Social Insecurity – Page 2 – Gold, Silver and Freedom

July 15, 2021October 9, 2022

Buy in Haste, Repent at Leisure

One of the most oft-quoted, yet rarely adhered to pieces of advice must that History never repeats, but it rhymes. It’s a most interesting fact of life that we could learn the most about things by looking at what has happened in the past. Yet it seems we never do, and I include myself in that. Let’s start though by looking at a story :-

A major incident occurred, something that made world stock markets fall by over one-third in days. Governments, businesses and people panicked. In the aftermath, the law pertaining to buying property was changed and this resulted in a boom where people desperately tried to register their property transactions before a given deadline to take advantage of a tax saving.

Sounds like the Corona crash of 2020, followed by the UK government decision to temporarily abolish stamp duty on property transactions to get the economy moving, doesn’t it? Except it’s not. I’m actually referring to the 1987 stock market crash and the decision to limit and reduce MIRAS (Mortgage Interest Relief at Source) on mortgage repayments for property transactions made before a certain date, that got people in a property buying frenzy as the 1980s drew to a close. To take it further, that tax saving that people thought they were getting made them completely forget that they were overpaying in a frenzy in the present and that they just needed to be on the ladder at any price, before the ladder got pulled up forever on the deadline date.

Here, I can add my own piece of history to this, in buying my first house in Brighton in 1995. I actually met people who had been involved in that party and were living with the hangover every day. One, my manager at the time, had bought a property with a friend in 1988 in Eastbourne and they were stuck letting it out at a loss every month, hoping the price would get back to a point that they could cash out and take the loss. He also added that they weren’t really friends any more, to add to the pain. Another told me that he had sold his house in a nearby small town, Lancing and taken a loss, but he was now buying a house in Worthing. This guy helpfully also gave me some hope by telling me he felt that the crash was over and that now was a great time to actually be buying a house, if you had the opportunity to, as so many were bogged down by their recent mistakes. He was right. Looking back, the older me has no idea how someone aged 24, living on their own and earning an average salary for the time could possibly afford a three-bedroomed 1920s house with a garage. Yet that’s what I got. Let’s add in that the mortgage rate was 5.99%, fixed for 3 years and that was considered reasonably cheap, for the variable rate was about 8-9% and it had been even higher just a few years previously. When I moved into that house, purchased for under £55,000, a neighbour told me that some nearby had sold for £100,000 before the punch bowl got taken away.

In economic terms, a tide that rises high due to certain factors can also recede in line with those factors changing. Now, I’m not saying that property prices in the UK are going to fall, but I have a strong feeling that they are going to move back into some kind of long-term trendline that correlates better with average incomes, population movements and average household expediture. Back in those days of 8% mortgage rates, the general guide was that a repayment mortgage took up one-third of household income and I believe that is coming again, along with more of the free household income needing to be spent on essentials like food in a time of scarcity and rising prices, rather than frivolities like the next Ryanair trip to Malaga. There are two more factors to take account of – the massive Brexodus of cheap Eastern European labour deciding that they miss the family back home, so perhaps now is the time to take the accumulated savings back to their homelands and invest in a better life there, along with the possible death of millions of old people and the freeing up of their economic resources. Of course, in that scenario, labour shortages are also likely to mean salaries having a large and sudden rise, so the imbalances could just as easily be solved by huge average income rises in a very short space of time. That certainly did not happen in the 1990s, as the UK struggled with trying to keep the value of the Pound to the decreed band with the ERM (European Exchange Rate Mechanism). It was only upon surrendering that with a massive wealth transfer from average British citizens to George Soros, that the economy was seen to be moving up again. Years later I see it for what it really was – smoke and mirrors of an inflationary nature.

As a footnote, I dreamt about Eastbourne a couple of months ago and that helped this memory resurface. Ah how I loved that town. Whereas Brighton was rowdy, crowded and cosmopolitan, Eastbourne felt genteel, quiet and still with traces of the pre-war seaside glamour of the 1930s that the Art Deco railway posters bring to mind. It had a fantastic restored Art Deco tea room right on the seafront, where the maitre’d ensured everything was conducted in line with the era, and, if I was lucky with the timing, someone would play suitable tunes on a piano in the background while you partook of tea and scones. For a few moments you could imagine you were in an Agatha Christie Poirot story, and that when you asked for the bill, it would come back to you priced in shillings and pence. Afterwards, I’d take a walk back along the promenade to the pier, then up to the town centre and visit the fine old Art Deco department store buildings of the Co-op and Debenhams, both now defunct.

Yes, change always happens and more change is coming. Not least when we think again of the World Economic Forum’s Welcome to 2030 : You will own nothing and you WILL be happy. Perhaps then, the question of whether we buy or not is irrelevant, only survival will matter?

June 24, 2021October 9, 2022

Water

One subject I omitted coverage of in the book to a great extent is the title of this post, Water. The essential of human life, for we could go a while without food and just maybe, nibble on some leaves, but we could not go without water for very long. Even humans in the state of hubris mentioned in the previous post know water is essential. The French, with their rich language and cultural Celtic history that’s still under there somewhere, awaiting a revival, even refer to it as L’Eau, quite literally, the life.

Yet, it is clearly taken for granted right now.

We shouldn’t be surprised. It’s there, quite literally, on tap for most of us whenever we need it and need it we do, for our daily showers, pots of tea/coffee and even chucking 1,000 litres of the stuff into a pool in the garden for the summer. What traditionally happens in markets is that as abundant commodities get cheaper, their abundance becomes relied upon and factored into modern life with increasing usage and reliance. It’s much the same with oil, where it’s used for heating, transport, packaging and even pharmaceuticals, among many things. Even corn, is apparently so abundant that the excess can be used to make Ethanol for adding to petrol, in an effort to appear “green”. I have no idea what’s green really about producing a foodstuff with artificial fertilisers, often produced from Natural Gas, then expending energy to convert that foodstuff into a fuel that can be added into petrol, but no matter, apparently this is somehow good for the planet. To the extent that the UK is about to introduce a new fuel with a higher percentage of Ethanol that may even damage car engines. It’s for the good of the environment though, right?

On this environmental note, did you know that manufacturing one car consumes a water footprint of approximately 500,000 litres of clean water? Think about that the next time that you’re told your water consumption is responsible for the destruction of the planet. Next, refer to the relatively recent James Bond film, A Quantum of Solace, in which water was the commodity targeted by the bad guys in order to take control of the world. Quantum, interesting word choice for another post on another day…Now you’ve done that, and realised that perhaps yet again the goldfish bowl entertainment presented to you years before is predictive programming, it may be time to think about potential water shortages. After all, little could re-engineer society quicker than a world where water was a resource to be fought over.

Which leads me onto recent press.

In a variety of locations, reservoirs are being drained. Official reasons given include cleaning, or simply to top up river levels. That’s certainly the reason given for the emptying of Tunstall reservoir, near the place of my birth in Northern England :-

To the locals, that one doesn’t make any sense. The river in question, The Wear, has not been short of water lately and in fact overflowed a short while ago. It got me thinking, where else in the world this may be happening and a few internet searches helped confirm this is not an isolated phenomenon.

California, for example. Farmers here are mystified, since some of them will be unable to grow their planned crops this year at all because of this.

Colorado is also indulging in the same activities.

In Northern Italy, the story is presented as the exciting uncovering of a lost village.

In London, canals are drained as a clean-up operation. Might be a valid reason, or may not.

So, enjoy your water while you can. Nothing could displace the existing way of life quicker than to leave people without drinking water. Food -well yes, but you can survive a few days. Water – it all falls apart quickly. If it was possible to wager on how this goes, I’d put my money on that it’ll be water shortages caused by a dry summer, which was of course caused by….(dramatic pause)…Global Warming! Then it’s only one small step further to an extreme solution of locking people down into their homes and enforcing rationed usage of key resources. Perhaps even the curtailment of meat (those pesky cows and their methane are destroying our planet, of course), alongside water, electricity and even the stopping of retailing certain items in shops and online. Forcing people to stay in their homes would once have been seen as untenable, but after the flock has accepted it for the past year, they are very likely to do as they are told again. It’s for the good of the planet, right? I’d even take this a step further and say that the surveillance society now has the technology to actually monitor that you are sticking to the enforced climate lockdown, something that they have been lacking since The Crown implementation of 2020. Magnetised beings and a 5g network feels like something with great tracking potential, if you’re into that. Perhaps the Eriksen experiment was a public test run.

If this sounds like the life you want, then great. I don’t, but we’re both on this planet, trapped in what feels like a dystopian video game. Good luck with your quest, only the bad news is that this is not actually a video game, where, if it goes badly you can just press reset and start again. No, this is it and the choices we make now may be the difference between life and death.

May 23, 2021October 9, 2022

How Do You Solve a Problem Like the Pension Crisis?

For my entire adult life, I have repeatedly had it hammered into me that the country I am from is facing a massive crisis due to huge pension liabilities building up in developed nations. From a time when it took 10 working people to fund one pensioner, we are now down below 2 working people per pensioner in some Western nations.

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: US and Canada ...

These liabilities take many forms. For example, people in all of these countries were encouraged (read : forced) to pay into government schemes that promised to fund their old age and that promised land of loads of time to spend gardening, seeing the grandchildren, or going on cruises when you ceased working. Except…well, the governments took the money but in the case of the UK, for some reason forget to actually start up the fund to invest the money into. I would suspect other countries did the same, but you can update me via email on that below. No matter, the ledger entry liability where the government (through future taxpayers) must pay those pensions to the retirees and also fund their other welfare and healthcare needs still exists. When it comes to ledger entries and simple accounting, there’s no doubt that pensioners are a liability, IF we measure life in such simplistic terms. Fortunately, any non-sociopathic human doesn’t. for the sociopaths, it’s worth noting that 48-49 is the peak age for economic activity in human life – after that the trajectory is forever downwards.

What’s not often mentioned, however is how much capital these pensioners themselves saved up themselves to pay for their retirement. A huge percentage of world equity markets and the cash lying dormant in bank accounts, awaiting circulation, is owned by these very people being lamented for their inconsideration of daring to stay alive beyond their economic sell-by date. Yes, those very people who spent every month of their 30-40 year working lives, investing their excess capital above living expenses into funds, naively believing it’ll some day provide for their retirement. I can understand the level of trust then, but it’s harder to share now. However, another byproduct of this is that these are the very people who have dramatically high levels of trust in the existing system and that government will look after them. Therein lies another key factor of the recipe described at the end, for, you may have noticed a common denominator by now that all of these liabilities are extinguished, if only you can get the people themselves to die off. More on that later.

As an early example of the legalised wealth transfer from these retirees (hell, I will be one myself quite soon, if all goes to plan*), in 2012, the United Kingdom took ownership of the Royal Mail Pension scheme. Now, as you can probably imagine, this pension scheme has had many, many years to accumulate capital and invest it and so it did. By 2012, these assets had grown to £30bn, a huge sum. No matter, with the prevailing calculations in place, this pension fund was deemed to be in deficit compared to it’s liabilities. It’s probably worth pointing out at this point that it’s nice to be able to gently nudge a pension fund into being deficient on it’s liabilities, when you implement laws that force it to invest a fixed percentage of it’s assets in government bonds paying 0.1%, instead of being able to freely invest in dividend-paying safe stocks, or even hold the ultimate safe haven asset, Gold, and watch that appreciate. Well, okay, maybe appreciate in fiat currency, since Gold can only ever stand still priced in itself. The government solution to this was to offer the Royal Mail an opportunity for the government to take the assets, all £30bn of them, and in return offer nothing, but to pay the future unfunded liabilities of those pensioners who once worked for Royal Mail. As an early example of taking something now, in return for an unfunded future promise, it was wonderful. expect more of this to occur in future.

On a similar vein, I almost called this post “Last Coal Miner standing”, for there is one huge pension fund out there with assets way in excess of liabilities and which defaults back to the government once the last recipient expires. The Coal Miners’ Pension Fund. For the main reasons that coal miners, due to the nature of the work, tend not to live as long in retirement, as I know to our historic familial cost and that coal mining is a supposedly a declining industry (demand is still huge though, but you can engineer a decline, can’t you?).

The Coal miner’s pension fund actually did something dramatically clever way back in the 1980s. Identifying that investment trusts often trade way below the net value of their assets (NAV), they spotted Globe investment trust, the UK’s biggest at this time, was trading on a huge 30%+ discount to NAV and decided the best and cheapest way to increase the assets of the fund was to buy this trust and incorporate it into the fund. A wonderful move, whoever did it deserves the highest praise and I bet it was someone who sat outside the city circle, who genuinely had the best interests of the pension fund members in mind. Fast forward 40 years and sadly, the government doubtless has their eyes on this fund big-time and I am concerned how long that huge pool of money, paid in by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of men, will remain out of the clutches of the elite. See this kind of thing as the asset side of the equation, that they prefer not to tell you about, when they tell you about pensioners, with all their knowledge and wisdom, being liabilities. The same goes for firefighters, teachers and whoever else out there spent their working life trusting some pension to cater for them in retirement. You may well be disappointed.

Of course, it’s completely disgusting and represents theft on the most massive scale. So, that raises the question – what’s the best way to deal with it? Well, in an ideal world you might…nope, it’s pointless, that ideal world does not exist at all. The solution, I fear is somewhat simpler.

Spend years convincing old people they are a liability and that they are dinosaurs who unnecessarily consume resources and contribute to global warming through CO2.
Try to engineer an age divide, where the old are presented to the young as the people who stole your assets and who, by virtue of the happier times in which they lived, are somehow responsible for you not having a job and struggling in life.
Introduce a new virus, then tell those trusting old people who still believe the state will provide that their best protection is an injection, as insurance against never feeling the full symptoms of this virus. Yes, that truly is all it promises – that you won’t get the symptoms quite so bad.

Things not to tell them include :- that the injection is experimental until 2023 and that you are part of the human experimental pool, or that the leading French Nobel prize winning virus expert believes you may well have just reduced your life expectancy to two years.

Pension crisis solved and best of all, the pensioners themselves agreed to it.

*It won’t, whatever else happens in life, the “plan”, as I imagined it, will not occur. You will own nothing and you will be happy. Or else.

April 17, 2021October 9, 2022

The New World Financial Centre

The British Empire and Sir Stanford Raffles in particular were a very shrewd lot. They identified a seemingly irrelevant island with a population of about 150 people as a piece of prime real estate back in 1817. What’s happened since is well-known of course, as the city of Singapore has developed into a major international trade and financial hub, with all the wealth and status that goes alongside that.

This place had always been on my to do list, so when a work trip in 2018 presented me with the opportunity for a one day stopover, I took it with both hands. While I didn’t actually sit down for a Singapore Sling, I did take a wander around the Raffles hotel complex and see the art deco railway station, where bullet damage from the 1941 Japanese invasion was still visible in some of the outer walls, before it probably disappears as the city modernises even further and obliterates the British symbols. The railway itself has already been moved to the North of the island and the future of the station seemed uncertain then, but ghosts were visible everywhere, as I peered through the locked gate into the past, surrounded by modern skyscrapers. I also saw the 1920s post office building, now a hotel, the main square in front of the Town hall where hundreds of thousands were executed by the Japanese and one of the world’s most expensive pieces of undeveloped real estate, The Singapore Cricket Club. I can only wonder how much longer that last piece of Imperial history will last. The battle of Singapore itself in 1941 has always fascinated me. For obvious reasons, it does not feature large in British history when World War 2 is mentioned, but will probably forever be Britain’s biggest military defeat, with a loss of 100,000 military personnel into Japanese captivity and subsequent death, along with the loss of two Battleships – The Prince of Wales and The Repulse.

I’d love to revisit some day on less of an intense schedule, but I sense my days of travel are numbered and I’ve used most of those numbers up. No matter, at least I can say I saw some of the world before all prison doors were locked with a resounding thud.

At the time, I was not ignorant of the island’s position as a major trade route and centre of wealth. Goldmoney and Bullionvault have offered Singapore as a precious metals storage location for years. However, it’s only when you are actually there on the ground, staring up at the impressive skyscrapers that you really understand how the wealth and energy is migrating from the old world to the new.

It’s interesting how stories coincide once more and get you thinking on a particular route. A few weeks ago, I expressed the view that Bitcoin is a distraction, or a preparation for a release of a new monetary system to replace the Petrodollar that has existed since 1971, the year of my birth, the introduction of decimalisation to the UK, the closing of the Gold Convertibility window in the USA and the official founding of the World Economic Forum – more on the last one later. In my view, the coming of digital currencies is inevitable and they may not be nice, with features such as time limitation (spend it or lose it) and extra credits available only to those who follow the rules of society (get the jab or don’t eat meat?). However, for them to be truly accepted, they will need to engineer a collapse of the current system and when that system collapses, every monetary system change ever has had to promise some kind of gold backing to get the public onside.

Historically, the old world still rules the precious metals world, with familiar locations like New York, London and Switzerland being where most of that trade is transacted. As the old world declines further and the new world rises, an Asian powerhouse, one with independence, strong defences, good shipping links and a robust financial system to trade gold and silver is required. There’s no doubt on these metrics that Singapore ticks all the boxes.

What really triggered it was a story mentioning the huge new precious metals facilities being developed in Singapore. It’s not the first time media, including the BBC, have reported on this. Yes, it looks possible a new world currency backed by gold/silver is coming and it will all be stored in Singapore, perhaps with an offshoot for Europe in London. On this, Brexit suddenly makes more sense – a European nation outside EU control, a defendable island where the wealth can be stored as the mainland descends into destruction. The Corporation of London certainly has a pedigree line of survival and growth, regardless of the general situation in the country. You may laugh, but despite a recent short period of comparative peace, Europe has a long, long history of huge wars for resources and after a year of rewarding people for doing nothing, while the continent becomes ever-more dependent on a few producers to carry the mass on their shoulders cracks may appear and Atlas may yet shrug.

When you think about it, it’s interesting how Switzerland always managed to remain neutral during the many European wars of the last few centuries. It becomes clearer why when you are aware of the high levels of banking secrecy Switzerland has historically maintained regarding account holders and fund sources. Consider also how much plundered loot found its way to Switzerland during World War 2. Why, the World Economic Forum itself is even based in Switzerland and Klaus Schwab, it’s apparent founder, was born in Germany in 1938, just before World War 2 began. I’d be interested to learn more on his family history, and this article is something of a primer. Having conducted their meetings in Davos, Switzerland for the entire history of the organisation, they are now holding their first-ever meeting in Singapore in August, 2021.

On closer examination of the Asian map, Singapore is crucial to all trade heading from China, Japan and Korea etc to India then onwards to Europe. Ships can only sail through one narrow strait. The Evergreen in the Suez canal feels like the first visible supply disruption which will expose Europe to how reliant it has become on foreign imports of essentials. Perhaps when those containers do finally arrive, they will be loaded up with precious metals for the return trip as Europe is stripped bare?

Meanwhile, almost everyone in Europe wanders around like idiots, wearing masks and continuing to following “official advice”, not laws on all kinds of things that really are basic human rights, like seeing family and friends, or conducting mutally beneficial transactions with other human beings. Blithely unaware of the probable imminent end of their way of life. You know, that “way of life” that you have been told terrorists hated so much that it needed to be protected, yet was immediately signed away the moment you got told a new virus with a 99.6% survival rate hit?

What do I know really? If I was better at these things I wouldn’t be working in an office following the limitations of my school programming, but on the basis of these jigsaw pieces slotting together, perhaps we should be investing in Singapore. Especially banks if it is going to be the new Switzerland after the World Economic Forum meeting. Not to say there won’t be bumps along the way – one other thing about that map is the seeming inevitability of a conflict between the old world powers and the new. That same Asian map shows how China is totally hemmed in from the sea because the USA controls Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. If China could punch through and take Taiwan or part of the Phillipines, they could control the Pacific. A war is brewing. I note, for example, that the UK recently sent their aircraft carrier to the China sea. A war in which Singapore will remain an agreed neutral by all parties, just like Switzerland did during the last century, but a war in which the destruction and rewards to the victors may well be huge and end up on this small island nation.

March 21, 2021October 9, 2022

3 – and That’s The Magic Number

On the 3/3 a woman called Sarah, aged 33, was murdered by a man in London. A policeman, as it happens. I don’t claim the credit for spotting that one, but it does lead into some interesting coincidences, especially considering how the story has been used way beyond being a murder case that should be investigated with respect for everyone until…no, innocent until proven guilty and policing with logic instead of emotion seems to have gone by the wayside.

Amongst the media circus for everyone to invest their emotion in, there were even calls from some for a curfew for all men to be home by 18:00. That supposed believers in a free society think it’s okay that one incident like this should ride on the rights and livelihoods of 60 million-plus people is bizarre. However, it fits with the whole Corona regime that we are entering a Minority Report-style world where everyone is believed to be infected unless proven otherwise and now, everyone is believed to be guilty unless proven otherwise. Anyway, didn’t they miss the other big question it raises – who’s going to enforce this curfew if something so extreme was ever allowed to happen? The Police?

If there is anything to really be gained from this story, it’s surely that the police themselves cannot be trusted. I fear however, that even this will be used against humanity. All it needs is someone to say humans can’t be trusted to police each other…if only there was some way a computer, with it’s impeccable logic and lack of prejudice could do the job. Maybe a robocop or robodog? Let’s just forget for a moment that computer software is always programmed by humans, with huge margin for error. Robocop from the 1980s was rather prescient in seeing how it could go.

Meanwhile, journalism seems keen to focus on the alleged perpetrator still receiving his salary while suspended from his job. Even helpfully repeating across the globe how he will still receive his at least £33,000 salary. Here, here and here. What a bizarre figure to concentrate on. Unless…..dipping into the world of freemasonry, Google tells me there are 33,000 lodges worldwide, with 33,000 members in many lodges. Continuing the search theme, other newsworthy stories further feed the conspiratorial fires. It’s amazing how many COVID-19 injections seem to be delivered in batches of 33,000. Utah, for example, a home of alternative religion and mystic rites certainly seems keen on the magic number. Gibraltar just completed it’s injection programme too, although this media source doesn’t seem to be in on the numerical importance. Then we have the shooting in Georgia, also successfully being used to whip up racial and gender division where there previously was none, with this story helpfully telling us that the alleged perpetrator came from Woodstock, Cherokee county with a population of…33,000.

Why am I bringing all of this up, do you ask? Returning to the world of finance, let’s finish with the biggest 33,000 financial sign going. Amongst all these 3’s the world’s biggest stock market, the DOW Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time high last week. I don’t need to tell you what it was before you visit the link, do I? The Federal Reserve even helped out, the story tells us, with soothing words and promises of further stimuli to keep the party going, despite the reality of every economic indicator. I find myself wondering if words and actions may diverge soon. At least for a little while until other parts of the agenda are enacted.

I shall leave the final words to De La Soul, with their 90’s hit, although apparently that was a cover of Schoolhouse Rock / Bob Durrough in 1973. Meanwhile, we can all ponder what the 33,000 signifies to those in the know, along with asking the how and why of Wayne Couzens’ black left eye.

November 14, 2020October 9, 2022

Oil and Gold

Oil is still one of the biggest building blocks of life. Regardless of whether you now work from home instead of driving to work every day in the gas-guzzler or not. It’s used in everything – fuels, plastics and pharmaceuticals, to name a few. In fact, if you now work from home, chances are you’re turning up the winter thermostats a bit more often than you would at work. You’re probably also buying a lot more food from the supermarket, most of it encased in plastic packaging. Even if your heating system is not oil-based, oil remains one of the main fuels available for generation of electricity, and could well do so for many, many years, regardless of how many windmills they build.

So, the good news. You’ll be pleased to hear is that oil is at an all-time low, when measured against gold. Luckily enough, since with your earnings being one-sixth of the 1970 value, you may not be able to afford to keep the house warm or drive a car otherwise. Any apparent price rises you see at the pumps are merely an inflation of your fiat currency.

Now for the bad news, can it continue?

Maybe not. For many years, gold and Oil actually maintained a near 10:1 ratio relationship.

(Chart: Gold/Oil ratio 2010 to 2020)

As the chart shows, this relationship has become distended as a result of the Corona crisis. There’s now a near 50:1 relationship as of August 2020. This may imply oil is actually quite cheap, gold is expensive, or that the ratio no longer holds. There has been a multitude of media articles heralding the death of oil. However, it seems to have missed the attention of many that all of this data – everyone’s Facebook posts, Instagram images, or cloud software solution is stored on a server somewhere that requires electrical power to run. For sure, in the case of one Instagram post, that electrical consumption is miniscule, but multiply it across a world of 7 billion people, and you get an idea now of the immense electrical power required. Oil, natural gas, and coal are still heavily used in electrical power generation across the globe.

(Chart: Actual and predicted power sources to 2030)

The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted the chart dates from 2003. This was deliberate since more recent data shows it to be correct. If so, the future trend for oil consumption is still upward.

(Chart: Energy consumption to 2040)

So, and this is only a question, not investment advice, maybe oil itself is not finished yet as an investment. If not, could it revert back to the 10:1 ratio with gold and if so, at what price for both?