The Flying Frisby - money, markets and more

Good Sunday morning to you,We have a pot pourri of offerings for you today. First, I posted the above sketch on Twitter yesterday and it struck a nerve. I thought you might also enjoy it on here. It’s eight years since I recorded it, but it is still as apposite as ever.In other, more serious news, I met with Campbell Smyth, Chairman of Fitzroy Minerals (FTZ.V), yesterday, and we have a long old chinwag about the state of the mining and metals markets. You can listen to that interview here or on your podcast app:Trees of LifeAnd, finally, my buddy Mark O’Byrne, formerly of Irish bullion dealer, Goldcore, got in touch about his new and rather beautiful coins: Trees of Life, they are known as, and they are available in both gold (0.1 oz and 1 oz) and silver (silver 1 oz). He sent me a couple of the silver ounce coins to review and they are really rather beautiful. Here is a pic:Let me help out a mate and give them a little plug.On one side is the Tree of Life, a symbol, common to many religions and mythologies, not least Celtic and Nordic, of balance, fertility, wisdom and strength. On the other side is the Rising Sun, symbolising dawn, a new day, new beginnings and the end of darkness. There is the Harp, Éire’s sacred musical instrument and national emblem. (Ireland is the only nation in the world that has a musical instrument as its national emblem - bet you didn’t know that). And there is the Tri Spiral. This spiral is carved onto a large stone at the back of the tomb of Newgrange, one of Ireland (and indeed the Earth’s) oldest and most sacred places, thought to pre-date both Stonehenge and the Pyramids.You can find out more about these coins, likely, I would have thought, to become collectors’ items at Tara Coins. With St Patrick’s Day little more than a week away, these should make lovely gifts. Order yours at any of:* GoldBank in Ireland* Merrion Gold in Ireland* Bullion By Post in the UK* APMEX in the US* Bullion By Post in the US  * Celtic Gold in Germany: Enjoy your Sunday,Dominic 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

Campbell Smyth, Chairman of Fitzroy Minerals (FTZ.V), joins me to talk about the state of mining and metals.Lots of interesting insights in to copper, gold, lithium, oil and other essential commodities. 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

Bitcoin is off on one its runs, it seems. Congratulations to all who bought and held. It is now trading at all-time highs in 30 different currencies around the world, currencies representing more than 60% of the world’s population. How about that for a thought?From China and India to Congo and Sudan, it’s like a Noel Coward song.In US dollars, we are flirting with $60,000, still roughly 15% from the peak of US$69,000, the all-time high back in late 2021.In British pounds, the all-time high was around £48,000. We are touching that now.Meanwhile, Microstrategy (NDX.MSTR), which we suggested as a means to play bitcoin via a traditional broker, and avoid the FCA-created headaches of buying and investing bitcoin in the UK, is going great guns. $960 now. It was $350 when we first recommended it in the summer. Is it too late to buy?No. I haven’t been asked on TV to talk about it yet. See me on the box, then you can start getting concerned that the top is near. (Here’s one from BBC Daily Politics towards the end of a previous cycle. Chief Economist Dr Savvas Savouri. LOL)There is no doubt that the market is hot, hot, hot at the moment, and when markets get this hot, that usually means it’s time to back off. Cripes, the amount of excitement on social media is screaming run away. But bitcoin is like one of those metals - tungsten or tantalum - which can withstand abnormally high levels of heat. The evidence of previous bull markets is that bitcoin gets overbought and stays overbought.It’s usually better to buy when the markets are quiet, when nobody cares. But that is not where we now are.I have repeatedly argued that the risk with bitcoin is not owning it; it is not owning it. That hopefully makes sense in print. The potential of this thing is so abnormally huge, why would you not want to have a position?We are talking about the most technologically brilliant system of money ever invented. Own a piece of the pie.Why bitcoin will supercede other moniesRemember the old rhyme: Money is a matter of functions four:A medium, a measure, a standard and a store.National currencies are a good-ish medium of exchange - within national borders. But even then, they have their shortcomings. They are useless for micropayments. The smallest amount you can pay in the UK is 1p. Most banks and credit card companies won’t even process amounts that small. Even medium-sized transactions can be problematic. I wasted about an hour of my life this morning on the phone to Lloyds Bank as their security blocked a transfer of £3,950 that I was trying to make. In the grand context of things, that is not a huge sum, but Lloyds’ alarms went off and that was it. One hour gone. (During my peak productive time too. That’s one of the reasons this missive is late).But for cross-border transactions, national currencies are crap. Forex fees, paperwork, slow transaction speeds. If I want to send a payment to someone who operates with a different currency of, say, £1, via a bank, the costs are prohibitive. Revolut is about my only option - and that has issues. If I want to send a micropayment of, say, one-tenth of a cent, it is just impossible. But industries based around micropayments are a huge area of potential growth, especially in a world of artificial intelligence and the internet of things: streaming, apps, games, in-app and in-game purchases, rewards, likes, donations, tipping, credit card verification, identity verification, wifi access, public document access, libraries, parking, phone calls, public transport, pay-per-use in cloud computing, exchange of or access to information via the internet of things, content licensing, ad-free browsing, access to news and journalism. These are all areas that will see enormous use for micropayments.National currencies do not enable the micropayments economy, they are a barrier to it, especially across borders.At then other end of the scale, somebody just transferred the bitcoin equivalent of $1.3bn for a fee of $2. It took a minute or two. No forms, permits or declarations were required. You can send huge amounts or tiny amounts of money across borders for a fraction of the effort. Bitcoin is a good medium of exchange for the internet. It will only get better.You should subscribe to this letter. It’s really good.And what a store of value!The pound has lost a third of its purchasing power just since 2020, according to Truflation. Since Jan 2020 bitcoin meanwhile has gone from £5,000 to almost £50,000. Which is the better store of value? Measured in the constant that is gold, the pound has lost 90% of its purchasing power just this century (Gold was £150/oz in 1999. Today it is over £1,500/oz). Meanwhile, since its inception in 2009, bitcoin has been the world’s best performing asset. So what if it’s volatile.Finally, we have the last two functions of money: measure and standard. A measure - in other words, a unit of account - needs to be constant to be effective. National currencies, because of the constant debasement, fail in this regard. Statisticians and economists have to resort to “inflation-adjusted dollars”, but not everybody agrees as to what inflation actually is, never mind the inflation rate. Bitcoin has not attained widespread unit of account status yet, but its finite supply will, eventually, make it a more constant unit. As for standard, that is coming too - whether as a standard of deferred payment or a standard as in the gold standard. Its independence and ever-increasing purchasing power will see to that. But this evolution, even if inevitable - technology is destiny, after all - will take many years yet, which is another reason I argue that it is not too late to take the orange pill.By the way, there are many people who are so sure that bitcoin is going to a million dollars, they are now measuring the bitcoin price thus: $0.05m. How about that for a unit and a standard?The point I am eventually trying to get to is this. Institutions and individuals tend to hold their savings in fiat dollars, pounds, euros, or yen. Corporations keep their treasuries in fiat. In doing so, even with interest, you are losing 5 to 10% per annum to currency debasement. This is guaranteed. Imagine being a Japanese corporation holding your treasury in yen. Michael Saylor, meanwhile, in keeping the corporate treasury of Microstrategy in bitcoin, indeed issuing paper to buy more bitcoin, has 10xd his company's valuation in four years. Microstrategy has gone from a $1.4bn to a $14bn market cap. Do you not think other CEOs will follow suit?Bitcoin is becoming an an online savings vehicle, the default online savings vehicle - ahead of fiat. When other large corporations and billionaires start keeping their treasuries in bitcoin as a norm - we are still a few years from that - then is when the price moonshots and hyperbitcoinisation happens.Of course, hyperbitcoinisation may not happen. Then again: maybe it will.Where and when does this bull market end?I have mentioned before: there are four typical phases to a bitcoin cycle. * There’s the Quiet Accumulation. Few outside of the bubble of ardent bitcoiners take notice, as it discreetly creeps up. * The Frenzy and Blow-Off Top. The price rises accelerate. There is a rush to buy. The media is all over it. Everyone on social media is crowing. There’s a huge row about whether bitcoin is in a bubble or not. See 2013, 2017 and 2021 for more details.* The Monster Correction. Bitcoin loses over 70% of its value. Economists who missed the boat go on telly and declare they were right, ignoring the fact that the price to which bitcoin corrected to is several hundred percent above where the quiet accumulation phase began. * The Frustrating Consolidation. Bitcoin goes into a period of range trading, consolidating the gains of the previous bull market. This is a period of relative quiet, at least by bitcoin standards. There are rallies that get many excited, but prove to be false dawns. Investors get frustrated by the grinding action. The media loses interest. Many forget about it, and so we gradually drift into another Quiet Accumulation phase.We are now in the early stages of phase two. This typically comes around halvings, but the ETFs appear to have brought it forward.So what’s next and when does this bull market end?There are some obvious numbers to look for. $69,000, the old high. There will be resistance there. As we move towards that number we can expect some selling. Expect volatility.Bt after $69,000, everyone who ever bought bitcoin ever and held is in profit. How about that for a thought?Then $100,000. It is such a big, round number - like $1,000 and $10,000 before it. I’m inclined to think we get there this year.On the downside there should be some support around $52k with the next line in the low- to mid-40s.Bitcoin bear cycles (stage 3 above) tend to last about a year, consolidations about another year. Bull markets tend to last two to three years. This one began 15 months ago. There will be wild whipsaws on the way, but I suggest this phase has a good year to go before it’s done.Three years ago $69,000 felt too expensive. It doesn’t anymore. I think this bull market ends with bitcoin at six figures.The evidence of previous bull markets is that we overshoot to the upside. But don’t expect not to get thrown about along the way.A final thoughtI first heard about bitcoin in December 2010. It was 20c. I didn’t really look into it; I just thought it sounded like a cool idea. When I came around to the idea of buying, the price kept going up. I got outbid for some physical bitcoins on eBay, I remember.I couldn’t bring myself to buy something after it had doubled and tripled. It went to $32. Then it corrected all the way to $2. I still didn’t buy. I had lost interest I think.People were giving me coins at this stage. Trying to get me into it. Then the price started going up again. It went to $200 then $1,200. I ended up writing a book about it. Even though I had a position, I never put the amount of money I should in because I couldn’t bring myself to buy something that had gone up so much. I could be a stupendously rich billionaire now, but I was scared off by the price rises. I’m fine by the way. You don’t need to worry about me. But I have a fraction of what I might have had. I got hacked as well but that’s another story.In December 2017, with bitcoin at $5,000, I went on the BBC Daily Politics show to talk about it. Over the next month, it quadrupled to $20,000, before going into one of its bear phases.Even buying at the very top of that cycle, you would still have tripled your money.Moral of all this: don’t be put off by the rising price.Here’s that interview again. There’s a lot to be learned from it:My 2023 guide to buying bitcoin is here. I’ll put an updated one together in the next few days.If you liked this article, please subscribe to the Flying Frisby. It’s really good. 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

You might have seen in the news a couple of days back that, to make Britain’s unaffordable housing affordable, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and the Treasury are considering a scheme whereby people can buy homes with a deposit of just 1% and get a 99% mortgage.Thus, in theory, you could buy a one million pound home with just a ten-grand deposit.(I expect they will cap it below that level, but you get the point).It has become a cliché of the internet, but we say it anyway: “what could possibly go wrong?” It’s good to see the lessons from 2008 have been learned.Who would guarantee these loans should the buyer default? You would. You probably didn’t know this, but you’re already guaranteeing £4 billion under the existing mortgage guarantee scheme. You could soon be guaranteeing a whole lot more.Remember how they used taxpayer money to bail out the banks in 2008 and it was called “socialism for the rich”? This is the same thing, except this time they are bailing out the housing market. The Tories have this annoying (and mendacious) habit of leaking a policy to the press before it is actually policy to see how it goes down. I say mendacious because it is misleading. If they had any actual first principles by which they operated, then they would not do this. Instead, what sets policy is what Tories think might make them popular.In any case, I would hope this is another one of those test-the-water leaks, rather than something we will see come the next Budget in March, because it will send prices higher, just like its predecessor Help To Buy did, and that is the last thing we want. The solution to unaffordable housing is lower prices, not more debt.But regardless of whether the scheme gets the go-ahead or not, it still tells us all we need to know about how the Blob is going to fix Britain’s housing crisis: it isn’t. Instead, it’s going to come up with increasingly innovative ways to bring more debt into the market and thereby send prices even higher.It was the same after the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. There was a chance to let the whole thing reset. Instead, we got suppressed interest rates, Quantitative Easing and then Help To Buy, all of which protected the already-haves at the expense of the have-nots. Labour won’t make a jot of difference, by the way. It is just as bereft of first principles. That is how Keir Starmer is going to win the next General Election: by not standing for anything. Not that it matters who wins. The Blob still runs the place.The destructive effects of high house pricesIt makes me weep what high house prices have done to this country. I see an entire generation, if not two, psychologically damaged, almost beyond repair, because they cannot afford somewhere decent to live.They feel inadequate. They delay starting families, or have smaller families, or have no children at all because they cannot afford anywhere to house them. They then hate themselves because they have no children.The result of smaller families later in life is population decline. The Blob then says there aren’t enough young people and opens the doors to mass immigration. Guess what happens then? Cheap imported labour pushes wages down, but increases demand for housing and essential services. State systems are too slow to adapt. Housing gets even more unaffordable. It is the most vicious of vicious circles.Locals are then told that priority in the workplace must be given to the newcomer because diversity. Complain and you are racist. Your history is bad, by the way. And you wonder why everything is such a clusterfook.Why do you think so many young people are so nihilistic? Because deep down they know they are never going to be able to afford anywhere decent to live, never mind pay off their student loans or have a family. They are, effectively, excluded from society. But stop drinking lattes and work harder.Who do you know who can afford to buy somewhere where they grew up? I know I can’t, and I’m part of the One Percent. It’s the opposite of progress. When people can’t afford to live where they gre w up, they lose touch with their roots, their traditions, their culture, the very land. And you wonder why we have lost touch with who we are.All because of stupid house prices.Houses themselves are not that expensive. Look here’s a 1,400 sq ft, 4-bed house with a 145 sq ft porch for £45,000. Delivery in six weeks.Looks nice, no? (You’ll need someone to put it together).The issue is land, and it’s a needless issue that goes all the way back to one of the most insidious and stupid bits of legislation ever enacted, The Town and Country Planning Act of 1947. When you create debt, you create money. The more money you bring into a market, the higher prices go. See student loans for more details. When that market is limited in how much it can expand, which is the case with UK housing because of restrictive planning laws, you get our situation where houses have gone up by three and half times more than wages.All the Treasury is doing with this policy is finding new ways to get more money into this market. There is only one way that will send house prices. It will only make things worse.The solution to unaffordable housing is lower prices. The Blob will not let that happen.By all means prop up the housing market. The cost will be your country.Further reading on the housing market:* Why Houses Cost So Much* What Really Causes Inflation* A Solution 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

The self-improvement industry is just enormous. It’s worth $41 billion worldwide says this report, but, by the time you factor in everything from health and diet to training and education to media, I think it’s much, much bigger than that. We are almost all of us looking to improve ourselves in some way. We might spend fortunes and hours getting fit, strong or supple. We might spend ages making ourselves look beautiful. It never ceases to amaze me how long my eldest daughter can spend getting herself ready for work. She’s only going to work! We might spend hours reading or listening podcasts about how we can improve our performance, our habits or our psychology. Of Amazon’s best selling books last year three of the top ten can be filed under self-improvement (Atomic Habits by James Clear and two Nathan Anthony books on healthy eating). But there is one thing we don’t seem to spend any time trying to improve, and that is how we speak Occasionally, clips of people being interviewed way back when appear on Twitter or Facebook. Just ordinary folk. What is so amazing to me is just how beautifully people spoke. Compare that to the noises that come out of some peoples mouths today: the awful vowel sounds, the poor diction, even the language itself is frequently just so ugly. Even actors and broadcasters, who are supposed to be professional speakers, are mostly dreadful. Little priority is given to excellence in voice and speech. When I hear actors in period dramas, I want to despair. Leading politicians are mostly awful. Listen to Rishi Sunak: the Prime Minister’s voice is puny. I had a father who was a theatrical, obsessed with the spoken word and I guess that has always made me look at the world - or should I say listen to the world - from that angle. He and I used to work together loads on various exercises. Then at drama school we spent hours and hours on voice and speech: humming, singing, diction exercises - exercising your tongue with little bits of wood between your teeth to stretch it (I can’t even remember what those bits of wood are called. Edit: bone props - thanks to reader Nicholas Benson).“Articulatory agility is a desirable ability manipulating with dexterity the lips, the teeth and the tip of the tongue”. We had to say that over and over. I guess that stood me in good stead because voiceovers became my primary source of income for 25 years. But even I don’t think I’ve done a voice or speech exercise in over a decade, and when I catch myself speaking I often think, “sloppy”.Elocution lessons were a big thing once upon a time. People would actively try to improve the way they spoke in order to improve their situation. I guess, because of microphones and amplified sound, the need has gone away, though we are still judged on how we speak.I know that there are plenty of voice and speech coaches today, but in general, this is one area of self-improvement that doesn’t seem to have taken off. How I wish it would. How often do you see somebody, who looks absolutely magnificent, only for them to open their mouth and then something horrendous comes out? But if you should criticise somebody’s voice or speech, that makes you a snob. “They can’t help how they speak,” comes the retort. Yes, they can. Voice and speech are physical skills. They improve with exercise. In the same way that we have a culture of exercise and sport, I wish we had a culture of improving our voice and speech as well.It would make such a difference.Never mind free speech. Let’s have some good speech. Until next time,DominicPS Don’t forget my two shows this week on Feb 14th and 15th at the Museum of Comedy in London. All about gold. And delivered with impeccable diction.If you are looking to buy gold in these uncertain times, let me recommend the Pure Gold Company, with whom I have an affiliation deal. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe, or you can store your gold with them. More here.And, if you missed it, here is something interesting from earlier in the week: 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.comRussia has been buying military drones from Iran and it has been paying for them with gold. This story seems to have gone largely unnoticed, but for those of us interested in the developing narrative that is de-dollarisation, this story has ramifications. A quick word about gold and national currenciesWe all know gold retains its role as store of value - otherwise central banks would no longer keep it, nor would ETFs be a thing. This is never going to change, by the way. Gold has always been and will always be used as a store and display of value. But gold has never been much of a medium of exchange, except for high value transactions. This role usually fell to silver and other metals. Under the classical gold standards of the 19th century gold did find some use. The old pound coin - aka the sovereign - was 22 carat gold, for example, and national currencies were supposed to be interchangeable with gold. But any role gold had then has gone now. Except in extremis, such as in times of war, when gold finds function as a money of last resort, gold has not been used as currency, as a medium of exchange, for over a hundred years.The remonetisation of gold, and the inevitable resulting official upwards revaluation, as governments tie their currencies to it once again to shore up their value, has been the dream of many a gold bug for many a yearIn order to free themselves from the clutches of the US and its banking system, those countries that make up the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (most of Asia) have long since wanted a settlement currency that is not the US dollar. The problem is what? Which national currency can the likes of China, India, Russia, Iran and the various stans all agree on and trust in?One possible solution is the internationally recognized money that is the shiny yellow stuff. Another is the rather less shiny, digital equivalent.That gold has been used to settle a large debt between two SCO nations is, therefore, a very significant development. It may just be an “extremis” case, resulting from sanctions on Iran and Russia. It may also be a step in the direction of remonetisation. Our misleading mediaFirst, let me clear up the fake news.I first spotted the story at Ross Norman’s site Metals Daily and, with Ross’s kind help,  have since done some digging.“Moscow paid billions in gold bullions to Iran for Shahed drones, leaked documents reveal” says the headline at Indian news site, First Post. “Leak reveals minister's claim that $1.75 billion contract was signed for 6,000 Shaheds and Kremlin ‘paid in literal gold’”, says the subtitle at the Telegraph. (Versions of this story are eyebrow-raisingly similar, leading me to think one has copied and pasted it from the other. But in doing so, with so little vetting, they have also copied and pasted what is misleading). Here is Andrew Buncombe in the Telegraph:‌”Moscow signed a $1.75 billion contract for 6,000 of the unmanned aerial vehicles from an offshoot of the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) last year, according to leaked documents posted online by a hacker group called the Prana Network.‌It reportedly paid in gold bullion, shipping more than two tonnes to the manufacturer Sahara Thunder.”The thing is - and what neither journalist appears to have noticed - is that two tonnes of gold do not amount to $1.75 billion. Two tonnes are around $130 million. Some digging leads us to Defence Blog (edit: this site has since gone down) and then the original source for the story, in Ukranian, at news agency Militarnyi. The short of it is that a group of hackers, Prana Network, infiltrated the emails of Iranian company “IRGC Sahara Thunder”. Moreover, the maths reported at the Telegraph and elswehere are out (I can talk). Russia, it seems has a licence to construct up to 6,000 drones using Iranian parts within 30 months at a price of around $193,000/unit, or $290,000 per unit when ordering 2,000. But, as reader L has pointed out, 6,000 units at $193,000/unit only equates to $1.16 billion. Only at $290,000/unit you arrive at the $1.75 billion figure. But the important takeaway is this. Russia has been conducting financial transactions and payments with Iran in gold. In February 2023, the Russian organization “Alabuga Machinery” transferred 2.06 tonnes of gold bars to Sahara Thunder. We presume this is as payment for services and goods.So the story is slightly different, but the point is the same. Russia and Iran have been using gold as currency.What else, one wonders, has Russia been using gold to buy? And off whom?The shortcomings of gold in international tradeTo use gold is a long-winded way of doing business. Gold is heavy. There are security issues. They will have had to fly it over. (The logistics of transporting gold are one reason bitcoin will probably win the battle to be the default settlement currency outside of the banking system).Under classical gold standards, gold ownership could be transferred without the gold ever having to leave the vaults of trusted banks in London, New York and Switzerland. But if the SCO is to start using gold as currency, it is going to need a trusted third party to hold the gold, to save constantly having to transport it. Of course, Shanghai will have a role in this. Singapore may as well. But I would have thought an extremely likely candidate to play the role of Switzerland will be the United Arab Emirates. It is already the world’s second largest exporter. It’s yet another reason to be long Dubai - as well as gold.If you are looking to buy gold in these uncertain times, let me recommend the Pure Gold Company, with whom I have an affiliation deal. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe, or you can store your gold with them. More here.Don’t forget my two shows next week on Feb 14th and 15th.If you would like to come, I have two pairs of tickets to give away to paying subscribers for February 14th - Valentine’s Day. The first two people to email - they are yours. So to other business …

In his book Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, Matt Ridley argues that Homo sapiens overtook the stronger Neanderthals and, indeed, the rest of the animal kingdom, to become the dominant species on earth, by doing something no other animal does – by exchanging things. “There was a point in human pre-history,” he says, when “people for the first time began to exchange things with each other, and that once they started doing so, culture suddenly became cumulative, and the great headlong experiment of human economic “progress” began. Exchange is to cultural evolution as sex is to biological evolution.”This applies not just to the exchange of objects, but the exchange of ideas, knowledge and information, of skills and services – just about anything. “If I catch the food, you cook it” means that I could specialize in catching – and become better at it – while you specialize in cooking and become better at that. With my superior catching and your superior cooking we both now enjoy considerably better lifestyles. Mankind also progresses through the subsequent improvement of catching and cooking techniques, which are then passed on to t he next generation. There is an exchange taking place right now. You are reading my material. I benefit from your eyeballs and the increased awareness of my work that every writer so desperately craves. You are benefitting from my words in that you might find entertainment, interest or wisdom in them. We are only able to do what we do today because of what was done in the past. It is only because of the cumulative work of millions of people – from Steve Jobs to Alan Turing to Shakespeare to millions of people who I’ll never know or even hear of – that I am able to write this essay on this Mac. I don’t know how to build a Mac, I don’t know how to extract the oil necessary to manufacture its component parts; I can’t make paper or ink or printing presses, yet, because of the cumulative effects of the exchanges of millions of people, I’m now able to exchange my work – itself the product of studying the work of many others – with you.The collective intelligence of mankind is far, far greater than what can be held in the mind of even the brightest individual that ever lived. That collective intelligence keeps on growing. There is no limit to it. ‘The extraordinary thing about exchange,’ says Ridley, ‘is that it breeds: the more of it you do, the more of it you can do. And it calls forth innovation.’ The more we exchange, the more we progress. This accumulation of intelligence over generations has led to a situation where, even a hundred years ago, to quote the French philosopher Ernest Renan, ‘The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life’.But the reverse applies as well. The less we exchange, the less we progress. Exchange is limited under oppressive, totalitarian or bureaucratic regimes, which is why they are overtaken by freer neighbours. When we stop exchanging altogether, there is regression.10,000 years ago, as Ridley argues, rising seas cut off Tasmania from mainland Australia. Isolated, the possibilities for exchange diminished. Technologically, the Tasmanian people actually regressed.It follows, therefore, that for individuals, families, communities, nations – indeed mankind – to prosper and progress, conditions need to be as conducive as possible for trade and exchange. It really is that simple. That should be the primary agenda of every policy-maker and leader in the world: to create an environment conducive to exchange. This means a marketplace where, from tax to tariff to bureaucracy, there are as few barriers to exchange as possible. It means a marketplace where there is trust and confidence. It means a market in which ownership of property is secure. It means a marketplace where participants can operate without coercion or crime; where good practice is rewarded with success and bad practice meets with failure. It also means a marketplace whose medium of exchange – money – is dependable.I’m talking, of course, about a free market.Until next time,Don’t forget to check out Wednesday’s piece, if you missed it: 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’ve had it beaten into me from an early age how important it is to write clearly and simply. My father, himself a writer, drilled it into me. In my teenage years and into my 20s, we used to work together like mad on things I had written, trimming them down, rephrasing, editing, and he would always talk about the importance of clarity, as he taught me the craft of writing. “Make it easy for the reader,” he would say.As I’ve said many times, the discipline of comedy also forces clarity. If the audience doesn’t understand, they don’t laugh and you die.But in academia and across the financial world, and probably elsewhere, no such discipline applies. In fact, it often pays not to be clear. In the case of finance, if you can obfuscate a little, you are less likely to be caught out or have things thrown back at you. Former Chair of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, who could speak in total gobbledygook if he needed, called what he did “purposeful obfuscation”. How right was George Orwell, another clear speech advocate, when he said “the great enemy of clear language is insincerity”.In the case of academia, unreadable sentences and long words can make you look cleverer than you actually are.There are so many books that have become wildly popular, which I’ve tried to read, and found unreadable. Thomas Pickety’s Capital In The 21st Century, for example. In the past I’ve tried and failed with James Joyce, Umberto Eco (except for The Name of the Rose), Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Kurt Vonnegut, Herman Melville, Salman Rushdie, Joseph Heller, Stephen Hawking, Ayn Rand, Mary Shelley, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust and more. Let’s be honest I’ve tried and failed to complete Homer, Dante and the Bible (King James version), as well. Maybe I lack persistence, but a large part of me thinks, “if you haven’t made the effort, why should I?”Picketty’s book sold millions of copies, but the stats from Amazon showed that hardly anyone actually finished it. It became one of those books that was cool to talk about having read, without anyone actually heaving read it. I settled for the Wikipedia entry - and I’m not even sure I finished that.Subscribe to this amazing publication and all your ailments will be cured.I’m currently working on a new book about gold and so I find myself reading a lot more than usual, as I research. Here is something, I’ve observed. Often you will stumble across a website where the writer has put some history or science or economics in beautifully clear and simple language. To do that takes effort. Such websites can become the most fantastic reference points. But sometimes because something is so simply written, I somehow think that by citing it - as I should - it doesn’t reflect very well on me. But cite some unreadable academic trove and that makes me look clever - even if I haven’t actually read it.As people who have read my books will know, I am pretty scrupulous about my citations. But if I find myself drawn to the temptation, for sure others will be too. People will cite the stuff they haven’t actually read, and not cite the stuff they have read. The unclear, pompous, badly written stuff with long words and endless sentences ends up getting the recognition, while the better, simpler stuff, where the writer has worked harder to make it easier for the reader, gets overlooked and even plagiarised. It’s the opposite of a virtuous circle. It’s another symptom of the midwit-dominated society in which we live, I suppose. The flannel gets the acclaim, the clear and simple stuff at either end of the bell curve not so much.We all think that we are not getting the credit we deserve. But I do sometimes wonder if perhaps I had worked less hard to make my stuff readable, I would have got more recognition - especially from the establishment (whatever that is). I’ve had so much stuff plagiarised over the years: books and articles, jokes and stand-up routines, even a film I helped write. It leaves a very sour taste in the mouth. But I don’t think I’ll ever bring myself to deliberately write unreadable stuff. I’m too programmed to try and keep things clear. Ah, the crosses we have to bear.On reading this, my girlfriend said I need to read the book The Four Agreements. Those agreements are: "Be impeccable with your word", "Do not take anything personally", "Do not make assumptions" and "Always do your best". She may have a point. It had better be clearly written …Tell your mates about this amazing article.Live shows coming upIf you have not seen my lecture with funny bits about gold, we have two more dates in London lined up for Feb 14 and 15.And I am taking my musical comedy show, An Evening of Curious Songs, on a mini tour in the spring with dates in London, Somerset, Hampshire, Surrey and Essex. This is a really fun show.Here are the dates and places.* London, Crazy Coqs, W1. Wednesday March 20th. On sale now.* Bordon, Hampshire. Saturday March 23. On sale now.* Guildford, Surrey. Friday April 5. On sale now.  * Bath, Somerset. Saturday April 6. On sale now.* Southend, Essex . Sunday April 14. On sale now.Buying gold?Interested in protecting your wealth in these extraordinary times? Then be sure to own some gold bullion. I use The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high, you can deal with a human being. I have an affiliation deal with them. 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 have been in California - Riverside, LA and Palm Springs - for the last month, helping out with a family issue over there. I wanted to share a couple of thoughts I had about the golden state, where, as wealth and poverty collide, there are two very different realities.My first wake up call was in the supermarket - Stater Bros. Just how expensive has the US has become, especially for a European with weak currency. I used to think America was cheap. You think food prices in the UK are bad. I’d say they are twice as expensive in California, if not more. $4.99 for four large onions and they weren’t even organic onions. Fruit, veg, fish, meat. Name your staple. The US ain’t cheap any more. Obviously, exchange rates are a factor and the pound, at $1.27, is not exactly strong, if one thinks back to the heady days north o f two bucks. But currency aside, ordinary living is getting very expensive for our transatlantic cousins. (Houses are no longer cheap either, for what it’s worth).Fuel, on the other hand, is around $4.80/gallon, which works out around £1/litre, compared to £1.45-50/litre over here. Americans are still complaining about it though. For them that’s expensive. Guess it is when you factor in how big their cars are.(Gosh, I enjoyed living under US weights and measures, or as they call them English weights and measures. They are so much more intuitive than metric. More on that here, if you want to see my lecture on the subject). Second hand cars also seemed cheap, by the way, though my finger is not really on the pulse. I was just strolling round the classic car shops in Palm Springs, where you can pick up a Rolls Royce Corniche in attractive beige (I didn’t realise there was such a thing) for $50k. That felt to me like less than you would pay here. Also, in Palm Springs people will tell you how nice your car is. Here they’ll just nick it.The roads, by the way, are very crowded indeed, and boy are freeways manic. Palm Springs was like a dreamland. Sheltered from the cruel realities that are inflicting the rest of the world, the news feels a long way away. But there was a very different story in LA, 90 minutes up the road. My kids wanted to see Skid Row (where many drug addicts and homeless have taken root), so we drove around there for a bit. Even in a car with the locks on, I did not feel comfortable at all halted at traffic lights. I once had a run-in with a group of homeless people on a freezing winter’s day in Hillbrow, Johannesburg - an experience I will never forget, and a story for another day. This reminded me of that. (Later, a Lyft driver told us Skid Row is by no means as bad as it gets. Places like Watts and Compton are too dangerous to even drive through). Skid Row borders on Downtown LA and, at the turn of a corner, you suddenly see all kempt streets and offices. The juxtaposition is stark. From there we went to the Walk of Fame for a stroll, where, within a few minutes of getting out of the car, we were almost knocked over by a huge (and I mean heavy weight world champion, 6 foot 8 basketball player huge) homeless black man with a very loud voice, running down the street, screaming platitudes at a much smaller, richly dressed and armed black man, who was chasing him, yelling at him to never be seen round here again. This was all in the first hour. My younger daughter (aged 19) turned to me and said she had never felt so unsafe in any city ever. She had a point. The drug addicted homeless seemed to be everywhere. Surely the sheer weight of numbers means something. In Venice, we watched a Latino man with a t-shirt stolen from TJ Max spend 10 minutes attempting to scan the bar code from the label of the stolen shirt onto the button at a pedestrian crossing, while the machine repeatedly told him to “wait”. Finally, exasperated, he threw his hands in the air and walked straight into the road to be hit by a passing car (fortunately not injured). The following day we visited Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. It is so wealthy, clean and curated, it is verging on the make believe. There, you are abnormal if you haven’t had cosmetic surgery of some kind. Was ever there such a fairy land of a place. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such extreme poverty and wealth so immediately juxtaposed as in LA. Something ain’t right, as the saying goes, and, I dare say, something’s going to give. It was probably my imagination, projecting fears and biases, but at times it felt like we were just a couple of short steps away from breakdown: a city on the brink. My general theory, or rather Alex McCarron’s theory which I’ve adopted, of the South Africanisation of everything applies here too.The following day we hung out in West Hollywood and Silvertown, where, I should say, things felt more normal, whatever that means. I really liked the vibe. Best of all, I liked the canals around Venice. They are just glorious. Almost as nice as the River Thames upstream.As for LA’s future, well… The city was built on the movie industry. Who watches movies any more? I have been to the cinema once since Covid. I used to go all the time. My kids don’t go either. Most of their viewing time is on their phones, and of that the moving picture allocation goes on YouTube and Tictoc. (I know, I know). Films are for boomers, but even my mum hardly watches any now. Perhaps, then, LA goes the way of another city that lost its main industry: Detroit. It’s not impossible, I suppose. On the other hand, there is so much capital in LA, it seems unlikely. South Africanisation, as I say, is the most likely.In any case, LA is a city that is not working for a lot of people, even if it is for a few.I would not be in a rush to invest capital there - unless it’s in some kind of security company.On a happier note, here for your entertainment is a photo of the kids and me on a hike in the mountains around Palm Springs. I don’t normally post pics of the fam, but I liked this one. (Those wind turbines in the background, by the way, are a blot of the landscape and, in the three weeks I was there, barely turned).Until next time,DominicLive shows coming upIf you have not seen my lecture with funny bits about gold, we have two more dates in London lined up for Feb 14 and 15. And I am taking my musical comedy show, An Evening of Curious Songs, on a mini tour in the spring with dates in London, Somerset, Hampshire, Surrey and Essex. This is a really fun show.Here are the dates and places.* London, Crazy Coqs, W1. Wednesday March 20th. On sale now.* Bordon, Hampshire. Saturday March 23. On sale now.* Guildford, Surrey. Friday April 5. On sale now.  * Bath, Somerset. Saturday April 6. On sale now.* Southend, Essex . Sunday April 14. On sale now.Buying gold?Interested in protecting your wealth in these extraordinary times? Then be sure to own some gold bullion. I use The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high, you can deal with a human being. I have an affiliation deal with them. 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 prefer, you can watch this article in video form here)The youngster setting out on life in the west has a major problem. We live in a society that penalises hard work. Punitively and relentlessly.As Daylight Robbery readers will know, over the course of a life, half of everything a typical worker earns will be taken from him by the government. More if you factor in inflation. People think a house is the most expensive purchase you will ever make. It isn’t. It is, by far and away, your government. And it’s a forced purchase as well.Not only is the produce of your labour confiscated, it is spent on things on which you may often be philosophically opposed: wars, waste, masks, rainbow road crossings, corruption, human rights lawyers, Stonewall. I could go on.But that is the bind in which the western citizen finds himself. It is the price he must pay for a civilised society.So the typical worker finds himself working hour upon hour merely to stay afloat, his produce confiscated, week in week out. We can’t all be Elon Musk, much as we would like to be. Unless you have a very well paid job indeed, this is your reality. It is very hard to get on. You are trapped.To make it worse, the money you are paid in also loses its value. Relentlessly. Thus what you got to keep is taken from you too.This will remain your reality, unless you change it.One solution, as I outline here, is to convert as much of your pay as possible into strong currency, but with 50% of your earnings constantly confiscated it is still a rough deal. (And don’t say income taxes are lower than that, I know they are. There are many other taxes we must pay too.)So what to do?The answer is leave. Go somewhere where taxes are lower and the currency is stronger. Then you will be rewarded for your labour. And through your labour, you might actually be able to save and improve your lot.I have never been crazy about Dubai. I’ve always found the place a bit false. It lacks culture. I prefer places that are a bit more organic. I’d rather be in a quaint English village with an old pub and a beautiful church, wandering through the City with its mysterious, historical back alleys or lounging in some terracotta Mediterranean villa. What’s more, the thought of the slave labour on which Dubai was built makes me feel very uncomfortable. In my stand-up act I sometimes do a joke: “as a stand-up you need some ready-made put-downs in case you have problem people in the audience, so I have been working on my put-downs, and the best I’ve been able to come up with is … You look like the sort of person that likes Dubai.” (Some audiences - usually cultured ones - love that joke, others are baffled by it)But all that said, every time I have been to Dubai I have had a good time. A very good time in fact. And I have always been well looked after.But here’s the thing. There is no Income Tax in Dubai. VAT is just 5%. There is no Stamp Duty. There is no TV tax. There is no Council Tax. Petrol is cheap. Corporation tax is much lower. Booze, fags and sugary drinks face 50% excise duties. But who cares? You drink too much anyway.As for the money you are paid in, UAE dirham, well, that’s pegged to the US dollar. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than the pound. So go the UAE, work, keep what you earn and, even in a relatively low-ranking job, in five years you will suddenly you’ll find yourself in a very different, much stronger position than if you had stayed in UK, Europe or any high tax jurisdiction.Look at how crap our governments are. Why enable them? Live shows coming upIf you have not seen my lecture with funny bits about gold, we have two more dates in London lined up for Feb 14 and 15. Please come.And I am taking my musical comedy show, An Evening of Curious Songs, on a mini tour in the spring with dates in London, Somerset, Hampshire, Surrey and Essex. This is a really fun show.Here are the dates and places.* London, Crazy Coqs, W1. Wednesday March 20th. On sale now.* Bordon, Hampshire. Saturday March 23. On sale now.* Guildford, Surrey. Friday April 5. On sale now.  * Bath, Somerset. Saturday April 6. On sale now.* Southend, Essex . Sunday April 14. On sale now.Buying gold?Interested in protecting your wealth in these extraordinary times? Then be sure to own some gold bullion. I use The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high, you can deal with a human being. I have an affiliation deal with them. 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