I’m what people call a “contrarian” investor. I tend to buy assets that are out of favor with the chattering classes and the talking heads on television. And I make it a point to sell when the “man in the street” starts giving me investment tips. That happened most recently in 2011, when over a glass of Malbec at a local watering hole, I overheard two other patrons talking about the “killing” they were about to make buying gold at $1,800 an ounce. I sold all but my core position the next day. Since then, gold has had a tough … Continue reading →

– “I own Krugerrands” says legendary Jim Grant – He is “very bullish indeed” on gold – Gold is “investment in financial and monetary disorder” – says Grant –  It thrives in current environment – “uncertainty, turbulence and disorder” – “One of the most radical periods of monetary experimentation in the annals of money” – “Gold…is now the conjunction of price, value and sentiment” – Reminds owners of gold that the original reasons for buying gold have not gone away – Believes Fed will raise rates despite deflationary environment – Explains detrimental effect of excessive debt on an economy – … Continue reading →

Jacob has worked on the front lines of hotels for more than a decade, starting as a lowly valet in New Orleans and ultimately landing at a front desk in New York City. He’s also the author of Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality and a man with some hospitality secrets to spill. 1. HOTELS ARE RAKING IT IN. The fact that a hotel could fail to be profitable astounds me. Why? The average cost to turn over a room, to keep it operational per day, is between $30 and $40. If you’re paying less … Continue reading →

Revisionism, according to Harry Elmer Barnes, is bringing history into accord with the facts.  Why would history and factual evidence be at odds?  Because governments, per Orwell, falsify the past to keep the population subservient.  If people really knew what governments had done they would want less of it than they have. How much less is the question Lew Rockwell addresses in his book, Against the State: An Anarcho-Capitalist Manifesto, released in May, 2014.  As the title makes clear, Rockwell argues for the complete elimination of the State. Many people otherwise favoring unfettered freedom will qualify their position with an … Continue reading →

A former White House official says the United States cannot stand independent countries, such as Russia and Iran, because they are a threat to Washington’s unilateral actions. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Sunday. He was commenting on a statement by the head of the US Special Operations Command, General Joseph Votel, who said on Friday that Russia “could pose an existential threat” to the United States. “Let me clarify what the word … Continue reading →

“The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority. For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official. The framers would be appalled.”—Herman Schwartz, The Nation Trying to predict the outcome of any encounter with the police is a bit like playing Russian roulette: most of the time you will emerge relatively unscathed, although decidedly poorer and less secure about your rights, but there’s always the chance that an encounter will turn deadly. The … Continue reading →

The headline above is certainly not the one that the Fukushima troubleshooters in Tokyo wanted to read. Nevertheless, the photos of the ‘mutant daisies’ shown below, which were taken at a location 65 miles from the nuclear disaster site, do not lie. Both TEPCO and the Japanese government now have a new crisis to deal with. “‘The images, posted in May by Twitter user @san_kaido of Nasushiobara City, located about 65 miles from the disaster site, show common daisies that appear to have been affected by radiation exposure, oddly fused together like Siamese twins, reports the Weather Channel.’” [1] Still, … Continue reading →

My husband and I decided that we wanted to do something special with our family for summer and started saving money right after Christmas was over. We scrimped and saved and were able to come up with the money for a small vacation, plus a little extra that we put away in our emergency fund. When our vacation day finally arrived, we packed our bags and got on the road. At the last minute, my husband ran into Wal-Mart to grab some last minute items. As I sat in the car waiting for my husband to come out, I noticed the car running erratically and … Continue reading →

As readers of WhoWhatWhy know, our site has been one of the very fewcontinuing to explore the fiery death two years ago of investigative journalist Michael Hastings, whose car left a straight segment of a Los Angeles street at a high speed, jumped the meridian, hit a tree, and blew up. Our original report described anomalies of the crash and surrounding events that suggest cutting-edge foul play—that an external hacker could have taken control of Hastings’s car in order to kill him. If this sounds too futuristic, a series of recent technical revelations has proven that “car hacking” is entirely … Continue reading →

It never fails. Every time I write anything about taxes I get long, rambling e-mails from tax trolls who scour the Internet looking for articles about taxes so they can contact the writers and impress them with their knowledge of the tax code. These tax trolls usually call themselves “non-taxpayers.” They say things like: paying taxes is voluntary, the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified, most Americans aren’t required to pay income tax, many Americans have gotten refunds of all the money withheld from their paychecks, and the income tax is a classical liberal tax on federal employments, offices, and … Continue reading →