HauteHippie

Peter Schiff is scrappy and has definitely made some accurate predictions... I've read 'Crash Proof'. With Peter, though, you always have to keep in mind that he owns a brokerage and is trying to sell you on it... And as those Europac accounts sink deeper, Peter's sales pitches get more outlandish.

I'm ALL about dividend earning stocks....... just so long as they're not paying dividends in US dollars.

And I think plenty say stay away now, too. But I think this deflationary bust is an opportunity to get back in and buy more. And how about platinum?! The spread between gold and platinum is way off historical norms... platinum was at $2000 this summer!! But when you look at gold's relative stability compared to assets and equities and other commodities and just about everything else right now, and then call around to the brokers only to find out they all have ZERO inventory.... Well, you do the math.... There really are some potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunities out there in precious metals and foreign stocks, IMO. The cure is going to be far worse than the disease for us, and positioning yourself accordingly could be immensely lucrative.

They're all items he hadn't touched yet... Jakub, I believe, never went in to this with the intention of scamming anyone - and by "scam" I mean steal property. He did plenty of lying and misrepresenting, but I digress. Anyhow, from what I've been told, he ran in to trouble and, for whatever the reasons might be, is unable to resolve the problems... So the chances are that he's finally just returning those pieces that he'd never begun working on in the first place while still trying to find a means to return the others in usable condition. Cross your fingers and hope for the best.

Good stuff, stilty. This is going to be a great franken building series. Thanks for the contribution! PS - Love the date wheel alignment "trick"! Good idea, that!!

Well I'd like to share Shundi's optimism... Really, truly, honest to god I would. I'm not a pessimist. But I am a realist and I simply can't find anything in the fundamentals to be optimistic about. A few points... One, the GDP *is* artificial and effected by a totally bogus inflation number. It's also based primarily on borrowing and spending. It's not based on production and exports. By and large, we don't produce anymore. We don't have the means to accumulate any real savings. We've gone from the world's largest creditor to its largest debtor in less than a generation. People think a dollar collapse is far fetched. But what do you think people would have said in the 70s if you told them that by the turn of the century the US would be the world's biggest debtor? What do you think people would have said if you had told them the Big 3 automakers would be bankrupt and the federal government would be pouring in billions to save them? The dollar collapse isn't far fetched. The fundamentals point squarely at it, which leads me to point two: I agree that we aren't GOING bankrupt. We've gone! We ARE bankrupt!! We aren't Zimbabwe yet but Bernanke isn't done printing money yet. With all the stimulus packages, and buying of garbage assets, and mortgage restructuring, and god only knows what else down the road... we can easily get there. But make no mistake, bankruptcy has LONG since come and gone. The question now is, do we endure some big time pain in order to restore true solvency (not), or do we make things worse by pumping out dollars until they're literally worthless (likely). Man, I remember my second big gold buy when spot was almost $400. I couldn't believe I was paying THAT much for gold!! Now I can only believe that the sky is the limit.

Bingo. The current strength of the dollar is completely irrational and will be relatively short lived. You have a lot of deleveraging right now, which will settle down eventually. And at this point I do strongly believe that it is not a question of if but a question of when the dollar will collapse. The US economy is totally artificial, and as another poster stated, with the dollar having no intrinsic value (not backed by anything real) there is nothing to stop Helicopter Ben from running the printing presses 24x7 - which is precisely what he's stated he'll do. But we absolutely can not inflate our way out of this mess, and I can't overstate how unnerving these times truly are, especially when compared to 1932. Because the difference between then and now is that during the Great Depression we actually had a sound underlying economy based on production and savings. Today we have a phony service sector economy, 72% of which is based on consumer spending, which is entirely based on debt. So we're in a huge hole, just as we wound up in back then, but now we don't have the economic means to claw our way out. And while the symptoms of current bubble bursts are deflationary - to be expected when you had asset prices out of the stratosphere - I have no doubt that in the long run this recession/depression is going to be highly inflationary, unlike the Great Depression, which will make it even worse than in the 30s. This is a house of cards just waiting to collapse and everything that is being done by our leaders to prevent the collapse is only making things worse and making even more certain that the collapse, whenever it happens, will mean the end of the US dollar. What's happening right now, I believe, is a last hurrah. Case in point... try buying some gold bullion from US dealers right now. Nobody has any. Some will try to sell Weiners but, for the most part, you can't get the more recognizable Eagles, Maple Leafs, or even Krugs. I was able to find some a couple weeks ago when spot had dipped below $700 and I sure wish there was more available at that time. And I don't know if it is a prepared line or not, but when I mentioned the dollar collapse to the broker on the phone he went into a spiel about how it is inevitable and that they already have warehouses loaded with Ameros (the presumed eventual replacement for the dollar) ready to go.

Wow.... Aren't these things going in the $6k range from Phong, too?!

Fantastic and you certainly don't see many of these on the rep forums! Glad I could contribute, too. I love seeing a project come together!

4/0 steel wool.

I don't see the harm in responding to that TZ thread at all. Nice franken, Justasgood!

Looks fantastic! D - which case is that?

Thanks to you, spikey, I now have my eye on one of these....

Good looking watch.... I don't usually care much for Fortis, but this is a nice one! Great choice!

Hey frank, I remember you from the TRC old days back when I was using a different nick... Funny, though, now "the defunct RC" really refers to something else... Welcome home. PS. Star, of course, is still around....

The most important aspect, IMO, is the edge bevel. I have now seen a gen and a generic 295 from Casker side by side and can't easily tell them apart. I don't know when the Casker crystal was originally purchased, as I got it cheap off Ebay second hand, but if they're still selling it then I wouldn't waste any money on a gen. But that's just me.

Come on guys... Too much drama. Klink's board is (or should I say was?) a big prank in and of itself.... Move on to bigger and more importantly better things!

It certainly does sound like someone from the neighborhood who knew what he was after, and if you think there is reason for him to come back, then perhaps this would indeed best handled with a little vigilante justice as suggested by the Russian friends. Maybe they're even willing to help...

Are these going to come sealed in Rolex packaging?

Exactly it. You can not grow an economy with a printing press and government spending, and the people running the government and the people who are going to be running it soon are completely and hopelessly clueless about this. Sayings like "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" became sayings for a reason: because they're true. And we're witnessing it firsthand. Unfortunately the reality is we've conned the world into accepting our currency for their reserve and then we flooded the world with it, and then squandered the world's wealth with our consumption and have no hope of ever paying them back. I hope we can find some way to climb out of the deep hole we've dug and rebuild our economy but if not, then in the long run, the world will simply say "Buh Bye" to our phony economy because they'll be able to absorb these financial losses and move on. All the productive capacity around the world that created the wealth that was loaned to us and that we blew is still intact. The world will get along fine without propping us up, but all we have to replace legitimate savings with is Bernanke's printing press and it is not going to work. You can not replace real savings with a printing press. You can not grow an economy with inflation. If you could, then Zimbabwe would be in the midst of an economic boom right now.... But look where they're at instead: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/08/19...tion/index.html

That is a fantastic piece. Congrats!!

That's great. Finding these parts is no easy task. I've tried and gave up some time ago. Congrats, and I agree that it'll find itself on her wrist plenty.

Color me unsurprised?

Got my PM, chuckled, deleted.

No. The bezel ring (outer and inner) is left in place and is never touched.