i was thinking more about less experienced people who bought more recently thinking PMs were solid as gold and then to have to sell, for whatever reason, at larger discounts than I for one would have expected this early in the run. I do think this uneven buying/selling and refiner situation narrative works it self out as the free market exerts itself.
@cmartenson Thanks for refreshing memory on type 1 and 2 accounts - after you and Paul reminded me on this interview I went in and had my 3 Schwab accounts changed to TYPE 1 as I do not use margin anyhow.
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I stopped gloating after adding up the taxes expected from our prudent government:
3.8% Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT)
28% âCollectablesâ long-term gains Tax
9.3% State tax
45.1% Total
So I either pay this or make sure to not trigger any IRS Form 8300 reports and just hope?
Suggestions?
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Where did you find the rates for collectibles and NIIT?
As for state taxes: sell them in a state without such taxes.
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No amount of gold, or silver, or food, or farms is going to get us out whatâs coming or is already here. Prepping is Mission Impossible. Really.
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Good troll, Iâll bite 
Remember that old, stupid, but somewhat entertaining move: Tremors ?
Hey, Reba McEntire was in it along with Kevin Bacon, et. al. Kinda like an old western (cowboys, guns, town banded together, a mini love story) but instead of banditos, it was a group of giant worms that terrorized the county (horror/comedy?).
The one quote from Rebaâs husband in the movie (a serious prepper): âFood for five years, a thousand gallons of gas, air filtration, water filtration, Geiger counter. Bomb shelter! Underground⌠damn monsters.â (and of course he had all kinds of small arms, a cannon, home-made bombs, property was fencedâŚ). As I recall he and Reba did survive, but not everyone did.
Still, there is nothing wrong with being aware, prepared and stocked. We didnât need to fight long lines for TP during the 'Vid. If the power goes out, weâre warm for quite a while. Water is available (fishing), propane/fuel, stoves, pots/pans, dried, canned, and preserved foodâŚshade during the summer heat, and someone to snuggle with and furry critters who want your time. I could think of much worse positions to be in.
Troll on homieâŚ
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If you are facing hunger eating for one more week is better than not. If you are cold, a blanket or two are a form of wealth, even if they are ugly and mismatched.
We might not be able to stop what is coming but we can have some common sense about the basics.
Worrying about the transfer of wealth via PMs before taking care of the basics might not be common sense. Thinking you can weather any and all geopolitical changes with the entirety of your wealth and luxuries intact might not be common sense either.
Better to try than give up entirely.
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All I am saying is that sometimes there just arenât enough guns, ammo, food, farms, gold or silver. That is definitely the case for what is coming or is already here. When this thing goes south, the poles will flip with it. Nothing will ever be the same again.
âTremorsâ is a bad example. What they had was all they had, and all they had been able to accumulate in a lifetime. âTremorsâ is Hollywood. Itâs not even real. Having preps enough to last 72-hours is the same as being totally unprepared for what is either coming or is already here. Hardly anybody has enough preps to last a lifetime.
I remember watching âDr. Strangeloveâ and being blown away. I just recently watched âMission Impossible: The Final Reckoningâ and thought: âJust how many times is the threat of nuclear annihilation supposed to excite a movie audience? Arenât there any bigger cudgels out there?â
Nope.
AI? Bring it. Nuclear War? Bring it. Total World Domination. Bring it. Contagion? Been there. Done that. Next. A full-on systemic collapse. Boring. You hear it all the time: âHitler. Hitler. Hitler.â Without the sexy uniforms, black leather, Jackboots, U-boats, Wunderwaffe, World War 3 is nothing. Been there. Done that. Thatâs why what is coming or already here will be a total âMeh.â
You have the state, local, and federal governments stealing old age pensions from senior citizens who are on fixed incomes. And doing it outright. No freebies anymore, youâre paying for all of it. âHow dare you have resources you entitled scum,â they say. They are making distinctions between taxes, income, and resources, and itâs all theirs now. They are taking it all. In real time.
When I see these homeless camps, I see people on Social Security but with their savings cleared out. 401Ks depleted by over 50-percent in the GFC and Crash of 2008-09. Everybody knows you canât survive on Social Security alone, but that isnât stopping these people from taking that, too. Nobody survives outdoors. Not for long. And not long enough.
Howâs that for âtrollingâ?
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You arenât going to have enough matches. After a year, you arenât going to have even the essentials (like shoes, even). And nothing after that. That clear things up a bit for you?
Hereâs a fact for you. MIT did a study and discovered that if the human population of over 9-billion (they just found out their calculations were off by over a billion people) had only wood to burn that that all the trees would be gone in a year. Think of it. All of our forests are already under stress. Trees are viewed like corn, or wheat, or soybeans. Something to be harvested every year. Things look lush driving down a highway with trees on both sides, but just hundred yards in, its desiccated landscape, devoid of life.
Donât believe me? Look at the historical photographic record. There arenât very many trees in those pictures. The reason Dutch Elm disease took such a nasty toll was that the Natureâs immune system had been weakened by deforestation. Fortunately, coal came along. And when we had burned up the good stuff (Anthracite), fossil fuels were next. Hope youâre getting ready to kiss goodbye to the next tank of gas. Car insurance rates arenât doubling for nothing.
With human beings itâs always been what comes next. But where is your next pair of shoes going to come from when there are no more shoes (for a while anyway, or just long enough)? Your next meal? The next roof over your head?
And if youâre a man, the next family to walk away from?
Agree,
Read Kunstlerâs âWorld Made By Handsâ excellent series and apt in description
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I have enough matches to last a life time I promiseâŚ..and shoes and boots, I even have a few tubes of stuff to fix them.
I see lawns of uneaten grass mowed, and drive by golf courses, so I donât believe we have met peak food, peak firewood, nor will anytime soon regardless of Harvard.
If it was that bad Russia would be selling the deadfall from Siberia, and Canada would be exporting firewood also.
When I travel the USA, I often do so on roads other than the interstate and there is so very much land not in use that could be farmed and so many trees.
I purposely drive those roads to see that so it can cancels out much of the doom I read online.
(I highly recommend loctite shoe glue)
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Those NIIT & Long-term gains rates are from a conversation last week during an intro meeting with a new CPA (ours retired). My understanding is the NIIT only applies if adjusted gross income exceeds $250,000 (we had a home sale so will qualify), but the other âcollectablesâ tax could be even worse if the metals were owned less than a year (i.e., Short-term cap gain tax goes up to 37%, instead of being capped at 28% as âcollectablesâ are treated for Long-term cap gain tax).
There definitely seem to be gaps in the reporting requirements of the merchant (e.g., less than 25 oz Au Maples or any quantity of Ag Maples have zero reporting requirement), but any scrutiny into the source of income from a metal sale seems to require documentation of the original purchase in order to establish the cost basis (otherwise the IRS requires the cost basis to be ZERO!).
Anyone have a good link to learn about the options available from someone who thought this whole process through better than I have?
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I would suggest that âAfter Armageddonâ is a much better example.
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There are specific levels that trigger reporting requirements. I had hoped to talk to a big dealer today, but missed the opportunity. A monster box of silver results in higher payment than the individual sleeves⌠however, a single sleeve has zero reporting requirements. A friend if vacuuming up any silver anybody is selling these days. Local 1 to 1 sales might work.
This gets back to having an exit strategy, and I need to start developing one.
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Some brokerage company, that I know nothing about, did a review in realtion to Fidelity, and said they had changed their structure from 6? 7? 8? seperate legal enities and put them all together or linked them. This was a year ago or so. I never followed up on that, but why would they do that? And maybe it isnât true. Just sayinâ. There are a lot of uncertainities today.
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We shd be able to own stocks and shares outright, not under the custody of brokerages, etc. This to me is the fundamental issue. The truth is, with the structure that we are under, we are NOT the legal owners of the stocks and shares we presuming own. This has to change!
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maybe investing for geopolitical risk, & civil wars which are promoted by adversaries. How do you prep for being Lebanon, Algeria, Iraq, or Ukraine, or can you. Even lower grade conflicts, narco state stuff, total corruption (Minnesota?) have uncertain outcomes. Think china in 1950, Russia 1990. What worked?
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I guess itâs a good troll, you hooked some fish. Thereâs a difference between hooking and and landing them. Iâm sorry for your bitterness (who said life was easy?) and absolute opinion(s). Maybe go out and try to do something you enjoy (even a brief respite) to rid yourself of some of the funk?
Of course no one can plan for every eventuality, but one can try to be mostly self-sufficient, prepare for emergencies, provide for and love their families and neighbors. You donât need to be a seer to notice life on this planet is hitting the fan, NOR can we predict the exact circumstances of our demise. So youâve given up on everything? Sorry, thatâs not in my spirit.
Ohh, I threw your hook, back to the deep water for me.
Someone suggested we should end our posts with puppy or kitty pics!
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AG tripling in just over 12 months is surely catching the attention of the normies:
I have never heard so many people talking about AG as in these days!
Even on the radio⌠Very very curious to see how high it will go before a pull back.
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an article from afar, the geopolitical risk: