CHISWICK, WEST LONDON – Greetings from my childhood home…
It’s time for our Friday mailbag edition, where I answer the latest questions you’ve sent in.
This week, we discuss our kids’ education, after a reader warned us of the dangers of homeschooling – including kids believing only what their parents teach them…
We also talk gold… my mother’s house… and our shipping trade. But to kick things off, a kind message from a new reader…
Reader comment: I’ve just read the Postcards for the first time today… I love it! Had no idea about the knowledge, welfare, concern of all the world, all of us who live here and beyond and love, which speaks volume in words and actions. Very enlightening! Thank you for all you do. A new follower.
Thank you for the encouraging words. I’ve said this many times, but I would’ve quit writing these Postcards many months ago if it wasn’t for feedback like you’ve sent us today.
I’m a very insecure writer and believe that it’s self-indulgent to tell the story of one’s own life… And often boring, too. And yet that’s what I do! So thank you. I’ll keep going another day…
Reader comment: Regarding whether homeschool kids believe only what their parents teach them, our experience has been that teaching our kids HOW to think critically is very important. Our daughter once had a conversation with a friend who told her, “Faith is what you believe even though you know it’s not true.”
That is laughable. Faith is what you believe based on the best evidence you can find. Everybody has faith. The content of that faith can be affected by learning to ask questions and finding the best evidence. Many things affect our belief systems and our weighing of the evidence.
To suggest that homeschool kids absorb only what their parents teach them makes me wonder what evidence (or lack thereof) this person has considered in coming to this conclusion.
People often ask us, if we’re not professional teachers, how will we be able to teach the kids once they start getting into advanced subjects like calculus, geology, and organic chemistry.
“We’re not their teachers,” we reply. “We are more like their academic coordinators. We give them a good environment for learning in, and set their hours, but they do all the learning themselves.”
I think we are saying the same thing and that is – faith is discovered, not taught.
Reader comment: I remember the names of several friends from high school, but very few such relationships are lasting ones. Most people never even go to their high school reunions, other than the set of extremely popular former kids who are trying to relive the past. I don’t think that needs to be a significant factor in your consideration for your children’s future.
Being able to make friends and using a high level of social intelligence will help them a lot – and it seems that your kids are developing that skill way better than the average pre-teen.
I taught in government schools for 35 years. I was always mystified that people thought children needed the “socialization” proffered by public schools. To the contrary, what I observed on a daily basis teaching these kids was that they learned to be anti-social, to bully their inferiors, and to suffer the bullying of the abusive kids (or teachers). Keep doing what you two are doing for your kids!
We decided to homeschool because we thought homeschooling would be a better way to socialize our kids than regular school.
Many argue with us about this, so it’s really great to get a letter from a longtime teacher who feels the same way we do about this. Thank you so much for writing in!
Reader comment: I commend you for choosing to sell your mom’s place. It is in line with what you have been saying about the time you have left with your father and with Kate’s parents. It will never make sense to hold on to material possessions if it means sacrificing time you could be spending with the people you say you hold dearest.
My dad passed in January, two weeks after your mom, from cancer. He spent the pandemic urging us kids not to come visit him out of concern for our and his health, so out of respect I didn’t visit him. If I could have, I would have uprooted our whole family just to spend that last eight months of his life with him (his cancer had been in remission until the pandemic).
Good for you for going to spend time with your dad. Just remember to also spend time with Kate’s parents, too, in the future.
I’m very sorry to hear about your dad. I can imagine a little bit how you feel. Thanks for your letter. We hope to spend a lot of time with Kate’s parents, too…
Reader comment: You refer to your reluctance to part with your mother’s possessions as a “selfish indulgence.” I disagree profoundly.
Just over a decade ago, my sister took over my mother’s affairs (without my knowledge), sold her house, and paid a junk hauler to take everything she (my sister) didn’t want. There are items my parents had that did not appear to have much value that I truly wanted (a small stalagmite from Carlsbad Caverns, for example).
There are memories in every item that cannot be easily discarded. So, I would urge you and your three kids to select any of them that hold meaning, regardless of how trivial it may seem. Trust me, keeping memories alive is not an indulgent act. It is a connection with your past, your history.
I hope you’ll give some thought to my words before taking an action that cannot be undone. And that you will give your children the chance to have what is meaningful to them. Warm regards, and thanks for keeping all of your readers posted on your progress.
Thank you for your letter. I understand your message and we will keep what we can. But my mother is gone. We loved her. We said goodbye to her. Now, we must grieve for her and move on.
We will give her possessions the same treatment. Love them. Say goodbye to them. Move on. Where we’re going, they can’t come with us. Same with my childhood roots here in the U.K. It’s sad but it’s necessary. I’m at peace with that…
Reader comment: Regarding the record container ship leasing rates and the recent attention they’ve attracted from the government, you wrote: “It’s not clear to me what they can do about the shortages. None of the big container shipping firms are based in the U.S. or pay taxes to the U.S. government.”
Never underestimate the ability of the government to screw things up.
Agreed. One of the companies I’m looking at in the container ship space right now is a $40 stock and is probably making about $4 dollars per share in free cash flow EVERY MONTH!
The market is obviously skeptical of the container ship boom and so I wonder: “Is government intervention the way I am about to get screwed on this trade?” We’ll see. I read the Chinese government might be getting involved soon, too…
Reader question: Could you please tell me in what form you prefer to hold metals? I like them all – I actually started out as a collector of coins and bars rather than as a hedge against inflation or as an investment.
We mostly hold gold coins. This might sound a little crazy, but the reason I like coins is because they’re hard to sell.
I’ve known myself to make some impulsive investment decisions in my time – especially the selling. I’ve been right, but I sold too early because I flinched.
I don’t want to make the same mistake this time with gold. So I bought gold coins and buried them. I couldn’t sell now, even if I wanted to!
Reader comment: My comment concerns gold. I do own about 20% of my portfolio in gold and minerals. When you say it is a hedge against bedlam and chaos, crazy times, I think you need some perspective on U.S. and world bedlam.
Vietnam, police shooting students, WWII, where Germany WAS the most powerful nation, taking over. All kinds of other wars, dust bowls, the Depression.
If you look back hundreds of years, it’s always been a s***show, just a matter of degrees.
I’d say our times are pretty good when put in perspective. Still, gold is probably better than cash today.
Totally agree with your perspective. We’ve never had it so good as we do now. But then I found this quote in the book Dune, by Frank Herbert…
“The price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life – we went soft, we lost our edge.”
By the way, when I speak of bedlam and chaos (as I put it in last Friday’s mailbag), I’m mostly talking with respect to asset prices and capital flows. Not blood and rubble.
Reader comment: I am interested in your comments about Kinesis and its crypto format. I definitely see it as wealth protection from the dwindling dollar and would appreciate your thoughts!
I am always happy to see new gold and silver innovations. The idea of a gold- and silver-backed cryptocurrency is great and I hope it does well.
I’m just not willing to trust my wealth with it yet. So I’ll be watching with interest. And in the meantime, we’ll keep holding the physical metal.
Reader question: With all central banks devaluing their currency, it is like a Nash equilibrium with no one wanting to blink. The feds are no dummies. They may be forced, along with other central banks, to keep printing, but I wonder if they are not secretly buying gold all the while keeping the price of gold somewhat capped before all hell breaks loose and we return to some form of gold-backed currency.
Is there any way to see and believe where the annual gold production is going? Perhaps the political elite are buying in volume.
I can’t comment on this as I have no idea what goes on inside the federal government. But I think you’re missing the point.
They don’t think about gold. They think about the dollar and the power it gives them to rule the world. And then, they think about all the things they want to spend money on.
They’ve come to a fork in the road now.
They can either keep spending like crazy… but accept a diminished role in world affairs (sort of a default on the dollar’s position at the center of the global financial system).
Or they can support the dollar and the existing structure of the global financial system… but accept a recession and a major deleveraging.
I just don’t think they can have both.
Reader comment: We are in another snap lockdown by decree of Dictator Dan in Victoria, Australia, again. Be thankful that you keep testing negative to Covid. You have chosen a low-stress lifestyle, which promotes a healthy and strong immune system. Great! Your body can defend itself against any pathogen.
Furthermore, Covid is not completely novel, as claimed, and is similar enough to other coronaviruses that a significant population already has natural immunity. You probably have already encountered the virus in your extensive travels and cleared it already to have natural immunity, the best kind.
I hope so. We’ve been so active during this pandemic, I don’t see how we could not have been exposed to it already.
Reader comment: The reader from Israel who invited you to lunch said that he was attached “to the embassy in the Tel Aviv area.” Please be advised that several years ago, the U.S. moved our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This makes me suspicious.
By the way, I highly recommend Israel as a place to visit. My wife and I visited there in 1998 – a time of peace – and it was a life experience.
The U.S. embassy has a branch office in Tel Aviv. Thanks for looking out for us.
Reader comment: We have a house in Idaho Falls and live currently in Lakewood, Colorado. We could possibly help you bring your car from Idaho Falls to Colorado if that would assist. Let us know if that would be useful for you.
Thank you for this kind offer! My worry is the car won’t start because it hasn’t moved in four months. I wouldn’t want to burden you with these mechanical issues in addition to the logistics.
Instead, I think I’m going to fly to Idaho Falls myself, drive the car to Laramie, Wyoming, and leave it with my friend and colleague Dan Denning (who writes The Bonner-Denning Letter with Bill Bonner).
Then, I’m going to rent a car and drive all our possessions to Florida, where I’ll leave them at Kate’s parents’ house. Then, I’ll return to London.
Reader question: I was trying to get an email to Tom on a way I can help him out with his car situation in Idaho Falls by just hitting the reply button to one of his Postcards. Apparently, that doesn’t work. How can I send him an email? Any help would be appreciated.
I’m here! Thanks in advance for thinking of us and how you might help us with our car. I think we figured out the solution…
By the way, you can always write in at [email protected]. I read every note we get at that address.
And that’s all for this week!
Keep your questions and comments coming at the address above, and I’ll respond to as many as I can in these Friday mailbag editions.
(I’ll never reveal your name or potentially identifying details if I decide to republish your note.)
– Tom Dyson
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