
reisbiz@earthlink.net
Bob Reis POB 26303 Raleigh NC 27611 USA
phone: (919) 787-0881 (8:30AM-10:30PM EST only please)
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to order
BUSINESS:
6/2/08 - because of the unusual situations with both
the bullion markets and the USA dollar exchange rate everything
(11/16/2008) you should consider ALL of my posted prices to be provisional.
There may be changes in any category. This notice will be posted
on a few other pages but not all. But this is your official notice.
(Renewed 1/4/2010 - this is what low level chaos feels like.)
(6/8/2010 chaos continues to build. Think before you act. Think
before you think. Observe before that. Remember to breathe.)
A. SELLING:
August
pricelist
17,000
other things for sale
New
(if the background of this page is a different color than last time you
looked there is new stuff) - update 7/27/10
note
on viewing pictures
site
search
B. BUYING:
Buying
What's
It Worth? - numismatic estate handling for live collectors & executors
C. SERVICES:
Attribution,
authentication, grading, and appraisal services
Market
research
Subscription
Website
development and management services
D. INFORMATION
Information
Links
- friends, colleagues
E. OPINIONS & NEWS
7/27/22010
1. MAKE NO MISTAKE - in the next 3 months there will be a lot of blather
followed by the election by us USA-ians of various public servants.
About 60-70% of the voters know what they're going to do about that, something
between ~20-~70% of us will vote - these are uncertain times. I seem
unable to refrain from giving advice, so here are my recommendations for
those who are not committed to an electoral plan:
-reduce or eliminate TV as your news source.
The visuals get in the way of conceptual thought. Find other ways
to get your news.
-sample the propaganda of your ideological
enemies regularly. You will always find that they have some good
points to make, most of the idealogizing is empty but if there was truly
nothing there no one would be interested.
-get your sample ballot from the Board of
Elections & research the candidates. That's easy to do on the
internet, if you don't do computers someone you know does.
I've been working
in elections for 5 years now. The opposite of elections is dictatorship
of some sort. I like elections.
2. MY LEAST FAVORITE WORD: "just" - Just do this, everything will be
fine. I've always found that to be not true.
3. MY PARENTS - are moving down here in September and I will be involved
in the logistics. We can imagine that this will have some impact
on the schedule of the next pricelist, well, we'll see what happens.
4. PEOPLE WANTED me to comment on the oil leak, now its capped, everyone's
going to loose interest if it stays capped. Like what happened to
Haiti? Congo? Darfur? I think in Darfur they said they
killed all the people they wanted to so its "calmer" now. Gotta take
the long view on these things. The human layer for future geologists
will be the one with the chlorinated hydrocarbons in it. Keep going.
What's the alternative?
5. NOW I'm on facebook where I make cryptic comments and a blog where
I blather.
6/8/2010
1. SO, what's the Gulf disaster like? Maybe like the destruction
by the Soviets of the Aral Sea. That was when they drained about
60% of it to grow cotton and the rest of it is evaporating leaving a gigantic
toxic dustbowl. Also maybe West Virginia-Kentucky coal country, hundreds
of square miles mashed up and remade into truncated pyramids. This
is about lack of attention. People more interested in what they are
thinking than in what they are doing. I see my son do that.
He's got a thing in his hand, a spoon, when he's done with the spoon he
puts it down, before it gets where he's putting it he's turned his head
away, on to the next thing. What do I want to do? Now what?
Now what? Uh, oh. Now what do I want to do?
Every functionary in the front lines is working
under extreme scrutiny, all are excruciatingly human with the usual bunch
of mediocrities and redeeming features, they're doing what they think they
can (though the thing about not giving the brave fishermen any respirators
and moon suits and just letting them go out there and "do stuff" is probably
going to end up being one of the criminal negligence aspects that will
get them in the end. The oil is in the gulf stream with that carburetor
cleaner stuff they dumped to "disperse" it. Well, it did indeed disperse
it. Some of it will end up in Europe. There will be international
litigation, BP may die.
If you are feeling like "doing something" and not
that people are rushing down there to help, except for some people from
Alaska who are advising in reference to their experience with their disaster,
you will undoubtedly find a little miniature environmental disaster probably
within walking distance of wherever you are, probably that rates
moonsuit cleanup. Start working on that. What can you do?
If its non-hazardous you clean it up yourself or organize a cleanup party.
If its ongoing or hazardous you start a campaign by writing letters to
the editor in local paper, calling local authorities about it, etc.
Start a journal on the project, keep records, etc. Your own little
personal environmental campaign. That's what you can do.
And you can fund your favorite charity and legal
fund. You fight those me-first-walk-away-from-the-problem guys with
money.
3. STAY CALM. Think things through. Just because there are excited people all around you doesn't mean you have to get excited. Look for the exits.
4. OBAMA'S PROBLEM is that he and his wife are young and credulous. They are impressed with nice clothes, luxurious surroundings, "experts." There are hints of possible greatness, but some very heavy lifting possibly necessary for him to break through that surface fascination thing. Time is short, reality is making extraordinary demands. I have no idea if he will rise to the occasion. Still waiting.
5. THE SPREADING UNEASE IN THE essentially stagnant "markets" seems to be that there is no new money being made so everyone is being extremely careful with static (ie dwindling) funds. A bright side view: "we" are "realizing" that we can't call unnecessary production and consumption of junk "growth." A new paradigm: build to last forever, struggling to be born.
6. GOLD going toward a dollar record, silver stagnating, more or less. Still doesn't seem like a surge to me. Is the flow from the public dwindling? Somebody tell me. If it blows past $1300 I'll change my mind: China and India will have started serious buying again.
7. WHAT THE OPPOSING "SIDES" have in common: axiomatic thinking, incompetent execution. Measurement of performance on the defeat-triumph axis. Tribalism. One should talk with one's "enemies" at every opportunity.
Mullah retread:
In Mullah Nasiruddin's home town they did some construction
work, the financing of which, and the way the contract was awarded not
being the subjects of this story. When the work was done there was a big
pile of dirt left over. Inexplicably, it was not removed, and the builders
turned out to be out-of-towners who could not be located. Discussions undertaken
by the neighborhood association, the permit agencies, and eventually the
city council produced no result. The dirt pile remained.
During the normal drought that summer the dirt blew
all over the place. People complained.
Eventually Mullah decided to take matters into his
own hands. Early one morning he showed up at the dirt pile with a shovel
and started digging a hole next to it. Operating with his usual trance-like
intensity, he soon had a pretty darn big hole. And, not too many days later,
his hole was deeper than the pile of dirt next to it.
Mullah next attacked the pile, enthusiastically
shovelling the dirt into the adjacent hole. How a person of that certain
age accomplished this without wrecking the back I do not understand.
But a certain child, idly observing the show, asked
one of those setup questions that are constant elements of these stories,
to wit:
"Mullah, what are you going to do with the pile
of dirt that you dug out of the hole after you fill up the hole with the
old pile of dirt?"
"Do I have to think of everything?", shouted Nasruddin.
More
opinions - 100s of thousands of words!