Over the last two months, the physical precious metals market has experienced a strong wave of demand that it’s difficult to put into proper context. Our sales for the period are up nearly 500-700% over the previous period. The increase in volume has caused several unforeseen issues with mints, refiners, and suppliers. The demand surge along with the repercussions of Covid-19 have disrupted the entire supply chain in some way, shape, or form.
Hundreds of products on our website sold out overnight. The limited inventory which we were able to purchase had to be sold on a lengthy delay. Acquisition costs of all inventory dramatically increased in price as we efforted to keep products in the pipeline. Contributing to the chaos was a series of obstacles relating to getting existing purchase orders delivered in a timely manner.
In the eight years of our business, we have never encountered such unique logistical challenges. Any inventory needing transportation was delayed with shortages in armored vehicles available to transport it (note this was partially created by the Federal Reserve moving money between banks at an escalated clip). We ran into weight and valuation restrictions on both trucks and planes due to the unprecedented volume of metal we needed to move. Due to the decrease in international travel, there were fewer transcontinental flights bringing in gold bars from overseas where the majority of gold is refined and minted. Any planes which are available continue to quote 3-4x the normal cost to transport gold into the United States.
The SD Bullion distribution center, while following protocol on safe practices from the CDC and local governments, has been operating 24 hours a day during this unprecedented time to get customers’ orders shipped as quickly as possible. Due to this effort we have successfully reduced our processing times this week. We are very close to getting back to the standard processing times customers have come to expect with SD Bullion.
As we inch closer to normality at SD Bullion, we are unsure of what the immediate future holds in our industry. Some are of the opinion that this is merely the eye of the storm we find ourselves in. While retail demand has decreased slightly from its peak, it still remains well above normal. Furthermore, a number of major refiners, mining companies, and mints remain closed. Some international borders have yet to open.
We expect major bullion items will continue to come in and out of stock on our website for the foreseeable future. While we have been able to replenish some of our inventory, our acquisition costs remain substantially higher. The paper spot price continues to decouple from the physical spot price on deliverable exchanges possibly indicating a shortage of underlying metal. We personally believe the case for owning physical precious metals is as important now as it ever has been.
Select members of our SD Bullion executive team recently participated in a live broadcast to discuss this topic and more; it’s critical that we continue the dialogue with customers as news and conditions evolve.
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According to the Associated Press, they’re back – with a second wave of the destructive, crop-eating insects up to 20x as large as the first which are swarming by the billions.
The young desert locusts have left their breeding grounds in Somalia, where they will search and destroy fresh vegetation resulting from seasonal rains. This in turn has caused locals to band together to try and combat them, only to risk spreading coronavirus, according to the report.
It is the locusts that “everyone is talking about,” said Yoweri Aboket, a farmer in Uganda. “Once they land in your garden they do total destruction. Some people will even tell you that the locusts are more destructive than the coronavirus. There are even some who don’t believe that the virus will reach here.”
Some farmers in Abokat’s village near the Kenyan border bang metal pans, whistle or throw stones to try to drive the locusts away. But mostly they watch in frustration, largely barred by a coronavirus lockdown from gathering outside their homes.
A failed garden of cassava, a local staple, means hunger. Such worries in the village of some 600 people are reflected across a large part of East Africa, including Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan. The locust swarms also have been sighted in Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania and Congo. –AP
People want miracles to believe in God. The Bible teaches us to open our eyes and we will see the glory of God everywhere. We also will see the trials and tribulations He imposes on petulant children. Plagues, locusts, volcanoes and impending famine should be enough for any sapient human to realize we are not on the right path.
While I encourage people to get the proper context of the above message by reading by starting at verse 1, ask yourself if this country is on the right path? Look at the popularity of the Socialist/Communist message in this election cycle. Look at the response of the Federal government to this epidemic in the country. The simple question is whether we will follow the Word or follow man.
David DeGerolamo
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As the US approaches the half-million mark of # of people infected with covid-19, Chris shares his personal regimen for keeping his immune system elevated.
This is NOT personal medical advice, though Chris shares the research results supportive of his regimen.
Meanwhile, the damage to the global economy continues to amplify. In China, half a million companies have closed already. In the US, over 16 million people have filed for unemployment. And the response from US central authorities is staggering in scope. $Trillions and $trillions in stimulus is now flooding onto the stage.
Will it rescue the companies and households that are suffering? Time will tell. Though it’s an easy bet to predict that the larger and more powerful parties will fare much better than the average joe.
Chris points out how the decision-makers within Congress and the Fed don’t fathom (or more accurately, can’t fathom) the magnitude of the steps they’re taking. The sums are just too big. What ripple effects will this drastic action have for our currency’s purchasing power? To the already terrible wealth gap in this country?
Again, time will tell. But we very much may not like the answers we ultimately get. On a more positive note: Happy Easter/Passover! Get out there this weekend and start/work on your garden!
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I have always been impressed by Brandon Smith’s writing on alt-market. The article linked on another NCRenegade post lists five steps to prepare for the future. All steps are important but I want to discuss step 5:
Step 5: Be Ready To Fight And Die For What You Believe In
People always talk about fighting for freedom, but the question is will they actually do it when faced with overwhelming odds? I can only speak for myself, and I will fight, but I do believe that many others out there are ready and willing to do the same. That said, it really does not matter. It’s not for us to defend ourselves only if we think we have backup. Be ready to fight alone if you have to; be ready to take risks, otherwise, you have no chance of winning, and thus the people collectively have no chance of winning. If others follow your lead, then so be it, but don’t rely on it.
There are many transgressions about to be foisted on the American people well beyond what we have already witnessed. You will know when the line in the sand has been crossed. Do not be surprised if in the next 3-6 months you hear the words “shots fired”. It is not enough to be prepped for the future. It is not enough to simply survive. The world as we know it is being sabotaged for the sake of power. Not money, but POWER. The elites will not be satisfied with anything less than total control. We cannot let them have it.
We can make a better future IF we are willing to fight for our principles. Fighting is not talking or being a keyboard commando. It is actually standing firm with your firearm in hand with the clear intent that you will not retreat. I will not be surprised if we do not hear “shots fired” before his 3-6 month time frame. Whatever the actual timing for the next shot heard around the world, I suggest you get your minds clear, your body in shape and your affairs in order.
Mount Anak Krakatau in Lampung erupted on 10 April 2020 at 21.58 WIB. The height of the observed ash column is up to 200 meters. Reported from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Geological Agency, PVMBG of the Krakatau Children’s Volcano Observation Post quoted by Twitter BNPB, @BNPB_Indonesia. Residents of Kalianda, Lampung, which is 48 km from Mount Anak Krakatau reported strong sulfur and ash rain. This is like the Ade Rosma Dewi account report at @adderede, which reports the condition of Kalianda to the @hrdbacot account, Saturday (04/11/2020) at 03.16 WIB.
It has been only two weeks since widespread pandemic lockdowns were implemented in the US and as expected the public is not handling the idea very well. Within one week there were already frantic demands for the economy to reopen by Easter (spurred on by Donald Trump), and mass delusions have developed that this is still going to happen despite the fact that lockdown guidelines have been extended to at least April 30th. People desperately want to believe that this will all be over in a matter of weeks.
Many governments continue to perpetuate this fantasy by using very carefully worded terminology. For example, the phrase “two weeks of hell” is being consistently repeated by the media after Trump uttered the notion a few days ago. In Italy, a Milan official sees lockdowns now continuing for 2-3 more weeks. In Spain, the public was left with the impression that two solid weeks of quarantine and lockdowns would help stave off infections, yet the government extended the restrictions for…yes, you guessed it…another two weeks.
Why are these announcements always in two week intervals? I suspect it is because this the maximum amount of days before the average person begins to register the passage of time in their minds in a new situation. After two to three weeks of going without certain comforts and habits, people tend to adapt and find different ways of doing things. And, after two to three weeks of crisis, they might wake up and recognize the situation is not going to get better.
Governments and establishment elites are seeking to keep the public as passive and docile as possible by continually feeding them the notion that the worst of the pandemic will be over in a matter of weeks. And, every two weeks they will reassure us that we are “only two weeks away” from salvation.
Of course, with lockdowns in place the spread of infections is bound to decrease eventually, but I think the average person has no concept of how long the economic collapse will last even after the virus is “under control”. Understand that there is NO coming back from this event in terms of the economy. Our 70% service based system has been destroyed already, most people just don’t realize it yet. The majority of small businesses in the service sector will be wiped out in the next two months if they are not wiped out already.
As during the Great Depression, major corporations (most of them) will be allowed to survive while small businesses are bankrupted and absorbed, further centralizing management of economic activity into the hands of a select few. In the meantime, a majority of people will be completely dependent on government aid in one form or another just to survive.
The pandemic threat will continue for many months to come, perhaps with intermittent periods of loosened restrictions and lifted lockdowns. The public is being conditioned with a “wave model” of crisis and release, as I outlined with evidence in my last article ‘Waves Of Mutilation: Medical Tyranny And The Cashless Society’. This means that the economy is never coming back as it was, and tens of millions of people will remain jobless for a prolonged period of time.
I predict that the establishment will support the populace with a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI) for a little while (2-3 months), and then, as the economy continues to crash, they will start cutting off these benefits to some people while adding requirements restrictions to receive benefits for others.
When government becomes your sugar daddy, there are always strings attached. In some states they are already telling the public what they are allowed to spend their money on. In Vermont, for example, the state has declared numerous items in stores “non-essential”, which means you are not allowed to buy them. The claim is that you are allowed to buy them online, but in many cases people are blocked from doing this as well. Even garden seeds have been labeled “non-essential”.
Proponents of these restrictions offer two reasons: One, it will supposedly reduce the amount of people going to stores thereby reducing the risk of infection. And two, our spending needs to be controlled so that we do not waste money on “frivolous things” during the economic downturn.
Neither of these explanations is logical or acceptable. People generally go to stores to buy essentials along with “non-essentials” and so they will be “risking infection” regardless. Isn’t the whole point of social distancing and precautions like gloves and face masks supposed to allow the public to function while avoiding infection? Yet, the state is telling us this is not enough. We also have to be told when and how we can spend our money.
And what about the government enforcing responsible spending? Since when has the government EVER been an expert on spending money responsibly? It is massive government debt along with massive corporate debt that has debased our economy from the very beginning. They are the reason we are in an economic crisis, not the coronavirus. Yet, they now think they should be allowed to give us orders on being frugal? They can go to hell.
Imagine how numerous the rules and restrictions on the people will be once we are trapped into dependence on UBI and government aid. How much freedom will we have to give up just to get that monthly check? It is one thing to take the pandemic situation seriously and self-isolate for a while; it is another to sit back and allow the establishment to erase all our civil liberties in a matter of months in the name of “the greater good of the greater number”.
Beyond that, the pandemic crisis concerns me much less than an economic collapse, which was an inevitability even before the coronavirus went mainstream. How do we reconcile the government’s extreme response to the pandemic with the public’s need to function economically? Are we just supposed to sit back and become slaves, dependent and clamoring for a meager UBI check every month? I think not.
So, the question is, what can we do about it? As I have been saying for well over a decade, the solution is to decouple from the system and build our own. But what does this mean specifically?
Over the course of the Coronavirus pandemic and societal shut down (the communist trial run) it should be understood by those communists cheering on the lockdown of humanity and the destruction of the market system, the person most likely to be designated as the new Tsar of America is Donald Trump, someone capable of running a multi-trillion dollar economy, who understands production better than Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, James Comey or whatever communist cut out Washington has to offer.
If we are to be forced into a “climate saving” lockdown and re-tooling of the American economy, of which this fake pandemic is pretext and having seen the American patriots and their terror-filled responses to all other machinations of communist principles overlaid on their capitalist system, then the outcome is already known. So, since communism seems to be undeniable, largely because through the dilution of the American educational system, the slow progression of communist government displacing capitalist government, we ought to at least focus ourselves on determining our tyrant.
I am all for a mass march on Washington to demand capitalism and a release from self-imposed captivity. I am all in on a state by state effort toward the same goal, release, freedom, liberty, etc., but none of my fellow citizens seem to think it is such a situation and even if it is, it is much too dangerous to group ourselves together in such a manner as we might further enrage the communists in charge (as they have proven over the past few weeks that in fact they are) of our lives, our liberty and our persons to the degree that they can fine and imprison us for exerting our individual right of movement and commerce.
Now, I agreed, initially, to let this thing run its course, to use facts instead of hyperbole, truth instead of rumor to guide my actions. Perhaps, Coronavirus was much more deadly than I could individually determine. But, what we have received in return are lies about the danger of it, efforts expended in determining how many and who should be quarantined, but none or very little about the actual danger of the virus. That is the first indication that it was all a show. They lied about how and when compensation would be forthcoming. I mean if our souls were going to be further indebted to the people with guns, we ought to at least be the beneficiaries of our own debt. When I buy a house, I might go into debt to do it, but at least I get to live in the house. During the 2008 economic crisis, I got saddled with debt and still got kicked out of the proverbial house. We defended those who displaced us from our homes and businesses.
I mentioned when this first came about that I would sequester myself until facts could be known, but when it turned out to be another communist-led effort to further intimidate and isolate the American people as a means of establishing communist rule that I would come out big and that we all should come out big. It is nearing the time when we are going to have to establish ourselves as Americans with individual rights no government body has the right to infringe without a fight, or we can at least choose our own Tsar.
Understand the situation we are in. If any Democrat is elected president, this will be the model for fighting climate change. I finally heard this understanding of the situation broached on talk radio. Finally, someone understood that after we had gone this far, any health issue might be used as an excuse to thus confine us. My thoughts went to the amount of lives that could be saved by keeping the majority of us off the roads, except by the communist practice of “travel permits” allowing us to go to work at pre-determined and acceptable jobs or for specific purposes only, but the idea of combating climate change is equally useful to those wishing to impose communism on America.
As an avowed capitalist, loving freedom and defending the republic, I find all of this justifiable cause to resist it in any way that effects the wholesale rejection of the obvious agenda at play.
UPDATE: There are no Lowe’s food stores in this county. The Lowes in the article below is the home improvement store.
Lowe’s worker in Murphy tests positive for COVID-19
April 10, 2020 (NEW CASE) – A resident of Cherokee County, NC has tested positive for COVID–19 and is currently isolated in their home in Cherokee County. This individual presented to the Cherokee County Health Department seeking evaluation for symptoms of COVID-19 and was tested. This person was informed of the need to isolate at the time of testing, however, this person had been symptomatic for close to two weeks prior to seeking care. Cherokee County Health Department is working to notify close known contacts of this individual.
Due to the individual continuing to work and be in the community prior to and after becoming symptomatic, public health officials anticipate there to be potential for additional exposure who are not easily identifiable. This individual works at Lowe’s in Murphy, NC. It is now advised that everyone self-monitor for a respiratory type illness and isolate immediately if symptoms begin. However, if you have been to the Lowe’s located in Murphy, NC any time between March 22nd and April 7th and you had contact with anyone who was less than 6 feet from you for 10 minutes or longer, it is advised that you quarantine yourself and monitor for symptoms of illness for 14 days from the date of potential exposure.
If you become sick during this time, you should isolate yourself and your household in an effort to stop the spread of this virus. Persons should remain isolated when sick until the following criteria are met:
• At least 3 days (72 hours) have passed since recovery defined as resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and improvement in respiratory symptoms (e.g., cough, shortness of breath), AND
• At least 7 days have passed since symptoms first appeared.
If household or close contacts become sick during the 14 day monitoring period, it is advised that they then isolate until the criteria for discontinuation of isolation (listed above) are met.
If you become sick with a respiratory type illness and are in one of the following categories, please contact the Cherokee County Health Department at 828-837-7486 to speak to a provider to determine if you need to be tested:
• Healthcare worker
• 65 years and older
• Underlying health conditions such as chronic lung disease or moderate to severe asthma; serious heart conditions; people with weakened immune systems, severe obesity, diabetes, chronic kidney disease undergoing dialysis, liver disease.
• First Responder
• Essential worker
Cherokee County Health Department is working closely with Lowe’s of Murphy, NC in order to determine dates and times this individual was working. Coworkers of this individual are being notified, assessed and tested as indicated based on risk. The infected individual has not had contact with anyone known to be infected with COVID-19. To our knowledge, no residents of Cherokee County are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19.
This serves as an important reminder that Staying at Home and practicing social distancing when necessary to go out into the public are the most effective interventions that we as a community can take to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Because COVID-19 is most commonly spread through respiratory droplets, individuals should take the same measures that health care providers recommend to prevent the spread of the flu and other viruses, including washing your hands, avoiding touching your face, staying home if you are sick and covering coughs and sneezes with your elbow. It is also recommended that all individuals only go into public areas for essential activities. The CDC now recommends that cloth face coverings be worn in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies).
It is important to make sure the information you are getting about COVID-19 is coming directly from reliable sources like Cherokee County Health Department, CDC, and NCDHHS. For more information, please visit the CDC’s website at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus and NCDHHS’ website at www.ncdhhs.gov/coronavirus, which will also include future positive COVID-19 test results in North Carolina.
Cherokee County Health Department regularly updates our Facebook page with accurate and current information regarding COVID-19, we encourage the public to check our Facebook page for up-to-date information.
Symptoms for COVID-19 are fever, cough, and other lower respiratory illness (shortness of breath). If you are having a mild respiratory illness, isolate yourself from others until the criteria above is met. If your illness becomes severe requiring urgent or emergent health care, call and inform your health care provider or emergency services of your symptoms prior to arrival.
If you have questions, you may call the Health Department at 828-837-7486 during regular office hours which are Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM.
Roll out of bed, look in the mirror, and wonder who you are. Another year has come and gone. Today is your birthday, but it might be, the last day of your life. What will you do if tomorrow it’s all gone?
You wont be young forever, It’s only a fraction to the sum. You wont be young forever, Nor will anyone.
So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die? Look at your life, and what do you want to do. So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die? Look at your life, you haven’t got forever.
And tell me what really matters, is it the money and the fame? Or how many people might eventually know your name? But maybe you touch one life, and the world becomes a better place to be. Maybe you give their dreams another day, another chance to be free.
You wont be young forever, It’s only a fraction to the sum. You wont be young forever, Nor will anyone.
So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die? Look at your life, and what do you want to do. So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die? Look at your life, it all comes back to you.
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday!
You wont be young forever, It’s only a fraction to the sum. You wont be young forever, Nor will anyone.
So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die? Look at your life, and what do you want to do. So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die? Look at your life, it all comes back to you.
Look at your life, who do you want to be before you die? Look at your life, what do you want to do? Look at your life, who do you want to be before you die? Look at your life, you haven’t got forever.
