23: And I’m very find of you but in a blokey kind of way. Just between you and I, I think Biggle’s has the hots for me as well. That old charismatic charm just shines on through.
Gungadin. I moved back to my apartment at Southbank on the 1st of February and so far I only have two parts of my three part bundle as of a couple of weeks ago. What a job dealing with the halfwits at Telstra and Foxtel so at present I have no cable TV Bloomberg or the other comedy channels.
I was a bit surprised the other night when the Four Corners team where in those Tax Havens and they didn’t call in to see how our politician’s future pension plan money was doing. What a laugh Future Fund yeah! Theirs not ours!
I think the current Gold price for a Monday is indicating that this FOMC FED meeting could spell trouble for the DOW I just hope the local ABC cover things. I can’t help feeling the brown stuff is about to interface with the multi-bladed rotary device!
I wrote the following on the RSG thread; however, it may be of a little interest here.
Early on in the piece I bought ASX: GOLD ETF I did this as I had a 50% margin loan arrangement so could buy double the amount of Gold; however, after 4-5 good years I started to think why I was buying the Gold. In the end I decided if it really was as an insurance policy and I converted over to physical Gold (Gold only at that time) and arranged for secure storage outside of the regular banking system.
I’m not into conspiracy theories but I have considered what may happen if we did have some kind of banking systemic failure. Selling CHESS shares through a broker / bank combined with some bad timing could have ring of Cyprus to it.
I am originally from North Yorkshire in the UK and when I came to Queensland in 1981 a mate of mine from Newcastle (UK) also left the UK and went to South Africa. He was an underground electrician I was a fitter at the same UK mine. To cut a long story short he started a mining electrical service business in Botswana and became quite successful. All the time he was in Africa (30 years) he distrusted the local banks so other than cash for immediate needs he continued to bank back home in the UK. You won’t believe this but his institution of choice was where he got his first mortgage in the UK Newcastle’s Northern Rock!
Again to keep this short he managed to keep the business running but it cost him his marriage.
I guess the point I’m making is maybe we don’t need to see a systemic crash all it takes is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m thinking Cyprus, Greece and Italy and wondering if it could ever happen here in Australia.
I suppose if you have a good relationship with your bank manager and can imagine the following conversation. Bank manager rings hello Andy I know you have $100,000.00 cash in your cheque account yes that’s right George well Andy I’ve been talking to a few other branch managers and things are looking a bit shaky down here you may wish to come straight around to the branch and take all your money out before we announce going bust.
I would say if you have that kind of confidence with your bank manager then you have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Of course we might just continue to muddle through but just in case I hold physical Gold, Silver and an amount of cash to cover several months’ needs.
I also like and own several Gold mining and exploration companies on the ASX; however, I did not even consider buying shares until I believed I held a sufficient amount of physical metal outside of the regular banking system.
I don’t like guns or tin-foil hats so I don’t keep any; however, due to a warning last September from my mate in the village pub I did purchase a few cases of single malt as I was told there was going to be a shortage.
I have no wish to see any type of finical Armageddon or people lose their homes and jobs and our current political leaders don’t instil me with a lot of confidence I just hope I have taken enough steps to protect myself for the future.
As property was mentioned earlier on this thread from my South Brisbane balcony I can count 26 tower cranes and read the other day that there are some 50,000 units under construction in the inner Brisbane area I just hope the bankers and developers have done their homework. The business people I still talk to are managing to hang on and are not breaking any records and the younger people I talk to on my evening Grey Street red wine sojourns are well out of the $800K / $1M unit market. So my guess is if the next generation currently studying media studies, sports science and personal training, barbers and part-time bar staff can’t buy these units who will.
Possibly that’s a question to put to your bank manager when you make sure he’s going to ring you if it looks like his bank is going bust.
Sorry that’s a bit long winded I’m recovering from some fancy eye surgery today so it’s a feet up reflective kind of day.
