Which Comes First: Economic & Social Collapse Of The USA, Including The Dollar, Or Fifty Dollar Silver?

Remember the old saying, “you don’t want to see a world with $100 silver”? Yeah, well, we may just have to dial back our expectations…

(by Half Dollar) The ease with which nearly all things are surging in price never ceases to amaze.

Does it?

For example, I just started looking for a new pair of sneakers, or tennis shoes, if I may, and I like the brand Asics for many reasons, including perhaps a way of paying homage to my running days, but one of the main reasons I like Asics so much, aside from the company having models for all foot-types, having good comfort and having quality support, is the great variety of sizes and colors on offer.

I have what I would call a normal shoe size (10.5 wide), and for years, I’ve been able to get Asics when I’m buying new tennis shoes for around either side of fifty bucks, and many years ago, I could routinely get them for $35 to $50.

I’m talking about basic Asics at that price point, and I’m not talking about the ultra-premium Asics I’d buy specifically for running, although there would be no shame in running in any of the Asics I buy, cheap or expensive, really, yet back in the day, I’d gladly shell out the big bucks for a pair of dedicated running shoes, but for some “everyday” kind of shoes, I have found that basic models of Asics do really well, and there’s really no need to go for their more expensive shoes.

And so I don’t.

Regardless, I abruptly stopped looking for tennis shoes the other day, and this is online, mind you, which is how I’ve had to buy all of the shoes that I currently own, tennis or otherwise, because the dang stores never have the 10.5 “wide” in stock whenever I go in person, and no, I’m sorry, but size 11 ain’t the same thing!

That said, I abruptly stopped looking for tennis shoes the other day for one particular reason: Sticker shock.

Yup.

It hit me.

Of course, I’ve said all along to get ready for tennis shoes that cost $1500 instead of $150, and we all know that’s coming, because it’s just the mathematical outcome of having an Unconstitutional, unbacked, debt-based fiat currency dependent on exponential, unsustainable growth, but for now, as we head into the month of August, 2021, it appears that $100 is the new $50.

I hope.

And only if you’re lucky.

Including with your timing.

Unless, of course, you can write a script and create a web bot to do the shopping for you.

Now, if you really want to know what happened in my specific case of sticker shock, I was clicking model after model and color after color and drop-down menu after drop-down menu just as fast as I could, or just as fast as Google Chrome could update my selections, for shoes in all sorts of wacky colors that I’d never strap on my feet in a million years, and yet, there I was, frantically opening new tabs, closing others, and I was doing everything I could within my power to find anything, just anything, in size “10.5 wide”, that cost less than a hundred bucks, and at that point, I didn’t even care if the model was only available in Splattered Pink Sunburst with Flowing Neon Rainbow design, for if I could just find anything in size 10.5 wide for a reasonable price, I’d buy it!

What happened next is where the details get a little foggy.

Perhaps it was the neon colors flashing on my multiple monitors, but the last thing I remember was clicking on some shoes that were $119.99, and sure enough, none of the colors were available in a size 10.5 wide, and a short time after having not a speck of luck anywhere in the now well above one hundred dollar price range, my wallet blew-up in my back left pocket, blew a hole through the seat of my chair, caused catastrophic damage to its hydraulic lift, and I guess I toppled over onto the concrete floor or something, because as I came to my senses, I found myself sitting on the floor with a broken chair at my side, rubbing the throbbing bump on my head and wondering if that steep price included free shipping or not?

Ugh.

Sticker shock, indeed.

I’ll start looking for tennis shoes again someday, just as soon as I can muster up the courage to do so, but I’ve got to make absolutely certain that my Search Fu skills are sharp and refined before I do, and I might even have to venture away from Asics altogether, although I’d rather not because I like the Asics consistency and reliability, but as I’ve said for some time, and as I’ve just rediscovered, in full force, if you can find a good pair of shoes you will wear one day, and if your feet are no longer “growing”, so to say, then buy those shoes now and reduce your risk of even worse sticker shock later.

Needless to say, I’m taking my fashion-conscious teenage kids “back-to-school” clothes shopping this weekend, and I think I’m going to down a bottle of Pepto and pop some Tums just before walking into the mall, because my kids tennis shoes always cost about half of an arm and a quarter of a leg, and because my kids must have the Super Duper Cool Model, and since the Super Duper Cool Model is the only model that is not on sale in the whole dang mall, and since the Super Duper Cool Model is also too expensive to qualify for the “tax free” shopping weekend, with my recent experience of sticker shock, in conjunction with being the dad of two hip, trendy kids, I should probably look into getting a line of credit on my house or something for this year’s back-to-school shopping.

You know, just in case.

Just kidding.

I pay with cash, mostly, or by debit card.

But I’m not kidding about this: Silver is the very best hedge against all of this monetary insanity.

And that is but one of the reasons why silver will not rally like people think silver will rally, and it’s also one of the reasons silver is vanishing into some holes in the ground, sinking in boats and stuff:

Another reason why silver will not rally like people think silver will rally, of course, is that above all else, they will let go of silver last.

Said differently, if there is one thing the Deep State, be them of the Globalist variety or the American variety, fears more than anything else in the entire world, it’s silver, because silver is the real power of the people.

Everybody’s getting excited about August:

You now how everybody got excited about July?

Um, yeah.

Kinda like that.

This is close to being resolved, but I’m still not comfortable with silver not outperforming gold to the downside:

Casting the manipulation aside for a moment, to simplify things, it has to do with the size of the silver market.

Anybody who does not quite understand can think of it like this: If you are in school taking a test, and if your test has 10 questions and you get 4 of them wrong, you fail, and yet, if your test has 2 questions and you get 1 of them wrong, you also fail, and in a similar way, gold is a much bigger market (test) than silver is, so all things considered, “X” number of wrong answers on our test, or, “X” amount of money moving into silver, has much more of an impact on silver’s price than the same amount of money moving into gold has on gold’s price.

Platinum is the gift that keeps on giving:

And if the charts matter, it looks like platinum will be giving even more!

Palladium continues to be a whipsaw:

The wild swings have moderated somewhat, but they’re still signaling a period of volatility.

There’s been a lot of talk about “shrinkflation” this week:

So I’ll play: The digital sign at the newly constructed gas station near me only shows the price for the lowest grade of unleaded gasoline!

So not only is that shrinkflation, but it’s probably also discrimination.

And it’s racist.

I mean, a white sign with red digital numbers?

What kind of sick and twisted stuff is that?

And speaking of sick and twisted, or pain at the pump, I recall seeing $3.19 per gallon for the cheap stuff around where I live, and with the price of crude oil not really correcting, much less significantly, pretty soon people will actually have to start paying attention again to how much it costs to fill up their vehicles, and this comes right at a time when businesses are telling their employees that they’ve got to get out of their basements and back into the office.

Powell said as long as the price increases we’ve seen so far don’t keep on going up, then it’s “transitory” inflation.