Sunday, April 11, 2010

Metals and Victuals

Plenty of yard work this weekend. The street sanders really did a job this winter because there was about 100 pounds of sand at the start of my lawn on the street. That took some serious effort to remove. Today was mulch day. Things look pretty good.

I had a few minutes to spare so just a quick word and some pictures.

Metal Mania
The author of the blog "The Golden Truth" was featured in a guest post spot over at Zero Hedge. The writer is a friend of EconomicDisconnect and his site appears in the blogroll. If you have questions regarding the fund GLD I am sure this will answer them:
Guest Post: Got Gold? Why Owning GLD Can Be Hazardous To Your Wealth
Congratulations for the Zero Hedge spot!

My own position is that the ETF funds GLD and SLV are fine for trades. They are not physical metals and should not be considered as such. The article can flesh this out in detail.

Sticking with the metals, JP Morgan's silver antics made a big paper, the NY Post:
Metals are in the Pits; Trader Blows Whistle on Gold and Silver Price Manipulation

It is clear how I feel. With Greece getting another extension of cheap money you can be sure the other problem states are looking for the same deal. Here in the US the states are now coming to a head with funding issues and will be bailed out by printing money. Add to this the severe shortfall in pension funds, mortgage delinquencies that keep rising, and higher borrowing costs that will cause QE 2.0 soon I think you can see the paper money spigot is about to go crazy. Gold and silver can be an insurance policy against an avalanche of new paper coming online. This is not investment advice, just how I feel.

Victuals on The Big Steel Keg
You know that is pronounced "vittles", yes?

I decided to go for a double header today. For lunch I made pizza on the Keg and it was really good:
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Nice!

I had to cool the Keg off from 500 degrees back down to about 300. I did a "beer can chicken" where you sit a small whole chicken on a beer can to get really juicy meat. Here is the bird on the throne:
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After about 3 hours it was done:
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I think I left in on just a bit too long, but it came out very good regardless.

No worries this will not become a food blog!

Have a good night.

8 comments:

GawainsGhost said...

Um, I don't know how to say this, GYC. And I certainly don't mean to offend you. But that's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life.

Look. I've caught a chicken. If you think that's easy, think Rocky Balboa. Chickens are fast, real fast.

It took me a whole morning to catch one. Then my grandmother snapped its neck, plucked and gutted it right in front of me. Blood and feathers everywhere. I was horrified.

But that fried chicken to this day is the best I've ever eaten. Kentucky Fried got nothing on my grandmother.

Still, I've never seen a chicken with a beer can shoved up its butt. I've never even heard of such a thing.

I'm from Texas. Down here we believe in the four major food groups: barbeque, beans, bread, and beer. But no one shoves a beer can up a chicken's butt!

Beer is for drinking. Chicken is for barbequing. It's as simple as that. Try some barbeque sauce, for God's sake! I recommend Cattleman's smokey flavor.

This reminds me of my father, who used to marinate fajitas in beer. (The fajita was invented, by the way, by a meat market owner in Pharr, about 20 miles away, who decided to sell instead of throw away skirt steak. Today it's all over the world. He should have patented it.)

Regardless, I like chicken. Fried, barbequed, even oven baked. But I've never seen a chicken with a beer can shoved up its butt!

As long as you enjoyed it. I'm not saying, I'm just saying. Chicken, beer. They go together, but they don't belong together.

Barbequed chicken and beer? Fine. But beer up a barbequed chicken's butt? No.

EconomicDisconnect said...

Well tell me how you really feel!

It actually comes out pretty good. As a plus I get to drink half a beer at 1pm without the wife looking at me like "A little early isn't it??". Hey, it's 8pm someplace.

I am thinking I might go for a whole pork butt smoked for about 9 hours next weekend. I am a HUGE fan of Butts, and if you checked the first hyperlink in Friday's post you would see what I mean. Think picturesque beauty.

EconomicDisconnect said...

Vintage Motley Crue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OglaGA-UiLc
NICE!

GawainsGhost said...

Well, I'm not saying. I'm just saying. I've never seen a beer can shoved up a chicken's butt. Must be a northern thing.

Anyway, if you like pork, try some grilled pork tenderloin. That's delicious. And it doesn't require a beer can up its butt.

EconomicDisconnect said...

Sensing some resistance here, lol!

Playing right now, a little "Round and Round":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG51nwQsfAA

GawainsGhost said...

Actually, I was just giving you a hard time, GYC. But seriously I've never seen or heard of anything like beer can chicken. That's just weird. (The pizza looked pretty good though.)

I've been reading about the gold and silver manipulation on Zero Hedge this morning. Don't know what to think about it really. The whole thing sounds like a scam to me.

I think everything is going to come to a head in the not too near future. And it could get real ugly real quick. Sovereign defaults, civil unrest, widespread depression, war. I don't like to think about it, but I do.

The problem is the utter lack of financial reform. Nothing can be fixed until the banking system is fixed. But the politicians will wait, make excuses, pretend and extend, until the crisis becomes so severe that something must be done.

At that point, this is what I fear, the cure that is worse than the disease.

I hate politicians.

Kid Dynamite said...

there's nothing like a good rant against GLD and SLV.

look - SLV and GLD are my two largest positions. Are they equivalent to holding the metals in your hand? absolutely not. but TO ME, the risks and costs inherent in buying physical metals, not getting ripped off doing so, and storing them are MUCH higher than the risks associated with the ETFs. I know it's silly to try to convince goldbugs of this, so I no longer try. I am quite confident that the chance i get scammed buying GLD is much lower than the chance i get scammed buying gold coins. but that doesn't mean anyone else has to feel that way.

one thing that is MASSIVELY misunderstood by the "you have to own physical" crowd, though, is that they think that if GLD never existed then the price of gold would be HIGHER because everyone would have bought physical instead. I will argue adamantly that this is completely false, and that the creation of the GLD was the best thing that ever happened to gold prices - it made it super easy for retail customers to buy gold. of course, i guess you have to believe that the trust actually holds the gold that underlies it though, which I do.

disclosure: I know the guy who created this trust, and he offered to get me into the vault to check it out. if this hype continues, maybe i'll take him up on that offer.

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