Gold and land are stores of value. The value comes from you, or perhaps your family, but not the gold or the land. Your creativity and labor as an instance of the "Creator of All That Is". Your essence/soul comes from that ALL that IS. Value doesn't come from banks, crypto, Federal Reserve Debt notes or frequent flyer miles. Those are all exchanges and means of transferring value and they take their cut along the way.
During the 70s, 80s, and 90s, I seemed to find myself in occupations that were affected by every whim of central bankers. Constantly having to reinvent what I did for a living but never certain that what I learned through much study or skilled craftsmanship would employ 5 years down the road. There was no Google back then, no ChatGPT or Grok, you had to buy the books and magazines. So I set up to find out how markets worked.
In 1988 I worked in England as a software contractor, and if there were ever a place for books on finances it's the City of London. I took train trips into London just to go book shopping. There is an author of the "goto" book on derivatives called "International Financial Markets" by Orlin Grabbe. He was a very bright iconoclast living in Costa Rica, and happened to be brother to a man I worked with in Los Angeles who was quite a gifted programmer on IBM mainframes. Orlin's musings are kind of in the same league as John Macafee. Orlin died a natural death I believe, but some web sites might still carry his thoughts online. You know the type, very bright savants always looking over their shoulders because powerful money interests were always watching them. They could play the game very well but never found any peace doing it.
I didn't understand much about the Rothschilds then, but I vaguely remember my father telling me about their role during WWII. Heather once told me a British contact told her my father was flew secret missions into Switzerland for the US Army Air Corps. Mom did tell us at his funeral that dad was military intelligence, which stunned us. Dad was very chatty about his World War II experiences but he never ever revealed to his kids he was in military intelligence! When I mentioned the Swiss Banking missions my mom was very skeptical. So it's possible he did and just didn't tell his wife. I just can't prove it or disprove it. To complicate all that, dad's paper military records were stored alphabetically by the Army and last names starting with letters E-G were destroyed in a warehouse fire after World War II.
Dad was John Birch adjacent, loved Ayn Rand, and talked about a lot of things people called conspiracy theories even back in 1962. He was known for that, but his friends loved him anyway. And much of what he said was proven correct once the Internet made it possible for millions of people to compare notes.
While I was working in England, I was in a cubicle next to an English software contractor. He kept trying to get me enrolled in the Rothschild Investment Trust which I think was based in the tax haven Isle of Jersey. He told me the fund made 24% a day by funding banks that came up short on their reserves for the closing day, at 1% which rolled from time zone to times zone every day. The whole thing sounded so ludricrous and scammy I didn't pay him much attention. I never put money into the fund. Just felt off to me. My father taught me you made money by what you could do with skills and mind. But the fund was in fact true (might be off in the interest rate but I'm working from memory).
There was one popular Stock Market analyst who wrote an interesting article while I was working there about how homes don't really rise in value against things that don't inflate, just against fiat currency that continuously devalues the currency as a hidden tax on you. Homes in 1930, when adjusted for inflation were actually nearly the same price in 1988. Yes markets go up and down and in the states have job migration which causes home prices to rise, but on the long haul, a home has a utility value as a place to live. When you live overseas you will find that a kilogram of beef pretty much costs the same everywhere. Chicken can be cheaper but not a cow that gives both milk, meat and hides. If meat is going up in price, your money is becoming more worthless.
This rancher is expressing much the same concept. I am not a financial advisor so don't invest based on what I say, but you use your own common sense.
An acre of ground, a 1,000 pound steer, a car, and a house all cost the same in gold in 2026 as they did in 1980. The dollar is the thing that changed. In 1980 the average US house ran 76,000 dollars, or 124 ounces of gold. In 2026 that same house runs 502,000 dollars, or 121 ounces of gold. The average new car cost 7,500 dollars in 1980, or 12 ounces of gold. Today it costs 50,000 dollars, and still 12 ounces of gold. A 1,000 pound steer took almost 1 ounce of gold in 1980. Today it takes 0.58 of an ounce. Farmland ran 740 dollars an acre in 1980, or 1.2 ounces of gold. In 2026 that acre runs about 4,500 dollars, or 1.1 ounces of gold. Every one of those four prices climbed in dollars. In gold, all four held flat. Rational Ranchers ran those four decades of market and USDA numbers side by side, and the pattern holds in every line. I hold ground, cows, and hay. Four decades of those charts say that is where the value stayed whole, so that is where I keep mine. Your rancher, Jason Hanley | 208-714-0478
— AcmeAcres.us (@idahobeef) October 11, 2026
