The Flying Frisby - money, markets and more

Here’s one for you.Thousands of years ago aliens landed on earth. They came in great space ships, which the ancients took to be chariots of the gods, and they came for gold. They were the Anunnaki from the planet Nibiru, according to ancient astronaut theory, which derives from author Zecharia Sitchin's interpretations of Sumerian texts. Tall and imposing, with features both human and otherworldly, they were seen as deities. They needed gold dust to suspend in their planet’s atmosphere to protect it from the solar radiation that was slowly destroying it.But the primitive hominids they found here, such as homo erectus, were useless, so they combined their alien DNA with them to create a worker race capable of mining the gold they had come for: Homo sapiens. They established mining colonies in Africa and in the Fertile Crescent, which became the cradle of civilisation. The Anunnaki taught humans many things – agriculture, astronomy, mathematics, writing and record keeping - to ensure their mining operations ran smoothly. Eventually, they departed, taking vast quantities of gold with them, but they left behind some of what they had created. Evidence of their existence can be found in myths, ancient mines, ancient texts and, of course, in the Megalithic structures they created such as the Pyramids and Stonehenge.There is actually some evidence that the capstones on top of the pyramids – the pyramidia – were gilded with a layer of gold or electrum (gold-silver alloy), which, of course, would add to the many celestial and religious connotations of these structures. It’s also thought we could not build them today.This is one of the reasons we associate gold with the gods.That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.Tell your friends about this ancient alien race.If you haven’t already, take a look at my buddy Charlie Morris’s monthly gold report, Atlas Pulse. It is, in my view, the best gold newsletter out there, and, best of all, it’s free. Sign up here.And, of course, if you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, as always I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.You really should subscribe.I mucked up the title of my mid-week piece, so in case you missed it here it is: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

I regard the crimes committed by the Pakistani Rape Gangs as some of the most barbaric, if not the most barbaric, given the scale of them, ever to have been perpetrated on British soil.Yet, while I knew they were bad, I don’t think I realized quite how bad they are.I’ve just finished playing a judge - Judge Peter Rook - in a new "verbatim film," which recreates the sentencing word for word of one of the most notorious grooming cases in Oxford. What went on is horrifying.It’s called "The Grooming Gangs Cover-Up." It is produced by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, founders of the Unreported Story Society, which specializes in verbatim dramas, plays, and podcasts, and it comes out this Tuesday, January 21. Here’s the trailer:At times, I could not believe the words that were coming out of my mouth.I remember telling my elder son and daughter about these rape gangs back in the mid-2010s. Neither believed such a thing was possible. My son started googling. Even on the internet, there was little evidence of what was going on. Rapists are predominantly white, he concluded, and that was that in their minds.The internet had smothered the story.In 2020, when everybody was squabbling over Brexit, there was this campaign to get the Remainer anthem - Beethoven’s "Ode To Joy" conducted by André Rieu - to the top of the charts in time for the day we left. Fighting a rearguard action, Leavers then tried to get my song about Brexit, "17 Million F*ck Offs," to Number One. The result is that quite a few singles got sold. The media loved the story, and it was all over the papers. But there is one thing they left out: that I donated the proceeds to the Maggie Oliver Foundation, a charity set up to help the victims of rape gangs. Even that got covered up. (I don’t know what Rieu did with his royalties).Midjourney, an AI art app which I use to illustrate these articles, refuses to design me a picture to illustrate the title of today’s piece. Cover up, like the crimes themselves, is still happening.A couple of years ago, my daughter-in-law was drugged by a Pakistani Bolt driver who had offered her a drink of water. This was in London - not Rotherham or Telford. Fortunately, the drug only kicked in after she had arrived at her destination and her friends looked after her. But what would have happened if that man had "helped out" by offering to take her home? How many other young girls have not been so lucky?I put a picture of the guy online along with a warning. There were a lot of comments underneath. Many of them were deemed racist. Such is the extent of the brainwashing in the name of multiculturalism, a comment is now deemed of greater concern than actual deeds. What is racism, anyway?I define it as the wilful persecution of someone on the grounds of their race. These white girls were the victims of racism. And sexism. And paedophilia. And rape. And GBH. And, in some cases, murder.They were targeted because of their race. They were called "white w****s," "white c*nts," and "white slags," and no amount of contempt was enough for them. Yet, of course, they were white, and apparently, whites cannot be the victims of racism. Whites are privileged, you know that.When is this two-tiered insanity going to stop? Is it not clear how much damage these false, progressive narratives, which we have let thrive, are doing?We need a clear discussion followed by a definition - not the definition of a race grifter - of what racism is. And the rules need to be the same for everyone. No more multi-tiered nonsense.These were racist crimes. And they went on for so long because those who should have put a stop to them were scared of being labelled racist. Rather than risk that slur, they threw children under the bus. Woke is, truly, cancerous. If you live in a remote rural village, and somebody of unusual appearance comes along, and you stare at them, that does not make you racist. Staring at what is unusual to you is normal. If you use a word that is now considered out-of-date, perhaps as a result of not mixing in sophisticated urban circles, with zero harmful intent that does not make you racist. However, if you target a little girl because she is white, then groom her, inject her with drugs, rape her, and then sell her body to people you know so they can rape her - well, that is racist. And a whole lot more besides.Let the truth be toldAt lunch the other day, I started to read out to my family some of the judge’s sentencing remarks, which detail what happened. We got about two sentences in before it all got to be too much, and they didn’t want to hear it. No surprise. What happened is beyond awful.Read the below if you can stomach it.How can one human being do something like this to another?The beauty of these verbatim dramas is that the creators cannot be accused of sensationalism or exaggeration. It is the truth. That is what needs to come out. We have to learn about what has happened if only to motivate ourselves and our leaders into doing som

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comHeads up: there is now a video version of last week’s predictions piece, if you fancy:Onwards …I am bullish on America.For all its failings, I think it’s still, as comedian Lewis Schaffer is forever telling me, “the greatest country in the world.”The new administration has huge hurdles ahead of it - not least sorting out the excess spending on its military-industrial complex and atrocious healthcare system, though perhaps "system" is not the word I should be using. The administration also faces considerable resistance from its ideological opponents who prevail in the deep state.But if Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, RFK, et al. get just a third of the stuff they have planned over the line, then the economy is going to boom like hell. There is a lot of money in that country, a lot of entrepreneurial spirit, and a lot of opportunity. Just the size of the US alone means it is, in itself, an enormous market.However, while the economy and the stock market are bedfellows, they do not always march forward hand in hand. How often this century have we seen stock markets boom while life for the ordinary working person becomes ever harder? Inflation, for example, eats away at his effective earnings, and he struggles to keep up, while the same inflationary dynamic actually pushes up stock markets.The reverse can also apply. There might be an economic boom "on the street," but stock markets, on the other hand, might be flat. Perhaps they already advanced a year ahead of the boom in anticipation. Perhaps life made better for the American worker by, say, tariffs does not suit global companies like Apple, and so stock prices retreat.So, while I am bullish on America, am I bullish on US stocks?I must confess to being rather more ambivalent, as there are a number of headwinds and warning signs.Let’s look at some of them.First, there is the small (by that I mean large) matter of the US dollar.

Enjoy!Why not subscribe to this fantastic substack?Here’s the original article if you prefer to read or listen” If you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.And If you haven’t already, take a look at my buddy Charlie Morris’s monthly gold report, Atlas Pulse. It is, in my view, the best gold newsletter out there, and, best of all, it’s free. Sign up here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

ICYMI (there were problems with the site mid-week), check out my forecasts for 2025, always one of my more popular pieces of the year.He has invented an entirely new digital system of money with the potential to change the world as we know it. He has watched it grow to a market cap of over two trillion dollars, with as many as 100 million users worldwide, including actual nations, and the US President promising a strategic bitcoin reserve in his 2024 election campaign. He has half the internet nosing about and trying to figure out who he is. His own coins are worth about $100 billion, making him one of the richest people on earth.Yet he has managed to stay completely unknown and anonymous. It is almost unbelievable.Never mind Big Foot, the Mary Rose or the Loch Ness Monster, the mystery of ‘Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?’ is perhaps the greatest mystery the world has ever known - or not known.There have been thousands of investigative attempts, articles, blog posts and discussion groups involving probably millions of man hours dedicated to pinning down this man, with names bandied about from Elon Musk to little known computer scientists. They have all failed. Satoshi’s identity is as bulletproof as his code.For my 2014 book, Bitcoin: the Future of Money?, from which today’s piece is taken, I ventured on the same doomed journey. I spent many months poring over the 80,000 words Satoshi wrote in the three years he was active online, looking for clues. What unusual words did he use? Does he make any spelling mistakes? Does he have any quirky grammatical habits? I analysed it in such detail I can tell you where he places brackets, how he uses hyphens, even how many spaces he uses after a full stop and how that changed – all in the hope of finding idiosyncrasies that appear in the writing of other Cypherpunks - clues which might lead me to him.Profiling a genius – some broad brushstrokes‘I’ve had the good fortune to know many brilliant people over the course of my life, so I recognize the signs.’ Hal FinneySatoshi reached such high levels of expertise in so many different fields that many believe he can’t possibly be one person. He is a polymath. It is not just the breadth and depth of his knowledge, but, more importantly, its specificity that makes him unique.In order to first conceive a new system of electronic cash, one would have to have thought extensively about the nature of money and its history. Money is a subject that has found more interest in the last few years with the emergence of bitcoin, the 2000s bull market in gold, the financial crisis and the growth of libertarianism, but, in 2007–8, when bitcoin was conceived and first introduced, books and academic papers on the subject were few and far between. The subject did not have broad appeal.How many of those who cared actually had the ability to design a system like this? It is one thing declaring what needs to be done; it is another putting it into practice.Satoshi must have had expertise in computer coding, mathematics, databases, accounting, peer-to-peer systems, digital ownership, law, smart contracts, cryptography and monetary history.He had to have had experience in academia. The act of submitting a white paper, its presentation, the impeccable referencing – it all denotes academia, even government.It’s also easy to infer from the way bitcoin was launched that Satoshi had experience in open-source tech start-ups.The resilience of the code suggests he had computer hacking experience. Moreover, his ability to keep his identity hidden, despite the fact that half the internet is trying to figure out who he is, suggests significant practical experience in staying anonymous. It also means he has the trust of those who know him, if anyone did, to keep his secret.Then there’s the matter of his prose. It is consistent and of such a high standard it seems he must have had experience as a writer – perhaps he was a blogger, an academic or an author. He was also quite humble and dismissive of his ability in this regard. ‘I’m better with code than with words’, he said.It’s clear from his posts that he had the awareness to see shortcomings in his system, and the patience not to try to do too much too quickly. He had the foresight to perceive problems before they arose and the meticulousness to prepare for them. He appears to have remained calm and measured in the face of difficulty, but also of his own success. He treated those two imposters just the same. Signs of arrogance are hard to find.Then there’s the way that bitcoin was introduced to the world. PR, like economics, is not an exact science. Sometimes something gains traction, sometimes it doesn’t – and there’s no explaining why. Bitcoin has been a PR masterstroke. The coverage it has received has been enormous. It gets more publicity than gold, which is the oldest form of money there is. Satoshi cannot take all of the credit for this, but he has to take some of it. He understood when to make his ideas known,

Bitcoin to $200,000k anyone? Sterling to crash? The US dollar to 20 year highs? As for silver …OK, folks. It’s predictions time.As ever, the eternal conflict applies: the more outlandish the prediction, the more entertaining it is to read about - but the less likely it is to actually happen.On these pages, we attempt to strike a balance.Here are 15 things to look out for in 2025.Here is a video version of this article, if you prefer: 1. The long overdue correction in the UK housing market finally begins.“Record Boxing Day bounce,” says Rightmove. Read beyond the headline and you get this: “Our data shows a 26% increase in the number of new properties listed for sale compared to Boxing Day 2023, which previously held the record.” They’re trying to spin more sellers.More sellers means more supply.Meanwhile… houses are overpriced. The economy is not booming, so people have less money. Labour’s higher taxes also mean buyers have less capital to spend. Higher mortgage rates mean there is less money to borrow, and, thus, less newly created money to come into the market and prop up prices. The rich are not coming to Britain - they are leaving, if they haven’t already left.More supply of houses, but less money to buy them with.Meanwhile, stamp duty is a massive deterrent to buyers. Never mind people choosing not to move because of it, anyone buying a second or third home - they’re as good as gone: who is going to pay 5% stamp duty for a second or third home? Not many people, I wouldn’t have thought. More supply, less money, fewer buyers.Then there is the general perception of the economy. Psychologically, people are not feeling rich, nor are they bullish about the economy, meaning fewer people will take the plunge.What about investment from overseas?See my earlier comment about stamp duty. The cost of buying drives away investment.Moreover, the UK is not currently well looked upon. Rich Americans, for example (normally a good source of buyers), are not going to pile in given, one, the costs of buying and, two, how the UK is currently perceived over there.Then Labour are going to loosen planning laws and build a whole load more houses - well, they say they are - meaning even more supply.As if that wasn’t enough, 2026 is the year the 18-year-cycle in property turns down. If houses don’t turn down this year, I’ll declare this market permanently immune.2. Keir Starmer survivesHis premiership is already looking dicey. It’s one crisis after another, and it’s difficult to see how he survives, especially with all the rape gang stuff.However, I think short-term PMs became a bit normalised in the Cameron-May-Johnson-Truss-Sunak era. Cameron went because of Brexit. May went for the same reason. Johnson got his landslide, handed to him by Farage, but then Covid came along, and Johnson, under a lot of pressure from the Left, got the shove from Tory MPs with whom he was never particularly popular anyway, worried about their seats. Not having been elected, Truss and Sunak were toast before they even started.None of that applies to Starmer. I admit he is looking shaky, particularly under this extraordinary pressure from Elon Musk. But I still think it’s too early for Labour MPs, worrying about their seats, to give him the shove, and it’s normal for a PM to last the full term - what happened under the Idiots Tories was not normal - so somehow Starmer survives the year.3. Gold hits $3,000.I’m not wildly bullish about gold at the moment, at least in US dollar terms, though I still think it is absolutely essential you own some. One, because at some point the China gold story is going to hit the mainstream, and suddenly there will be a scramble for gold. It probably won’t be this year, but you never know, and gold is one particular lifeboat you want to have ready in advance. Second, if you are in the UK, I think sterling has problems - more on this in a moment - and your wealth is much better stored in shiny yellow metal than it is in British government digital stuff. (You would normally say British government paper, but it isn’t paper anymore).On which note, if you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.And If you haven’t already, take a look at my buddy Charlie Morris’s monthly gold report, Atlas Pulse. It is, in my view, the best gold newsletter out there, and, best of all, it’s free. Sign up here.$3,000 - landmark number though it is - is only 12.5% higher than where we are. We could easily see that by June.4. Microstrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) becomes a top 100 company by market cap. Currently, Deutsche Telecom (market cap US$145 bn) is 100th. Microstrategy is $85 billion at time of writing. It joins the elite. What a pick this has been for readers.5. Bitcoin … I was in Miami on New Year’s Eve at Michael Saylor’s - strictly on reconn

Last year I did one of those Landmark Forum personal development courses, which, by the way, I recommend.One of the takeaways was that one should publicly declare one’s goals and aspirations. In doing so, several things happen.You make yourself more accountable. Knowing that others now know your goals pushes you to take stronger action to achieve them. You thus become more committed to them. The act of public statement also solidifies goals both in your mind and in the public perception, thereby moving them beyond an abstract idea to something more concrete. The act of articulating goals also clarifies what it is you are actually looking for and may even give you new insights.Support networks can also emerge: friends, family, peers, contacts are more likely to help in some way, if they know what you are trying to achieve. They might introduce you to helpful people. Those who have been down similar paths might be able to offer advice, assistance or collaboration.You will have something to keep referring back to, better enabling you to track progress, which will further reinforce the whole thing.Finally, making such a declaration makes you vulnerable, but that is actually empowering and liberating. It reduces internal conflict; while others might empathise and want to help you for your honesty.With all this in mind, I thought I would share my New Year resolutions with you. I hope you find some interest, amusement or even motivation in them.Some are quite personal, but for reasons stated above, I’ve decided to post them anyway. I hope it is not TMI.I always tend to overdo it with my resolutions - reach for the sky and then, even if you fall short, you still end up pretty high.So here they are:Health, Body & Mind* Stay fit and strong. Weights two or three times a week. Something aerobic two or three times a week. Plenty of stretching. Daily deadhangs, pelvic floors, breathing and neck exercises.* Keep drinking less.* Fast once a week.* Eat more protein.* Get good at lucid dreaming. (Lucid dreams are when you are aware you are in a dream, while you dream - dreaming is something I have got very interested in of late).* Read at least 15 books. I read a fair bit, but most of it is online. I hardly seem to read actual books any more - my phone always takes priority. Put this right.* Try and do some mindfulness meditation stuff once per week.Money* Invest well and grow my net worth - and the net worth of Flying Frisby readers - by at least 20%. On which note, if you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.Work & Career - Laughter, Acclaim, Opportunity* Continue producing consistent, interesting content for this Substack and grow it - both subscribers and revenue - by 25%.Apropos of which, why not subscribe?* Get better at PR and marketing, significantly grow my online presence - both as comic and commentator - and build a bigger following. ( I have a plan here).* Finish my musical about the Peasants’ Revolt.* Write my Gilbert and Sullivan musical.* Write stage and screen adaptations of Kisses on a Postcard.* Make something significant happen with Kisses on a Postcard. I’ve put that in bold because it is perhaps the most important of all to me. We are talking about something that could be as big as Oliver! or The Sound of Music, if there are any producers reading this.* Try and get some comedy gigs in the US and grow a presence there* Get more gigs and better gigs in the UK, working towards a full-scale tour.* Keep writing the songs, making people laugh and produce another album by year end (I try and produce one a year).* Get my new book, The Secret History of Gold, as good as possible; and market it as well as possible, especially in China and the US. (It’s due out in August).* Practice my uke and singing most days and get better at both.A lot of asks: I think I might be going against everything I said here on Wednesday.Enjoying this article? Then why not subscribe …Love and Family* Be the best father I can be to Samuel, Eliza, Lola and Ferdie. Set a good example. Love them unreservedly. Help them fulfil their potential. Spend more time doing memorable things with all of them, but especially Eliza and Ferdie, as they lost out a bit this year.* Find a nice place to live and settle down happily with Miss Downing in a lasting, fulfilling relationship.* Be a good son to my mother, and justify the unreserved love she has shown in me.Not a lot then.I realise I am asking a lot of both myself and the universe, but the whole point of these resolutions is to be bold. I’m not going to say I won’t achieve all these goals, as that defeats the purpose (I never manage all of them but I’M NOT GOING TO SAY THAT). If nothing else, at least I’ll have something interesting to write about this time next year.This isn’t all about me.

I was at a big family function on Christmas Eve, where I ran into my brother-in-law, who used to be a world champion boxer.David Haye is his name. Way back when, his sister and I were married, and he is uncle to my two oldest children. I don’t know if that makes him former brother-in-law. Whatever.I still maintain that the world doesn’t quite know what an exceptional boxer David was. His speed and power were second to none. The wins in France against Jean-Marc Mormeck to win the cruiserweight World Title, after being knocked down in the fifth, and then in Germany against the unbeaten Russian Nikolai Valuev, who at 23.4 stone and 7 feet, was the largest heavyweight in history, were two of the greatest British overseas wins ever.In winning both cruiserweight and heavyweight world titles, he achieved something only two other boxers, Evander Holyfield before him and Oleksandr Usyk after, have managed. That tells you how good he was. Yet, he is not quite seen in the same light as those other two, largely because of injuries and losses later in his career.I’ve known David since he was 16, and he was going to be the heavyweight champion even then. It was almost all anyone in the family talked about.What I always most admired about him is his singularity and clarity of purpose; that and his breathtaking, fearless honesty. He hides nothing. He tells it like he sees it and then lives with the consequences. Jordan Peterson would be proud.It’s that singularity of purpose - that winning mentality - I want to talk about today.As a youngster, David used to spar with a fighter who was naturally more gifted but never made it through the amateur ranks. “He would rather be the guy who could have made it,” David used to say. “The guy sat in the pub 10 years from now telling everyone he could have made it. He would rather be that than take the necessary risks and make the necessary sacrifices to actually make it.”I was always incredibly struck by that attitude.Burn the ships: have no plan BWe all met up at David’s mum and dad’s, my old in-laws, on Christmas Eve. All our kids were there, and it was a lovely family do. David’s son, Cassius, who is 16, is turning out to be quite the tennis player. I reminded them of a story from when Cassius was seven or eight.We were having lunch, and I said that tennis was a great sport to get good at because, unlike, say, football, if it doesn’t work out, you can always get a job as a tennis coach. You can go anywhere in the world and have a pretty nice life.I looked to my right and saw David fuming, “What are you telling him that sh*t for? Why are you putting those kinds of doubts in his head?”I was thinking like a risk-manager, I guess. The sports stars of old always used to get a trade first. Not so David.His mentality reminded me of a story about Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, which I tell in my new book on gold to be published later this year. Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519. His purpose was to find gold and to conquer. He had 508 soldiers and 11 ships. On landing, he scuttled 10 of them. It meant there was no escape. His men now had to win - or die.Speaking of gold, have you signed up for Charlie Morris’s monthly gold report, Atlas Pulse? It is, in my view, the best gold newsletter out there, and, best of all, it’s free. More here.Later that night, David and I back-and-forthed on texts a bit, and I told him the Cortés story. And so we come to the point of today’s missive - and it’s an appropriate one, given we are in the season of New Year's resolutions.David sent this message back in reply, which I think is one of the most brilliant texts - about winning, clarity, singularity of purpose - I have ever received. So I publish it in full here:Yes, I’ve heard the same story, and it’s a lesson that resonates deeply with me—not just in the abstract, but in how I’ve lived my life and shaped the mindset of my children. When Cortés sank his ships, he left his men with no option but to succeed. That’s not just a story of conquest; it’s a metaphor for the winning mindset. When there’s no retreat, no Plan B, the path becomes clear. The mind and body focus completely on achieving the one goal that matters. That same principle was drilled into me from an early age. My dad told me I could box aged 10, but only if I was the best. There was no room for half-hearted effort or second thoughts. From the moment I said I wanted to be the heavyweight champion of the world—the pinnacle of the sport—every decision I made aligned with that goal. There was no ambiguity, no backdoor exit. Winning wasn’t just a possibility; it was the only outcome.That’s the mindset I’ve passed on to Cassius and Kingston. He wants to be the best tennis player in the world, and he knows what that means: living full-time in Spain, training in the blazing heat on clay courts, and pushing his body and mind to the limit every single day. He understands, like I did, that greatness demands clarity and sacrifice. It’s about burning the

Interview recorded at Labit 2024 in Buenos Aires with Matyas Kuchar, who organises Bitcoin Prague, Europe’s biggest bitcoin conference.A pleasant chat about the state of bitcoin, and, in particular, how far advanced bitcoin adoption is in the Czech Republic. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

Every January, I like to make some predictions about the year ahead. Then, in my final post of the year, which this will probably be, I go back and review them. That’s what we are doing today.Before I begin, just a couple of things:* In case you missed it, check out Friday’s piece on North American tax loss selling. It has 9 ideas for short-term trades, which could come good by February.* And there is now a video version of "The Chainsaw and the Swamp: A Tale of Two Economies" for your Sunday morning viewing pleasure.Right. Here we go …Predictions are funny things. The more outlandish the prediction, the more entertaining the copy, but the less likely it is to actually happen. What is more important: getting lots of eyeballs or being right?I like this exercise because it demonstrates just how much perspective can change over time. While we can change strategy as events develop, what I wrote a year ago does not, so when you look back at stuff you got wrong, you can look foolish, even if you changed tack in real time. On the other hand, if you got stuff right, people go - well that was obvious.So the rules of my little game are this: I score two points for a direct hit, one for a good call, zero for a miss, and minus one for a "David Lammy on Mastermind" fail.I made 15 predictions. Here they are:1. The Great Decline goes on.I was pleased with this one, even if it was rather negative.“Everywhere the state’s tentacles reach remains a drain on productivity. Our once-great institutions continue to fall apart, like zombie meth addicts, stumbling towards dysfunction... The ordinary worker desperately trying to improve his lot is bled dry by taxes, inflation, housing costs, and the voracious state monster. Fiat loses yet more of its purchasing power. The South Africanisation of everything continues.”Gosh, it’s depressing and negative. Things may be changing on the other side of the pond, but they are not in Europe. Two points.2. Gold breaks out to new highs and goes to $2,400. And some. $2,790 was the high. We’re now at $2,620. Two points.3. Bitcoin goes to new highs as well.Yup. We are at $98,000 as I write. $108,000 was the high. Two points.4. For reasons I don’t understand, ethereum outperforms bitcoin.Ethereum always seems to move later in the cycle and by more, hence the prediction. But in 2024 bitcoin outperformed. Zero points.5. The US dollar trends sideways.It didn’t. The US Dollar Index began the year at 100 and ended about 8% higher around 108. Another big fat zero.6. Sterling has problems.Cable began the year at around $1.27 and it’s now at $1.25, having been as high as $1.34. So it’s down a bit. But the eight-year cycle low that I am looking for has not materialized. I’m sure it’s coming, but zero points.7. The Tories are eviscerated.Pleased with this one.They had their chance and they blew it. Come the General Election this year, the voters are unforgiving. … The SNP is similarly annihilated. The shortcomings of our political system are there for all to see. But nothing that needs to change does. Roughly 80% of the country did not vote Labour, yet they got 63% of the seats. Incredible. And they call it democracy. Two points.8. Uranium to hit $125/lb.Nope. The highest it got was $105/lb, and that was in January. It spent the rest of the year declining; it's now at $73. Minus one. Totally wrong.9. Fast and processed food companies have problems.I think I am early to this. Let’s see what RFK does. But, by way of proxy, McDonald's is flat on the year; Burger King (Restaurant Brands International) is down 14%; KFC is off about 10%.Good call. Two points.Seed oils are losing.10. Good year for the Japanese yen. It has to go up sometime right? It’s so cheap.Nope. It went down. Minus one.11. The S&P500 has a good year.I’ll say. It’s up 25%. Way above expectation. Two points.12. Small caps outperform.Apart from a brief spell in summer, they didn’t. It feels like they are starting to, but nope. Zero points.13. UK house prices. Atrophy and stagnation, but no meltdownThat feels about right. About 50% of stuff on the market isn’t selling, apparently. I’m not surprised; the cost of moving is so high. Two points.14. Silver. Can it stage a meaningful rally above $30?Nope, I said. It went to $34 in October. Now it’s $29. Was that rally meaningful? Well, it did better than I thought it would. Zero points.15. Liverpool win the league; Sheffield United, Burnley, and Luton are relegated.Got the losers right but not the winners. 1 point.All in all, not a great showing. 13 points.Oddly enough, whenever I score low on the predictions, I have a much better year in the portfolio. That was the case this year, where we have had some real winners in the Flying Frisby: bitcoin and MicroStrategy, obviously, but also Lightbridge and Novavax too. Meanwhile, the low-risk Dolce Far Niente portfolio is rocking it.Happy Christmas everyone. Thank you for being a subscriber.And why not gift someone a subscription this Christmas?I’ll have some

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us …Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859There is a video version of this article here, if you prefer.Here is the world I think we are heading into over the next couple of years.On one side of the Atlantic, we have Argentina and its new president, Javier Milei, taking a chainsaw to the state in every conceivable way. I was there last month and I fell head over heels in love with the place. Every day it seems another state body is having its budget cut.It’s like everything I argued for all those years ago in Life After the State - Why We Don’t Need Government is suddenly happening in the real world, and it is wonderful.The result of all this is an economic boom that is starting to take everyone’s breath away – even free market acolytes are surprised.You must invest in Argentina. You must have a position. What is happening there is equivalent to Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism, China at the turn of the 21st century, or the UK and US at the beginning of the Reagan-Thatcher era.With libertarianism being the dominant belief system of the Internet, and Milei, the poster boy for anarcho-capitalism, an internet sensation, you can rest assured that Argentina’s success story is not going to be kept a secret. The Internet is going to let everyone know about it.Then to the north, we have the USA. Who was the first foreign leader to be invited to meet President-elect Donald Trump? You betcha. It was Javier Milei. That tells us where things are going.We have passionate libertarians Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy taking the knife to government and the deep state – I cannot emphasise enough how gripping a belief system libertarianism is once it takes hold - look what it’s done to me - and it has clearly taken hold of these two.We also have a Trump administration that is much more organised and wiser than the previous incarnation, as well as more state shrinking. It knows who its enemies are and it seems ready for them.The US may be “minarchist-light” compared to Argentina, but even so, an economic boom is coming to this most entrepreneurial of countries. A lot of people are going make a lot of money.So you must also have a position in the US. It is already the world’s biggest economy. How much is it going to grow with so many bureaucratic barriers of state removed?The Stagnant Side of the StreetThen we turn to the other side of the Atlantic. “The stagnant side of the street” to misquote the song.Here in the UK, we have gone the other way. We are increasing taxes. We are increasing state spending. We are growing government, and, in doing so, creating more barriers to innovation, invention, and entrepreneurship. Most of Western Europe is the same. These are countries run by blobs, by regulators and planners for regulators and planners, by technocrats who know better than you.Here’s an example of the government helping. On 6 October 2020, when the FCA announced it was clamping down, bitcoin was $10,000. Today it's $97,500. I make that $87,500 per coin of gain that the UK citizen has been protected from. Great job guys. The UK was once at the vanguard of this breakthrough technology. Satoshi used English spelling, he quoted the Times. He may well have been British. Now we are bringing up the rear.It is just so much harder and more expensive to do anything entrepreneurial in the UK, whether it’s setting up a business in the first place, hiring, the taxes you have to pay, the cost of regulation and compliance, or the exorbitant cost of housing and property, which drains capital that could be better invested elsewhere.Buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times? I urge you to. My recommended bullion dealer is The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.Prime Minister Keir Starmer is currently in the Gulf trying, as he says, to secure investment for the UK. “This government will build on partnerships that drive our mission to kickstart economic growth and put money back in working people's pockets,” he said yesterday. It’s obvious that he thinks economic growth comes from government rather than the private sector. He actually thinks government spending is going to help. He does not realize because spending inevitably leads to higher taxes, and taxes stifle growth.I bet if you listed ten businesses and said which of these are wealth-creating and which are just wealth-extracting, he would not know the difference: it is not a thought process his mind would ever en

If you are looking for some entertaining Christmas presents, we have some celebratory “One of the 17 Million” Brexit mugs, my new album and other goodies for sale in the Dominic Frisby Shop. Take a look. Something positive for you this Sunday morning - and why we should be grateful for government incompetenceThe idea of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), money that governments and their planners will be able to programme, rightly fills many of us with an Orwellian sense of dread.“Did you not have the vaccine? Oh, well then you don’t qualify for the next payment.”“Have you been saying wrong things on social media? Then you don’t get the good loan rates.”“We suspect that you might not have paid the right rate of tax, therefore we are deducting what we think you owe and it’s up to you to prove otherwise. You want the money back? Please hold …. Your call is important to us.”CBDCs allow for almost unimaginable interference in our lives, intrusions on our privacy and liberty, never mind meddling in the economy. Chinese social credit scores would be just the start of it.When you combine the instincts of, say, the current Labour administration to intervene, together with its incompetence, the ramifications are truly horrifying.Some say CBDCs are inevitable. Technology is destiny and all that. I’m a bit more optimistic. Hete’s why.CBDCs have been piloted in numerous countries and fully implemented in:* The Bahamas - the "Sand Dollar"* Nigeria - the "eNaira"* Jamaica - "JAM-DEX"* The Eastern Caribbean Currency UnionNowhere has got them to work. The Bahamas is generally touted as the CBDC success story. My buddy, Dave Skarica, who lives there says, “LOL. I have never seen one person use it.”Why have they failed? People don’t use them. When they do use them, they don’t work. People prefer the legacy systems they know.CBDCs are yet another government IT project that is doomed to fail.If you are thinking of buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.You might say the internet was a government IT project. It was . The U.S. government - via ARPA and later DARPA - provided crucial funding that led to the development of key protocols like TCP/IP. But the Internet succeeded because of the immense infrastructure that millions of people, mostly working in their own self-interest, since built over many decades on top of it.Our modern system of debt-based fiat money should long since have imploded under the weight of all the abuse and debasement successive governments have heaped upon it. But it has survived, indeed thrived as a medium of exchange, albeit a terrible store of wealth, because of the incredible fintech architecture that has been built on top of it, again by millions of people over many decades mostly acting in their own self-interest. That architecture is probably what has saved the system. Fiat money is just promissory - worse than that it is a promise of something that isn’t even there - but the incredible advances in communication technology that we have seen in the last 150 years - telecommunications, digital technology and all the rest of it - have all enabled the sending and recording of those promises. The fortunes that have been invested have all helped the system evolve and indeed preserved it.Fiat money worked as countries gradually abandoned gold standards over the course of the 20th century because they were the only currencies citizens knew. The payment and saving infrastructure was already built and normalised. The coins and notes and cheques and bank accounts all functioned perfectly well, and there were no alternatives. The removal of the gold backing did not really impact the overall architecture.Government currencies worked in the first place because they were based on gold and silver, which everybody already used and instinctively knew had value. When they weren’t debasing their money, rulers, or those working for them, often actually improved the system: coinage, for example, certified the amount of precious metal in a coin and the ruler’s stamp legitimised it. Money was based on something people already knew and used and understood. Not so CBDCs. They have no existing infrastructure around them, nor is their use normal. Governments will not be able to design anything decent. They will need the private sector to do that, and this will take many years, perhaps decades before it gets as good as the infrastructure around existing payment systems. It would also take many years and lots of nudges for people to change habitsThe private sector is not going to invest the required amount of money in payment systems if people are not going to use it, so you will end up with a situation, a bit like green energy, where governments will have to spend billions subsidising it in order to make it work, but the

“If once you have paid him the Dane-geld, You never get rid of the Dane.”Rudyard KiplingThe winter of 406-407 was bitterly cold across Europe. The Rhine froze over, enabling hordes of Vandals, Alans - I love the fact that there was a tribe of Alans - and Suebi to make their way across the river, and into the Roman empire. They were violent with hunger, from the cold and greedy for what they had admired for so long on the other side.The response from Rome was slow, weak and inadequate.In Britain, Rome had already lost the north and west to warlords. The Roman armies in Britain, who, at best, had been paid with debased money, feared these Germanic tribes would cross into Britain next, so, led by Constantine III, who declared himself “Western Roman Emperor”, they made their way across the Channel and into Gaul, leaving ‘Britannia’ to fend for itself. We do not really know if it was Rome that gave up Britain, or Britain that gave up Rome, but, either way, the Dark Ages had well and truly begun.Gold , silver and bronze coins had been widespread under the Romans. They were used to pay taxes, and often re-minted to pay the army and the civil service. But after Constantine III’s departure, few coins were either minted or imported. Judging by the numerous hoards found from the period, many people buried their money - presumably to keep it safe in this unruly new environment of no military protection and merciless invasion from Angles, Saxons and other tribes from the continent. With the lack of new supply, existing coins were re-used. Clipping - cutting off the edges to steal metal - became widespread. The previously vigorous late Roman monetary system crumbled. It was not for another 200 years that minting properly started up again.The Anglo-Saxon invaders initially used gold more for adornment rather than as currency. Though there are examples of earlier Anglo-Saxon coins, King Eadbald of Kent was the first Anglo-Saxon whose name we actually know to mint coins. This was around 625AD - small, gold coins called scillingas (shillings), modelled on coins from France. Numismatists now call them thrymsas.As the century progressed, these coins grew increasingly pale, until there was very little gold in them at all. From about 675, small, thick, silver coins known as sceattas came into use in all the countries around the North Sea, and the gold shilling was superseded by the silver penning, or penny. As money, gold fell out of use almost altogether, though silver had something of a boom.It is thought the word ‘penny’, like the German ‘pfennig’ derives from the pans into which the molten metal for making them was poured. ‘Pfanne’ is the German for ‘pan’. Another theory is that it derives somehow from the denarius, as the symbol for the penny used to be the d. Likely a bit of both.The Mercian King Offa, he of dyke fame, who reigned for almost 40 years from 757 to 796, must be one of the greatest Anglo-Saxon kings, certainly the greatest of the 8th century. As well as his dyke, which protected his kingdom from Welsh invaders, and provided a barrier by which he could collect duties, he is credited for the widespread adoption of the silver penny and pound as a unit of account (though the pound was in use before his reign, he still gets the credit). His coins, with portraits and intricate designs, were as accomplished as anywhere in Europe at the time. His system, though probably imported from Charlemagne and the Franks, for reasons which will become clear, almost certainly dates back to the Romans. 12 silver pence equalled a scilling. 20 scillingas, or 240 pennies (12 x 20), equalled a pound weight of silver. Thus did the pound we still use today get its name - it was, simply, a pound weight of sterling silver.The Latin word for a "pound" is libra and the pound sign, £, is a stylized writing of the letter L. The d meanwhile used for pence comes from the Latin denarius. The roots of the British system of money are Roman.Offa’s system remained standard until at least the 16th century and, in many ways, until decimalization in 1971. You had to add up each unit of currency separately in this format: £3.9.4, which would be spoken "three pounds, nine shillings and four pence," or "three-pounds, nine and four." To add, you would calculate each unit separately, then convert pence to shillings, leaving leftover pence in the right column. Then convert the shillings to pounds (with leftover shillings in the middle column). And then add up the total pounds. It sounds complicated when you explain it, especially to those oriented in metric, but, like all traditional measures, it is quite intuitive in practice.On this note, have you seen my lecture about weights and measures? It’s superb! Offa’s systems were gradually consolidated over the subsequent centuries, especially as the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon Britain began to merge. In the 860s, for example, the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex formed an alliance by which coinage of a common design co

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comIt’s difficult to look beyond bitcoin and MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) at the moment, the later in particular. Nobody expected this, not even Chairman Michael Saylor. The returns have been astonishing. A couple of readers have reported to me that the gains have been life-changing. Wow! What an email to receive. It’s easy to get hubristic when you have a big win. Instead, let us express gratitude for the good fortune that has smiled upon us. But look beyond we must, and so today I want to look at what I can only describe as a stealth bull market - natural gas. The price is creeping up, and few are talking about it.Natural gas is a bit like silver: if it can disappoint, it will. So we begin this piece with that reminder. Natural gas has broken the soul of many a wiser man than me.On the other hand, the next five years look pretty positive.It’s obvious that the world is going to go nuclear now, and that Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are going to provide the power AI so badly needs. However, it will be a good five years before they on stream, so what is going to provide the power in the interim?The answer is natural gas.There is a problem, however: Supply.America's Gas Wells Are Drying UpThe North American Shale Gas Revolution dramatically changed the outlook for fossil fuels. Peak Oil was a huge theme leading up to the Global Financial Crisis, and then it disappeared, almost overnight.Between 2005 and 2020, US natural gas production grew by 90%, with shale accounting for the bulk of it. In 2005, shale gas made up about 5% of US natural gas production; by 2020, it was over 75%. By 2017, the US had become a net exporter, especially of more transportable liquefied natural gas (LNG).The price, meanwhile, plummeted. Good for consumers!Here’s the long-term chart so you can see those price declines since 2005. From almost $16 to $3.50 today (as low as $1.50 earlier this year, where it has formed an attractive double bottom - you know how I like those).Obviously, we in the UK and Europe pay way more for our natural gas than they do in North America. It’s so dumb; we have enough to supply ourselves in the UK. But we don’t because fracking is deemed environmentally damaging. So we import gas from abroad, which is produced by, you guessed it, fracking. I guess if it is fracked somewhere else, it’s less harmful. Not Then there are the transport costs and the environmental costs that come with that.Anyway …Spanning Ohio, New York, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, Marcellus is the largest natural gas-producing field in the United States, contributing over 25% of production. In 2010, output was 2 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d). By 2023, it exceeded 35 bcf/d, but production has been falling for almost a year now. We are currently at 26.7 bcf/dThe next largest is Haynesville, in Louisiana, Texas, and parts of Arkansas. Extraction costs here are higher, and production stands at 16 bcf/d, but it is slowing here too, according to analysts Goehring & Rozencwajg.One of the few areas of growth is the Permian Basin, in Texas and New Mexico, currently around 23 bcf/d, but even there, growth is modest.Now, it might be that the reason for stagnating growth is low prices - they often are - and higher prices will result in increased production. They usually do. That is the way with commodities.But natural gas prices have already doubled this year, and they keep on creeping up.The other interpretation is that the North American Shale Gas Revolution has passed its peak.With America’s new president, you can expect plenty more investment in production than under the Democrats, and that should bring the price down, but the gas price has actually risen - from $2.70 to $3.50 - since the election.It might also be that Russian gas taps come back online to the EU sometime next year, which means America will lose its new market.But all of this conjecture is factored into the price. And that is rising.How to invest all this

Let’s start with some headline stats which emerged this week.* The number of migrants to Britain has doubled since Covid.* 747,000 “permanent-type” migrants moved to the UK last year, the OECD said, up from 488,400 in 2022.* This marks a 53% year-on-year rise.* The four countries seeing the biggest surge in migration are the UK, South Korea, Australia, and the United States.* Note: Three of those four countries are English-speaking. This is something I have long argued: the UK will inevitably see higher than average migration levels because people prefer to go where they can speak the language, and more people have some English than other languages.Meanwhile, our birth rate has dropped to 1.4 children per woman, the lowest on record. The net result is that the demographics of this country are changing dramatically and rapidly. Different people means a different culture.The demographics of primary schoolsMigration measures, particularly illegal migration, are not entirely accurate. If someone has entered the country covertly, for example, there's often no record. Nor are censuses entirely accurate. Some don’t fill the census in, many don’t fill it in accurately, especially if here illegally, if they don't understand what it is, or if someone is claiming the single person council tax discount. There is a lot of scope for double counting for people with multiple addresses - students and so on.However, pretty much everyone who has kids sends them to school. There is no hiding, no double counting and so on, so the numbers you get from the schools’ census are pretty accurate.White British now make up 61% of UK primary school kids. 37% are of minority ethnic background. The remaining 2% are unclassified. (In secondary schools, minority ethnic accounts for 36.6%).Minority ethnic includes Asian (13.4% of primary school kids), White non-British (8%), Black (6.5%), and Mixed (7.8%).Bear in mind that these figures are for the whole UK. This includes primary school kids in remote rural areas, where British ethnicity will likely comprise over 90%.White British was at 64.9% in 2020-21 and minority ethnic at 33.7%. The numbers are changing fast. From 65 to 61% in three years. Ten years ago it was 70%.This 61/37 ratio compares with 85/15 in 2002. Previously, I extrapolated that White British would be a minority in primary schools by 2035. But with the current trends, especially considering that migrants tend to have larger families than locals, white British could become a minority in primary schools as soon as 2030, or just after. The demography of primary schools will, within a generation, reflect the demography of the country.I doubt this is what the majority of British people want.But it's not a topic that's being discussed, let alone addressed, in the echelons of power. Instead, it's being brushed under the carpet.Well, it will soon be too late. This is an urgent and pressing issue. Without wishing to sensationalise, the future of the British people and their homeland really is at stake. Demography is destiny after all.You really should subscribe to the Flying Frisby.If you are thinking of buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.More on this: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comToday, we are going to look at gold, bitcoin, and our way of playing it, MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), which has now 10xd (!) since we first covered it last year. Amazing.Finally, there'll be a short update on gold miners. Remember them?Let’s start with gold.Gold - and most other metals - has been hit since the U.S. election last week. It’s down $200, or about 7%, with U.S. dollar strength being a big factor (the dollar has been storming higher since October).While I think this bull market might be punctured, as I put it last week, and that gold probably has a bit further to fall, I am not unduly worried. 2024 has hitherto been a great year for gold, and it remains an essential long-term core holding.It is an even more essential holding for UK investors. I think sterling has big problems ahead of it, and gold serves as your hedge against crap governments.If you are thinking of buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.Labour or Tory - I’m no fan of either. They’re both as bad as each other, in my view. The less government there is, the better things run. But that's irrelevant idealism. Of greater concern here is reality: there has never been a Labour Government that did not devalue sterling.* Blair and Brown crashed sterling in 2007-8 (though until then their record was okay);* Under Wilson, Callaghan, and Healey, we ended up going to the IMF in 1976. Callaghan and Wilson also devalued in 1967.* Cripps and Attlee devalued in 1949.* Ramsay MacDonald’s National Government, which followed Labour from 1929-31, took us off the gold standard in 1931.Why should this Labour Government be any different? If anything, it is even less competent. Sterling devaluation is coming. How exactly might not yet be clear. I rather suspect it’ll be an attempt to make us competitive against an ultra-streamlined US, but that’s just a guess. You must own some gold (and some bitcoin) in such an environment: non-government money.Gold under Trump - What Gives? What’s coming?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comI’m sending out today’s missive a day later than usual because I wanted to see the market reaction to the US election results and leave a little time to digest it all.Broadly speaking, I am happy with the result, and I believe the world will be a better place for it than the alternative. We’ll see less technocracy, less deep state , and less overseas intervention; more pro-energy, pro-Bitcoin, and pro-business policy; and a stance that’s anti-seed oil (go RFK!), anti-subsidised, environmentally harmful green quackery, and anti two-tiered, inequitable woke ideology.Any administration that puts perhaps the most competent person alive, Elon Musk, in a prominent role, has got to be net positive.But be careful what you wish for and of that. Donald Trump is not, as his most ardent supporters seem to think, going to save the world, nor any such. You need to fix money and tax to do that, and while he might tweak the latter, there will not be wholesale reform. And he is going to print lots of the former. Trump will run deficits, US debt will grow as a result and the nefarious consequences of fiat will take other forms.If there are financial problems looming for the US, I suspect their roots lie in the bond markets, where yields are rising.In short, the better alternative won. There will be more opportunity in the US than there otherwise might have been, but Trump is no Javier Milei. America isn’t yet ready for that.The initial market reaction give us some insight into where things are headed in the next few months.If you are thinking of buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.How did markets react?First up, and something I’m particularly pleased about: bitcoin has broken to new highs, hitting $75,000 yesterday. I’m particularly pleased because new highs in bitcoin usually bring a lot of noise. This time, the noise got drowned in the election frenzy, which means there’s plenty more hype in the tank.Our chosen vehicle for bitcoin exposure, MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), is now north of $250. This has been an incredible win for readers, as we first covered it last year at an adjusted $35. It’s risen 8x, compared to bitcoin’s 150%—that’s some outperformance.I wrote back in September that Q4 is usually bitcoin’s best season, and that is bearing out.Stock markets also rose, as you would expect with someone as pro-business as Trump. The Dow rose 3.5%, the S&P 500 climbed 2.5%, and the Nasdaq about 2.6%.During Trump’s last presidency, stock markets more than doubled, though with two major wobbles along the way, one due to Covid. Something similar this time around is not an unreasonable expectation—unless you subscribe to this view. If so, that would take the S&P 500 to around 12,000. Quite the number.What I found especially encouraging was the outperformance of small caps. The Russell 2000 was up 6%. Small caps have underperformed for years and are due for a run. Trumponomics clearly suits them.An interesting tidbit: Trilogy Metals (TSX: TMQ), a mining company I follow with two promising copper assets in Alaska, the development of which were blocked by the Biden administration on environmental grounds, saw its price rise 108% yesterday . Investors seem confident it will now get the green light.I expect similar stories across the mining, oil, and gas sectors. This is a time to be investing in the USA.On the other hand, commodities, especially metals, sold off. Copper fell 3%, with zinc and iron ore dropping by similar amounts. Crude couldn’t make up its mind: it came down a bit, then rallied, then ended the day flat. Natural gas was similarly indecisiveGold, silver and platinum all sold off, as the US dollar itself rallied quite sharply, rising 1%. Gold was off almost 3%, silver by almost 5%. Not good, though mostly a reaction to the dollar. Looks like those particular bull markets are, for the time being, punctured. That’s not me telling you to sell your gold by the way. Don’t. You are going to need it. Particularly if you are British.Which brings me to the UK and last week’s budget. I promised you my thoughts on it.

I am travelling this weekend so today’s thought piece is a conversation, which Mining Network recorded last week week between veteran gold guru, Alasdair Macleod, and myself. It’s heavyweight goldbug stuff. I hope you enjoy it.You can watch it below, but I have also ripped the audio so you have the option to listen to that if you prefer to escape the clutch of your screens. If you are thinking of buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.I’ll be MCing this year’s Moneyweek Summit this coming Friday November 8th. Readers of the Flying Frisby can get a 20% discount by entering the code FRISBY20And if you are interested in hearing more from Alasdair, he has a Substack too. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

I’m in Buenos Aires this week, so I might be a little slow reporting on today’s budget, but I’ll come to it, don’t you worry.Shortly before Covid hit, I became CEO of a Canadian company by the name of Cypherpunk Holdings (HODL.CN). I was very pleased with that ticker symbol—HODL. My idea. But I did not have a clue what would happen as a result …I’m writing about the company today because, even though I stood down four years ago, I know a number of readers bought shares because I was the CEO. It’s quite a story.Mining entrepreneur Marc Henderson controlled a shell company that had just received a large payout from the Mongolian government for some uranium assets it had seized illegally, as you do, and he wanted to use the opportunity to start a crypto business. We knew each other from way back, and he approached me because of my book.He also brought in Canadian bitcoin entrepreneur Moe Adham, and Moe and I put together a proposal to become a privacy tech investment company.We were both quite ideological about it. We had grave concerns about the increasing imposition on our privacy from both Big Brother and Big Tech. We felt it was only going to increase, and that therefore there would a need for privacy tech—anything from VPNs to private messaging apps such as Signal, to bitcoin and privacy coins. How right we were. Look at some of the stuff that went on during Covid.Perhaps where we misjudged was that we thought there would be a large appetite for privacy tech amongst the general public as a result. It turns out most of the general public care more about convenience than they do about their privacy, at least online. In many cases, they don’t even realise what they are sacrificing.Buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times? I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.Once we were up and running—and, believe me, there was a lot of compliance—I brought in my mate, bitcoin OG Jon Matonis, and we began the process of acquiring bitcoin. We would hold large amounts of bitcoin. (This was before Michael Saylor’s Microstrategy, which has been a big winner for the portfolio since we tipped it last summer it around $30 - now $220 - especially as bitcoin closes in on all-time highs). Upgrade your subscription.One of our key investors was poker champion Tony Guoga, who bought an enormous stake in the company and eventually joined the board to become Chairman.I stood down shortly after my dad died in April 2020. (From a financial point of view, that was a mistake, as I would have several million options now with the stock itrading at two bucks).But, despite the good work that the company was doing on the ground, the great investments it was making, and the phenomenal board, it just kept trundling along sideways, largely ignored by the investment community and trading at around half its NAV. Like a champ, Tony Guoga kept on buying stock, especially on dips, building up an enormous position. He owns about 35% of the company. Talk about management being aligned with the interests of the shareholders.Recently, however, the company had a rebrand. With all the bitcoin ETFs, it was pointless holding bitcoin, they thought, and the company decided to focus instead on SOL, which lacks a mainstream investment vehicle. Sol Strategies Ltd became the new name, and, a few months earlier, they brought in a new CEO, Leah Wald, as well.In the last fortnight, the shares have gone absolutely nuts—going from around twelve cents to above C$2. There have been several catalysts. First, Leah has made a number of well-received appearances in the media that have generated some interest in the stock. Second, it has become the easiest way to get exposure to SOL. Third, "HODL" is also the US ticker symbol for one of the bitcoin ETFs, and many Canadians, typing in HODL, accidentally bought this company instead. LOL.Veteran traders will know the chart pattern the stock has played out. I believe it’s known as the hockey stick.Just incredible. And look at the volumes that have come in. The market cap of the company went from about C$17m to C$335 at the top of the market yesterday. Guoga’s stake alone went from about C$6m to north of C$115m.For years, the company was trading at half its NAV of C$30. Suddenly it’s trading at ten times.From a technical point of view, it shows just what can happen to a company after it builds all that cause trading sideways for many years. When it spikes, it can really spike.I gather that it’s become something of a meme stock, so who knows when this will end? The algorithms have taken charge, especially on the US OTC markets where it also has a listing (CYFRF) and it is having daily swings of something like 30%.It even makes Lightbridge (LTBR) look calm. Have you seen that, by the way? $14 yesterday. It was $3 a fortnight ago, when I wrote it up.Another hockey stick:My broker c

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com(NB: At the end of this piece there is a short note on Lightbridge Corp (NASDAQ:LTBR), which has tripled since I covered it a fortnight ago).I have suffered from asthma for as long as I can remember.Others have it worse than me. I had always been able to manage it with drugs – salbutamol mostly – but, all the same, there was always that lurking thought that if I forget my inhaler and have an attack, I could be in trouble.Then, suddenly, in my early 50s, it disappeared.It is not uncommon to grow out of your asthma. It happens to a lot of people. But my asthma was not getting better; it was getting worse as I grew older. I can’t prove it, but I think I got rid of it. Here is what I did.How Bad Was My Asthma?As is quite common for people my age, I was not breastfed as a baby – science thought it knew better than Mother Nature – and the allergies I suffer from – the main ones being to animal hair and pollen, which result in hay fever and asthma – are a result of that, I’m sure. It’s part genetic too: my dad had asthma but grew out of it in his adolescence. None of my four kids, who I’m delighted to say were all breastfed, have it.There were two main triggers: animal hair, cats especially, and exercise. Sometimes going from warm to cold (e.g., going outside in winter) would bring it on, and it was worse during the hay fever season.As a child, we had cats – Persian ones too – and we didn’t get rid of them until I was nine. I can’t believe it took that long to figure out I was allergic to them; whenever I left the house, my asthma noticeably improved. But I took drug after drug every day, morning, noon, and night – Intal and Ventolin. We moved and got rid of the cats, fortunately. As a teenager, I got quite strong and fit: I played a lot of rugby and football. I found I could get through matches without needing the inhaler at all. But cats would always destroy me. Within ten minutes of being in a house with cats, I would be wheezing. I was just so sensitive to them. Prolonged exposure would take a day or two to recover from.It was so frustrating going to people’s houses and having to leave because of my asthma, or having to sit there and wheeze, while the owners scrabbled about putting the cat outside or hoovering. Made no difference. Every year on Christmas Eve, I would have the annual asthma attack when visiting my uncle and aunt.As I got into my late 20s and 30s and the fitness of my youth waned – not helped by smoking too much weed at university – I found myself needing my blue inhaler (salbutamol) more frequently again to play sport.By the time I got to my 40s, I often found myself getting wheezy for no apparent reason, and I was using the blue inhaler almost every day.Doctors advised me to use the brown inhaler – QVAR (beclomethasone) – every day, rather than salbutamol, and the brown did indeed clear it up so that I didn’t have to use the blue. But I don’t like taking drugs every day, and every time I tried to wean myself off the brown, I found my asthma had got even worse. I was too dependent.By my late 40s, I was quite overweight, and even though I did a lot of aerobic sport – running and football – I was heavily dependent on puffers.We had a dog too, and even though it was a hypoallergenic poodle, I was still sensitive to its hair.Alcohol made my asthma worse, especially red wine. Also, if I drank, there was always the risk I would then smoke, which of course made it bad the next day.Here I am today, and I have not used a puffer in maybe two years. I play football most weeks, tennis sometimes, I run, and do sprint training and cycling, including hill training.But this week came the acid test. I went for a drink at a some friends house, and they have a cat. I spent a very long evening there and did not leave until 3 AM. No puffer required. I went back the following day and spent several hours there. No puffer. Then again two days later (I really like these friends!). Still no puffer. My nose didn’t even run.I could still feel the allergy. But I was not remotely wheezy.For me, this is quite extraordinary. Fifty years of asthma have gone.How Did I Do It? (Plus a Note on Lightbridge)I’m going to spell out all the things I did. It might be that it was a combination of all of them.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comNB If you missed Sunday’s piece about what next to do with Lightbridge after its incredible rally - 3x in a week - it is here. This week has the potential to be one of the most significant weeks in the history of money.36 world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, are meeting in Kazan, Russia for the BRICS summit. The main agenda of the summit is de-dollarization. Even The Guardian has noticed. “One of the main aims of the summit,” it says, “will be to speed up ways to reduce the number of dollar transactions, and so mitigate the US ability to use the threat of sanctions to seek to impose its political will.”I’m not convinced the 36 nations in attendance are quite ready to abandon the dollar, or even make overt declarations of war against it, but for sure we will gain insights as to where we are in the grand scheme of this inevitable move away. We will learn where we are with the alternative payment systems being developed, be it BRICS Pay or mBridge.The most powerful weapon these nations have against the dollar is gold—far stronger than China’s yuan, or Russia’s rouble, or any other currency basket or crypto amalgam they come up with. Gold is universal money, and its value is understood by all. There has never been a global reserve currency that did not start out backed by gold. How ready these nations are to re-adopt it, we shall soon discover.In any case, gold has been rallying relentlessly into the de-dollarisation story. We are at $2,740/oz now. Amazing. Perhaps this is a case of ‘buy the rumour, sell the news.’ Whatever. Could be in the short or even medium term. But that’s not the attitude. Owning physical gold is an urgent necessity at the moment. Things are just too precarious. You don’t want to be letting go of long-term core holdings on the basis of potential short-term movements.I am watching developments closely.If you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.The Silver Surge: Is $50 the Next Stop?In the meantime, ever unreliable silver has been playing catch-up. It’s gone through all that resistance around $30-33 and has, having done a near-perfect inverted head and shoulders, now broken up to $35. I think it’s going back to $50.There is some resistance at $35, $37.50, and $44.You know my views on silver. It’s the metal with the most potential yet, if it can find a way, it will always let you down.Its natural price is 1/15th of the gold price, because there is only 15 times as much silver in the earth’s crust as there is gold. With gold at $2,700, silver “should” therefore be $180.In fact, there is a case for silver to be higher than that because, while all the gold that has ever been mined remains, the silver does not—it has been consumed. So above-ground silver stocks do not reflect gold stocks.The problem is that silver has long since been demonetised. It lost its monetary status when the world adopted gold standards after the various gold rushes in the second half of the 19th century. Without this official backing, silver is only going to be an industrial metal, albeit a precious one. Gold may no longer be an official medium of exchange, but central banks still buy and hoard it, as do corporations and private investors. The Bank of International Settlements recognises it as a Tier 1 Capital Asset. The same does not apply to silver.Silver, as we know, also has a multitude of industrial uses, which are only going to increase as the world gets more computerised and electric. There is also some evidence of silver shortages—over 200 million ounces this year, a similar amount to annual jewellery demand. Total annual silver demand is around 1.2 billion ounces—the second highest on record. 836 million ounces of that come from new mine supply, 180 million ounces from recycling, and the rest from sales of existing supply.Demand looks something like this:* 61% industrial (electrical, electronics, photovoltaics, photography & other) * 17% Jewellery * 5% Silverware * 17% Investment When silver moves, it moves fast, and it can turn on a sixpence, so it’s important not to get wedded to the silver story. The thing to remember about silver is, like errant girlfriends with personality disorders, if it can let you down, it will. The lovemaking will be unforgettable, you will have the time of your life, but, as sure as eggs are eggs, it will break your heart. Manage your risk.As I say, there is not a lot standing in the way of silver and $50. In that scenario, the miners will go to the moon.If it goes to $50, that will only be the third time in silver’s history it made it here—1980 and 2011 being the other two occasions. Third time lucky and all that. If it bre

Here’s something a little different as your Sunday thought piece today - my Edinburgh “lecture with funny bits”. I hope you enjoy it. It lasts 50 minutes, so next time you fancy a bit of “edutainment” give it watch.The first part is available to all, and you can unlock the full experience by becoming a paid subscriber. I was super-pleased with this one, as I think I might have mentioned ;)Meanwhile, I wanted to share my thoughts about the amazing share price action we have seen in Lightbridge Corp (NASDAQ:LTBR). The stock really has exploded, more than doubling since I wrote about it last week. What was a $3 stock is now trading at $7.Here’s the original piece, in case of interest - I covered it in in last Sunday’s thought piece on SMRs too.The volumes are insane. What to make of it all? And what to do next?Let’s start with a chart showing the recent price action.Some volume came into the stock on Monday, as I said it would, with my write up in Moneyweek, but what really ignited things were, first, Google announcing it has signed a deal to secure energy from Kairos Power, which will build seven small modular reactors (SMRs); then Amazon announcing that SMRs are part of its plan to transition to clean power. The entire sector went bananas, making last week’s pieces extremely timely. Lightbridge Corp in particular went nuts.Average trading volumes are normally less than 350,000. But look at the volumes that followed those announcements. Wednesday 3.4 millionThursday 1.1 millionFriday 7.5 millionOver the course of the week almost 13 million shares changed hands. The company has just 14 million shares outstanding!What to read into this?I looked at the outstanding interest in the options market and there is quite high interest at the $5 strike price with November and February expiry, but not enough to account for this kind of volume.When you see trading volumes of that sign, it can sometimes be a bullish indicator - a change in ownership - but it can also be a bearish indicator - lots of people looking to get out.I have to say, when a market is the kind to you this quickly, it is best to take at least a little profit. There’s no doubt uranium is hot again, and that SMRs are the future, but there is also some excess. It‘s obviously up to you what you choose to do. This stock was once trading above $800, so there is plenty of room for it to move back up. But I’m thinking to take some money off the table this week. Buy yourself a treat. And enjoy the lecture. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

Something a little different for you today.I am speaking at the Battle of Ideas this weekend on three rather different matters:* Immigration and Demographics* Who Is the World’s Greatest Comic?* Why Cash Keeps Us FreeDo come. You can get tickets here. With this years Battle in mind, the Academy of Ideas asked me to write one of its Letters on Liberty. Here it is for your reading or listening pleasure. (There is a PDF version here).It begins with this note from the Academy.What are Letters on Liberty?It’s not always easy to defend freedom. Public life may have been locked down recently, but it has been in bad health for some time.Open debate has been suffocated by today’s censorious climate and there is little cultural support for freedom as a foundational value. What we need is rowdy, good-natured disagreement and people prepared to experiment with what freedom might mean today.We stand on the shoulders of giants, but we shouldn’t be complacent. We can’t simply rely on the thinkers of the past to work out what liberty means today, and how to argue for it.Drawing on the tradition of radical pamphlets from the seventeenth century onwards - designed to be argued over in the pub as much as parliament - Letters on Liberty promises to make you think twice. Each letter stakes a claim for how to forge a freer society in the here and now.We hope that, armed with these Letters, you take on the challenge of fighting for liberty. Academy of Ideas teamWhy Cash Keeps Us Free by Dominic FrisbyGive most people the choice of living and working anywhere in the world, I bet the large majority would choose the US. For all its many shortcomings, it’s still the land of opportunity. It’s exciting, it’s dynamic. Wonderful things can happen there. In terms of tech, with Silicon Valley and all the ensuing social media and ecommerce, it is very much the world leader. And yet, Americans still use cheques.When was the last time you used a cheque in Europe? Donkey’s years ago. As much as 5 per cent of all financial transactions in the US last year were by cheque. For all its modernity, the US is - in terms of fintech - a good 10 years behind Europe or Australia. Not only do they use cheques, but people in the US still go out with cash in their pockets. Bunch of luddites.However, things are slowly changing, and the US is following the rest of the developed word to cashlessness. It is inevitable, I’m afraid. Technology is destiny.It’s also a great shame. Cash empowers its usersWhen I pay you in cash, nobody else gets in on the transaction - it’s a direct transfer from me to you. No grubby middlemen can cream off their percentage. No prying eyes of the state can monitor what we do. Big Tech can’t glean information from the exchange, to be used at some later stage to sell you stuff or, worse, report back to Big Brother, Big Insurance or whichever Big wants in on your data. Nobody can stop you making the transaction. With cash, you can buy and sell and store your wealth outside of the financial system, if you so choose. There are plenty of reasons, both practical and moral, to do this.Cash means control. Just take the recent de-banking scandals from Canada to the UK, where truckers had their fundraised money withheld because of their views on lockdown, and a UK politician was kicked out of Coutts for holding the wrong opinions. Both the Canadian truckers and their families, and Nigel Farage, had one thing in common – they held views outside of the liberal mainstream. And because their money wasn’t under their mattresses but in banks and websites, they lost control of their own cash.Indeed, instability is nothing new. We are repeatedly told how, in 2008, we were ‘on the brink’, how close the system was to imploding. Surely, then, it makes practical sense to keep money outside of the system? When Cyprus’ banks teetered on the cliff of financial disaster in 2011, there were bail-ins. Ordinary people’s money, sitting in deposit accounts, was sequestered to save the system. If your life savings were threatened with confiscation to bail out an organisation you considered profligate, I imagine you too would want little part of it.What you do with your money says more about you than what you say - no wonder so many want access to this information.Indeed, the former governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has admitted that banking is not fixed - and we will see financial panic again. It makes sense to hoard some cash, if only as emergency money.In 2016, the Japanese central bank imposed negative rates to try to goad people into spending rather than saving, as the ageing Japanese are prone to do. The spectre of being charged a fee to keep your money in the bank loomed, and so much cash was then withdrawn that the country sold out of safes. Who can blame the Japanese? In Germany, Denmark and Switzerland, some high-net-worth individuals with more than 100,000 euros were charged for being wealthy. There was plenty of talk of confiscation and bail-i

Quick heads up. I have made some video versions of recent articles. Here they are, in case you are a watcher rather than a reader:I don’t know about you, but I use artificial intelligence (AI) all the time. ChatGPT has become my right-hand man. It gives me advice (really – and good advice too), it helps me make decisions, it gives me exercise workouts, recipes, it proofreads what I write, it helps me write titles, it even helps me write song lyrics. Midjourney does all the imaging for this newsletter. Even a simple Google search now involves lots of AI.I know I’m not alone. Almost everyone is using AI, consciously or not.Guess what? AI requires bucket loads of power. That’s why Microsoft recently agreed to pay Constellation Energy, the new owner of America’s infamous nuclear power station, Three Mile Island, a sizeable premium for its energy. There is cheaper wind and solar power to be had in Pennsylvania, but it isn’t as reliable as nuclear, 24 hours a day.It’s not just AI. The widespread political desire to rid ourselves of fossil fuels means the world needs electricity, and fast.Nuclear is the solution, of course. But nuclear takes a lot of time, even with AI now “re-routing” the anti-nuclear narrative. It takes especially long in the UK where any kind of infrastructure project requires billions to be spent on planners, lawyers and consultants before a brick is even lifted.It’s so stupid of course. Nuclear power stations have been operating commercially for 70 years, providing reliable, affordable, and almost infinitely renewable “clean” electricity. Nuclear has the best safety record of any energy technology. Almost all environmental concerns, such as waste disposal, have been solved. But if you want to know the name of the point at which stupidity, hypocrisy, waste and weakness meet, it’s called British Energy Policy.Layer upon layer of safety is demanded in nuclear plant design. The regulatory process is slow, cumbersome, and complex. There is a long lead time between planning, building, and operation, which adds to expense. Political uncertainty meant many proposals for nuclear power stations in the UK were shelved. It all drives away investment.But governments around the world are waking up to the fact that the silver bullet is nuclear-powered. Thus, the narrative is changing. The dawn of the new age of nuclear power is upon us, and it can’t come quickly enough.That’s why the focus has shifted to small modular reactors (SMRs). These have been operational for almost 70 years now in submarines, aircraft carriers, and ice-breakers, but in the last few years, land-based SMRs have been developed to generate electricity.They use simple, proven technology, and are safer than current nuclear power stations. They can be manufactured in factories and then rapidly erected on-site. Modular refers to the design principle of breaking down a system into small, independent, and interchangeable components, or “modules”, that can easily be combined, modified, or replaced without affecting the rest of the system. This flexibility means they are scalable. It aids manufacture, transportation, and installation while reducing construction time and costs.SMRs don’t occupy much land, so they have little impact on the landscape. Some can even be constructed underground – surely preferable to wind turbines and solar farms. In the UK, they could be erected on the redundant sites of closed nuclear and coal-fired power stations, where grid connections are readily available. A 440 megawatt (MW) SMR would produce about 3.5 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year, enough for 1.2 million homes – or to provide power to Wales, the Northeast of England, or two Devons. It would require about 25 acres of land. A solar farm would need 13,000 acres for the same output; a wind farm, 32,000 acres. Three 440MW SMRs would be enough for London, which has around 3.6 million homes.What’s more, their output is not dependent on the weather. Reliability is why Microsoft paid a premium of more than 85% for Three Mile Island’s power. SMRs produce electricity that can easily be adjusted to meet the constant, everyday needs of the grid (baseload), and they can also ramp up or down to follow changes in demand throughout the day. They spin in sync with the grid, so they help keep everything stable. When they’re running, they act like a steady hand, providing momentum that makes it easier to manage sudden changes in electricity supply or demand.Why not subscribe to this amazing publication?How To InvestThere are all sorts of ways to invest in nuclear power. The simplest and least risky is to buy the metal itself. Current demand for uranium stands at around 200 million pounds per year, while mining output totals only 140 million pounds. Another 25 million pounds comes from secondary sources, such as scrap and recycling. So there is a uranium supply deficit. I’m surprised the price isn’t higher. London-listed Yellowcake (LSE:YCA) has been set up with th

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comFinal call for my “lecture with funny bits” about mining this Thursday. Hope to see you there. But here it is, finally, the follow-up to How to Sleep Well, in which we address the bane of many who would sleep well: peeing in the night.Did you know one in three adults over 30 and more that half of adults over 50 wake up to pee at least once a night? The interruption damages the precious rhythm of sleep, especially later in the night when getting back to sleep again is harder.The problem plagued my dad for decades, and it was bladder issues that eventually took him. His peeing was a major source of misery, especially in his later years, and my eyes still well up now when I think how much pain and discomfort he was in. Unfortunately, like father like son and all that, I have my father’s bladder. I’m only 55. I’ve been having to get up in the night for at least 25 years now. It is not uncommon for me to have to get up as many as five times. On a really bad night, it can get to ten.For years, I accepted this as my genetic destiny. But with this sudden turnaround in my health and fitness—in which I have rid myself of many things I thought I was stuck with—and not wanting to follow in Dad’s footsteps, I’ve put some considerable effort to this issue in the last few months.I’m delighted to report that I have made real progress. Twice this week, I have got through the night without having to pee at all. It’s been 25 years since that happened for me, and the exhilaration I felt the following morning was quite something. I even got 100% sleep scores on my Whoop.If buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, let me recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them.Five things I did which made a differenceThe condition of having to pee in the night is called nocturia. I started by going to the doctor, where I had all sorts of tests: blood tests, urine tests, and the infamous finger up the bum. Everything came back fine. No prostate or bladder issues. The only thing they found was that my kidney function was sub-optimal.There are five stages of kidney function, with stage 1 being optimal and stage 5 being failure. I’m stage 2, “mildly reduced function,” which is not ideal, but it’s also not abnormal for someone my age. In any case, it’s often asymptomatic.So if everything is mostly working down there, why all the peeing? I have a theory which I’ll come back to in a moment.By the way, while I remember: fasting does not help. When fasting, if you’re like me, you will consume loads of liquid—soup, herbal tea—to fool your body into thinking you’re full. All that liquid means a lot of peeing.Also, fasting puts your body into a state of ketosis, which makes your kidneys work harder. Ergo more peeing.However, the health benefits of fasting, especially weight loss, are so great that, in my view, they outweigh the increased peeing.1. SupplementsI tried a million different supplements:* Pumpkin seeds* Linseed / Flaxseed* Walnuts (also good for Omega 3)* Zinc* Selenium* Pygeum Africanum* Magnesium* Vitamin D (though I also read that it makes you pee more—you can’t win)* QuercetinI’m not convinced any of them made a significant difference, but I mention them because they were part of the process.2. BoozeSorry, but it’s a killer. Especially, beer. Lots of liquid plus the diuretic effects of alcohol. Try not drink as much, try and drink your booze earlier in the day, away from bedtime. Best of all, don’t drink at all.If you need help cutting down on booze, get a Whoop. I explain how they help here. 3. Fluid ManagementConsume your fluids earlier in the day. Avoid drinking anything for at least three hours before bed, even if it means going to bed a bit thirsty (though that might not be great for your kidneys).This makes a huge difference - it will reduce your peeing by as much as 40% I’d say.At the same time as making sure I didn’t drink three hours before bed, I started doing two other things. I think it these three things in tandem that made the difference.4. Getting your body out of the habitOften I’d wake up in the night with the feeling that I needed to pee, when I didn’t even need to. I began to suspect that my body had simply got into the habit of waking up. I needed to break the cycle. How to do that?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comYou can watch a video of this article here: For the first time in history, gold went above £2,000/oz yesterday.This is a huge landmark in the decline of sterling.Of course, nobody in the UK echelons of power is talking about it.We are, however, because it matters. Who is buying so much gold that price keeps going up? Why are they buying? There are hugely significant developments taking place in Asia that have the potential to reshape the global financial order.This bull market is not like previous bull markets. It’s not driven by retail buying. What’s driving it is far more significant than that.Clowns to the left, cretins to the rightHere is gold in pounds since Gordon Brown sold ours in 1999. It’s quite something—over ten times higher! What a clown.Meanwhile, in other currencies, gold continues its march. Here it is in dollars, the preferred benchmark, over the past three years. This is proper bull market stuff.I know I have said this a million times, but I really urge you, if you haven’t already, to diversify out of sterling—indeed any form of fiat money—and use gold as your savings vehicle.The gold price action is telling us something.The way this government is going—it’s proving almost as rudderless as the Tories were, and in record time—sterling could have real problems, and soon.To my knowledge, not one influencer in the Labour Party, over the course of its conference this week, mentioned stewarding the currency, protecting its value, or any of that stuff. Just as every government before it has, they will use sterling devaluation to compensate for their deficit spending.The pound is only holding up in the forex markets because the Bank of England did not cut rates last week, when the Federal Reserve and the ECB have gone into a rate-cutting cycle.Perhaps, more significantly, no one in the Labour Party is discussing what is happening in Asia. Central banks are buying gold in huge quantities. They are no longer waiting for the price to pull back before making their purchases. Perhaps most significantly of all—they are not reporting all their gold purchases. It is happening on the quiet.If you want to buy gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, let me recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them.De-dollarisation is happening in front of our very eyesThe implications for the West are huge. But, despite the geopolitical significance, this issue is nowhere close to the Labour radar.This goes back to early 2022 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine when the US confiscated Russia’s US$300 billion. Most of the rest of Asia looked at that and thought, “we need to de-dollarize.”China, as we know, has quietly been reducing its holdings of US Treasuries. It now holds $777 billion in US Treasuries, which is about 10% of the US national debt held by foreign entities. This compares to 22% in November 2013. That is quite the reduction.China has also, as we know, been accumulating vast amounts of gold.Analyst Jan Nieuwenhuijs calculates that China has bought 1,600 tonnes of gold since Covid. I think the number is higher. That is on top of the 370 tonnes it mines annually—and most of that mining is state-owned. I was having dinner with a VIP Chinese investment banker last night. I asked him about the Chinese mentality and de-dollarisation. “It is a matter of pride,” he said. China does not want to be beholden to the US. Global reserve currency status is a goal. There has never been a global reserve currency that did not start out backed by gold.For now, it continues operating by its doctrine, “we must not shine too brightly,” but all the while it is accumulating gold and reducing its dollar dependency.But it is by no means the only country doing this.Saudi Arabia was “caught” a fortnight ago secretly buying 160 tonnes of gold in Switzerland—kudos to Jan Nieuwenhuijs for the scoop. “One thing is for certain,” says Jan. “Saudi Arabia owns much more gold than it wants the world to believe.”This is significant because Saudi Arabia was such a key player in establishing the petrodollar in the early 1970s after the US came off the gold standard, enabling the dollar to retain its status as the global reserve currency.Saudi Arabia could be quietly repositioning itself as an ally of the next global superpower. It could also, as we shall see, be at the heart of a new global payments system.The new international payments system which bypasses the US dollar

I’m delaying the follow up to last week’s piece on sleep for another week because I am still experimenting ;). In the meantime, I hope today’s little story will put a smile on your face.And a reminder there are just a handful of tickets left for my “lecture with funny bits” at the Museum of Comedy on October 10th - October 9th was cancelled - sorry. This is a super interesting show, even though I say so myself. If you are free, I really recommend it.In 1914, a young German named Heinz Kurschildgen started his first job as an apprentice in a dye factory in his hometown of Hilden. He became fascinated by the chemicals he was working with, and built a small laboratory at home to conduct experiments.Before long, he thought he had found a way to make gold, and even persuaded several investors to give him money. However, it soon became clear that he couldn’t make gold and found himself prosecuted for fraud. The courts let him off on the grounds that mentally he was not all there, but only on condition that he solicited no further investments with schemes to make gold. He was soon claiming he could make other transmutations, and became something of a joke figure in his hometown, where a bust was even erected in his honour, albeit ironically, inscribed with the words: “For the genius gold-maker, from his grateful hometown.”But in 1929, he returned to his first calling, which was kidding people he could make gold. He approached German President Paul von Hindenburg and Head of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht, with a proposal to make the gold they needed to pay off Germany’s WWI reparations.These had been set at 132 billion gold marks, which translates to 47,300 tonnes. To give you an idea how unrealistic a figure this was: it was an amount not far off all the gold that had ever been mined in history by that time. That would take quite some alchemy.But Kurschildgen was not a man to be deterred. He raised a load more money, defrauded his clients, and ended up with another 18 months in jail.You really should subscribe to this wonderful publication.After his release, he was soon at it again. This time, he approached the newly elected Nazi government with a plan to make petrol from water. Chief Scientific Advisor, Wilhelm Keppler, paid him a visit and Kurschildgen agreed to reveal his methods and surrender the rights to the government. Meanwhile, his claims about being able to make gold piqued the interest of SS leader Heinrich Himmler, who had a notoriously superstitious streak and a fascination with alchemy. Himmler started generously funding Kurschildgen to conduct his experiments. But Reichsanstalt physicists soon declared his contraptions useless, and Kurschildgen ended up in a concentration camp.“Himmler has fallen for a gold and petrol maker,” said Joseph Goebbels in his dairy. “He wanted to defraud me, too. I knew what he was about straight away”.After two years Kurschildgen was released for good behaviour. Himmler had him put straight back in the camp. On no account did he want this embarrassing story becoming public.After the war, Kurschildgen tried to get recognized as a victim of Nazi persecution, so he could claim compensation. “The Gestapo would stop at nothing to get my invention," he told the courts. As with most of his ventures, his petition was unsuccessful.Even so, you can’t fault the man’s ambition.Until next time,PS Don’t forget Shaping the Earth on October 10th.If you are interested in buying actual gold in these uncertain times, then look no further than my recommended bullion dealer, the Pure Gold Company. Premiums are low, quality of service is high, and you get to deal with a human being who does not moonlight as an alchemist! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comThere are just a handful of tickets left for my “lecture with funny bits” at the Museum of Comedy on October 10th - October 9th got cancelled - events beyond our control, sorry. This is a super interesting show, even though I say so myself. If you are free, I really recommend it.Some charts have been doing the rounds this week, and I wanted to take a look at them today, as a couple of you have been asking about them.The first is this one, which shows that, relative to stocks, commodities are as cheap as they have ever been.I have little doubt that there will be another bull market in commodities, that it will come when people are least expecting it, and that, when it does come, it will blow everyone’s minds, just as previous commodity supercycles have done.But here’s the thing: we have got better at producing commodities. Modern farming methods mean we can produce more grains and softs at cheaper prices than ever before. Yes, sometimes there are events beyond human control that get in the way—bad weather being the most obvious example—but the broader trend will always be towards lower prices (especially if you use ratios and thereby strip out the fiat factor).But these are the commodities that we grow. What about fossil fuels and metals, which are finite resources? We’ve long since taken the easy stuff.Well, yes. But the same logic still applies. Modern mining means we can now explore far-flung corners of the earth and economically produce from much lower-grade rock. The same applies to fossil fuels. Fracking is an example. This new technology meant that previously uneconomic deposits became economic. The result was a glut of supply and lower prices.So, while I do not doubt that commodities will have their day, I also look at the chart above and see no reason why they can’t get cheaper still. The trend of the last two or three years is lower. That ratio could quite easily go back and retest its 2020 lows. It could go even lower.There is a lot of value to be had from ratio charts, but you also have to factor in basic stuff like improved productivity. However, there are other factors too. Many think we are heading towards some huge international conflict. If so, international trade will suffer, countries will start stockpiling, and commodity prices will quickly revert to 1973-4/1999/2008 levels.Are you buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times? Let me recommend The Pure Gold Company. Premiums are low, quality of service is high and you deal with a human being who knows their stuff.Here’s another ratio that is doing the rounds: gold miners versus goldNow this one is pretty compelling. Time to pile in to gold miners? Let’s see. and let’s also check in on the miners we own.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comInnocent sleep … sore labor’s bath,Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,Chief nourisher in life’s feast.William ShakespeareSleep is so important to your well-being. Your mind works better when you sleep well. Your moods improve. Your outlook improves. Your physical condition improves. Your health improves. Life is better when you sleep well.We spend—get this—a full third of our lives asleep. Yet how much do we treasure sleep? How much do we guard our sleep time? How much effort do we put toward improving our sleep?Like so many things in this modern, fiat world of declining standards, the value of sleep has been overlooked.Science may only just be starting to acknowledge the benefits of good sleep, but it’s something we’ve intuitively known since forever. From time immemorial, art and literature have been filled with references to the value of a good night’s sleep. The Ancient Greeks, Hippocrates among them, knew it was a prerequisite for good health. Many cultures considered dreams to be a form of contact with the divine.I used to think I had mastered the art of sleeping. In the last couple of years, I’ve learned this is far from the case. However, I’ve put in a lot of work and now, in my newfound role as health guru, I feel I’m in a position to dish out some advice on how to improve your sleep.England cycling coach David Brailsford used to talk about the incremental effects of marginal gains. Sleep improvement is very much the same. There are lots of little things you can do, and, with the accumulation of these, you will see vast improvements.Here are ten ways to improve your sleep, including how to deal with waking up in the night, bedtime habits, alcohol’s impact, melatonin, peeing in the night and more … 1. How to get to sleepI always struggled to get to sleep, even as a youngster. I can remember lying in bed for endless hours, really trying to get to sleep and not being able to. When you’re lying in bed trying to sleep, and you can’t, that is when the demons come: unwelcome thoughts creep into your mind and then start looping over and over. It’s good to be able to fall asleep quickly.I now realise one of the reasons I got into the habit of drinking too much was that, after a few drinks, whenever I lay down, I would go straight to sleep. Drinking was a way of avoiding that difficult period of trying to get to sleep.My other method was doing loads and loads of physical activity and then going to bed absolutely shattered. Not always possible.So, here’s the first lesson I’ve learned, and this is the best hack ever.First thing in the morning, go outside and get 15 or 20 minutes of sunshine. Do this as soon as you wake up. Make your morning cup of tea or coffee, then take it outside and get some sun. Even if it’s cloudy and cold in the middle of winter, go outside and stand where the sun would be. Open your eyes towards it. You’ll still get some rays.This has been shown to regulate your circadian rhythms. In my view, it’s the single best thing you can do to help you fall asleep at night.You’ll find, like magic - or is it clockwork? - that as soon as the sun goes down that evening, you’ll start feeling tired.2. Darkness.Darkness aids sleep. Blackout curtains in the bedroom are a good idea, but if that’s too much hassle, there’s a simpler, cheaper solution: sleep masks.I’ve only lately taken to wearing sleep masks in bed (I’ve always used them when travelling) and I’ve come to love them. Go for a silk one—they’re very comforting. I use this silk one by Alaska Bear.3. Breathe BetterThere is a simple product for this too. Mouth tape. Stick a little bit of this tape across your mouth and it forces you to breathe through your nose. You’ll be amazed. You sleep so much better if you only breathe though your nose.I’m currently using this light weight one and I like it. My son prefers this heavy duty stuff, which might be better as a stating point to change your breathing habits.If you sleep on your back and then snore, mouth tape can really help out.4. Get a sleep trackerI use the Whoop fitness tracker, which you wear on your wrist.When I compare my data with friends using other devices like Garmin, Apple, Fitbit, Whoop, and Aura, there’s quite a bit of divergence between the brands, particularly on calories burnt. I don’t think it really matters: it’s the act of monitoring and tracking that leads to improvements.Whoop seems to generally regarded as the best for tracking sleep though. An unintended but incredibly beneficial side effect of getting a Whoop is that it will massively cut down your drinking. More on this in a moment.5. Room temperature

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comDon’t forget Shaping The Earth, “my lecture with funny bits” in London this October 9th and 10th at the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”.Three subjects I want to briefly look at today, starting with everyone’s favourite non-government money.There were rich promises of huge gains in bitcoin with the launch of the bitcoin ETFs and the halving cycle. Neither has quite materialised.Bitcoin is “only” up by 30% this year, though to read some of the commentary, you’d think this is another Bitcoin winter.The problem is that most of those gains came in February. For the other eight months of 2024, we’ve been generally stagnant. In fact, since March, we’ve been making a series of lower lows and lower highs and are clearly in a downtrend—hence the despondency.However, despondency is often the ally of the contrarian investor, and with that in mind, I want to share a table with you (borrowed from Coinglass).It shows Bitcoin’s quarterly performance. I’m sharing this now because we’re heading into Q4, which has historically been Bitcoin’s best quarter, with average returns close to 90%.Seasonal patterns aren’t always the most reliable indicator, but the odds are favourable: seven positive Q4s against just four negative ones.Better than Q1, which is 50:50; Q2 with seven positive and five negative; and Q3, which shows five positive and seven negative years (including this one, which isn’t over yet).Let’s hope those averages hold.I argue that Bitcoin should be a core holding. Many don’t like bitcoin, but the potential is so huge that, in my view, the greater risk is not owning it rather than owning it.My guide to buying Bitcoin is here. And here, I detail the easiest way for UK investors to gain exposure via a traditional broker.How Japan finances the world - and why we should be worriedAbout a month ago we explained the summer turmoil and the unwinding of the yen carry trade. The big question we all want to know the answer to is: was that it? Are we done now, or is there more to come?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comYou can watch a video of this article:When I was 19, I started getting these weird heat rashes. Every day, whenever I got hot, these debilitating, paralysing heat rashes would envelop me. Burning, bumpy, red weals suddenly covered my body. So itchy—you wanted to scratch everywhere, though scratching brought no relief. Once the rash started, there was nothing I could do. I just had to wait for it to pass, which would take about half an hour.I didn’t even have to get so hot that I broke sweat for the rash to come on. Just walking briskly would do it, getting flustered, wearing a layer too many, even having a shower.And it came every day, usually mid-morning.I thought it might be stress that was causing it, but it was the other way around: these rashes were causing the stress.I found a way of coping with it: do intense exercise every morning and actually induce the rash. Then it seemed to burn itself out for the rest of the day.But the next morning, it would be back again.I went to see doctors about it. None of them knew what it was. As GPs often do when they don’t know the answer, they brushed it aside, “Oh, it’s probably stress.” I wasn’t making this up! But unless I actually had an attack in front of the GP, there was no way of showing them what it was.I saw a dermatologist, who gave me anti-depressants. I saw Chinese herbalist after Chinese herbalist, who all concocted these disgusting teas for me to drink. Lord knows what damage I did to my liver drinking that stuff. I saw an acupuncturist who declared brightly that he could cure it. But he couldn’t.It made my life a nightmare, because you never quite knew when the rash was going to hit. What if it came on when I was on stage? During that all-important meeting? When I was with a girl I liked? It was a source of acute embarrassment.The condition disappeared, bizarrely, if I went to the tropics. Why, Lord knows. But as soon as I got home, back it came. Then I noticed the condition also disappeared in the summer. What was that about? I realised the antihistamine I was taking for hay fever also prevented these rash attacks.But I didn’t want to take antihistamine every day—that couldn’t be healthy—so, once the hay fever season was over, I would go back to keeping it at bay by trying to do intense exercise every morning and burning it off.When I got married and had kids, aged 30, this became impossible, so I resigned myself to daily antihistamine. This started with Clarityn (Loratadine), moved onto Zirtek (which I hated because if I drank alcohol, I used to get incredibly drunk and that led to a lot of bad decisions and mistakes) and, eventually, Xyzal, which I found I only needed to take every other day. The potential long-term damage of sustained anti-histamine use was a gamble I was prepared to make to avoid the daily nightmare of this condition.If you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, then let me recommend The Pure Gold Company. Premiums are low, quality of service is high and you deal with a human being who knows their stuff. Eventually, I discovered that the problem I had was a condition called heat-induced cholinergic urticaria. I went to see a specialist at St Thomas' Hospital. “There is no cure,” she told me. “Sometimes it clears up by itself,” she told me, “sometimes not. You’re lucky antihistamine stops it. For many that doesn’t work.” I volunteered to be a guinea pig so she could experiment on me as part of her research into the condition. I would go to the hospital, have a hot bath, my skin would erupt, and then she’d prod me and prick me and nod and mutter, but it got me no nearer to a cure.Here I am at 54, and it has not cleared up.What is the cause?I’m still not quite sure if something I did caused it. Urticaria is from the same allergic school of illnesses as asthma, eczema, and hay fever, from which I suffer a little (asthma especially if I run or am near cats), so it might be hereditary or genetic. It affects young men more than any other group, which is what I was.I’ve been on numerous forums where fellow sufferers discuss the condition, and a lot of us took the antibiotic tetracycline. I took it for years as a teenager to help with my acne. God, it makes me cross that I was allowed—even encouraged—to take it for so long. Bloody doctors, or one in particular (no longer with us so I won’t name him and speak ill of the dead), and my mother’s blind trust in them. I thought it might be tetracycline.I had spent two months in Egypt just before I got my first outbreaks, and I got very ill with Giardia, a form of dysentary. Maybe I lost some essential bacteria in my stomach or something, or got leaky gut. (I’ve taken a million probiotics and all the rest of it—didn’t work).Also just before the first outbreaks, I got the sh*t kicked out of me in a park in Milan by a group of young Italians - I mean properly beaten up, 7 v 1 and I made the

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comYou can watch a video of this article here: Robert F. Kennedy has been grabbing headlines this week, not just for his alliance with Donald Trump, but for his criticisms of the American food industry, which he holds responsible for the epidemic of obesity and poor health.I can’t believe what he has to say is even considered controversial, when it’s so obvious it’s true. Yet Time, The Guardian, The New York Times, and all the usual suspects have all come out to smear him.Surely it’s clear? Processed food is bad for your health. Processed food causes obesity. Processed food is the cause of many modern illnesses. Don’t eat processed food. It is bad for you.I’m not a doctor. Then again, I’m not an economist either. I’m just a guy who gets interested in stuff, especially systems—how they work and what their effects are.In the noughties, I became very interested in our systems of money, largely because I couldn’t understand why houses cost so much relative to what people earn. Before long, I felt I had a good grasp of how money works. I ended up writing a film that became an internet sensation (and got horribly plagiarised in the process), several books, and umpteen articles, all making the case that if the West is to save itself and create a level playing field, we need sound money. Whether that’s based on gold or bitcoin doesn’t really matter. Money needs to be independent, rather than a tool of government.Recently, I’ve become very interested in health - on particular, improving mine. For years, I have been unable to understand why I—and millions like me—could never keep weight off.I have become convinced that seed oils are to health what fiat money is to the economy. It is that fundamental, in my mind. Thanks to bitcoin and gold, the fiat money narrative genie is out of the bottle. Fiat is not going to die tomorrow—it will probably take decades —but more and more people are realizing how bad it is and are taking steps to escape the system via alternative money. The same thing needs to happen with seed oils. I find myself becoming as passionate about this as I was about money 15 years ago. Why are so many people obese? Why are so many people, who work on their health, diet, and fitness still 10 or 20 pounds heavier than they’d like to be? Why were so many people skinny in the 60s and 70s, but not now? Are people greedier now than they were then? They can’t be. We are the same human beings. Indeed, we exercise more.What’s changed is processed food. It barely used to exist. Now it’s almost impossible to avoid. The main enabler of processed food, the thing that gives it such a long shelf life, is seed oil.What are seed oils?"Seed oils" is a catch-all term for the various vegetable oils that have replaced animal fats to become a mainstay of the Western diet: sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, canola oil, soybean oil, corn oil, palm oil, margarine, and so on. Anything hydrogenated is bad.Seed oils were mostly invented for industrial purposes, but because of their price and properties, “entrepreneurial” companies, assisted by regulators, quack research, and lots of PR, gradually added them to their food products, so that seed oils have now, mostly, replaced animal fatsJust look at how they’re made. You gather seeds from plants such as soy, corn, cotton, safflower, or rapeseed; heat the seeds to extremely high temperatures, so the fatty acids oxidize; process the seeds with petroleum-based solvents such as hexane to extract the maximum amount of oil; add chemicals to remove the foul smell (this deodorization process produces harmful fatty acids); and then add more chemicals to change the colour and appearance of the oil. Not healthy. One of their properties is that they don’t break down easily (they can thus help lengthen food’s shelf life). The problem, it seems, is that the human body can’t properly break them down either.Okinawa in Japan became famous for its longevity, with many people living well into their 90s and 100s. Then along came Western processed food, and suddenly there is an increase in obesity, diabetes, and other modern illnesses. The once famously long-lived population is now seeing both a decline in life expectancy and an increase in health problems that were previously unknown.When correlation equals causationThis chart shows the consumption of vegetable oil in the US since the late 19th century. We didn’t used to eat seed oils; we ate animal fats. You can see they change in diet.Sugar often gets the blame for the rise in obesity, but if you look at current US sugar consumption, it’s not that different from what it was in the 1930s or 40s. Obesity has grown, while sugar consumption has remained broadly flat.Now, let’s look at vegetable oil consumption and obesity rates. They correlate. And in this case, correlation is causation.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comA cock-up at HQ some of you didn’t see Sunday’s piece about a scam in the gold bullion markets. Here it is ICYMI: Also in video format if you prefer.Now we look at what must be the most important price in the world: that is the price of the global reserve currency, the US dollar.Does it go up or down from here?There is probably no more important question in global finance to know the answer to.If the dollar is falling, it usually signals boom times for assets: equities and commodities especially. The US prints and spends, and then exports the inflation. Money gets loose and the party rocks.But when the dollar is strong, everyone gets the jitters.Today the US dollar is seriously oversold.Conversely, the inverse trade—gold—is at all-time highs. US equity markets are flirting with all-time highs, while the euro and the yen, even the pound, have been soaring.What’s more: the US General Election is coming. On which note, how about this for a chart? Since 1985, the dollar has declined with the Republicans - Reagan, Bush x2 and Trump - and rallied with the Democrats - Clinton, Obama, and Biden.Who wins in November has a big impact on the priceBut there’re several months to go till November, and a lot can change in just a few weeks.Let’s start with US dollar index, which tracks the dollar against the currencies of the US’s main trading partners', over the past year. Look at the RSI.The RSI has gone beneath 30 for the first time in over a year. You would typically expect a reversal from these levels.Look at the 3-month rally the dollar had starting in July 2023, the last time it was this oversold, it was quite something.In fact, based on this, I have taken a small short position in cable, betting that the dollar will rise against the pound.Last week, Fed Chief Jerome Powell indicated that the Federal Reserve is now ready to start cutting rates, which should be bearish for the dollar. However, oversold is oversold."The time has come for policy to adjust." he said. "My confidence has grown that inflation is on a sustainable path back to 2%."The market is somewhat divided as to whether that cut will be 0.25% or 0.5%, but lower rates go. The inflation—by their definition—monster has been tamed.“The 2-year yield has fallen to 3.9% compared to base rates at 5.5%, which is the bond market’s way of pricing in future rate cuts,” says Charlie Morris at Bytree. (Have you subscribed to his letter? You should.) "The difference, at -1.6%, means that a full rate-cutting cycle lies ahead. Indeed, this reading is more pronounced than seen in 2001 and 2008, implying the cuts could come thick and fast."2001 and 2008 were major turning points in the US dollar. What about sentiment?To gauge this, I ran some polls on various WhatsApp chats and Twitter/X. What did they show?

You can also watch this article in video format here:There are some unscrupulous bullion dealers out there who are taking advantage of rookie buyers who don’t entirely know what they are doing when buying gold.I am not going to name names. But don’t fall the scamIf a dealer tries to flog you graded coins, in almost all cases they are trying to rip you off. Don’t pay a premium for graded coins.You are not buying gold to try and be clever and hope that your coin gets some kind of rarity value. In most cases, that will not happen. There are clever people who know this market better than you already playing this game. Don’t get involved. Your priority is to get as much gold for your money as possible. You are buying gold to preserve purchasing power, not to lose it. If a dealer tells you that some recent sovereign, for example, is extremely rare, that it was one of the last coins minted under Queen Elizabeth or some such, and that it has been graded and has a special certificate and blah blah, and it therefore carries a huge premium, they are trying to pull a sly one. The reality is that the extra premium paid is almost impossible to claw back when you come to sell.It really annoys me that bullion dealers are doing this. When buying gold, trust is everything and they are breaching that. You are buying gold for safety, not to be ripped off.Eventually, the FCA or the Office For Fair Trading or someone will eventually come after the dealers, but it will be too late. We all know how slow these organisations can be and by this point many more people will have been scammed. Why do dealers do it? A dealer might buy a large stock of coins from the Mint. Coins are often of a slightly different quality. Dealers then send them off and pay a small fee to get them graded according to their Mint State. The scale ranges from MS-60 to MS-70, with MS-70 being a perfect, flawless coin. They then charge a large premium for coins with high grades, even though they barely paid any premium when they bought the coins The margins when dealing in gold are on the slim side - sometimes just a few percent. But if they get an additional premium for the rarity, that margin can rise to 100%. No wonder there are so many unscrupulous salesman trying to flog graded coins. Fractional coins—¼ or 1/2 sovs for example—or older coins do trade at a higher (though not enormous) premium. These can trade for 15-20% above the spot value of the gold content. But you are likely to get that back when you sell. (Demand for fractional coins has increased this last year while it has fallen for 1oz coins).But for graded coins you can end up paying 100% premium to the spot value of the gold, yet when you come to sell you get little more than the spot value. So when you come to sell, you can lose over 70% even if the spot price of gold has increased. It’s like buying a painting by a modern artist and being told by the vendor he’s more famous than he is, only to find out later on that he isn’t.Don’t fall for it. And spread the word. The more people that know about this the better.If you are interested in buying gold in these uncertain times, then check out my recent report, and look no further than my recommended bullion dealer, the Pure Gold Company. Premiums are low, quality of service is high, and you get to deal with a human being who knows their stuff and won’t try and flog you graded coins at rip-off premiums.IMPORTANT: somebody keeps impersonating me on various social media, including on here asking readers to message them on WhatsApp. It is not me. Don’t engage. Please report and DON’T send any money.Finally, my Edinburgh Fringe show Shaping the Earth, a “lecture with funny bits” about the history of mining, is coming to London October 9th and 10th to the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”. It’s a really interesting show, even though I say so myself. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

If you would rather watch this piece go here:IMPORTANT: somebody has been impersonating me on Substack, on Instagram and on YouTube. Please don’t engage. Report and block. And please DON’T send any money.Thanks to all who came to see Shaping The Earth up in Edinburgh. The show got incredible feedback. I am doing it in London October 9th and 10th at the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”. House prices have to come down some time. But when exactly? That’s what we all want to know. So here’s your answer.The declines start in the US and Canada in 2025, followed by the UK, Europe and Australia in 2026.That’s what the 18-year property cycle says, at least.Today we explore that cycle and what it says about house prices.18 Years of Boom and BustEconomist Fred Harrison, who first covered the theory in his 1983 book, The Power in the Land, is very much the Godfather of the idea that real estate follows a predictable pattern over an 18-year period. I first stumbled across Harrison in 2005, when so many were sure house prices had to come down (needless to say they didn’t), on reading his brilliantly prophetic article for MoneyWeek, arguing that we were two or three years from the top. Wasn’t he right. Today, by most accounts, property should have already crashed. Real estate prices bear little resemblance to earnings. With the rise in interest rates that followed Covid, mortgage-holders found themselves with higher costs. Some were forced to sell, while prospective buyers could no longer afford to borrow as much as before. Increased taxes - I’m looking at you, Stamp Duty in the UK - have only added to the unaffordability.And yet, while the market may be slow and stagnant in many parts of the country and indeed the world, it is not exactly crashing.There was one school of thought that was steadfast in all the house-price bearishness which followed Covid, saying property’s time to crash had not yet come. They were the acolytes of the 18-year cycle in real estate. Yet again they’ve been proved right. Real estate peaks in 2026, they said. After that we get four years of decline.You know my views on cycles. We have the seasons, days and nights, the moons, menstruation, the cycle of life - cycles are turning all around us. There are economic and investment cycles too: bull markets and bear markets, commodities super-cycles, Gordon Brown was always blathering on about the economic cycle, mining is cyclical. New technology goes through a clear cycle as it evolves and is adopted. On the other hand, it’s easy to look back at the past, find some random pattern and declare it a cycle. Actually trading them in real time is a very different matter. In fact, the human need for narrative and the fact that cycles make for good copy mean it’s very easy to get wedded to the idea of a cycle, when a very different reality is staring you in the face. After 2008 many got it stuck in their heads that this was Kondratiev Winter and the next Great Depression, and, as a result, missed one of the most rip-roaring bull markets in history. With all that said, the 18-year cycle in real estate has proved remarkably reliable, and, says Akhil Patel, author of The Secret Wealth Advantage, and one of Harrison’s great disciples, it goes all the way back to the turn of the 19th century. (I’ll show you that data in just a sec).Looking to buy gold in these uncertain times? Check out my recent report, and look no further than my recommended bullion dealer, the Pure Gold Company. Premiums are low, quality of service is high, and you get to deal with a human being who knows their stuff.Broadly speaking, there are four phases to the cycle - and it actually lasts about 18 and a half years.* Years one to seven. A silent rally followed by …* A mid-cycle slowdown or dip at around the seven year mark.* The explosive phase. That’s when house prices really get on the map. Think 1983 to 1989 or 2002 to 2007. In the last couple of years you get a classic blow-off top - the winners’ curse.* Finally, the correction which lasts around four years. Think 1989 to 1993 or 2008-2011. Then the cycle starts again.Here it is, illustrated.This is, says Akhil, “primarily a North American phenomenon, though Britain and Europe follow the US and, increasingly, emerging markets do as well.”Here, for the historians out there, is a table from Akhil’s book that shows the data in the US going all the way back to 1800.Recent turns of the cycleThere is no doubt the cycle has played out in the UK over my lifetime. (The US is typically 6 months to a year ahead of the UK ). From the mid-1970s through to 1989 there was an extraordinary boom in the UK, followed by that infamous crash from 1989 to 1993 and negative equity so bad that thousands simply posted their keys in the letter box and walked away from their homes. Prices peaked in the third quarter of 1989 at £63,000, before falling to £51,000.But in 1993 things got going again. By the turn of the 20th c

(And, no, I’m not standing on a stool!)After the unexpected popularity of my post about weight loss (still can’t believe it had 11 million views), I am trying something a little bit different this Sunday morning with this short video about dead hangs, while doing a dead hang. I am planning to cover alternative health a bit more frequently on here in the Sunday morning thought pieces. (NB If you want to try dead hangs, but aren’t yet ready to hang fully, try resistance bands or standing on a step and still putting as much weight as possible through your shoulders).Enjoy!In case you missed them, last Sunday’s post on immigration was extremely popularAnd we also had an update this week on the Dolce Far Niente portfolioTRANSCRIPT:Hey Siri. Timer in 2 minutes.Today, I’m going to talk to you about dead hangs. I’m going to try and do a 2-minute dead hang while recording this video. Not sure if I can last two minutes while talking.I had a motorcycle crash when I was 27, and I've had problems with my neck ever since.Then, last year, I got a trapped nerve in my shoulder and I was in agony. My osteopath helped a lot. I did about 3 or 4 minutes of neck stretches most days. However, the problem continued.And it was only after I started doing dead hangs a few months ago, that my neck issues, shoulder issues and trapped nerve mostly cleared up.Dead hangs are great. Everything we do, whether exercising or just sitting, compresses the spine. Dead hangs stretch it all out.As well as decompressing the spine, they have all sorts of beneficial side-effects. * They improve your posture.* They re-aligning the spine.* They stretch out all the evils of sitting at a desk in front of a screen all day.* They increase neck and shoulder strength, flexibility and mobility.* They stretch through your torso, particularly if you swing from side to side, improving your stomach and core strength. * They are great for your grip strength, your fingers and forearms. * And holding the position for extended periods is probably good for your determination too.So get a pull up bar. The ones you hang in your doorway are you but the ones you put on the wall are better, like this one, and keep hanging every day. At first you’ll only be able to hang for 10, 20 or 30 second, but keep doing it and you’ll quickly increase the time you can hang for.Then you can start hanging in different ways. You can extend the width of your grip. swing, do one-armed hangs. Try and do a couple or three dead hangs a day and they will benefit you in all sorts of unexpected ways, I promise. I can’t think of a physical more beneficial way of spending a couple of minutes than a dead hang. When it finishes you get this rush of pain, this exhilaration through your shoulders.And I’m hoping it finishes pretty soon. Hey, Siri, how long on timer?Hey, Siri, how long on timer?It didn’t set!Tell your friends about this amazing video.Here’s the original weight loss post, in case of interest.Charlie Morris is one of my closest mates and he writes what I think is one of the best investment newsletters out there, in fact a suite of them. I urge you to sign up for a free trial. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

To watch this piece, go to: 1. There are more people in the world than ever - and we all want better livesThere are some 8.2 billion people in the world - more than ever - and, whether it’s people displaced by war, famine, or lack of water, or (the big one) people seeking a better life with more opportunity, more us are on the move than ever.Some stats:4.6 billion live on less than $10/day.7 billion live on less than $40/day. 7 billion!While the number of people in extreme poverty (below $2.15/day) has capitulated in South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific, it is rising in sub-Saharan Africa.I was interested to know what the global population by ethnicity is (search engines do not make that easy to find out), but, broadly speaking, it looks something like this (obviously there are lots of mixed race people):* Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.): ~3.2 billion / 43%* Indian (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka): ~1.5 billion / 20%* Black African: ~1.4 billion / 19%* White European: ~750 million / 10%* Middle Eastern (Arab, Persian, Kurd, Turk, etc.): ~500 million / 7%* Amerindian (North and South America): ~100 million / 1%* Pacific Islander: ~12.5 million / 0.2%Visualised:Though this is rapidly changing with Asian growth, the majority of the world’s wealth lies in the predominantly white (for the time being) countries of Western Europe and North America. There are a gazillion different reasons put forward as to why this might be, which differ according to worldview, ranging from slavery to IQ to system of rule. Regardless of what the reason is, Western Europe and North America have become the prime destinations for migrants. That is where the money is. Language is a huge and overlooked factor too. Most people around the world speak some English. If the migrant speaks German, they might prefer Germany, but English is more widespread, and that means greater numbers will favour the Anglo-Saxon nations.But the population of Western Europe is less than 200 million, 265 million if you include the UK. The population of the U.S. is 345 million. We are tiny in the global context.The difference in the weight of numbers is staggering. (Another good stat for you: more people are born in Nigeria each year than in all of Europe).2. Modern transportationBecause of planes, trains, and automobiles, not to mention boats (fossil fuels and engines, basically), people are able to travel further and faster than ever before.Forget Around the World in 80 Days, itself a miracle in 1872 when the Jules Verne story was published, now, it’s almost (not quite) possible to get around the world in 24 hours.Meanwhile, the days of the medieval serf, who was tied to his land and not allowed to travel, are long gone (for the most part—there are bits of Africa and Asia where you are still tied).3. Modern mediaMedia and communication are more advanced than ever. Whether it’s TV, film, or, most crucially, social media, the whole world is able to see how the other half lives. As of 2023, there are approximately 6.8 billion smartphone users worldwide, representing about 85% of the global population.This has increased awareness of better lives to be had, and it has stoked desire. Modern communication has also enabled travellers to exchange information on how to move.So you have:* more people than ever* better transport than ever* more awareness than ever * more desire than ever.That is why the mass movement of people is now at levels never before seen in history. That is also why it is only going to increase.This is a point that nobody in a position of influence in the media or politics seems to be making. Global migration levels are not going down. They are going up.So instead of brushing the issue under the carpet and calling people racist, immigration is a conversation we need to be having.What is the plan in the face of migration levels that are inevitably going to increase? Do we want more people? Fewer people? More of certain types of people? What is the optimum number of people? Who are the optimum people? People with certain qualifications? People from certain cultures—Judeo-Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/Hindu? People of certain ethnicities? Must they pass wealth tests, skills tests, IQ tests, values tests? What?How can this all be agreed? By referendum? By poll?And once agreed (fat chance), how can it all be ensured?Spoiler: it won’t be. We are not even going to properly talk about, let alone do anything. At least not until it’s too late (if it isn’t already).Instead, we will see the further South Africanisation of everything, and yet more internal division while these issues of immigration continue unaddressed.If you are young, I really wouldn’t hang about. There is a whole world out there. I’d go and be a migrant yourself.Until next time, DominicLooking to buy gold in these uncertain times? Then check out my recent report, and look no further than my recommended bullion dealer, the Pure Gold Company. Premiums are low, quality of

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comIMPORTANT: somebody has been impersonating me on here and asking readers to message them on WhatsApp. Obviously it is not me. Don’t engage. Stop engaging and block, if you have started. And DON’T send any money.I am now at the Edinburgh Fringe with Shaping the Earth, a “lecture with funny bits” about the history of mining. The show is going great guns. I’m then taking it to London on October 9th and 10th to the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”. The Edinburgh link is here. And the London link is here.But today, just as the title suggests, I am going to explain the extraordinary volatility we have seen in markets all over the world this week. I’ll then look at what we should be doing next. What should we do with our gold/bitcoin/oil and gas/equities and all the rest of our holdings?The trigger for all of this lies in the Land of the Rising Sun.The Japanese yen has been undervalued for a long time. For the first time, perhaps in my living memory, Japan has become a cheap—well, not super expensive—country to visit. Against the dollar, pound, and euro, then yen was at multi-decade lows.The main reason for the weak yen is Japanese monetary policy. The Japanese central bank has suppressed rates for many years in an effort to stimulate the Japanese economy. It hasn’t worked, but like so many policymakers, when confronted with a failed policy, the reaction is not to change tack but to double down. In 2016, rates actually went negative.But even as the rest of the world raised rates to try and counter the inflation that came post-COVID, Japan kept them low, creating quite the differential.Until last week, Japan had only raised rates once in 17 years—by 0.25% in March.Here are 15 years of the yen against the US dollar so you can see just how weak the currency had got.Talk about a long-term bear market.This situation created what is known as the Yen Carry Trade. You borrow in yen, pay a very low rate of interest, and then use the money to buy other assets that pay a better yield. It might be other currencies, bonds, equities, or even cryptocurrencies.Let’s say you borrow at below 1% and buy a government bond in another currency that yields 5%. The arbitrage is pretty generous, and the risk is very low. Borrow at below 1% and buy something like an S&P 500 tracker, which might grow by 10-15%, and the rewards are handsome.The longer this situation has gone on, the more capital has gone into this trade, and the greater the risk taken on. Not unlike the British riots (too much immigration for too long when nobody voted for it), this has been a powder keg waiting to blow for a long time. All that was required was the spark.

I am now at the Edinburgh Fringe with Shaping the Earth, a “lecture with funny bits” about the history of mining. I’m then taking the show to London on October 9th and 10th to the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”. The Edinburgh link is here. And the London link is here.ALSOIMPORTANT: somebody has been impersonating me on here and asking readers to message them on WhatsApp. Obviously it is not me. Don’t engage. Stop engaging and block, if you have started. And DON’T send any money.“They don't give you gold medals for beating somebody. They give you gold medals for beating everybody.” Michael Johnson, sprinterWhy do Olympic winners bite their gold medals? The short answer is: for no other reason than a photographer just told them to. But the tradition of biting gold goes back a long way.You might have seen pirates in movies biting their coins too. While such hard-toothed individuals might inspire excitement in modern audiences, ordinary merchants and traders, indeed anyone handling money, used to bite their coins too: it was a rude test of the purity of the metal. Prospectors in the 19th-century gold rushes also used this method to differentiate between real gold and fool’s gold? As well as scraping (to look for plate) or indenting to test softness, biting might involve a little bending too, using the teeth as a clamp to bend against. If the metal is soft and malleable, it was likely pure gold or silver. Hard and brittle, it could indicate that the coin was counterfeit or mixed with other metals. Too soft, however, and the coin was likely lead, coated with gold, a common counterfeit in the 19th century. (Lead is softer than gold). The method might expose crude forgeries, but it would by no means have been foolproof. Copper was added to gold coins from the Tudor period onwards, which would have made them harder, and the bite test that much less reliable, though in Mediaeval times biting might have worked better. Coins, such as Florence’s florin, the standard of the day, were 24 carat, thin, and relatively soft. The bite test might have exposed forgeries.Weighing is more effective, and any merchant would have a set of scales, though perhaps not a pirate. The stamp of the issuer, ideally a reputable royal, also went a long way to certifying authenticity. For the prospectors of the gold rushes, however, who only required a simple differentiation between actual and fool’s gold, the bite test would have been more dependable. We have always used our bodies to measure things.Looking to buy gold in these uncertain times? Then check out my recent report, and look no further than my recommended bullion dealer, the Pure Gold Company. Premiums are low, quality of service is high, and you get to deal with a human being who knows their stuff.What are gold medals made of?Today’s Olympic winners needn’t bother biting their gold. The last time an Olympic gold medal was made of solid gold was over a hundred years ago in 1912 in Stockholm.The gold medals at the 1896 Olympics in Athens, when the Games were first revived, did not contain any gold. They were made of silver and gilded with a thin layer of gold. The same happened at Paris in 1900.Things perked up for the athletes in 1904 at the St. Louis Olympics, when the gold medals were made of 12-karat gold (50% gold, 50% copper). There was a considerable upgrade in 1908 in London, when the gold medals were 22-karat gold, weighing almost an ounce (25g). This proved the peak. (Just as it was probably Britain’s peak too). There were 109 gold medals handed out. That’s over 100 ounces. Expensive!Steady debasement followed. At the 1912 Stockholm Olympics the gold medals were 18-karat gold. From 1920 in Antwerp onwards, the medals were back to gilded silver.Today the International Olympic Committee stipulates that modern Olympic gold medals must weigh at least 500 grams, and contain at least 6g of gold. Olympic gold medals remain largely of silver (93%), copper (6%), plated with about 6 grams of (a bit more than a 1/5 ounce) of gold. A gold medal is thus roughly 1% gold. At the 2022 Olympics in Tokyo, the metals to make the medals came from a recycling initiative. The Japanese handed in nearly 80,000 tonnes of electrical gadgets, including laptops, digital cameras, gaming devices and 6 million phones. The appliances yielded 32kg/1,000 ounces of gold, 3,500 kg/113,000 ounces of silver and 2,200kg of copper. (There is, I learn, about eighty times as much gold in one tonne of cellphones than there is a typical tonne of rock at a gold mine). All 5,000 medals were made from the recycled materials, which were identified using Vanta X-ray fluorescence analyzers, which can identify metals and accurately determine their karat value in a matter of seconds.Until next time,DominicCharlie Morris is one of my closest mates and he writes what I think is one of the best investment newsletters out there, in fact a suite of them. I urge you to sign up for a fre

Good Sunday afternoon to you,I was blown away by the response to Wednesday’s article about weight loss. The Twitter/X summary got more than 10 million views. Here it is, in case you missed it. Going forward, I am thinking of writing more alternative health stuff, as there seems to be a huge appetite for it. But today it’s business as usual: gold. And I have a question for you …The Great Steppe stretches approximately 5,000 miles from the Pacific coast of China through Mongolia, Siberia, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and Romania, reaching the Danube Delta and Hungary.Vast stretches of grassland, savanna, and shrubland—harsh and dry, devoid of trees and large vegetation—are sandwiched between forests to the north and mountains and deserts to the south. This region has connected Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and South Asia since the Paleolithic Age, serving as a predecessor to the Silk Road and the Eurasian land bridge.This ocean of grass is one of the world’s largest ecosystems. Many remarkable species—elk, gazelle, brown bear, leopard, and tiger—have made it their home. So have many great nomadic empires—the Xiongnu, the Scythians, the Mongols, the Huns, and the Göktürk Khaganate—all famous for their ferocity, horsemanship, and military might.The open space gives rise to mighty extremes of weather—howling winds, unbearable heat by day, and freezing cold by night. Humans could only survive by breeding creatures—goats, sheep, camels, and cattle—even hardier than themselves. Of all of these, perhaps the most essential to human survival and evolution was the horse.The horse was first domesticated on the Steppe about 6,000 years ago, probably by the Botai people in present-day Kazakhstan. Their horses—likely similar to today’s Mongolian horse—were small, stocky, and hardy, able to travel long distances in trying conditions. The horse enabled tribes to guide their flocks over large distances as they searched for new grazing lands. It facilitated trade and exchange, and allowed them to form huge and terrifying armies.The fearsome Scythians were the first to use horses in battle, carrying stones, clubs, and bows as weapons. These marauding armies inspired fear. Their warriors were such brilliant horsemen that it seemed they and their horses were one creature, giving rise to the Greek myth of the centaur: wild, untamed, and violent; strong, fast, and ferocious; drunken, lawless, and lustful, with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a horse.The Greeks had a complicated relationship with the Scythians, both admiring and fearing them. Chiron, one of the centaurs famous for his wisdom and knowledge of medicine, tutored many of the greatest Greek heroes, including Hercules, Achilles, and Jason. Perhaps the Greeks exaggerated their barbarity to contrast it with their own sophistication and culture.In any case, while the centaur has endured in myth, it was not long before it was realized that man and beast were not one, and the practice of horse-riding spread beyond the Great Steppe. The horse became the primary mode of land transport for thousands of years.You really should subscribe.Then the Industrial Revolution came along. The first steam locomotive was developed in England in 1804. By the mid-19th century, railroads had become the primary mode of transportation for people and goods across much of the world. It was the beginning of the end for horses as a primary mode of transportation.In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the automobile emerged. “Horseless carriages,” they were called. Karl Benz developed the first gasoline-powered car in 1885. By the early 1900s, cars had become a common sight on many roads, further diminishing the need for horses.Inventor Alexander Winton sought investment for his Winton Motor Carriage Company. “Get a horse!” a banker told him. “You’re crazy if you think this fool contraption you’ve been wasting your time on will ever displace the horse.”Winton continues:“From my pocket, I took a clipping from the New York World of November 17, 1895, and asked him to read it. He brushed it aside. I insisted. It was an interview with Thomas A. Edison: ‘Talking of horseless carriages suggests to my mind that the horse is doomed… Ten years from now you will be able to buy a horseless vehicle for what you would pay today for a wagon and a pair of horses. The money spent in the keep of the horses will be saved and the danger to life will be much reduced.’”The banker threw back the clipping and snorted, “Another inventor talking.”Today, the horse is, for the most part, an expensive luxury. Its use is often just symbolic.How does this relate to goldHere is my question:Could you say the same about gold?The horse was transport for 6,000 years. It was transport for almost as long as gold was official money. It was “natural transport.”But just as transport changes as technology evolves, so does money.Perhaps gold is to money as the horse is to tra

In the last few years, I have gone from this to this. I’ve written about my weight loss before, but, just in the last two or three months, something has really accelerated, and I’m not quite sure what.I’m now 54. I’ve suddenly got a six-pack. Well, sort of. A four-pack. I’ve lost 48 pounds (22 kg). My metabolic age has come down from 57 (when I was 51) to 49. I am super fit and bursting with energy.Even at the age of 22, when I had just left drama school and won a British Open Martial Arts Tournament (BOMAT 1991 - I’ve got the trophy somewhere if you don’t believe me), I don’t think I was nearly as defined. I’m the same welter weight as I was then too.What’s the secret? There isn’t one. I’d love to say this was all deliberate, but really, it has happened by accident. I was overweight, started fasting to lose weight, and it spiralled from there. Normally, I put the weight back on, but this time it’s not only stayed off, but I have lost more weight and got into better shape.I thought I should describe some of my habits here, in case you find them beneficial. I don’t think it is one thing that has done it. I think it is the aggregation of everything.So here we go: 12 habits to transform your health. If you are interested in following me down this route, don’t try and do all of these at once. Do one, then gradually add others. Baby steps …1. FastDo the 5:2 diet. It takes effort, but it works. It is probably the single most effective thing you can do to lose weight. Fasting brings mental clarity too. Watch videos, listen to podcasts, read, indoctrinate yourself, then do it. After a while, you look forward to the feeling of being hungry and the good feeling you get after: I call the morning after a fast the inverted hangover because you feel so good.2. Avoid Seed OilsBy seed oils, I mean all the industrial oils that have only entered our diet in the last 50 or so years and that human beings were never supposed to eat - vegetable oil, sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, canola oil, palm oil - all that stuff. These things were invented to be industrial oils, and they’ve made their way into our food supply and they are poison. Why is obesity such a problem? Look no further than seed oils for your answer. 100 years ago, Americans got zero calories from seed oils; now they make up a third of their daily intake. In this case, correlation is causation. Things like olive oil, butter, tallow, and coconut oil are fine. Seed oils are in everything. Assume what you are considering eating contains seed oil and only eat it when you have ascertained that it doesn’t.Tell someone you know about this.3. Dead HangsI think these might have been the transformer, as I’ve only been doing them a few months. Get a pull-up bar. You can get ones that you hang in your doorway or, better, get one outside for your garden and hang from it. At first, you will only be able to hang for a short time, but keep hanging every day so that eventually you can hang for two minutes. Then do two two-minute hangs per day. I only started doing dead hangs to cure my various neck ailments (too much computer), but they have had all sorts of unintended, beneficial side effects. They improve your posture, they stretch out all the evils of sitting in front of a screen all day, they sort out your neck problems, your shoulder problems, they stretch through your torso. I can’t think of a more physically beneficial way of spending two minutes than a dead hang.4. Get a Whoop Whoop is a health and fitness tracker watch which focuses on sleep and recovery. I got one to improve my sleeping habits. Sleep is the new exercise, as I’m sure you know. It measures, among other things, heart rate variability (HRV), which plummets when you drink. You then get a big red warning which puts you off drinking. The unintended consequence, then, of getting a whoop was that my alcohol consumption has gone from having a couple of drinks or more most days - half a bottle of wine a day kind of stuff - to almost zero. I now crave not drinking. It’s not just the calories in alcohol, it’s the bad decisions you make after drinking, particularly late-night bingeing. Not drinking also improves sleep and general health. I did not plan to give up booze. I like booze. I love beer. I love wine. I like drinking. If you told me I had to give up drinking, I would’ve said no. But that’s what happens when you get a Whoop. So get a Whoop. Plus your sleeping habits improve too.5. Have a partner you want to look good forI had one - now sadly no more - but I’m sure it made me generally up my physical game. She was also extremely health-conscious and got me into all sorts of good habits. It helps to have a partner with whom you can eat well and exercise well. It makes you accountable too.Sometimes splitting up with someone you like or love can be great for your weight too. Maybe that’s what happened to me!You really should subscribe to this wonderful publication.6. Cider vinegarIt’s better for you than Ozempic. It’s c

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comIMPORTANT: somebody has been impersonating me on here and asking readers to message them on WhatsApp. Obviously it is not me. Don’t engage. Stop engaging and block, if you have started. And DON’T send any money.It’s a question that comes up a lot. In fact, a friend was asking me just this week, so let’s try and resolve it here and now, once and for all: gold or silver - which should you buy?Full disclosure: in my own portfolio at one stage I was geared as much as 70% towards silver and 30% towards gold. But in 2011, when silver went to $50, I rolled into gold and never went back. My physical allocation is now probably something like 90% gold and 10% silver.(For clarity’s sake: we are not talking about mining companies - these are a different kettle of fish altogether - just physical metal).Make no mistake: silver has a great deal more potential than gold. There is every possibility that the silver price could triple or quadruple from today’s price just below $30/oz. It could even go to $200. But my experience of 20 years investing in silver is that if it can find a way of disappointing, it will. The out-and-out silver bugs all scream manipulation, and maybe the silver market is manipulated and repressed. For sure, if all the longs on the futures exchanges were to hold out for delivery, the silver price would go shooting up. There is not the physical supply to deliver on all the contracts. That applies to many commodities, though none, it seems, consistently to the same extent as silver. But why invest in something if forces stronger than you are repressing it?It is unlikely, meanwhile, that gold will triple or quadruple from today’s price of $2,300/oz unless we enter into some kind of currency crisis or extreme inflation.Then again, the silver price could easily halve from $30/oz. I don’t think a 50% correction in gold is likely, outside of some deflationary financial panic or liquidity crisis such as we saw with COVID in 2020. In any case, any such correction would be temporary.Reasons to Buy SilverMy friend was told to buy silver because the silver-to-gold ratio at 80 is high and should come lower. Let’s consider that argument.There is 15 times as much silver in the earth’s crust as there is gold, and throughout all of history, the monetary ratio between the two reflected natural supply. Fifteen silver coins got you a gold coin.But silver stopped being used as money in the late 19th century. The many gold rushes of the period increased gold supply so that most countries around the world followed Britain’s model and adopted pure gold standards (more on this here). By 1900, China was the only major country in the world on a bi-metallic standard, which included silver. Every other nation was on gold.In my lifetime, the silver-to-gold ratio has only once gone back to its natural levels of 15, and that was in 1980 for an afternoon, when the Hunt brothers’ attempt to corner the silver market reached its climax. The reality is that the silver-to-gold ratio has been gradually getting higher for a generation now, averaging between 50 and 85, though going above or below those levels at times of market extremity. In 2020, it went to 125.Reality check - this is a long-term uptrend.I accept that the silver-to-gold ratio “should” be 15. In fact, perhaps it should be even lower because silver gets consumed, while gold does not. But in practice, I don’t think that ratio will ever go to 15 in my lifetime, certainly not for any extended period.The other argument that my friend was given to buy silver instead of gold was that silver has many industrial uses. This is indeed the case. It has many more than gold, even if gold’s biggest source of demand is jewellery. (More on gold’s industrial uses here).Gold’s use throughout history has been to store or display wealth. Silver’s has been to exchange it. Silver no longer has that use, nor is it likely to. We don’t use metal as a medium of exchange anymore, nor are we likely to. Money is digital.Gold is the store of value, not silver, which is expensive and bulky to store. Gold is the constant.We don’t buy gold to become millionaires. We buy gold to protect the value of what we have already earned. Gold will continue to do that. Silver might not.Silver is much more speculative. It has the potential to earn you more money than gold, but it also has the potential to lose you more than gold.Why not own a bit of both?Where to buy gold or silver?I’ve used many bullion dealers over the years. The dealer I like most, and with whom I have an affiliation deal, is the Pure Gold Company. Premiums are low. Quality of service is high. You get to deal with a human being. You can take delivery of your gold or store it online with them in their vaults. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe. (If you speak to them, tell them I sent you). I also like Goldcore.Why are you buying gold or silver?Are you buying

I am bringing my Edinburgh Fringe “lecture with funny bits” about the history of mining to London on October 9th and 10th to the Museum of Comedy. Please come if you fancy a bit of “learning and laughter”. The Edinburgh link is here. And the London link is here.Let’s start with an overview of gold demand as it currently stands.Never mind central banks, investment banks, or private investors—almost 50% of annual gold demand comes from the jewellery industry. It is, by some margin, the single largely buyer of gold. Another 23% is investment demand, and 21%—last year at least—came from central banks. Just 6% of demand is industrial (excluding jewellery, of course).Jewellery, investment, and central bank demand have all been increasing in recent years. However, a change in macroeconomic circumstances could easily mean, for example, that central banks become net sellers. It's not like it hasn't happened before. But, while de-dollarisation remains a growing theme, I do not see that as likely for several years at least. Similarly, investment demand could easily shrink. Jewellery demand is more constant, and it increases when people feel rich and decreases when they don’t.Gold’s main use has always been and will always be to store and display wealth—in other words, investment and jewellery. Technological demand is rather at the margin, but might we see demand growth there? Let’s investigate. Interestingly, one huge potential increase in demand will come, ironically perhaps since that is where gold came from, at the final frontier in outer space.At the Final Frontier - Also On Your PhoneBoth silver and copper are better conductors of electricity than gold, but gold is more resistant to corrosion and oxidation. Therefore, it finds considerable use in electronics as a coating, especially where long-term stability is important. It is used to cover connectors, switches, and relay contacts; in printed circuit boards, microprocessors, and memory chips. This resistance means it finds considerable use in both aerospace and outer space, where it is used to coat satellite components and spacecraft. It can reflect infrared radiation and protect craft from overheating—especially important in the wild temperature fluctuations of outer space. It is also used in the heat shields which protect sensitive equipment from high temperatures during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. The umbilical cord that binds an astronaut to their spacecraft is plated with gold. The visors of astronaut helmets are plated with gold to protect their eyes from harmful ultraviolet radiation. The MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) instrument, which forms part of NASA’s Mars exploration programme, is plated with gold. Its purpose is to create oxygen from carbon dioxide, effectively replicating the role of plants on Earth, so that a human mission to Mars can one day take place.Ultimately, gold’s permanence is the fundamental reason for its use. You need durable materials. When you send a spacecraft to outer space, you can’t repair it. This usage is not yet significant enough to radically alter gold demand, but that could change, and quite dramatically so, as space exploration increases.At the 2022 Olympics in Tokyo, the metals to make the medals came from a recycling initiative. The Japanese handed in nearly 80,000 tonnes of electrical gadgets, including laptops, digital cameras, gaming devices and 6 million phones. The appliances yielded 32kg/1,000 ounces of gold and 3,500 kg/113,000 ounces of silver. There is, I learn, about eighty times as much gold in one tonne of cellphones than there is a typical tonne of rock at a gold mine. Increased high tech means increased gold demand, but perhaps not enough to effect the price.Optics and Other High Tech UsesGold's reflective properties, combined with its stability, mean it finds use in optics—in lenses and mirrors, especially space telescopes, to reflect infrared light. Gold plates the mirrors of the celebrated James Webb telescope, the largest optical telescope in space, to optimise the mirrors’ function, allowing it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope. For example, the first stars, the formation of the first galaxies, and the detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.There is a Canadian company, Totenpass, which has been developing some interesting gold tech, also related to gold’s longevity: “a permanent digital storage drive constructed from solid gold that requires no energy and has no movable parts. Digital data is written onto the drive by way of a proprietary light-diffraction process which imprints images, documents, and other files that can be stored as either human readable without the aid of computers or machine-readable with the employment of a smartphone. This technology allows for the permanent storage of precious digital data, thereby eliminating any future dependence on the internet and the vast amounts

Over the last decade, the Turkish lira has seen declines of more than 95% against the US dollar. It took just ₺1.50 to buy it dollar ten years ago. Now it takes ₺33. The lira has been one of the world’s worst-performing currencies - and in a fiat world, that is saying something - rivalled only by the Venezuelan bolivar and the Argentinian peso.While in Istanbul last week, I spoke to two young professionals, Emre, 25, and İlker, 27, about life under the lira. Both are bright, articulate, and empathetic young men who speak three languages fluently - English, German, and Turkish - as well as competent French.Given that the currency has been so bad, I was expecting to see more widespread use of foreign money, but in fact, lira are changing hands everywhere - you see people all over the place with wads of them. “You have to use lira,” they explained. “It is the national currency.” Even with such dire inflation, there is still trade. The economy still functions, albeit badly. (That said everything in the airports was denominated in euros).Food, energy, travel, housing, consumer goods - everything has gone up in price, but, surprise, surprise, wages have not gone up by nearly as much. The result is that ordinary people have been impoverished.“The average wage in Istanbul is about £650 per month,” they told me. (One thing that impressed me was how immediately they could translate the lira into pounds, dollars, or euros).“What about the receptionist in my hotel or a waiter?”“Maybe £500. A taxi driver working all hours, maybe £800.”With those kinds of earnings, it is hard to make ends meet. “That’s why everybody wants to meet a tourist,” they smiled in reply.“What do you do?” I asked. “Do you spend money as soon as you have it? Before it loses purchasing power?”“Yes,” they said. “There is no point saving. When we were students a few years ago, you could save for maybe three years and buy a car. Now it would take you 20 years. There is no point saving in lira. We spend the money as soon as we have it.”“Even on stupid things,” added Emre, pointing to his Casio watch. “You may as well.”Everyone is the same, apparently. They spend as soon as they earn. There is no point saving a currency that will soon be worth less. The rates of interest paid do not compensate, especially given that you usually have to tie your money up for one, two, or three years to obtain decent rates, and the inflation risk of doing that is too great.Interest rates have been quite the issue in Turkey, by the way. Mainstream Islamic finance prohibits interest, something they claimed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan exploited. Until 2023 Erdoğan kept a lid on rates (they are now 50%), arguing that high rates cause inflation. He repeatedly replaced central bank governors who resisted low rates.“How do people save?” I asked.“Gold,” came the answer straight away. Everyone who can buys gold, even tiny amounts below a gram.“Silver?” I asked.“Not so much.”I asked them if they use Revolut or similar to hold foreign currencies. They had no idea what Revolut was (probably a good thing, given what can happen), but it seems most banks also offer the ability to hold euros, pounds, and dollars, and so citizens tend to convert their lira as quickly as they can.“What about bitcoin?”“Not really,” they said. “Some young people.”I was surprised by that. I saw a few adverts for bitcoin-related products out there. But apparently gold is more common.“What about saving up to buy a house?”They both laughed at the impossibility. And there isn’t even a lot of debt in the Turkish housing market. Mortgages, as we know them in the West, don’t really exist, though there are ways to borrow money. Housing is still unaffordable“So people aren’t starting families then?”“No, we can’t. Our population growth is starting to turn negative.”“So you two are not close to starting a family.”They shook their heads sadly. “What do we have to offer?”I felt so sorry for these two young men. Both would be good husbands and fathers.“When people do start families, they rent small flats. Mum works, dad works, grandparents work.”This is something I saw directly. The taxi that met me at the airport had mum and dad in the front and their two kids asleep in the back, while dad continued working into the night.A typical one-bed flat might be about £500 per month. There is not really the same culture of flat-sharing among young professionals that we have in the UK, except maybe for students, and most young people stay with their parents until they marry.I struggled to understand how anyone could make any money in such a situation. All asset owners are doing is protecting their wealth against the currency debasement; they are not actually growing it. “Who’s the richest person in the country?” I wondered.“Erdoğan,” they both said immediately. “Officially, probably the Koç family. They own Fenerbahçe, the football club. But really it is almost certainly Erdoğan.”The state of the currency and the politic

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comI started out with the intention of writing just one article on this subject, but it has become three. It’s a big subject … (Here is part one and here is part two, if you are not already up to speed)The latest polls show Labour comfortably in excess of 400 seats, maybe even 500.They are going to have such a thumping majority (with less than 50% of the vote - how crap is first past the post), together with a Blob which, broadly speaking, is theologically aligned, that they are going to be able to do pretty much what they like. There is scope for a lot of invasive government. The socialist mindset does not respect private property. It feels entitled to it. So today I wanted to further explore wealth taxes and what Labour might do, should the socialist-leaning instincts in the party come to the fore during those first 100 days and beyond.Wealth taxes are hard to collectLet us start with the golden rule of taxation, something with which readers of Daylight Robbery, the definitive book on taxation, will be familiar, as articulated by Louis XIV’s minister of finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert.The art of taxation consists of so plucking the goose as to obtain the most possible feathers with the least possible hissing(If you haven’t read Daylight Robbery - How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future, by the way, I urge you too. I think it’s the best of my books and one of the things I will go to my grave feeling proud of).With that Colbert quote in mind, let us turn to wealth taxes. I’ve often argued that one reason we don’t see as many wealth taxes as you might expect is that, in practical terms, they are not as simple as they might seem. Income Tax works well because it is easy to collect. The employer collects it for the government - and faces harsh penalties if they don’t, so the onus is on them. Ditto VAT: only it is the seller on whom the responsibility to collect falls.Wealth taxes, however, rely on declarations. There is much more scope for non-compliance, whether deliberate or accidental. Say the government wanted to impose a 5% net worth tax. It would have to find out about your real estate, both at home and abroad, and reach a fair valuation for that. It would have to find out about your stocks and bonds, your possessions, your vehicles, your savings, your ISAs, your pensions, your cryptocurrencies, your art, your antiques. Anyone who has ever had to value an estate for Inheritance Tax purposes knows what a headache this is. It can take many months.The government can force banks to collect a lot of this information, and the bank can then get heavy with you, if you don’t comply (this is a route I think we will go), but there is still an awful lot of scope for non-compliance, avoidance, and evasion. Most will be truthful about what they own; but many will not - and hope that HMRC does not have the resources to investigate them properly, which it doesn’t. Many people have valuable things - from antiques to lost bitcoin wallets - that they don’t even know have value or can’t access. Note: I’m not saying a “net worth tax” won’t happen - I’d give it a 50:50 chance - just that they are not quite as easy as they sound. The goose will hiss a lot.That said, I do think that, for sure, we will see changes to wealth reporting requirements, which is a first step in that direction.You really should subscribe to this letter.But if not a net-worth tax, here are some wealth taxes that could quite easily be imposed:* A savings tax. Savings are relatively easy to prove and then tax. Banks are the ally of government here. There is some £1.5 trillion held in savings accounts in the UK, so there is plenty there to be tapped (though a lot of this is in ISAs, which are supposed to be tax free). Starmer has made noises about ordinary working people not having savings, so I doubt he will have too many qualms about sticking his snout in that particular trough. The complaint is that people have already paid tax on their savings when they earned the money in the first place, plus they pay taxes on the interest.* An equity and bonds holdings tax. Again, relatively easy to prove - banks and brokers to report and collect. I doubt, however, Starmer will tax gilt holdings or remove the CGT exemption on gilts: he will want that particular income tap to remain free-flowing.* Taxes on ISAs. The tax-free goalposts on ISAs can quite easily be changed, and there are a lot of people who have built up large pots, which no doubt Labour will be eying. The £20 grand annual allowance might be reduced or, more likely, there will be a maximum tax-free cap of, say, £100 grand. As to whether they can tax existing holdings, difficult but not impossible.* Tax relief on pension contributions. The sixty grand limit will probably come down and the tax-free lump sum will probably not be quite so tax-free.* An off-shore wealth tax. You have to declare any holdings you have o

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comWe have a General Election coming up in the UK, and citizens of this once-great nation want to know how to protect what they have worked for from the incoming Labour Government, which, you can be sure, is going to be sniffing around like a spaniel on luggage in an airport. We now have the Labour Manifesto, so we can start to be a bit more specific than we were in part one of this series. (Here, also, is part three).I stress: this is only the manifesto. There is a long history of governments doing things they didn’t mention in their manifestos or failing to honour manifesto commitments. Roosevelt’s confiscation of Americans’ gold is one example that springs to mind, but that might just be because I have just been writing about it. There are plenty of examples in the UK too, even with the current government - increases to National Insurance, the Covid money splurge, failures on renters’ reform, home building, immigration pledges, social care, and so on. Circumstances change and so will pledges, especially with a Prime Minister who has quite a track record when it comes to changing tack. Do not be surprised by the surprises that are inevitably coming.The broad argument of part one is that the pound will continue to be debased. It will buy you a lot less in five years than it does now. Whether we will see the 33% declines in the pound’s purchasing power we have seen since 2020, I’m not sure, but the way to hedge yourself is to own non-government money - gold and bitcoin.Labour has pledged to “keep mortgage rates low” and to “retain the 2% inflation target,” which means it will keep a lid on interest rates, or try to, especially with official inflation now having come down to 2%. That all furthers my argument that the pound will continue to lose purchasing power.Labour has a gazillion things it wants to spend money on, ranging from Great British Energy to new teachers, breakfast clubs, and increased NHS appointments, so it is going to need low rates. It has also said it plans to move the “current budget into balance” and “ensure debt is falling.” All I can say is good luck with that. No chance. Spending is going to increase, and, even with the inevitable currency debasement, it is going to need to find tax revenue too. That means higher taxes.But higher taxes where? Taxes, relative to GDP, are already at their highest levels since World War Two, and Labour has promised no increases in National Insurance, Income Tax rates, or VAT. It has also pledged to cap corporation tax at 25% throughout the Parliament.Some increased revenue, it says, will come from clamping down on tax avoidance and modernising HMRC. A lot easier said than done.The big unmentionables have been Council Tax, Capital Gains Tax, and Inheritance Tax. All three, I expect, will go up. Council Tax valuation bands are based on 1991 property prices. That is an obvious anachronism to “update,” though council tax goes to local coffers and Labour will be more interested in revenue at the national level. Even so, it is an obvious area of tax revenue growth. Not a lot you can do to avoid it, except move.Inheritance Tax, meanwhile, will not come down and will probably go up. It is, of course, morally wrong to want to pass the wealth you have earned and already paid taxes on to your heirs. Changes will be justified on the grounds of unearned wealth and exploit the politics of envy. The rate could rise to 50%, I suppose, while areas of relief - the seven-year gift rule, perhaps, the relief on main homes - could be removed. All I can say is plan early.Capital Gains Tax, meanwhile, is likely to rise. Starmer has avoided saying it won’t. I expect to see it rise to levels concomitant with Income Tax with similar bands (i.e., 40% above £37k and 45% above £125k). The way to avoid this is by not transacting, which is what most will do unless they really have to, and so the effect of CGT rises will be market atrophy.Labour will also come after your pensions too - there is so much capital there - with those in the private sector likely to take a bigger hit than those in the state.There is also a lot of blurb about the launch of Great British Energy to “harness Britain’s sun, wind and wave energy” with a windfall tax on oil and gas giants. That makes British oil and gas companies uninvestable. It says it will “deliver one hundred percent clean power by 2030,” though we know that clean power is neither clean nor green . They clearly haven’t read their Alex Epstein, and it all means that essential fossil fuel will inevitably get more expensive, and the country will function less well as a result. Labour says it is going to reduce energy bills. Not possible without subsidies somewhere else, and these have to be paid for.The Housing MarketFollowers of Fred Harrison and the 18-year property cycle will note that Britain’s housing market is heading towards a cycle high, with collapse starting

At a drinks party in around 2011 or 2012, I had the ear of Andrew Feldman, aka Baron Feldman of Elstree, former Chairman of the Conservative Party—he of “swivel-eyed loons” fame, though he never actually said that. (Andrew is a friend, by the way.)“Tell George Osborne to buy back the gold Gordon Brown sold,” I advised.“At these prices?” smiled Andrew with a mix of incredulity, amusement, and polite condescension.“Yes!” I said. “It might be good publicity, even. Or do it secretly, and announce it afterward. The important thing is getting the gold back. We will need it at some point. Why not just quantitatively ease the money and buy it back? You’re doing that and buying bonds.”Andrew laughed at my joke, which wasn’t a joke, and then wandered off in search of someone more sane to talk to.Given the government has this extraordinary power to create money out of nothing, why don’t they just print money and buy hard assets with it?Park that thought for a moment.A couple of months ago, I was at Liz Truss’s book launch—aren’t you impressed with all this name-dropping?—and I ran into Mark Littlewood, former director of the IEA and now of PopCon. I started bending his ear about the media’s failure to report on the Bank of England and how it had shafted Truss with its advanced notice of gilt sales, Quantitative Tightening, which began the day before Kwasi Kwarteng’s budget and led to a collapse in the gilt market, the blame for which was then left at Kwasi Kwarteng’s doorstep. Mark nodded. “Do you think I don’t know?” said Liz.“I would love to be able to grill Andrew Bailey in public,” I said. “Or just ask him one question with people watching. I know exactly what I’d ask him.”“What?” said Mark.“If the Bank of England can print money, why do we need taxes?”Mark laughed and, thinking I was asking him that question, replied, “Money illusion.”Money illusion is one of those economic terms that is pretty self-explanatory, but here is an example. Most of know a hundred pounds does not buy you today what it bought you ten years ago, but we still think in terms of past prices. (Old people do this more, for obvious reasons). A worker might feel great with a 5% raise, but if inflation is 7%, he is actually earning less than before. This has been an ongoing process for decades with the result that, in real terms, wages are lower.Here’s the Wikipedia definition (edited by me):In economics, money illusion, or price illusion, is a cognitive bias where money is thought of in nominal, rather than real, terms. In other words, the face value (nominal value) of money is mistaken for its purchasing power (real value) at a previous point in time. The term was coined by Irving Fisher in Stabilizing the Dollar, and popularized by John Maynard Keynes in the early twentieth century. Fisher also wrote a book on the subject, The Money Illusion, in 1928.Mark and I both doubted that Bailey would give that as the answer, even if he thought it, which we doubted he would. If governments started printing money and buying assets, many would start questioning money, and faith in fiat might quickly evaporate. If governments worldwide started doing it (eg Britain prints money and starts buying land in France) you are in race-to-the-bottom territory. It would be a race to the bottom for fiat currency.Even if Bailey thought money illusion was the answer, he certainly wouldn’t say it because that in itself undermines fiat.Modern money has nominal value, but not intrinsic value. It relies on illusion (and the law) to function. The more you debase it, the less likely that illusion is to hold. Maybe money delusion is more accurate. Obviously, the backing of the law makes a great difference, as does the fact that taxes must be collected in this money, but, boy, is the system vulnerable. Illusions can last a long time. But when they shatter, they shatter very quickly, and then there is nothing.I don’t say the system will pop. It has been going on for a long time. But I do observe that it very easily could.It’s why I recommend both gold and bitcoin. Both are money in and of themselves: one is the product of nature, the other the product of extraordinary amounts of computer power. Neither relies on anyone else.If you liked this article, please tell a friend.If you are interested in buying gold, check out my recent report. I have a feeling it is going to come in very handy.My recommended bullion dealer is the Pure Gold Company.Life After the State - Why We Don’t Need Government (2013), my first book, is now back in print - with the audiobook here: Audible UK, Audible US, Apple Books. I recommend the audiobook ;)And if you are in the Scottish neck of the woods this August, look out for me at the Edinburgh Fringe. I’ll be performing one of my “lectures with funny bits”. This one is all about the history of mining. As always, I shall be delivering it at Panmure House, where Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations. It’s at 2pm most afternoons. You can get tickets here. This

While Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, like a jilted boyfriend turned desperado, is announcing a new policy every day, future Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s strategy has been to be as vague and non-committal as possible about everything, and get elected on the back of the Tories being so useless. It makes sense: the less he promises now, and the less specific he is, the more scope he will have when he comes to power to do what he wants.Such is the topsy-turvy Orwellian world in which we live. Labour’s five missions—massive cringe—read like something that should be on the Conservative Party website. Labour declares upfront, first and foremost, that its “first duty” is “to protect our country – through economic stability, secure borders, and strong defence.” I’m sure this is all part of Starmer’s strategy to win over the middle and rid himself of the ghosts of Labour incompetence. “I’ve changed the Labour Party so we are back in service of working people,” he boasts. “Together we can change Britain.”So what exactly will this huge change that is coming to Britain entail?One of the few things Labour has been specific about is VAT on school fees. This has generated a lot of negative press, particularly in the mainstream media, which is heavily populated by people who went to public school and send their kids there too. But with only 7% of children actually going to public school, I guess Labour has figured, in these times of envy, that this will be a vote-winner. While it purports to be an attack on the rich, in real terms it is an attack on the middle classes, many of whom will now put their kids into state schools. The extra burden of this on an already overburdened sector does not justify the limited increase in revenues that will come from VAT, never mind the practicalities of imposing this charge and the schools that will go bust as a result. But extra revenue is not what this is about. It’s exploiting the politics of envy.Nevertheless, there is one clear thing we can infer from it: the middle class is going to get shafted. Where it tries to be independent and self-sufficient, it will find itself dragged into state dependency. That is not change, though. This is a process that has been going on for decades—since the imposition of fiat money, in fact. And that, I’m afraid, is the broad brush stroke. The details may be different, but the direction is the same. We are going to see more government, more spending, more technocracy, more bureaucracy, more quangos, more regulation, more taxation, further declines in the purchasing power of money, further erosion of individual liberty, more state solutions to things that would sort themselves out perfectly well if government stayed out of it, and so on. We will also see further steps in the direction of supranational bodies, one-world government, and all the rest of it. Change is not coming. Continuity is.So the absolute first thing you have to do is keep as much wealth as you can outside the system. Do not hold sterling, or any other fiat money for that matter. Yes, sterling is holding up moderately well in the forex markets, which know Labour will win, but that is just comparing it with other fiat currencies. Use gold and bitcoin as your savings vehicles. They will outperform sterling quite comfortably by the time of the next government. Make a note of what £100,000 currently buys you. It will buy you a lot less in five years. If you are interested in buying gold, check out my recent report. I have a feeling it is going to come in very handy.My recommended bullion dealer is the Pure Gold Company.Labour’s Five Missions* Get Britain Building AgainLabour promises to “strengthen public finances” and “reform planning laws, so we build more houses, giga factories (SIC), windfarms, roads, labs, and ports, developing the skills needed to do so.” It will “reduce energy bills and invest in the jobs and industries of the future via our Green Prosperity Plan and Great British Energy, a new publicly owned clean generation company.” And it will build more homes (heard that one before?).This all means more state: more state spending, planning, regulation, subsidy, and action. You don’t need me to tell you where that leads.* Switch on Great British Energy“A new publicly owned, clean energy company that ensures jobs are created here in Britain to cut your energy bills, create 500,000 new, skilled jobs in the industries of the future, and deliver energy security.”What could possibly go wrong? All that green energy stuff has been an unbridled success so far without a whiff of corruption. * Get the NHS Back on Its FeetIt promises to “pay doctors and nurses overtime to work evenings and weekends to cut the backlog, cut waiting times by giving the NHS the staff and technology it needs, end the 8am scramble for GP appointments, improve cancer survival rates, and reduce deaths from heart disease and suicide, with more care in the community so patients aren’t stuck in hospital.”Sounds great. W

I am experimenting again with a video this Sunday morning. (Podcast listeners can still get just the audio). Enjoy :)It was August 2018. Brexit Derangement Syndrome was only just starting to kick in, though the effort to derail it was underway. In comedy circles, I still was not talking very openly about having voted for Brexit—it would be another six months before I wrote 17 Million F Offs.I was doing a show at the Edinburgh Fringe, my financial gameshow.Now something happens to a performer at the Fringe. There are so many shows and so much competition that you will do (almost) anything to get publicity and draw attention to your show. The Fringe is a distillation of the entertainment industry; all the best things about it and the worst, all the highs and lows, seem to get magnified there. My PR man texted me and asked if I wanted to do a short spot about Brexit and comedy for Channel 4 News. I said yes. He said to go to the Pleasance at 5pm. They wanted someone who voted Leave.I met the film crew there, and the presenter— I have no idea what his name was—was a very nice, very charming young Englishman in his early 30s. University-educated, probably public school, made me feel very at ease. We found a little alcove, and our interview began.“In a comedy club, what do you say when heckled about Brexit?” he asked me.Now there are three types of comedy gigs. One is where the audience has come to see you; two is when they have come to see comedy (not necessarily you); and three, the worst type of gig, is when they neither come to see you nor comedy.Comedy clubs mostly come under category two (unless you are doing a solo show).I answered the question truthfully: “I MC a lot of nights. My job is to create a warm and friendly atmosphere. Audiences in comedy clubs are fairly mixed. So, I tend to avoid talking about Brexit, as you risk losing half the room, which is not good for the night.”“Sure, but what would you say if someone heckled you about Brexit?”“Well, I don’t talk about it, so they don’t.”“But if you did?”“But I don’t.”This went round in circles for a bit. Then he changed his approach. “And if someone heckled you about voting Leave?”“Well, they don’t because I don’t talk about it.”“No, but what if they did?”“Well, they don’t. As I say, in a regular comedy club, with a mixed crowd, if you come down very heavily on one side, you risk losing half the room. I’m the host. I don’t like to do that. It might be different if I was doing a show specifically about it, but I’m not.”“Well, what if you were?”“Well, I’m not. And if I was doing a show about voting leave, I doubt many remainers would come.”“But what if they did?”It just kept going round and round in circles. I thought I was being reasonably articulate about the need to be diplomatic in a mixed room if you are the host, and I made the same point several times, each time phrasing it slightly differently, but he just was not having it. He kept coming back to this same question.“But if someone heckled you about voting Leave, what would you say?”Eventually, somewhat exasperated, I said, “Oh, I don’t know. ‘Whatever, loser.’ Something like that.”He smiled and quickly drew the interview to a close. We parted company with, apparently, good will expressed. I had spent probably five minutes explaining the need to be diplomatic and a microsecond with that last line.Later that day, I watched the clip from Channel 4 News. Guess which part of the interview they used?“Leaver comedian calls people who voted Remain losers,” ran the headline of the vid on the Channel 4 site, or some such (I can’t find the vid now to quote it accurately).The only clip from the interview they used was me saying, “Whatever, loser,” even though it was totally misrepresentative of the rest of the interview. Then in the comments beneath, I remember reading a load of remarks along the lines of, “Well, how is that funny?”, “Remind me to never go and see that guy,” “Leavers just aren’t funny,” and so on.I won’t say I was shocked by how disingenuous the process was, but I was shaking my head wearily. I explained it to myself along the lines that he had gone into the interview wanting a certain clip that he could use to illustrate a story he had already formed in his head. He would not stop until he got that clip, and he had no interest in anything else I said. I suppose that’s a kind way of looking at it—a trap I often fall into. On the other hand, he was a lying cheat, and the clip he showed of me was completely misrepresentative. It could have been quite damaging to me reputationally, but fortunately, the clip was so short, and not that many people will have watched it.If nothing else, it showed me just how untruthful the news is.You really cannot trust it. No wonder so many have lost faith.When you have a reporter brimming with ambition (the same ruthless ambition that actors, singers, comedians, and other media stars have), the most important thing is their career. Everything else, including the

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comTwo bullish developments for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies this week: first, Donald Trump, who is currently the favourite to be the next US President, declared, 'I am very positive and open-minded towards cryptocurrency companies and all things related to this new and burgeoning industry. Our country must be the leader in the field; there is no second place.'Those words will have been written for him, but they nevertheless show that policies, should he win the election, as currently looks likely, will be favourable. That has to be good for the sector.Second the Ethereum ETF got green lit this week in the US, so today we consider the implications of that, and give our outlook on the sector more generally.First up, ether has rallied. It’s risen by about a third from $2,900 a coin to within spitting distance of $4,000.I must confess to being somewhat flummoxed by Ethereum. (If you want to read my guide, it is here). Briefly: its founding principle is to use blockchain technology for purposes beyond an alternative system of digital money. Known as "the world's programmable blockchain," it can be used to “codify, decentralize, secure, and trade just about anything.” Charlie Morris of Byte Tree likens it to a decentralized App Store (you should all read his letter by the way). Developers can use the platform to build and publish smart contracts and distributed applications (dApps), and it is a kind of marketplace for financial services (DeFi), NFTs (non-fungible tokens), games, and apps, all of which can be paid for in ether.The Bitcoin maximalists don’t like it. Ethereum is not properly decentralized. The numerous forks that have taken place in reaction to hacks prove this—they would not be possible with a properly decentralised platform. Too many coins were pre-mined and handed out to founders. Ethereum 2.0 met with delay after delay. Transaction costs, known as gas fees, can get exorbitant. Its blockchain is not that robust. In short, it’s something of a ticking time bomb.Well, maybe. But its founder, Vitalik Buterin, a billionaire many times over by the time he was 28 (just in case you weren’t feeling inadequate enough already this morning), will know all this. He is a genius, and I satisfy myself that by owning Ethereum, I am effectively long Buterin—not unlike being long Elon Musk by owning Tesla.Ethereum also has numerous competitors—not least Solana, but also Binance Smart Chain, Polkadot, Cardano, Terra, and Fantom - which may or may not be a good thing. Many of these are technologically superior, say critics—faster, more robust.Price-wise ethereum been something of a laggard. Its all-time high was $4,800 and it’s about a thousand bucks, or 20%, below that. That said, it does tend to move later in bull markets - and by more.But despite all of this, Ethereum remains by some margin the number two cryptocurrency by market cap—at $465 billion—followed by Tether, which has another purpose altogether ($110 bn), then Binance Coin ($89 bn). By way of comparison, HSBC has a market cap of $165 bn. And you thought crypto was a passing fad.So what can we expect with the launch of this new ETF?