Silver Update: Silver nears $50

In December I pointed out Silver was the Best Investment of 2011. At the time Silver was around $28. In January it dropped a bit... into the $26s and then began to launch. So, if you bought in the $26-28 range is it time to run? Is Silver a bubble about to pop?

Check out these charts... the Dow vs. Silver



If you look at the chart to the right. Silver hit a 27 year support in 2007... and yet the biggest gains have been since.

And if you look at this chart you'll see after 2007 the ratio continued to drop.










These charts would suggest it might be time to start diversifying. And if you do believe in these charts I'd say you may want to take some off the table and stick it into something else that has tangible value (non-dollar denominated). But I'm not convinced because I believe in another chart much more.

The chart on the right shows the value of gold vs. the Dow since 1900.

Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two

Economics is getting fashionable thanks to Econ Stories. Keynes advocates War to boost the economy and Hayek counters with bottom up entrepreneurship! I'd say Hayek's logic wins hands down!



And the first Keynes vs. Hayek... still awesome.

New ideas for the food business...

 This past week a popular restaurant in town that had just opened up not six months before... and was very popular, closed it's doors. Restaurants seem to be popping up and disappearing faster than ever... and older establishments are just disappearing. The restaurant business is getting extremely difficult and with the rising commodity prices and inflation starting to rear it's ugly head, restaurants, who typically operate on very tight margins find themselves in a bind. And when one looks at the ingredients of the typical corporate restaurant there is indeed room for entrepreneurs. Here are some interesting new free market ideas popping up to meet the needs of the food consumer of 2011.

Street vendors using twitter to keep people aware of where they are... Food raves or "Craves"... and the Food Truck all suggest that America remains entrepreneurial. And that's a good sign!


Street Vendors using Twitter

Top 10 Food Carts in San Francisco

DC Food Vendors rely on facebook and Twitter

How Government solved the Healthcare Crisis

Comment: This is a reprint from another blog post which I linked at the bottom. But a story that needs to be told in regard to how the medical industry has been corrupted by rules and regulation to the point that it has become a crisis. 

Today, we are constantly being told, the United States faces a health care crisis. Medical costs are too high, and health insurance is out of reach of the poor. The cause of this crisis is never made very clear, but the cure is obvious to nearly everybody: government must step in to solve the problem.
 
Eighty years ago, Americans were also told that their nation was facing a health care crisis. Then, however, the complaint was that medical costs were too low, and that health insurance was too accessible. But in that era, too, government stepped forward to solve the problem. And boy, did it solve it!
 
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one of the primary sources of health care and health insurance for the working poor in Britain, Australia, and the United States was the fraternal society. Fraternal societies (called "friendly societies" in Britain and Australia) were voluntary mutual-aid associations. Their descendants survive among us today in the form of the Shriners, Elks, Masons, and similar organizations, but these no longer play the central role in American life they formerly did. As recently as 1920, over one-quarter of all adult Americans were members of fraternal societies. (The figure was still higher in Britain and Australia.) Fraternal societies were particularly popular among blacks and immigrants. (Indeed, Teddy Roosevelt's famous attack on "hyphenated Americans" was motivated in part by hostility to the immigrants' fraternal societies; he and other Progressives sought to "Americanize" immigrants by making them dependent for support on the democratic state, rather than on their own independent ethnic communities.)
 
The principle behind the fraternal societies was simple. A group of working-class people would form an association (or join a local branch, or "lodge," of an existing association) and pay monthly fees into the association's treasury; individual members would then be able to draw on the pooled resources in time of need. The fraternal societies thus operated as a form of self-help insurance company.
 

More Great Ideas to save the World

A revolutionary car motor. A dramatic increase in efficiency and a dramatic decrease in weight.



Engine sends shock waves through Industry

Ideas don't always need to lead to products. Some just make living life better. Choosing and using your words can make the difference. Powerful stuff!

Sometimes great ideas don't add up

Just to let everyone know that every wonderful idea isn't always as wonderful as it might first appear... especially if there are politicians promoting it.

A recent article on GM's Volt pointed out it isn't so efficient after all... and may in fact be less efficient than a gasoline powered car.

Volt: Isn't as Green as you might imagine

And then there is Top Gear's experience with a Tesla. At about 5 minutes in we find that this car isn't one for long distance trips because it takes 16 hours to charge... and the range isn't quite what is claimed.




To be fair... Tesla is apparently suing the BBC in regard to some of the claims in the show.

Tesla Sues BBC 

The bottom line is sometimes the claim doesn't always come true. Don't be afraid to be skeptical!

Another new technology... the Wave Disk Generator

There is always another solution when it comes to problems... and it's within our own minds... not some political policy that our salvation rests.

Check out this motor... it blows away the old idea of what a motor looks like and how it performs.



New Car Engine Sends Shock Waves through the Industry

A apartment transformer

I'm always interested in creativity and efficiency and this is just one I couldn't pass up.

Twenty-four rooms in only 344 sq. ft!

It's something to be prepared for... America's collapse

Interesting view and something to be rationally considered.

The broken window fallacy and why we can't seem to "grow"

The broken window fallacy is the basic form of explaining modern Keynesian economics... and why it doesn't work.