Metacoin

Covering Bitcoin, the Blockchain, Altcoins, and Fintech

Inflation

Five Tips You Can Use to Become a Financial Survivalist

In an increasingly uncertain world, it’s wise to prepare for financial survival. Whether you’re concerned about economic collapse, inflation, or other financial emergencies, there are several steps you can take to safeguard your wealth and ensure your survival.

Here are five ideas for becoming a financial survivalist:

1. Invest in Gold and Silver

Gold and silver have been used as a form of currency for thousands of years, and they continue to be a popular investment for those concerned about financial survival. One of the reasons gold and silver are so valuable is that they are physical assets that can’t be created out of thin air like paper currency or digital assets. They are also a hedge against inflation, as their value tends to rise as the value of paper currency falls.

There are several ways to invest in gold and silver, including buying physical coins or bars, investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track the price of gold or silver, or investing in mining companies that extract precious metals from the ground. Keep in mind that the price of gold and silver can be volatile, so it’s important to do your research and understand the risks before investing.

2. Consider Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are digital assets that are decentralized, meaning they are not controlled by any government or financial institution. They offer several advantages over traditional currency, including lower transaction fees, faster transaction times, and greater privacy.

One of the reasons bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are popular with financial survivalists is that they are not tied to the traditional banking system, which can be vulnerable to economic instability or government intervention. However, it’s important to note that the value of cryptocurrencies can be highly volatile, so it’s important to invest only what you can afford to lose.

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3. Keep Some Cash on Hand

While gold, silver, and cryptocurrencies offer advantages over paper currency, it’s still important to keep some cash on hand for emergencies. In the event of a natural disaster, power outage, or other emergency, ATMs and credit card machines may not be available, making it difficult to access your funds.

Keeping some cash on hand can also be useful in the event of a bank run or other financial crisis. However, it’s important to keep the cash in a secure location, such as a fireproof safe, and to rotate it regularly to avoid deterioration or damage.

4. Learn to Live Frugally

One of the best ways to ensure financial survival is to learn to live frugally. This means living within your means, avoiding debt, and finding ways to save money on everyday expenses.

There are many ways to live frugally, such as shopping for bargains, cooking at home instead of eating out, and cutting back on unnecessary expenses like cable TV or expensive hobbies. By living frugally, you can build up a financial cushion that can help you weather financial emergencies and avoid being caught in a cycle of debt.

5. Invest in Self-Sufficiency

Finally, investing in self-sufficiency can be a valuable tool for financial survival. This means learning skills like gardening, canning, and food preservation, as well as basic DIY skills like carpentry and plumbing.

By investing in self-sufficiency, you can reduce your dependence on outside sources for food, water, and other essentials. This can be especially valuable in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency that disrupts supply chains and makes it difficult to access basic necessities.

In conclusion, becoming a financial survivalist requires a combination of investment in tangible assets like gold and silver, digital assets like bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and cash, as well as learning to live frugally and investing in self-sufficiency. By taking these steps, you can increase your chances of surviving and thriving in an uncertain financial future.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

18 Months Later: Was Jim Rogers Correct?

Editor’s Note: We decided to hand the reins over to a guest columnist, Lawrence James, who lives in Sub-Saharan Africa and has become a fan of Metacoin. We asked him to take another look at Dave’s conversation with Jim Rogers, and see what his thoughts were after the fact.

A year ago, in a conversation Dave held with Jim Rogers about the crypto and economic worlds at large, the pair happened to exchange a couple of points. Jim is a long-time investor, hedge fund manager, and co-founder of the Quantum Fund. Most importantly, he’s a self-made multi-millionaire who knows a thing or two about markets.

Biden Backing Up the Money Truck

Dave posed a question on the issue of Joe Biden giving out cash to people who elected him, which put the country in debt, and how it would be paid for. Jim said, “ You’re wondering but Joe Biden is not wondering,“ and later explained that politicians like Biden were driven by a mentality that insinuated that they spend if it’s there, and if it were not there, they would borrow it and still spend it. This came to pass when Biden awarded $1.9 trillion as part of the American rescue plan, which was geared towards bailing out citizens, and giving out $1400 stimulus checks, a move that further put the country in debt. 

Also, concerning the Biden issue, Dave asked for Jim’s view on whether the Biden administration was using that as an opportunity to continue an economic overreach and if such an event would ever unfold again. He said that that would happen again since the governments had guns while referring to power, and they knew what was good for the community. He claimed that maybe their approach was what was going to save everyone.

I think, true to this thinking, Biden’s approach, bordering on “overreach,” ended up working, but the discovery of vaccines greatly aided the administration.

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What About Short Squeezes?

Dave later questioned the issue of GameStop. It had gone up 85% from its usual high then. Jim termed that a short squeeze, for that was not the first time he had seen that, but what amazed him was how they could create such a vast short, which, according to him, was a legitimate and historical kind of event. He also says it can happen again, but he suspects it cannot happen in the Silver markets. However, this came to pass in another market when Nickel faced the risks of another short squeeze as of 31st March 2022.

What About Crypto?

Dave asked specifically if Bitcoin was a worthy trading vehicle, given the fact that, if it were made a publicly traded company, it would rank as the sixth largest in the world (at 963 billion dollars at the time of the interview). Jim termed crypto a worthy investment vehicle; he even added that if he had the chance earlier, he would have bought some for himself.

In line with that, he added that nations without internet access could not use crypto; hence in such a nation, one with crypto can be termed as one only “money rich” but can’t spend their money. He also pointed out blackout cases as another flaw to wanting to access crypto whenever in need readily. He mentioned that many nations had already raged war on crypto use on their borders. And if it were to succeed in becoming money,  the governments would outlaw it if it meant using guns. This has, however, not been the case yet, as El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal currency as of September 2022. 

Market Bubbles Abound…Still?

Next, Dave brought up an interview Jim did with Kitco, where Jim said we weren’t in a bubble in stocks. Jim agreed, but said that bonds were in a bubble, and at that time, bonds were at the most expensive they had ever been, and that was a bubble. He claims on the stock market, some stocks might have registered bubbles, but some stocks, Like Apple, Tencent, and Google, make profits every day and have never been in a bubble; hence the stock market, according to him, was not experiencing a full bubble just yet. He said that the many “SPAC“s coming, which he believed came after a bull market, would bring a bubble burst and an end to the bull market.

An economic bubble popped later in the year. Despite their impressiveness, the 20–30% corrections experienced in the first half of 2022—the most significant first-half decline in more than 50 years—had not yet warmed up. Instead, they had come from high starting positions after a period of the fast price increase. As a result, two problems needed to be addressed: first, were the beginning positions of these corrections so high that markets had inflated? Second, had the markets deflated as much as they usually do when a bubble bursts if they were in bubble mode? Knowing where we came from may help us determine where we were going.

In conclusion, I would say that Mr. Rogers is a man of his word as most of what he said came to pass. Crypto has been termed the future of money, and its use has been on the rise, with many countries even accepting it as legal tender. However, some people are still skeptical about its use, with Jim Rogers being one of them. Nevertheless, he is still a great investor, and his predictions are always worth listening to; however, as he stated earlier, one’s choice of investing should be characterized by their understanding of the investment.

Crypto: Down. Stocks: Down. Inflation: Up. So What Do You Buy?

Here’s yet another post with a couple blatant caveats: (1) THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE and (2) NOBODY KNOWS WHAT’S GOING ON.

We’ve had a couple weeks here in CryptoLand. You name it, it’s down. Take our 2022 Growth Portfolio: a hypothetical $10,000 investment with $1,000 each in ten different crypto assets. Thank God it’s only hypothetical.

Screenshot from May 20, 5:30 a.m. CDT

It was a bloodbath. It still is kinda sorta a bloodbath, in that nobody knows if BTC saw the bottom, or if ETH’s move to Proof of Stake (known colloquially as “The Merge”) is going to be all that, or if stablecoins will stabilize.

And whether or not you’re better off throwing darts.

At Least the Stock Market Is Okay, Right?

Let’s answer the question in the meme with a screenshot.

Stock market, one-month performance.

The problem, though, is that to keep propping up the stock market, The Fed is going to need to thread the needle on interest rates. Too much of an increase and the stock market tanks. Too little of an increase and you can’t catch up with inflation.

So you’re painted into a corner because the stock market is so important to everyone’s 401(k) plan and the inflation rate — which is caused, DUH, by ALL THAT PANDEMIC MONEY PRINTING — is so important to everyone’s standard of living that it really REALLY stinks to be Jerome Powell right now.

Now, Let’s Talk Inflation. Cue Karen Carpenter…

“We’ve Only Just Begun…”

As David Stockman — President Reagan’s former Budget Director, native Midwesterner (shout-out to Michiana!), and future guest on my YouTube channel (call me!) — told us on Doug Casey’s Dispatch a couple weeks ago, we are collectively screwed. And it’s mostly thanks to central bankers.

That part about J-POW having a rough job is not an understatement; the corner we have been painted (printed) into is troublesome. Investors don’t know which assets to invest in, and the average Joe is more worried about real-life things like gas prices or the cost of food.

So…What DO You Buy?

We follow a few financial people on Twitter, on YouTube, and elsewhere. We’re nailing Jell-O to a tree here.

Here’s Joe from Heresy Financial, telling us (SPOILER ALERT) that Treasurys might be the way to go. Here’s another YouTuber — one we found from typing in “where to invest 2022” into the YouTube search bar, then going with the first one we found from the month of May — suggesting individual stocks. And here’s CNBC, taking a break from its “How This [NUMBER] Year-Old [JOB DESCRIPTION] Made [LARGE AMOUNT] By [ZAGGING WHEN EVERYONE ELSE ZIGGED AND/OR INHERITING MONEY]” template (shown here) to give us a whole host of ideas of where to invest in an inflationary environment.

Feel free to grab any of these ideas and batten down the hatches, right?

We’d refer you back (AGAIN) to our series called SHTF. Volume 1 is here and Volume 2 is here. But these are *mostly* crypto-related ideas (with a break for some precious metals and cash on hand). And that isn’t even guaranteed, if the last few weeks are any evidence.

TL;DR: See Elmo

Elmo Fire

Buckle Up. Good Luck.

Help With Crypto Doom Scrolling

If you’re looking for a bright spot, any bright spot, where do you look? Darn good question. We don’t know, either. But here are a couple things to help. Maybe.

It’s Not as Bad This Morning as It Was Overnight

Our 2022 Crypto Growth Portfolio

Behold, the numbers from the 2022 Crypto Growth Portfolio. The columns next to price are (first) 1-hour change and (second) 24-hour change.

Sell in May and Go Away has been replaced by “buy stuff an hour ago, watch it go up 5% on average, then sell it all and buy some foodstuffs.”

BTW, your $10,000 investment in the 2022 Growth Portfolio is now…$6702.

At Least You’re Not LUNA or UST

(If you are holding one of those or you’re part of the teams behind those…scroll on to the next subhead. Trust us.)

Here’s a chart of what happened overnight to UST.

This is after yours truly thought they had somewhat kinda righted the ship after sorta kinda having one of those weird days the other day.

Still, this is a coin that is pegged to the US Dollar and uses something called “an algorithm” to keep its price at $1.00 Or so we thought; but, as a wise man once told me, sometimes the quants get it wrong.

One year of UST

360 days of being thisclose to $1 each. And then the rug gets pulled. It’s Soros-level market manipulation (Learn more about that here: Soros.) It’s not done.

Below you’ll find a 24-hour price chart for $LUNA, which backs $UST.

We’re being nice. Could have shared the 1-year chart.

Then There’s $COIN

Oy. Coinbase is having a rough go of it, eh? Much will be discussed about the company’s growth — whether too much too quick or the post-IPO blues — but it’s really a yikes moment.

Not a good look.

(We won’t even mention the infamous “Jim Cramer Albatross” rating the stock a buy all the way up to $475.)

Carnage, Carnage Everywhere

The bubbles are popping left and right; not just in crypto. Used-car marketplace Carvana has laid off 12% of its staff. While you’d *think* this has something to do with inflation and used-car demand, you’d be slightly right but actually way wrong.

Read the thread, short the stock.

This is about that “Irrational Exuberance” that the Fed warned us about back before they became a meme.

At Least Inflation Is Better, Right?

Narrative highlights tell you it’s not so bad.

The narrative machine has kicked in already: it slowed (from 8.5% last month, but that’s year-over-year) but it actually went up (0.3% month-to-month). And Gasoline isn’t bad because the index fell, but energy prices went up year-over-year.

Now What?

“RETVRN” is a common cry among trads on Twitter. Better days ahead if we go back to what better days were like before. Or something like that.

Good luck.

Inflation.

18 months ago, right before the Presidential election, we wrote a two-part series that got a little bit of attention. In it, we discussed a strategy for when things get pretty bad.

Part One (go here for more: SHTF Part One) is probably more endemic to today’s news of an inflation rate that has the risk of spiraling out of control than Part Two.

But, to be honest, we didn’t think, even back then, that we’d see 7.9 percent year-over-year inflation. In the United States.

(Thanks to tradingeconomics.com for the chart; month-by-month figures going back to Jan. 2017.)

The U.S. Dollar Is…Get This…An Inflationary Asset!

To paraphrase George Costanza’s risk management tapes from the show Seinfeld, “in order to understand ‘inflation’ we must first define ‘inflation.'”

When you print way too much money, you get inflation. “Inflation is, always and everywhere, a monetary problem,” according to Milton Friedman. You can throw blame at whichever President or Congress you’d like (they’re all guilty, as we learn in this balanced piece from the website The Balance), or whichever crisis you’d like (though, to be fair, the Federal Government printed a metric crapton during COVID).

Don’t Believe The (Putin) Hype

Listen to Chuck D.

Don’t listen to Joe B.

The seeds were sown ages ago — like, probably three or four Fed Governors and Presidential Budget Directors ago — and the reality is that Vladimir Putin is a mere scapegoat. Gas prices are rising, but they’re not totally his fault; and the rise in food prices to come will be due, in part, to Putin’s war.

But you could get into a host of academic arguments and ask who bears the most responsibility and it won’t solve the problem.

‘Bitcoin Solves This!’

Yes, and no. And maybe.

As Putin’s War Machine and his “Evil Cronies” are learning, if you can’t use the global financial system that exists — if you’re shut out of traditional banking — you have to make do. In Putin’s case, that means calling China. In your case, that means…well, that means a few things.

First up, you’re not Putin, planning on invading another country. But you don’t know if or when you will fall out of favor with the traditional banks. (See “Trudeau, Justin” for an example of just how that could happen to you.) You also don’t know exactly how bad this inflation stuff will get — and you could find yourself using the black market (WHAT???) before you know it.

Seriously.

Venezuelan Black Market Finance

If you live in Venezuela, you have been dealing with this sort of thing for a while. There’s an official exchange rate, then there’s an unofficial black market rate. And there’s always the risk of the government revaluing the currency.

Zimbabwe had to do this, too, creating a 100 Trillion Dollar Bill back in the day.

And on and on…

Upshot: Get In The Game

You don’t know when the time will come where you need some of that stuff in the post — Cash, Precious Metals, some BTC through Coinbase or Crypto.com, and some ETH too (THOSE ARE AFFILIATE LINKS OVER THERE, WE COULD BE COMPENSATED IF YOU SIGN UP THROUGH THEM) — and you don’t know when it might…hit the fan.

But standing on the sidelines, now, is not an option.