It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe …
Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.
Summer is finally here and it’s Father’s Day weekend — so I’m taking it easy this week. I hope all you Dad’s out there are able to do the same!
Okay, off we go …
Credits and Debits
Credit: For all you savers on a fixed income out there who are looking for bigger returns, you may want to consider Greek bonds. This week the yield on Greece’s two-year debt soared to more than 29%. No, I didn’t forget a decimal point.
Debit: Then again, Greece’s central bank is also warning that a financial collapse is in the cards if they can’t come to a debt-restructuring agreement with their creditors — so those bonds may eventually not be worth the paper they’re printed on.
Credit: That’s not the only warning. More and more mainstream fund managers in Britain are finally waking up and recommending that their clients prepare for a “systemic event” by holding gold and silver, and even keeping physical cash in the mattress. Miracles never cease.
Credit: Meanwhile, here in America, where everything is rainbows and unicorns, major US stock indices ended a four-day winning streak on Friday — but not before the Nasdaq hit another all-time high on Thursday.
Credit: For his part, former-Representative Ron Paul — one of the few politicians who really understands how our financial system works — is also warning that a “day of reckoning” is near … for both the stock and bond markets.
Debit: Unlike Greece, the US devised a clever solution to ensure its own day of reckoning never arrives: stop tracking the National Debt. Yep. Treasury records show the federal debt has been officially frozen at $18,112,975,000,000 for more than 90 days now.
Debit: Um, speaking of not tracking data, Obamacare bureaucrats have no idea who they recently distributed $2.8 billion in Obamacare subsidies to. See? That kind of critical attention to detail is why government does things cheaper than the private sector. Or not.
Credit: It’s official: The Lone Star State officially enacted a law this week to repatriate $1 billion in gold from the New York Fed’s vault — and it includes an additional provision that prevents US government seizure of their metal. In other words: “Hey, feds … don’t mess with Texas.”
Credit: Gee, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say the folks in the Lone Star State believe that America’s unconstrained debt problem now has the US dollar on a very shaky foundation — if not its death bed. I know … that’s probably just crazy talk.
Debit: Yes, this is the same Texas where city officials in a town called Overton shut down a lemonade stand being run by two little girls because they didn’t have a $150 business permit. Sadly, even in the Lone Star State, government is far too big for its britches.
Debit: Just when you thought the fee-happy airline industry couldn’t get any more annoying, they did it again. This week, Frontier Airlines announced that they’ll be charging passengers $1.99 for soft drinks, coffee, tea and juice. The good news is: the lavatories are still free. For now.
Credit: Maybe Frontier Airlines should take a lesson from Air India. This week The Independent reported that Air India is now providing lizards as an in-flight meal service accompaniment for no additional charge. Well … at least for one lucky traveler. Mmm. Lizards.
By the Numbers
Speaking of air travel, when it comes to travel delays, here are the five best — and five worst — US hub airports to fly into or out of, based on data accrued during the past 12 months:
1 Honolulu
2 Portland, OR
3 San Diego
4 Tampa
5 Salt Lake City
26 Philadelphia
27 Chicago (O’Hare)
28 Newark, NJ
29 New York (JFK)
30 New York (LaGuardia)
Source: fivethirtyeight
The Question of the Week
[poll id="66"]
Last Week’s Poll Result
How much spare change do you typically keep in your primary car?
- Between $1 and $5 (42%)
- Less than $1 (41%)
- More than $5 (17%)
Almost 500 people answered this week’s survey question and it turns out that almost 1 in 5 of you out there have cars that are capable of doubling as an ATM machine. Well … almost.
Other Useless News
Here are the top — and bottom — five Canadian provinces and territories in terms of the average number of pages viewed per visit here at Len Penzo dot Com over the past 30 days:
1. Alberta (2.18 pages/visit)
2. Newfoundland and Labrador (2.10)
3. Manitoba (1.93)
4. Prince Edward Island (1.82)
5. Saskatchewan (1.73)
9. Quebec (1.59)
10. New Brunswick (1.43)
11. Nunavut (1.33)
12. Northwest Territories (1.25)
13. Yukon Territory (1.00)
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Letters, I Get Letters
Every week I feature the most interesting question or comment — assuming I get one, that is. And folks who are lucky enough to have the only question in the mailbag get their letter highlighted here whether it’s interesting or not! You can reach me at: Len@LenPenzo.com
After reading my blog post on why some people have such messy finances — and my complaint about my kids’ messy bedrooms — Jennifer Oke had this to say:
Don’t feel bad. My kids never clean their rooms either. Maybe it’s time to change their habit.
Here’s the trouble with that: Whenever they have a clean room they can never find what they’re looking for.
I’m Len Penzo and I approved this message.
Photo Credit: brendan-c
Len, I heard that the FED didn’t have the whole amount that Texas had requested, not sure if that was true or not, but I seriously doubt the USA has the amount of gold it says it does. I have a feeling the biggest majority has gone to China and Russia. Some of it might have went back to a few European countries who requested their gold back also. Just wondering if I should buy some stock in Yuan for when the Chinese finally announce this Fall how much gold they really have. What do you think? I’m afraid the Dollars life may now be in months instead of years.
Jared: I think it’s a given that the US doesn’t have anything close to the 8000+ metric tons of the yellow metal it purports to have. The recent investigative research by blogger Koos Jansen (using gold audit documents provided via Freedom of Information Act requests and other sources) only bolsters that position.
We are clearly on borrowed time now, living large only because we’re eating the seed corn our forefathers stored during the 19th and early part of the 20th century. When the illusion is finally broken, America’s standard of living will drop noticeably — and that’s when everyone will finally wake up. Unfortunately, by that time it will be too late to recover for retirees and near-retirees who haven’t already protected themselves. Remember, the French Revolution started from the same catalyst we are now facing.
There is some good news though: 1) this will allow the economy to, eventually, finally grow again — and manufacturing jobs will return to our shores; 2) younger adults who were caught off-guard because they were focussed only on their favorite sports teams, Dancing with the Stars, and Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner will have plenty of time to recover.
I agree Len with your list. I was in Salt Lake City last two months ago and I must say that I experience a bit of a delay. But, I still gotta need to bear it because I often visit the place every now and then to visit my siblings.
Texas made the fatal error of NOT taking delivery when purchasing gold. There is little chance they will get it now.
Texas’ $1 billion worth of gold at the current-dollar price is not quite 25 metric tons — or approximately 2000 400-troy ounce bars. Remember: In 2013, Germany requested the NY Fed repatriate 300 metric tons of gold they were supposed to be storing for the Bundesbank, but the NY Fed, for some reason, could only return 5 metric tons to Germany that year. Strange, isn’t it?
As of 2015, the NY Fed still owes the Bundesbank 210 metric tons of the yellow metal. You can bet Germany knows they’re in big trouble because, although they only asked the NY Fed to return 300 metric tons of gold, the NY Fed is supposedly “storing” almost 1500 metric tons for them — that’s more than one-third of Germany’s entire “official” gold hoard!
(Folks, this is important financial news that the mainstream media never talks about, and it is why most people are completely clueless about the world around them.)
Seeing that the NY Fed can’t even return a small portion of Germany’s gold, then I think it is safe to say that all of Germany’s 1500 metric tons of gold being “stored” in NY Fed vaults has already been rehypothecated to parts unknown (probably China), never to be seen again. Likewise, I suspect the Lone Star State will never see its gold either because … it simply isn’t there anymore. The NY Fed gold vault is nearly empty.
The noose is tightening. Trust is evaporating between national central banks and even US states and the federal government — and the entire banking system relies on trust.
The charade will be over relatively soon.
And I would imagine the echoes are even louder in the storage vault at Fort Knox these days.
Scary times that we live in.
Yep. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people end up hanging from lamp posts when the financial fraud is finally uncovered.
We saw Diehard 3…so we know where the gold is.
ha ha! Good one, Forty!