to the fringes.
What about Threema?
Some purists are more comfortable with Threema. But Threema’s cryptography (mathematics) has a drawback: it does not have Perfect Forward Secrecy (see this article for an explanation about Perfect Forward Secrecy). Luckily, there are many choices. Here’s hoping this article makes your decisions a little more informed.
About the Author: This article was written by Terence Kam, founder and cybersecurity consultant at iSecurityGuru.com. You can follow his company on LinkedIn. Or subscribe to his writings on Medium, where he writes on a wider variety of topics.
While the Ukraine invasion, energy crisis and COVID-19 drive most of our news today, the neglected upkeep of the our infrastructure combined with the ongoing international threats to it should factor into your efforts for greater resilience. And, it’s not just a U.S. problem because many countries throughout the world experience similar issues.
In this article, I will discuss the following threats, but I am also going to include a section on how you can prepare.
Dams
Ports
Nuclear Plants
Cyber Attacks
The Grid
Railroads
Oil Refineries and Pipelines
Roads and Bridges
Dams
The 1935 Works Progress Administration was responsible for a great deal of the bridges and roads we use today. Dams were another key part of the WPA projects and they are now 80 years old and starting to show major signs of deterioration.
Rebar rusts
Dams help generate power to feed the grid. In my area, the Tennesee Valley Authority (TVA) uses many power-generating dams. The largest example of this is the Lake Fontana dam. At 480 ft, this concrete dam is an awesome sight to see. Unfortunately, the dam was built in 1942 and completed in 1944. Although it is made of reinforced concrete, the steel rebar inside is getting old. As rebar rusts with moisture, all of the reinforcements in older dams will decay. Dams that are older have had even more years to deteriorate.
Earth dams are only meant to last for so long
Some big dams are made of nothing but rock and dirt. While earthen dams can work well for decades, it is typically advised that within 50 years, they should be reinforced.
The Fort Peck Dam near Glasgow, Montana measures 250 feet tall and an outstanding 21,026 feet long. That is a ridiculous size for an earthen dam. Completed in 1940, it holds back the 5th largest reservoir of water in the United States. The reservoir itself extends a whopping 134 miles. Can you imagine what would happen if there was a failure at any point of the 21,026 feet of this dam?
The Bottom Dam Line
If dams fail, not only will great portions of populated areas be flooded, but any ability to produce power could be wiped out for a long time, if not permanently. Losing the power generation capability of even just a few hydroelectric dams in any area would significantly affect the availability of electricity and the cost. Not taking care of our nation’s dams is a major threat to the grid.
How To Prepare
If you live downstream of a dam, you need to be ready to move. Having bug-out bags on hand for a rapid evacuation due to a leak or release of water is highly advisable. At the same time, if something major happens suddenly and you live close to a dam, you may not have enough time to escape. That is the scary part. That being said, you should familiarize yourself with the roads and topography of your area. Getting to higher ground as quickly as possible is the goal during a dam emergency.
I don’t like telling people that they should move, but concrete dams are safer than earthen dams, and if I lived close enough to a large earthen dam, I might consider moving further away. The lack of workers is another concern. Even if the government suddenly decides to make dams safer, I am not sure about their ability to get workers, especially with vaccine mandates in place.
Ports
If you read the news much, you know our ports have a lot of container ships waiting off the coast to be unloaded. This is just one of the major problems in the supply chain and transportation industry contributing to empty shelves and the unavailability of goods. Even if manufacturers could keep up with production, a problem is getting things where they are needed.
Foreign ports that shut down entirely for COVID-19 also contributes to this challenge. Not too long ago, a single case of COVID was rumored to have shut down a port in Schezwen, China.
Lack of employees combined with additional employee loss due to vaccine mandates has only worsened the problems at our ports.
At the time of writing, the busiest port in the U.S. is struggling to unload ships forcing more and more to wait offshore for long periods of time. There seems to be little being done to solve port congestion issues. The Biden administration telling ports to operate 24/7 during a labor shortage has proven ineffective.
How To Prepare
Until manufacturing actually returns to the U.S. in a significant way, we must deal with foreign-made products being in shorter supply and costing a lot more.
Some goods may not be available. This will lead consumers to make staples last longer.
Consumers can make a choice to cut out less important expenses from their budget, so they have more money to spend on foreign-produced goods. In some cases, the consumer may find that domestically-produced versions are now a better bargain, although in today’s environment that may not often be the case.
A lot of us have plenty of practice with supply disruptions over the last two years, but if things don’t improve, we may be in for a worsening situation. While you cannot stock up on everything, now is the time to consider what household and emergency supplies you might need on hand.
Questions I get asked a lot is how much food, water, and household supplies do I think people should have on hand? One year for most household goods is an appropriate goal to strive for, but I know it is unrealistic for a lot of people (especially when it comes to water). I generally advise people to start with a few months, and then add to that as budget and space allow. You can fit a lot of dehydrated food and canned goods in a closet with proper planning. Even those in apartments can have a year’s worth of food on hand if they buy freeze-dried or dehydrated foods and make use of every nook and cranny.
As long as electricity is available, extra small appliances might be worth purchasing. Coffee makers, microwaves, and other inexpensive appliances will increase in cost or not be available due to a combined lack of manufacturing and transportation issues.
Medical equipment and many medications are manufactured in China or India. If anyone in your home uses oxygen machines or other essential home medical equipment make sure it is in good condition and keep on hand extra masks or parts that tend to wear out. Also, consider extra battery packs should the grid go down. As for medications, keep as large of a supply on hand as you can. Renew your prescription as soon as you are allowed. Ask your doctor to write prescription for a 90-day supply if possible.
Nuclear Plants
In some cases, nuclear plants are 40 years old or more. Instead of improving or shutting them down, they are given a renewal certification and allowed to continue operation.
People talk a lot about the general impact of the grid going down, but they almost always leave out one of the more terrifying possibilities during a moderate to long-term power outage: the onsite waste storage.
Nuclear facilities store a lot of spent fuel rods and waste on-site because the U.S. never created a spot for mass waste storage. Remember Yucca Mountain? Well, that never happened, so nuclear power plants just rely on cooling ponds with pumps that keep cool water flowing into special pools that house spent nuclear fuel rods. These rods still have plenty of radioactivity, and are very hot. If the grid goes down and the reactors run out of backup diesel, the water will start to boil off and eventually expose the rods leading to a radiation discharge.
Now, consider the fact that there are 93 active nuclear reactors in America, some in areas with significant populations.
How to Prepare
You can significantly increase your chances of survival if you are in the fallout zone of a nuclear reactor. First, if you live within 50 miles of a reactor, you need to be prepared to leave your home quickly. This means having a go bag ready.
I also highly recommend having a CBRN gas mask for each member of your family. Infants and small pets need evacuation chambers. Sure, this equipment costs some money, but it is nothing compared to the damage or death that can occur during a nuclear accident if you don’t have it on hand. If you want further protection, then invest in a hazmat suit that will block nuclear particles. Mira Safety makes some excellent masks and suits. (For the sake of transparency, I write regularly for Ready To Go Survival, a site that is owned by Mira Safety. I owned their gas mask before I started writing for them. I do not make any commission from selling their products.) That being said, I would be glad to answer any questions regarding gas masks and nuclear preparedness since it is a subject that I know well.
A Geiger counter can help you measure radiation levels as you evacuate.
If you’re not in an evacuation zone, there are ways to protect your home from any radiation. Check out this article outlining Chris Martenson’s personal radiation protection, and this complementary article about radiation on Peak Prosperity.
Cyber Attacks
Cyber attacks are on the rise worldwide. Many types of business are often the target, but utilities and other portions of the infrastructure are key targets too. Many will remember the Colonial Pipeline hacking incident last summer. Hackers used ransomware on the pipeline’s control systems. What consumers were led to believe would be resolved in a few days took much longer, and ended only because Colonial paid the ransom.
Caving to the hacker’s demand will encourage some hackers to commit further cyber extortion crimes.
One should assume that computer systems managing nation’s infrastructure are cyber-attack targets.
How To Prepare
Consider what you would do during rolling blackouts, or moderate to long stretches with no electricity.
The best way to prepare for gasoline and fuel disruptions is to keep your gas tank at least ½ full, safely store extra gas in cans or a caddy at home, and pay attention to the news for signs of looming shortages ahead. For example, we know that if a major hurricane strikes the gulf, there is the potential for supply disruption in the near future.
The Grid
If hackers can shut down pipelines, they can shut down the grid (we’ve seen nation states do just that). Our electrical power grid is extremely vulnerable to ransomware attacks, but there are other threats. From my house, I can see parts of the main power lines that are rusted and corroded. These are lines that carry power to urban areas in my region. This is quite common throughout the nation.
I have been writing about preparedness for a very long time, and while a lot of my readers are worried about an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), I have always considered the lack of maintenance and security of power stations and lines to be a far bigger, and more likely, threat.
How to Prepare
Having some backup power at home is not as expensive or hard as it used to be. In an extended outage, generators running on fuels like gasoline, propane or diesel will have shorter production lifespan than a solar power station.
Investing in some solar backup is a good idea. Panels can be used to charge up power stations. Some power stations are large enough to offer whole-house backup. There are plenty of small affordable power stations that are ready to use after an initial charge. Jackery makes excellent power stations that are lightweight and come in a variety of sizes to meet your needs. Goal Zero is another reputable brand.
If you have a grid-tied solar power system for your home, then you need to know that no solar power will be available to you if the grid goes down unless you have a battery backup system and a switch to disconnect you from the utility service. Some people opt for the battery back up at installation, but most do not because of the extra out-of-pocket cost. Grid-tied systems are typically designed to reduce or eliminate your typical power bill, not be a backup for a grid down emergency.
Rolling blackouts can happen anywhere and anytime when the power grid is stretched thin. This happened in Texas just last year because of a once-in-a lifetime winter storm. You need to have enough food, water, and medication on hand to get through at least a few weeks. During winter, this means also having plenty of warm blankets and clothing and some way to have some backup heat.
It is also important to have a way to prepare and cook meals if you are without electricity. Small propane stoves are a good option. If you have a wood stove, then you can enjoy the peace of mind of having a way to stay warm and something you can cook a meal on.
Since it can take longer to cook and prepare meals without electricity, it is a good idea to have some foods on hand that require little or no preparation. Cans of soup or stew will heat up fast with very little fuel.
Wood-fired rocket stoves are a good option for emergency cooking outside.
Railroads
While you may think the loss of railroads will not affect you much, I bet you are wrong. They are another link in the supply chain moving freight worldwide for consumers and industrial use.
How To Prepare
When commodities don’t move as fast or as inexpensively as we are used to, we can expect prices to rise. This means more expensive power because we still get a considerable amount of power from coal-fired power plants. Bulk animal feeds are moved by rail, so any rise in cost or shipping delays can affect the food supply chain.
The most you can do to prepare for railroads not being maintained is try to conserve energy and try not to waste food. Be ready for some goods to take longer for companies to produce.
Oil Refineries and Pipelines
Over the last few years, there have been many oil refinery and pipeline shutdowns threatening fuel supplies for short periods of time. Hurricane Katrina shut down a significant portion of the nation’s refineries for weeks, adding pressure to fuel prices and availability.
President Biden revoked a key permit that was essential for finishing the Keystone XL pipeline. The 1,200-mile pipeline would have carried 830,000 barrels per day of oil sands from Alberta to Nebraska. Our use of Russian oil could be zero if that pipeline were operational
In January, Biden placed a moratorium on new fossil fuel leases and drilling on federal lands.
If political policies can disrupt fuel availability and cause prices to skyrocket, imagine what an attack would do.
How To Prepare
In my area, we are at the very end of the gas supply chain. Gas is delivered to basically everywhere else before it reaches the sparsely populated mountains of North Carolina. As a result, we do not let our truck get to less than half a tank. When supplies are reliable, we make sure our gas caddy is full, so we can keep running our Kawasaki Mule, chainsaws, weed eaters, etc.
It does not take a lot of fuel to keep our little farm running for months at a time. If you have a space where you can store a few gas cans safely, or if you have a spot that can hold a gas caddy, you can have a safety-net in case of a supply disruption. If you have a long commute, then you may not be able to store enough to get through a week especially with a larger vehicle.
During times of shortages or high prices, you should do whatever you can to reduce trips. Pick up what you need in town when commuting to and from work rather than going back out later. Avoid driving on your days off if possible.
Roads and Bridges
Ever notice the construction date on bridges? Well, for many, those dates are far in the past. Bridge failures are quite common.
Last year, it was reported that there was a huge crack in a main support beam of the I-40 bridge that spans the Mississippi River connecting Memphis, Tenn. to West Memphis, Ark. Shockingly the crack was first spotted and reported in 2016 by a kayaker. It took five years before the issue was addressed. The bridge was shut down for more than 11 weeks to make repairs. The I-40 bridge at Memphis has 41,000 cars on average pass over it daily. Imagine the traffic. Consider the carnage if that bridge had collapsed.
I used to live near the Skagit River in Washington State. A few years ago, a bridge collapsed. It was amazing more people were not injured, considering that the bridge is part of I-5. Some cars did go into the water. If the time of day had been different, the results would have been horrific.
I-5 bridge collapse on May 23, 2013. The bridge connects the towns of Mount Vernon and Burlington, Washington.
Road maintenance is split between county, city, state, and federal agencies, which affects how fast and how well things get fixed. Some counties, cities, and states attempt to do a decent job, but road funds only go so far, and the labor shortages throughout so many industries make it harder to get jobs completed in a timely manner.
Those who live in lower-traffic areas or in small communities may find that they are last in line for repairs. When labor is hard to come by, and funds are tight, and only a few people are impacted, all too often, those that are out in more rural areas or on lower traffic roads get fixed last.
My husband and I don’t travel on interstates that much. The last few months of my pregnancy, we had to drive on the interstate more often, and we noticed things were not being maintained. While the pavement seemed alright at the time, the sides of I-40 in western North Carolina were overgrown with vegetation to the point that signs on the side of the roadway were obscured and difficult to read. It was clear the road crews were waiting longer between maintenance.
In the future, I expect that the pavement will be rougher, and there are going to be more potholes. Debris on roadways is not going to be cleared as quickly, thus posing hazards. Some roads that are paved may even go back to being mostly gravel or the gravel concrete blend that one used to see before asphalt became more commonplace.
How To Prepare
Bad roads can lead to breakdowns. Getting stuck on a road is never fun, but it can be a little easier if you pack a good car emergency kit and a get-home bag just in case you actually have to abandon your vehicle.
Those that drive more rugged vehicles may have it easier when road conditions deteriorate, but not entirely. No matter what you drive, you can expect tough road conditions to lead to more wear and tear in shorter amounts of time.
Finding alternative routes to get where you need to go and back is a smart idea. A route that may have taken longer in the past may actually be quicker if the roads of your main route are in rough shape.
Bridges not being maintained is something you really cannot do much to prepare for. If a bridge goes out, you will have to take a route that is likely to be a lot longer if you absolutely have to cross a waterway. If you can take care of business on your side of the bridge, it will be in your best interest.
Conclusion
At this point, there is simply no way for the infrastructure to be fixed before there are increasingly major failures. Even if an emphasis on launching repairs today, it would be a long time before things were up to par. The most the average person can do is be aware of the threats and prepare as much as they can by planning around them.
On a local level, a group of citizens may be able to spur action if they make a strong case to the right people. So, in addition to preparing your household for these challenges, consider contacting your local officials to let them know their voters want action.
Otherwise, what other ways are you preparing for infrastructure failures?
The other day, I talked to my partner about the future and how we see the current events panning out around us. During the conversation, I had the idea to perform a thought experiment based on the circumstances from “One Second After” written by the incomparable William R. Forstchen.
In that post-apocalyptic thriller, an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is detonated over the United States causing all electronics in line of sight of the detonation to stop working immediately. As a result, in the blink of an eye, the east coast is thrust into the Middle Ages.
Some might say an EMP is a bit radical of an idea to consider as a possible plan of action from a foreign adversary. Still, those folks should read this article by the New York Post detailing the successful test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile by the People’s Republic of China in August 2021. Or more recently, the supersonic missile reportedly used by Russia. In my personal belief, an EMP would be one of the most catastrophic events to occur in our modern world, and thus it makes for a strong resilience mental exercise.
“America is like an exotic hothouse plant. It can only live now in the artificial environment of vaccinations, sterilization, and antibiotics we started creating a hundred or more years ago,” wrote Forstchen. In truth, Americans are accustomed to getting practically anything we want, within reason. In just a couple of days, if we know the suitable internet sites to probe, everything can be delivered directly to our home. What happens when that system collapses? What comes after that? That is what this thought experiment is all about.
Drinking Water
Let’s start with a simple question: Where does your water come from? It seems so simple because most people, not all, have to say they don’t know. Their faucet? Yes, but how does it get there? For the vast majority of Americans, their water is provided to them by their city or county, and electricity plays a significant role.
On our homestead, water comes from a hand-dug well using a cast-iron hand pump that we have no more than 50 feet from the front door of our 40-ft shipping container tiny home. We also have the tools and equipment already purchased to dig another well, this time connected to its very own solar pump.
When It’s Time to Go
What about your sewage? The vast majority of Americans, especially those on the grid, have their sewage hooked up to their local municipal network, or they have a septic tank. The problem with both of these methods is they become completely useless when the electricity goes out. More than likely, if you’re connected to “city sewage,” your system will back up into your home in a matter of days. The septic tank might give you a little more time, but when that system gets full…you’re literally shit out of luck.
Unless sewer and drainage systems are completely gravity fed, they rely on electricity to push water and waste uphill. When there is no electricity to run lift stations and pumps, systems will pose problems for homes. (Image Source: Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation Authority)
On our homestead, we compost all of our waste, including urine. Christopher David did a deep dive into the subject with his article, “Everybody Poops & What to do About it.” In the article, Chris explores the best method to compost your waste and the benefits this provides your garden.
Medicine
This is a tough one to swallow. Unfortunately, if the electricity grid goes down, some people will not last very long without medication. People on dialysis, diabetics, and others on life-saving medications will not be able to get their refills and will perish. This is sad, but it’s a fact of life in a grid-down situation.
For the rest of the world who are not dependent on medications to live, there will still be challenges faced when you or a loved one has a medical emergency. You will not be able to get in your car and drive to the emergency room, and help will not come to find you.
Recently, I’ve started to familiarize myself with emergency medicine in the context of a catastrophic event. A fantastic book to read on this topic is The Survival Medicine Handbook, The Essential Guide for When Help is Not on the Way by Dr. Joseph Alton, MD, and his wife Amy Alton, APRN. This incredible book walks you through common scenarios you might face on your own when medical help is no longer available.
Another way to help yourself is to learn plants and their medicinal benefits. We are huge fans of tinctures and using plants for their health benefits. Upset stomach? Grab some ginger. Ear ache? Some mullein garlic will clear that up quickly. There are thousands of different plants that you can use for medicines. So, do yourself a favor, start buying bulk dry herbs, and learn how to make a tincture.
Are all your appliances and tools powered? Can you cook without city/county-provided electricity or natural gas? Can you make a cup of coffee without electricity? Can you fix anything without a battery-powered tool?
Food
How much of the food you consume comes from somewhere not on your property? We’ve all been to the grocery stores recently and noticed too many items in short or no supply. In early 2020, the country practically ran out of toilet paper, and everyone lost their collective minds.
How about the impact of rising costs as part of this exercise? The inflation rate in America is the highest since 1990. For some context, I was born in 1990. I’m 31 years old. Coincidentally, the government doesn’t measure everything when determining the level of inflation, including household energy and food. What are the two major expenses of average middle and working-class families? Fuel and food.
Chart depicting the increasing inflation rate in the U.S.
The above graph shows me that it’s time to put our personal food production into overdrive. With an EMP, you won’t be able to hop in your car and drive to the local grocery store to buy exactly what you need or want (even if the car works). We (I say we, but it’s been more my partner doing the work) have been building up the soil on our property with compost, a compost tea, old chicken bedding, and mulch. This spring, we are hoping the last two years pay off for us to grow a bountiful crop.
Security
I could go on and on with examples in this thought experiment, but I will leave you with another question and some parting thoughts. What does your security look like? Again, this is answered by a majority of people with: I have a deadbolt on my door and a phone, so I can call 911. If shit starts hitting the fan in your neck of the woods, how confident are you that you’re protected on your property? How big is your property and how many people are in your household that can keep a watchful eye on things 24-7?
One Second After and countless historical examples show us that it doesn’t take much for people to lose their humanity. Look at what’s happening in the world where the vaccinated are being pitted against the unvaccinated. The vitriol spewing from the mouths of these holier-than-thou-hypnotized vaccinated brings to mind a time this world devolved into mass formation psychosis that erupted into a world war, and millions were murdered in the name of a final solution.
A Resilient Family
Who is in your network? Chris and I have been looking for a network for the last couple of years. However, we learned quickly that our network will not consist of our nearby neighbors. We tried and ultimately failed to establish mutually beneficial relationships with them, so we are looking to build a network of people outside of our geographic area with our thoughts about topics and the way forward. (Thank goodness for Peak Prosperity!)
We’d love to hear about your experience with this similar thought experiment in the comments.
About the Author: Christopher Michael was born into a military family, and lived in North Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania. In his adult life, Christopher has lived in Louisiana, Maryland, and now Virginia. Christopher completed a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology. He joined the Army as an intelligence analyst, and deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2013. After serving overseas, he began working in counterintelligence in Washington D.C., when he became sufficiently disgusted with the government. He recently completed a Master’s in Business Administration, and worked as a healthcare administrator for a year. The expertise Christopher brings to the network includes: security, military operations, project management, marketing, writing, and strategic analysis.
California is facing a rash of exceptionally dangerous and poor legislation that I literally cannot understand or abide. In every instance, the legislation seeks to undermine parental and privacy rights, limit freedom and impose state willpower over what should be private personal and business decisions. They represent a well-greased slippery slope. The only possible way to understand it compassionately is to see those elected officials proposing it as being swept up in Mass Psychosis.
But compassion is not the same thing as condoning, let alone approving of, such recklessly indifferent ignorance. In this video, I discuss the horrendous slate of California bills with Laura Sextro, CEO and COO of the Unity Project. (Fun fact: I am on the strategic advisory council for the Unity Project.)
I heartily ask everyone to pitch in here. Write letters, make phone calls, and donate to the Unity Project. Why? Because even if you don’t live in California, as goes California, so go other states. If California passes these laws, your state could well be next. This is a battle for the future and soul of our country, individual rights, parental rights, medical freedom and all the rest.
We can turn back such obvious mass psychosis by standing up and saying, “No!”
This legislation, if passed, would:
Authorize a minor 12 years of age or older to consent to vaccines (medical treatments) without parental knowledge or consent.
Mandate children be immunized with COVID-19 vaccine in order to attend school or daycare, and remove the personal belief exemption for any additional vaccine requirements added by the California Department of Health.
Authorize the medical board to inspect a doctor’s office and patient records without a patient’s consent.
Authorize a healthcare provider or service plan to disclose your child’s medical information to a school-linked services coordinator, without parental consent, circumventing HIPAA and FERPA laws.
Prohibit “harmful content” on social media expanding existing law to include libel or slander against governmental entities, and disinformation or misinformation, regarding medicine or vaccinations, elections, and conspiracy theories.
Require sheriffs and peace officers to enforce public health orders, and prohibit state funds from being provided to any law enforcement agency that publicly announces it will oppose a public health order.
Mandate schools to continue COVID-19 testing and report information to the department.
Create one statewide California Immunization Registry tracking system for all vaccines to be entered into the California Immunization Registry (CAIR). Schools and other entities would have access to all vaccine records, rather than just those of their students/patients and/or the particular vaccines required for school.
Requires an employer to require each employee, or independent contractor, who is eligible, to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. It allows for medical and religious exemptions.
Allows the Medical Board to take action against doctors and strip them of their license if they promote information deemed misinformation relating to COVID-19.
That these bills were even proposed tells us just how dangerously bad and off the rails some people are. That they are in positions of power is a very bad sign…it means other people agree with them.
Taken together these bills are a disaster for the state of California. If even a few of them pass, I can easily predict the state will experience even greater outflows of people, probably the type that California can least afford to lose.
Nice weather in California, but it’s rapidly assuring its own destruction. Their enemies are the very worst sort; those already within its own walls.
I am a systems thinker. It’s how I see the world and I want to help others see it this way too.
Everything connects to everything else. It’s all interlinked. One cannot possibly hope to have an informed opinion about the economy without knowing how that complex system rests upon and interacts with energy, itself another complex system. Each of those is also a subset of the ecological or environmental systems, themselves composed of innumerable nested complex systems.
Energy is THE master resource and oil is the king of the land of energy. As goes oil, so goes literally everything.
This is a difficult concept for many people to accept because they have grown up in a world that teaches linear thinking and which has been so steeped in abundant energy for so long that, like a fish and water, it’s too pervasive to detect.
So, let’s take a look at the actual situation at hand. Inventories are too low, investment in oil & gas has been too low, and the world is shunning Russian oil and gas at a very bad moment in time.
Further, inflation is scorchingly hot and rising, while interest rates are spiking. Nobody seems to be in charge, and nobody in power is displaying any sort of appropriate context or leadership.
Add it all up, and the threats to our current and future prosperity are overwhelming. We’re going to be taking hits. If we’re lucky the financial system won’t implode taking a big swath of the economy along with it.
I talk about all that and end by encouraging everyone to get prepared and as resilient as possible.
Buying precious metals is not as easy or intuitive as many people might think. I originally wrote this guide more than 10 years ago certain that before long the media and Wall Street would eventually do a much better job explaining precious metals and demystifying the purchase process to investors.
But that hasn’t happened. So, if you feel particularly uninformed, there’s a reason for that. Best guess, Wall Street would prefer that you remain “in the market” buying their paper-based wares such as stocks and bonds while skimming their cuts along the way.
So, in the spirit of helping you buy your first gold or silver, here is the latest version of the original Gold and Silver Buying Guide I last updated in 2018.
I remember buying my first gold in 2001. When it showed up mostly covered in stamps (insured, of course) I was taken aback that so much wealth was contained in a surprisingly small but heavy package. Once I held my first coin in my hands, I was hooked. Something universally primal was triggered. Holding physical, concentrated wealth is an unmistakable sensation. It’s real and tangible.
But first, a legal disclaimer:
Nothing in this document constitutes personal financial advice. Always consult with a professional financial advisor before taking any big steps. While we may endorse some strategies and companies we like, it is expected that you will conduct your own due diligence before investing your money. We’ve done our best to screen every promoted company for great service and competitive prices, but you may find better options on your own and we heartily encourage you to work with whomever you prefer.
I do care about one thing, however: that you get some gold and silver by whatever means (legally)! A local coin shop in town, or a single coin from a friend? Whatever works best to get you started on the correct path.
What’s The Cliff-Notes Version of This Tutorial?
Build an emergency stash of gold and silver immediately if you don’t have any.
Focus on owning much more silver by weight.
Buy well-recognized coins and bars (Eagles, Krugerrands, etc.).
Use GoldSilver.com for physical purchases (Mike Maloney is a good friend, and Peak Prosperity has an affiliate relationship).
Hide them carefully, don’t tell anyone, and leave a treasure map somewhere just in case.
Decide how much total asset exposure you want to precious metals, then make a plan to obtain it.
Use Hard Assets Alliance for larger purchases to be professionally and securely vaulted and stored.
Invest in mining stocks and other leveraged plays only after you’ve built up your physical positions. This really requires some help from your financial advisor. (More on that in a different article.)
The Simple Strategy
Everyone who buys insurance should consider gold and silver an economic policy. Don’t try and pick a day when the price seems best, just do it. And don’t stress the prices, you’re buying for the long-haul because if our world goes sideways, today’s prices will be meaningless.
Start buying your insurance today and keep at it until your insurance portfolio of physical gold and silver has met your personal target(s).
Many people buy both gold and silver. So, the first question is “how much of each?”
Keeping it simple, you might invest a similar, 50:50, dollar value in each. Which means that on an ounce-by-ounce basis you’ll end up with 80 times as much silver as gold (based on the 2022 ratio of 80:1 for silver to gold). But on a dollar-for-dollar basis, they will be the same amount.
Personally? I have a 2/3rd to 1/3rd ratio of gold to silver, but some people have more silver than gold. It’s a matter of personal preference.
Why Precious Metals?
During tough times, fiat money loses value. Always. Today, the inflation we’re experiencing is the real-life process of our dollars (fiat money) losing buying power (value). It’s not “gold becoming more expensive” as the media tries to paint it, but a case of each dollar being able to buy less and less gold (or silver or food) over time.
History is replete with examples of nations going bankrupt and their paper (fiat) money becoming worthless. Germany post World War I is an iconic example. The alternative and safe bet is always precious metals. They always have value. In every period throughout history, gold and silver have had value which has been remarkably stable. It is often said that an ounce of gold would buy a rocking toga in Roman times and today it would get you a killer Italian suit. That’s what we mean by stable.
If you have a decent financial advisor, they should tell you having some physical gold or silver is a good way to diversify your portfolio. If they don’t…fire them.
Now, there are two terms to keep in mind:
Bullion is the most common term for coins and bars.
Sovereigns are government-minted coins that also are the most recognized around the world.
I recommend you start by buying bullion in the form of sovereigns. Why sovereigns? Because trying to convince someone to sell you food or fuel in exchange for your company’s anniversary gold coin will be more difficult than making an exchange with coins a merchant is familiar with.
The most recognizable are the American Eagle, Canadian Maple Leaf, South African Krugerrand and the British Sovereign. There are plenty more like the Austrian Philharmonic or Australian Kangaroo, but they are not as prevalent in most countries.
For simplicity and purchasing options, buy in small one-ounce portions like the coins pictured here. It’s just too impracticable to make change with a gold bar.
Also, the popularity of sovereigns makes it easy for dealers to spot a fake, which is especially popular with increasing concern over China’s amazing forgery talents.
Here are four ways to perform tests for real gold or silver three of which can be done at home rather easily. Yes, there’s an app for that.
How to tell if gold is real, from the Money Metals Exchange:
And here’s a more in-depth look at a professional device, the Sigma Metalytics Gold and Silver Verifier:
Measurements Matter
Bullion is measured in ounces, but it’s not same ounces your kitchen scale measurements. Precious metals are measured in a “troy ounce” which is 9.7% heavier than a regular ounce. One troy ounce = 1.09714286 ounces. In metric terms, a regular ounce is 28.35 grams and a troy ounce is 31.10 grams.
To complicate things further, some gold coins are pure gold (24 carats, or 0.999 pure) and the rest are alloyed with silver (or copper in the case of Krugerrands giving them their distinctive reddish tint). So, they will weigh even more than a troy ounce because of that additional weight.
When you buy an ounce of gold bullion, you are getting a troy ounce of gold. Here’s an example:
Gold is a soft metal. Other metals are infused into the gold to give it strength. The Krugerrand includes copper to give it the beautiful coloring.
Why Does The “Spot” Price Differ From The Store Price?
When the price of gold is quoted on TV it is always the “spot” price that one would pay at that very moment (on the spot) if one were able to buy a 400-ounce bar of gold directly from the COMEX exchange which virtually nobody can actually do logistically or financially. After all, 400 ounces at $2,000 an ounce is an $800,000 bar.
Someone has to buy that huge bar, process it, turn it into 400 separate coin “blanks” and then stamp them into the beautiful shapes we see above. Which means that you and I will always pay more than “spot price” for an ounce of gold because manufacturing and storage costs are included in our price. Like any business, everybody in the precious metals supply chain has costs to absorb and deserves to make a profit.
The total price above the spot is the “premium” we’ll pay. Luckily, the industry is highly competitive in the U.S. and so the premium we’d typically pay during calm periods is between 1% and 5% above spot for one ounce gold coins (other countries with VAT taxes have wildly different experiences with this, sorry to say). Silver tends to be a lot higher on a percentage basis because of the high cost of processing relative to the value of the intrinsic metal in each coin.
In general, if you buy 1 oz. sovereign coins, you’re in the sweet spot for affordability. You also should be aware that the smaller you go in coin weights, the more processing there is per coin, which translates into a higher premium. For example, the premium for teensy-tiny one gram bullion bars will be in the vicinity of 30% or more over spot. As an example, if spot gold were $2,000 per ounce, a one-gram bar might cost an additional $85 representing a 31% premium over spot.
Don’t Buy Numismatic Coins for Your Bullion Strategy
According to Websters, numismatic means the study or collection of coins, tokens, and paper money and sometimes related objects (such as medals). In short, numismatic coins are bullion collectibles no longer in circulation. The bulk of their value rests with their rarity, not their gold or silver content.
While that rarity premium is a downside, the potential upside is that historically, at least in the U.S., the government has not confiscated numismatics.
I find them to be beautiful and attractive and certainly understand their allure.
Here are a few U.S. examples:
However, steer clear of numismatics as a part of your bullion strategy because in a crisis such coins are likely to be valued only on the basis of their gold content and none of the collectible premium you paid. In short, you’ll lose money on that premium.
If you do contact a gold dealer and they try to steer you towards numismatics, my advice is to run and scratch them off your trusted list.
Silver’s Role in My Insurance Plan
I personally prefer silver over gold at this point of the story. Roughly, at the time of this writing, gold costs 80 times as much per ounce as silver. That’s an extreme difference historically speaking and I expect silver to do better over time than gold as it “catches up” with the price of gold.
I also happen to have gobs of data to suggest that the price of silver is a plaything of Wall Street firms and is heavily rigged by them to keep the price down. Why do they do this? Because they can, and because they make money doing it. Part of me is annoyed at the games and rigged markets Wall Street revels in. The other part of me enjoys buying silver at these discount sales Wall Street manufactures from time to time.
However, price suppression has a deeper cost, and that happens to be throttled output as new mines are not brought online because prices are too low. If, as they say, the cure for higher prices is high prices (meaning high prices encourage new supply to come to market) then the corollary is that low prices are the cause of low supplies. So, I am extremely bullish on the imminent shortages of silver that I see in the future.
Further, silver isn’t like gold. Gold is mined and then it sits in guarded metal boxes being traded over and over again. Gold is money. That’s its use. Silver is money, or it could be money again I should say, but it is mainly an industrial metal. That means it is mined, used and only partially recycled, with the remaining balance forever disbursed into landfills the world over. In other words, it is both depleted and depleting from the world. So, I happen to own quite a lot of physical silver.
You have many options to consider when buying silver. First, how much do you want to hold yourself? In which forms? How much can you store at home given how bulky it is. How much would you prefer to be held in a vault for you somewhere?
The basic forms are bars and coins with both government-issued and private mint options. Again, as with gold, there will be a premium over spot and with silver it is often a lot higher than gold.
Sovereign silver coins such as the American Silver Eagle and the Canadian Maple Leaf typically have the highest premium over spot.
Private mints make a wide variety of coins, called “rounds” and various assorted bars ranging in size from 1 oz. to several kilograms. Again, less popular “brands” will be less recognizable by dealers and the average person, and you might be forced sell them at a discount (or perhaps, not at all).
One of your best silver options is to purchase pre-1964 U.S. coins (quarters, dimes, etc.), also called “junk silver”. Back in the day, the government minted our coins with 90% silver. It’s a much cheaper option and if you’re bartering with silver, you literally have change you can use versus bars or larger coins.
Besides having smaller increments to buy smaller products, if you need to use pre-1964 coins, remember they are worth much more than a quarter, dime or half-dollar. You can monitor their real (intrinsic silver) value at Coinflation.com.
I have quite a bit of junk silver with the idea that it might become useful to help re-start our local economy if/when the dollar fails. However, if you attempt to sell junk silver during a recession, dealers will offer less because of the difficulty of them being able to sell the coins to refiners.
It’s Silver and Gold, not Silverandgold
Sometimes people say “silver and gold” as if it were one word expressing once concept. Silverandgold.
I prefer to think of them as entirely different metals with entirely different investment theses. Gold is a monetary metal. It is not used industrially to any notable degree, and really has one, singular use; it is money.
I hold gold because of that quality. I believe that fiat currencies are going to bankrupt themselves as they always do because they are driven by human whim. Will gold eventually come back as money? I believe it will, as it always has.
Silver, on the other hand, is an industrial metal. It is mined and consumed. I buy silver because of its rare qualities. On the period table of elements, it is the most reflective and the most conductive of any element. It also has the highest thermal conductivity.
This trio of amazing qualities assures that silver will be sought after for industrial purposes for as long as there is industry to make use of it.
It is also being mined and lost molecule-by-molecule back into the soils and oceans of the world. This dispersion of silver assures that there is effectively less and less of it each year for we humans to eventually get our hands on in useful form. Mines are depleting with every passing year.
Add all that up and we have a rare industrial metal element that is prized for its amazing qualities which is depleting rapidly from the earth’s crust. And that’s why I hold silver. It’s my “Rip Van Winkle” holding. Wake me up in 20 years with just one asset from my entire collection and I’d pick silver to be that thing.
So, it’s not silverandgold. It’s silver and gold.
How Much Should I Store for Emergencies?
I am a terrible person to ask because I have an insanely unsupportable over-exposure to gold and silver in my portfolio. Think “over 50%” and you are headed in the right direction.
You want enough to survive over a long period of time, but without needing a vault and an armed guard. And by all means, do not watch the prices. Remember, this is about survival in a crisis.
One good thought on value, precious metals aren’t popular products in the vast majority of homes. So, a little will go a long way.
Who Should I Trust to Buy Gold and Silver?
Peak Prosperity endorses several firms, all of which we trust will treat you well and give you high-quality service. For buying physical gold and silver, my good friend Mike Maloney has built an exceptional company in GoldSilver.com. We have an affiliate relationship with them which means some of their profits flow to us, without costing you a penny extra. We also have endorsed Hard Assets Alliance for many years, have an affiliate relationship, and will explain more about them below.
An affiliate relationship allows companies like Peak Prosperity to earn a small percentage from each sale we generate for a partner company without costing our readers anything extra.
Whether you use these or a different online or local firm, my advice is to deal with a firm that has been in business for years – ideally a decade or more – and has a well-respected brand. These firms have a reputation to protect, and thus will be less likely to gouge you, sell you inferior product, or do anything shady/illegal.
There should be no product quality difference whether you buy sovereign coins from a local or an online store. But there is an important advantage to buying from a local dealer: the relationship.
It can be highly valuable to have a local dealer who knows who you are, values your patronage and knows they have sold you good products. In a time of panic, bullion supply can quickly dry up, as it did in supreme fashion in 1980, when coin shops had lines around the block of people desperate to exchange their dollars for gold. In that kind of limited inventory environment, being on a dealer’s “preferred customer” list – getting first access to restricted supply if you want to buy more, or receiving discrete VIP treatment should you want to sell – will be a tremendous advantage.
If instead, you prefer to purchase online, as I tend to do, there are many good merchants out there and a few questionable ones.
Bullion Stored for You (at Hard Asset Alliance)
For many investors, bullion storage companies can be a good fit.
Peak Prosperity has, for years, endorsed solutions like the Hard Assets Alliance. (Again, Peak Prosperity has an affiliate relationship with HAA. They share some of their revenues with us for directing customers their way, without costing customers anything. Our Peak Prosperity Insiders and VIPs can secure their first six months of storage completely free, another benefit to our higher tier members.)
You can purchase gold and silver through HAA at competitive prices, and they will store it for you in a high-security vault in one of several locations. HAA also will sell small amounts of precious metals and ship them directly to you.
What’s really cool is that your vaulted contents are insured in bullion. It’s a one-for-one replacement.
In terms of storage options, the HAA holds any precious metals you buy in your name. By definition, this is called “allocated” storage. It’s yours alone.
An example of allocated storage (not an HAA vault room).
Allocated means a specific bar with a specific serial number, or a set number of coins on a specific shelf, are legally allocated to a specific owner: you. If it’s “unallocated” it means your sharing the bullion with others. When using a storage company, definitely choose allocated solutions over unallocated ones.
Also, the vaulting company should be routinely audited by third parties at least once a year. HAA goes further than that: “The contents of each vault we use are audited daily by the provider and reconciled with HAA records. Every movement in and out is meticulously logged and tracked on camera. At least twice each year, the vault is independently audited by an internationally recognized auditing firm that specializes in precious metals.”
When doing business with HAA, rest assured that it offers excellent pricing because it uses Gold Bullion International’s industrial-grade platform, and a minimum of four dealers compete for your business.
They also offer a “worry-free” automated purchasing program that lets you create a set-it-and-forget-it plan for accumulating bullion over time. This lets you tap the power of dollar-cost-averaging without having to actively manage the process.
In addition, HAA will ship it to you with a click of your mouse.
Should I Store Bullion at Home?
You might, but if you do, keep it a secret. Because I have a very public persona, I keep all of mine offsite in a combination of safety deposit boxes and vaulting solutions. But some people prefer the closeness of keeping it…within reach.
Obvious storage options are a safe in your house, or somewhere more imaginative.
Gold is a highly concentrated form of wealth. You can easily wrap your hand around $50,000 of the bullion. Such tiny volumes can be hidden almost anywhere. Again TELL NO ONE what you own. The fewer people who suspect you have any gold, the lower your risk of robbery, or jealous family members wanting a loan.
One real concern though is that many insurance policies do not cover large amounts of bullion. Or possibly any at all. If you are counting on insurance in any way shape or form, you should spend a little bit of time investigating your policy and its limits.
If you do stash any wealth away in a hard-to-find spot, be sure to write down instructions to that stash where a loved one can find it should you unexpectedly pass or you are away from home and need to tell someone where to find it.
Or be sure to place it with an aluminum dog tag with your name on it in case you forget where you buried it. That way, when it is unearthed in 1,000 years and placed in a museum, the displayed hoard may carry your name.
Obviously, bank safety deposit boxes are generally safer. However, if banks close during a financial crisis, you’re out of luck. Some will tell you that in 1933 the U.S. confiscated gold and forced people to open their safety deposit boxes in the presence of a Treasury agent who would seize any gold coinage or bars found therein.
While true, it is also true that in 1933 gold WAS money. Today, that’s not the case and so we don’t anticipate a repeat seizure episode. If or when gold is once again made into sovereign money we will reevaluate this position, but for now it’s not a concern of ours.
Act Before It’s Too Late
My concern? The market realities: when the big money decides to buy gold and silver, you and I will be effectively shut out. Quoted prices will skyrocket, and there simply won’t be any available supply. By the time there is, the price will move up even more locking out all the late and smaller entrants.
I’m old enough to have experienced three periods when the retail silver market completely ran out of supply leading to wait times of between six to eight weeks for product. And that was with only us few devoted retail players involved (aka “silver bugs”).
When (not if) the big money and the general hordes of the buying public arrive, the world of gold and silver will prove to be too small to accommodate them all. As they say, the doorways will get clogged. You can expect long frustrating delays to get your hands on any gold or silver, and that’s if you can find any to secure at all.
That future world will consist of those who pre-positioned themselves and those who didn’t (but wish they had). The haves and the have nots.
Maybe the most important concern: a crisis is not guaranteed to go slow. If it happens, and you’re trying to make a decision, and haven’t yet eo knowstablished a banking line with a precious metals company, you and your loved ones may be out of luck…in ways we don’t want to ponder.
This article is adapted from a blog post of the same name at 
