We were surprised this week when Jonathan Johnson, chairman of Overstock, a Utah online retail giant, announced that the corporation has stockpiled gold and food for their employees in preparation for the financial crisis that they foresee in the U.S.  What unique action on the part of a corporation. We call that planning ahead. Not only for their employees, but they plan to stay up and running, as a company, in a crisis. We are duly impressed.

Speaking at the United Precious Metals Association, Johnson is quoted as follows:

We are not big fans of Wall Street and we don’t trust them. We foresaw the financial crisis, we fought against the financial crisis that happened in 2008; we don’t trust the banks still and we foresee that with QE3, and QE4 and QE n that at some point there is going to be another significant financial crisis.

So what do we do as a business so that we would be prepared when that happens. One thing that we do that is fairly unique: we have about $10 million in gold, mostly the small button-sized coins, that we keep outside of the banking system. We expect that when there is a financial crisis there will be a banking holiday. I don’t know if it will be 2 days, or 2 weeks, or 2 months. We have $10 million in gold and silver in denominations small enough that we can use for payroll. We want to be able to keep our employees paid, safe and our site up and running during a financial crisis.

We also happen to have three months of food supply for every employee that we can live on. (as reported by Zero Hedge and others)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70t9tM1mD8A

And how about YOU? Will you be able to stay up and running in a crisis?

We all know that there is manipulation in both the stock market and the commodities. If an entity has sufficient currency at their disposal, they can drive prices up or down.

So upon what can we depend? Usually we can look at history and know almost with certainty, how things will turn out because, throughout history, certain actions on the  part of nations have always brought the same result. But in all of economic history, there is no record of the world ever being in the current situation financially, where all countries are producing fiat currency, backed by nothing but faith in the country that issues it and almost all up to their eyebrows in debt that they can never pay.

We are seeing things happen in the States that would not have happened only a few decades ago.  Confiscation of private property is one–private vehicles, boats, even a house if drugs are found there, although the drugs may have been deposited there by a tenant.

Recently the way has been cleared for depositor funds in banks to be used to satisfy the bank’s obligations to creditors if the bank should fail. Changes have also been made regarding IRAs, to enable them to be replaced with government bonds, should the government decide to do so. Things that would have been unheard of in the United States only a few  years ago.

We ourselves have had what we consider a personal warning. We do not transfer minute amounts of money to South America because of wire transfer expenses. For that reason, we make a point of waiting and transferring when we have accumulated $4,000 to $5,000 U.S.—which is only every several months. We have a friendly businessman here who we can send checks to from our U.S. account where they are direct deposited, and he gives us pesos so that we can pay our bills here.

Sure enough, he got a call from the U.S. to question him about who we are, where we got the money, how does he know we are not laundering money. It’s worrisome. We know that it would only take a question in someone’s mind to lock down our account. You would think they could look at the account and see where the deposits are from. And laundering money? These are not exactly large amounts. We take this as a warning. The land of the free is not what it used to be.

We have begun to reserve heavily researched information for subscribers only. These include How To Store Your Precious Metals Offishore and We Diversify Our Banking which we hope are helpful to you in undertaking whatever steps you choose.

Here is a suggested list of things to do that we hope will help some of you who are having a difficult time actually getting started. You may not choose to do all of them. But you can at least consider which ones are right for you and how to do it.

  1. If you don’t have a passport for you and your family, getting one is the first order of business. It can take several months, in some cases, and you don’t want to need it and not have it. We consider this of primary importance for everyone. We also suggest you get the form online and not at the local immigration office. We explained the reason in a previous newsletter.
  1. Open and fund a bank account in the country of your choice. For those who are planning to move with small savings and only retirement funds, this probably will not be an issue.
  1. Move your IRA outside the country. As we have stated before, you can hold other investments beside stocks in your IRA. But do be sure to check with your financial adviser or accountant just to be sure you get it right. You don’t want to disqualify your IRA.
  1. Gold coins and/or bars as insurance against failure of your home currency.Some advisers suggest ten percent of your investment assets in precious metals, other advisers suggest up to one-third of investment assets in metals We leave that to you to decide. Also consider pre-1964 U. S. small silver coins in case of failure of the currency.We don’t necessarily expect that but we are talking insurance here.During the financial crisis in 1979, when Paul Volcker raised interest rates to 18% in his attempt to save the U. S. dollar, some stores in Michigan were accepting U.S. silver for purchases. You could buy a gallon of gasoline in our town then with a silver dime. Just a thought. And if you don’t need them, they are still a store of real value.The articles mentioned above should give you ideas about where you can store assets if you choose to store some in a different location. We will update that information if and when we learn more resources. We also invite subscribers to post helpful comments if you have additional information.Gold appears to have made a bottom and is rising. It might be a good time to be buying precious metals. But in any event, we think gold is good insurance.
  1. Start thinking about developing a second income.Even if you are retired, you almost surely have some passion or interest that you enjoy. You might be able to develop a business around that.Or just start looking around you for opportunity.The world is full of opportunities but sometimes we have to develop the ability to see them. See how many business opportunities you can come up with. Don’t worry if they are viable or not. Just do it. They will not all be good.We might call it “brain storming.”The exercise itself will start to develop your ability to see things that you previously didn’t even notice. Keep a list. Write them down. You will find yourself seeing more and more things that you used to miss.As you can quickly see, a move to establish another stream of income is one more diversification.
  1. Start considering real estate in an area where you would like to live.This covers a number of objectives. If you choose not to live there, it can provide a stream of rental income. This also reduces your exposure to banks if you are now holding the funds in a bank. It is difficult to impossible for a home country to confiscate real estate, it is not reportable and, as long as you don’t live in it yourself, and don’t have a relative living there, it can be held in your IRA  BUT . . . again the reminder. Be sure to check with your financial adviser to be sure that you do this right. You don’t want to invalidate your IRA over some detail you didn’t know about.To have some fun from home, looking at real estate that is available, www.argenprop.com covers much of Argentina and even neighboring countries. You can check www.southernchileproperties.com for Chile real estate to the south.You can use your search engine to search for casas en venta en Chile (houses for sale in Chile) or departamentos en venta en Montevideo (apartments for sale in Montevideo) for example, to give you an idea of what is available and prices. Just find a place on the map that looks interesting and change the name of the town in  your search.You can even start learning Spanish. You will soon learn the Spanish having to do with houses and apartments for sale by going to https://translate.google.com/. Enter the Spanish words to the left and read the English to the right.One caveat here: there is the tendency for the most expensive real estate to be listed on the Internet. Often you can find the best buys by moving to the area that you like and taking walks and/or drives and looking for the small hand-written signs, or hearing by word of mouth.But for those of us dreaming of a new life in a new location, this can be a fun activity. You can also look for rentals with departamentos en alquiler en Santiago, (apartments for rent in Santiago) for example. Or departamentos en ariendo en Pucon (apartments for rent in Pucon). With rentals, you have to be careful because many will be temporary and rents priced almost like a hotel.

We gave you a list a while back for getting yourself moved. Now you have one for moving your finances. Please remember that we are publishers, not financial advisers and our material consists only of research submitted for educational purposes. Always, before making any financial decision, be sure to check with your financial adviser or accountant and never make financial decisions based on the Internet.)

We invite you to add information, to comment, ask questions, answer the questions of others in the comments section below.