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It&rsquo;s the most dangerous time for investors since the 1930s&hellip; and new threats to your wealth appear every week.
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Rickards Uncensored Call (with Jim Rickards 8/23/2024)

Updates

Every new technology brings a rush of excitement and investment. It's a tale as old as innovation itself.
In the 1800s, railroad fever gripped America.&nbsp;
Investors couldn't throw money at tracks and locomotives fast enough.&nbsp;
Fast forward to the late 1990s, and it was all about the internet.&nbsp;
Any company with a ".com" in its name could see its stock price skyrocket overnight.
Now, it's AI's turn in the spotlight.
Over the past two years, artificial intelligence has become the hottest investment theme on Wall Street.
But recently, the market's love affair with AI has hit a speed bump.
Nvidia, the poster child of the AI revolution, has seen its stock tumble 16.5% since announcing earnings last week. This is the same Nvidia that saw its stock price triple in 2023, mind you.
Investors are getting antsy.&nbsp;
They're worried that tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have been pouring money into AI development and Nvidia servers with little to show for it.
Some are even whispering the dreaded B-word: Bubble.
It's an easy conclusion to jump to. After all, we've seen this movie before, right? The hype cycle kicks in, valuations go through the roof, and then... pop!
But hold your horses, folks. The data tells a different story.
<h3>AI is Taking Over</h3>
Unlike other technologies, AI is unique.&nbsp;
It's not just a tool &ndash; it's a tool that's building better tools.
Take Amazon, for example. Their AI assistant, Amazon Q, isn't just a fancy chatbot.&nbsp;
It's a workforce multiplier.
According to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Amazon Q has saved the company a mind-boggling 4,500 developer-years of work.
That's not a typo. 4,500 years.
In cold, hard cash, that translates to $260 million in annualized efficiency gains.
But here's the kicker &ndash; Amazon isn't even using AI to its full potential yet.&nbsp;
They've only upgraded 50% of their production Java systems in six months. Imagine the savings when they hit 100%.
And Amazon isn't alone in embracing AI.
A recent Bloomberg Intelligence survey found that 66% of companies are working on deploying generative AI copilots.&nbsp;
That's double the number from just seven months ago.
The adoption is happening across the board.&nbsp;
From chatbots handling customer service to AI assistants helping with code transformations, the technology is seeping into every corner of the corporate world.
The truth is, AI is probably more prevalent in your workplace than you realize.
That colleague who suddenly got super efficient?&nbsp;
They might be secretly using ChatGPT to respond to emails.
That mind-blowing presentation?&nbsp;
The AI tool Midjourney might have lent a hand with the visuals.
And it's not just giant enterprises.&nbsp;
Small businesses are getting in on the action too.&nbsp;
From AI-powered inventory management to personalized marketing campaigns, the technology is leveling the playing field.
But here's the thing &ndash; we're just getting started.
<h3>The Real Show is About to Begin</h3>
Next month, Apple is set to roll out its Apple Intelligence software.&nbsp;
This move will put AI in the hands of billions, helping people lead more productive and fulfilling lives.
Apple Intelligence isn't just another product launch.&nbsp;
It's a signal that AI has arrived, and it can no longer be ignored.&nbsp;
When Apple gets involved, you know the technology has hit the mainstream.
We're still in the early days of the AI revolution.&nbsp;
If we were to draw a parallel to the internet boom, we'd be somewhere around 1994 or 1996.
Remember, Amazon was just a twinkle in Jeff Bezos' eye back then. Google didn't exist. Facebook was still a decade away. The real game-changers were yet to come.
So, is anyone even using AI?
The answer is a resounding yes.&nbsp;
And soon, everyone will be.
What we're seeing now is just the prequel.&nbsp;
The real show is about to begin.
Buckle up, folks.&nbsp;
The AI revolution isn't a bubble &ndash; it's barely even started.

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Is AI In Bubble Territory?

As I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;re aware, we&rsquo;re in the midst of another presidential election campaign. Plus, House and Senate races, and whatever else is happening in your neck of the woods. You either follow the news or you don&rsquo;t, maybe because you&rsquo;re sick of it all. But wherever you&rsquo;re coming from, I promise&hellip;
We will not discuss current politics today. Instead, we&rsquo;ll take a well-deserved break from the political discourse on this long holiday weekend and discuss geology and copper, meaning the metal, and why it&rsquo;s critical to your investment future.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7IdhyeUgL6DrAUnuhSfhSZ/d9ddc58a2ec399be01ebf9c022b6591e/awn-img1-08-31-24.jpeg" alt="image 1" width="540px" />
Look ahead five, 10, 15 and more years, and copper is worth your time to understand. It&rsquo;s also worth your investment dollars. That is, over almost any frame of reference &mdash; near-term, intermediate or long-term &mdash; you can preserve wealth with copper, which offers limited downside for reasons I&rsquo;ll explain in a moment. And you can grow your nest egg with copper too, again for reasons that I&rsquo;ll lay out anon.
But first, let&rsquo;s take a brief detour to Arizona.
<h2 class="subhead">The &ldquo;Copper State&rdquo;</h2>
Over the past couple of years, I&rsquo;ve made numerous trips to Arizona, often as not to check out copper development projects, copper mines and old copper-mining history. In fact, I was recently out there again, in mid-August with temps well above 100 degrees. Yes, that&rsquo;s hot, despite how people will tell you, &ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s just dry heat.&rdquo; Yeah, right.
Dry or not, it&rsquo;s a freaking furnace outside in the mid-summer, in southern Arizona. Still, there I was, in the field, shod in protective boots (note: carbon-fiber toes are far more comfortable than steel) and wearing long trousers, a long-sleeved shirt, reflective vest and a hard hat. I hiked through cactus, sagebrush and mesquite, walked along roadcuts and railbeds, climbed around outcrops, tried to avoid rattlesnakes, kicked rocks or whacked them with a hammer, and talked about geology with several superb copper guys from both industry and academe.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4s9MKCTqdOEAqLmNSxnHbR/e666d0c723463fb233d7606727b47f49/awn-img2-08-31-24.jpeg" alt="image 2" width="540px" />
On the hunt for Arizona copper. BWK photo.
And do you know what? It&rsquo;s just so much fun; hey, I love it!
The point is, Arizona is called the &ldquo;copper state,&rdquo; and for a good reason: the southern half is underlain by a complex geological assemblage of really old, pretty old, and kind of old rocks. These are all cut by fractures and faults, moved about by folding and other tectonic processes and intruded by super-hot magmas and other deep-earth systems that, over long stretches of geologic time, emplaced a lot of copper into the rocks, along with much else in the way of minerals and metals.
Just to give you a feel for Arizona&rsquo;s copper systems, here's a map that identifies many past and present mine developments for the metal.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/350GEr5TNkcwLxMlH3wMHa/34037f9d850ade1bd944cd30f3127b48/awn-img3-08-31-24.jpeg" alt="image 3" width="540px" />
Courtesy University of Arizona.
Note that there are no red &ldquo;copper&rdquo; dots in the north, in the Colorado Plateau region. This is an area of massive uplifts, which led to the Colorado River carving the Grand Canyon. And to the extent that there&rsquo;s copper in the deep rocks, it has not (yet) been exposed by erosion.
To be perfectly accurate, the lack of copper plays up north doesn&rsquo;t mean that there&rsquo;s no copper; in fact, the metal and its minerals are present in places in northern Arizona, but these are mostly smallish deposits of scientific and historical interest, and not large mineral systems and developments. Get down into the basement rock, and who knows what you&rsquo;ll find.
Also to be perfectly accurate, this southern Arizona copper belt is part of a much larger set of geologic trends of continental scale, as you can see in this map.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1R3XFi45FFZklQ6IojuNkM/4ec37e5009e529d30799ff2fb6bf09f4/awn-img4-08-31-24.jpeg" alt="image 4" width="540px" />
Courtesy University of Arizona.
Geologically, there&rsquo;s much going on in terms of mineralization in what looks like an arc from northern Mexico, in Sonora state, through southern Arizona, wrapping up through California and Nevada, and then into Idaho and Montana. And this doesn&rsquo;t even begin to describe the known, very impressive, mineral deposits and future potential in Utah, Colorado and more.
The point of all this is to focus on how the copper belt of southern Arizona is a region with significant uplift, plus extensive erosion over geologic time. In essence, this brought many formerly deeply buried copper deposits to the surface; or at least, in our time, close enough to prospect and discover.
So, copper is important to Arizona. And if you know a bit more about the place, you might recall the other &ldquo;Cs&rdquo; of the state, aside from its red metal output. That is, Arizona is well known for cattle, cotton, citrus and its wonderful climate in winter, far from the cold, wet, miserable weather back East.
<h2 class="subhead">The State That Almost Wasn&rsquo;t</h2>
Pertinent to that last point, in the 1800s Arizona&rsquo;s dry climate worked against it in terms of what people back East thought. The common view was that Arizona was a vast expanse of austere, desolate Western desert, essentially a long stretch of nothing in particular, except useless geography to cross over on the way to California.
To be fair to people of that era, they worked with limited knowledge; and actually, there were understandable reasons for their negative views of Arizona. As in yes, Arizona was definitely dry, and that certainly was the case in the long-ago days before modern water projects and massive irrigation. At best, back then, Arizona offered a physically challenging frontier life and lifestyle, including great danger from the tough-as-nails Apache who roamed the land.
Indeed, for these reasons and through most of the 1800s, Arizona was considered unfit to be admitted as a formal U.S. state. But time marches onward, and during the late 19th century the American West developed in its own way. And for many decades Arizona held the legal status of an American territory, little more than a national backwater. Except&hellip; the place had a lot of mineral wealth.
In the 1850s through about 1890s, the U.S. Army went about its business out West, often as not fighting the aforementioned Apache in Arizona. Along the way, observant soldiers noticed interesting, shiny minerals along the trails and rock faces. In many instances, the Army guys marked the locations on maps and brought specimens back to their camps and forts.
To make a long story short, more than a few of these Apache-fighting soldiers transformed into the original prospectors of the late 1800s who, either on their own or with the help of better geologic talent, found immense scales of valuable minerals outcropping across southern Arizona. One of the original, and in retrospect legendary, mineral discoveries was at a place called Bisbee, in the southeast part of the state.
<img src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1S75FhQt0FNs6foN0DxXPv/f9c6575e21d3511877b6c34fd3fed76a/awn-img5-08-31-24.jpeg" alt="image 5" width="540px" />
Geologic cross-section through Bisbee, Arizona copper deposits.
Around and beneath Bisbee is a Jurassic-age assemblage of copper mineralization, along with silver, gold and much else. The mineralization was high grade and extensive. All this, and many mineral specimens were stunningly beautiful, which led Arizona promoters to ship them across the U.S., and indeed the world. In this regard, Bisbee minerals played up the importance and wealth of Arizona.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7ElKjj9xvmjg1NNwyVN2je/5127ca75036a8df67dc95a3611090a9d/awn-img6-08-31-24.jpeg" alt="image 6" width="540px" />
Bisbee malachite, azurite, cuprite.
Almost immediately, museums and collectors across America and the world began to acquire Bisbee specimens. Today, you&rsquo;ll find Bisbee mineral examples in museums from Tokyo to St. Petersburg, and all across the U.S. from San Diego to the Smithsonian Institution.
Another way of saying it is that, from a promoter&rsquo;s standpoint, Arizona might be dry, and much of the landscape may look like a desert, but the place was also a gigantic source of primary wealth, per its mineral endowment. And in no small part, this aggressive promotion of Arizona as a mineral district is what led to the territory becoming a U.S. state on Feb. 12, 1912.
The rest is history.
<h2 class="subhead">Copper, Then and Today</h2>
Of course, preceding the massive discoveries in Arizona, America already had a copper industry. It kicked into gear in the 1840s based on excellent ore deposits in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Still, Michigan or no, America&rsquo;s growing national economy required more and more of the red metal. And based on new discoveries out West, certainly with that of Bisbee in the 1880s and then spreading across other finds in the Arizona territory, copper mining grew in prolific fashion and became a key part of the U.S. national scale of industry.
Arizona&rsquo;s copper mines, mills and smelters employed tens of thousands, and fed copper into the U.S. economy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Along the way, innumerable people accumulated (and some lost) immense fortunes.
Again, to make the point, America and the world needed copper during the country&rsquo;s massive, initial period of industrialization, as towns and cities grew along with the population and trends towards urbanization. More and more, and affecting pretty much everyone, people needed copper for everything from household electric wire to telephones, house keys, doorknobs, plumbing and bathroom fixtures, and much else.
American industry also evolved and developed in ways that would have been impossible absent access to large amounts of relatively affordable copper. Consider obvious examples like the electric power industry, which requires copper at every stage from steam turbines to dynamos and generators, as well as wires and transformers. You&rsquo;ll find copper everywhere along the way, from the power plant to the utility hookup and then all through the house or other buildings.
Just imagine the growing amounts of copper that went into everything from streetcar lines to steel mills; and if that&rsquo;s not enough, consider the buildout of a national-scale telephone system.
Think of the iconic American business names that never could have worked out absent copper, used in a myriad of products: companies like General Electric and Westinghouse, or AT&amp;T, RCA, Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, and countless more. Business histories are filled with accounts of CEOs and boards of directors plotting their companies&rsquo; fate based on the price of copper.
Really, when you open it all up, almost everything and every product uses copper. It&rsquo;s as close as the wire in your house or place of work. Or the metal inside cars, trucks, trains, airplanes, ships, telephones, refrigerators, heating systems, air conditioning, building elevators, and on and on. Copper conducts the electricity that pumps water to your house or workplace, and then pumps the sewage away. It&rsquo;s all based on copper; the metal is everywhere.
Along these last lines, and per the old saying, &ldquo;water is life.&rdquo; But take that a step further, to point out that electricity is quality of life; and copper is essential to conducting that electricity.
<h2 class="subhead">What&rsquo;s Happening with Copper?</h2>
For all its importance to industry, however, over time copper has long been a cyclical business marked by booms and busts. Here&rsquo;s a generalized view that goes back over a century, showing prices at the time (yellow line), as well as adjusted for inflation (blue line).
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7H0UTmkO7T81OlfV6Sdaa8/138838aa2650b2c93e9a90caabcfa63f/awn-img7-08-31-24.jpeg" alt="image 7" width="540px" />
The takeaway here is to show how copper did well in the years post World War II, and during the Asia buildout in the 1970s-80s. Plus, look at how well copper performed during China&rsquo;s expansion in the early 2000s.
What the chart doesn&rsquo;t show, though, is baked-in future demand growth for copper, and inevitable shortages and price increases for the metal, all due to several reasons:
<ul>
<li>The world is already in the midst of a general, copper-based electric power grid buildout from what we can just label as &ldquo;normal&rdquo; growth, as literally billions of people in the developing world move towards a better lifestyle.</li>
<li>There&rsquo;s a companion, copper-based grid rebuild in the developed world, certainly here in the U.S. where the country requires a dramatic reboot of the overall power complex, much of which goes back to the 1930s.</li>
<li>We are fast moving towards a dramatic new increase in copper demand, in the U.S. and globally, to move electricity for applications that didn&rsquo;t exist just a few years ago. In particular, this comes from demand growth in the arenas of artificial intelligence (AI), along with the ongoing move to power more and more new cars with electricity versus petroleum-based fuel.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Of course, there&rsquo;s much more to the copper growth story, but for reasons of space, we&rsquo;ll leave it at that. Meanwhile, it&rsquo;s fair to say that the mining industry has lagged for many years in terms of exploration, discovery and investment in new copper mine projects. And this affects not just current supply, but future output. In other words, we&rsquo;re staring down the barrel of strong worldwide growth in copper demand, but limited supplies.
Part of the reason for the lack of past investment was economics, in terms of weak or unsteady copper prices and unfavorable economics to finance new mines. Another angle has been the evolution of resource nationalism across the world, namely the increasing difficulty to obtain exploration concessions, social licenses, and permits to go out and explore. This issue is present in most nations across the globe. And to sum up, at root it&rsquo;s just not very easy to explore, develop and operate in many regions and jurisdictions. (Long story.)
<h2 class="subhead">Back to the Future&hellip; of Copper</h2>
All of which brings us back to the beginning, and why copper is a solid investment idea now, and for many years to come. The downside is limited, in the sense that prices are firm as we look to enter a time of higher demand and weaker supplies from mines and mills. And the upside is apparent in a world where copper prices have been solid and are clearly getting stronger. It means that good, well-run companies will make money, impress Wall Street, and maintain dividends.
At this point, I must give a shout-out to one of the world&rsquo;s great copper mining companies, Freeport McMoRan (FCX). Currently, shares trade in the $43-range, giving the company a market cap of over $62 billion. And it pays a dividend, about 1.8%.
Of interest, and pertinent to this article, Freeport is a new version of the old Phelps Dodge Company, which for many decades owned and operated a series of mines, now closed, at the aforementioned Bisbee site, in Arizona. Of course, Freeport has expanded over the decades. It runs mines in Arizona, elsewhere in the U.S., and overseas in Peru, Chile and Indonesia. The company produces copper, gold, silver and a host of other minerals and metals. And in a rising market for these metals, Freeport looks good in the years ahead.
Another company that works in the copper space is Rio Tinto (RIO), with shares trading now at about $62 and a market cap over $100 billion. Rio pays a dividend of over 6.5% yield, reflecting how it generates cash in this environment.
Rio operates in the U.S. and Canada, including owning the massive copper project at Bingham Canyon, Utah, as well as holding a solid interest in one of the best undeveloped copper plays in North America, at a site called Casino, in the Yukon where Rio works with Western Copper &amp; Gold (WRN).
Rio is far more than copper, though. It mines iron ore in Australia, smelts aluminum in Canada, extracts zirconium in South Africa, and much else. The company has deep technical expertise in a variety of geological and engineering settings, and again is looking forward to meeting world needs in the period of strong demand that is unfolding.
I should note that although I love these companies as good investment opportunities, they won&rsquo;t be tracked as part of the official portfolio here at Strategic Intelligence. But I do follow them and I&rsquo;m always looking for news. If you buy in, be sure to use limit orders, look for down days in the markets, and never chase momentum.
And with all that, I&rsquo;ll end here and thank you for subscribing and reading.

sjn-hero-img-08-28-24 Man's hand holding a piece of copper to examine it for industrial use

shutterstock_2331026771

Jim Rickards&rsquo; Strategic Intelligence is designed to help you prepare and profit from the coming collapse of the dollar.
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To safely guide your investments, Jim has developed a revolutionary way of looking at the financial system and stock markets. He calls it &ldquo;complexity theory,&rdquo; which has been used by government intelligence agencies but never applied to the financial world.
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Preserve and Grow Your Wealth With Copper

Commentaries

In several years of writing Crisis Survival Insider, we have covered physical threats (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires), financial threats (market crashes, bank runs, currency crashes, bond defaults), military threats (including the prospect of nuclear war), and social threats (riots, crime, the breakdown of civilization). That&rsquo;s quite a list!
Yet, one danger to your physical and financial well-being we have not covered is mental health. That may be the most important crisis survival measure of all. If your mental health is not balanced, that will stand in the way of high performance in the face of any other crisis whether it be physical, financial military or social. On that basis, it&rsquo;s worth some consideration.
<h2 class="subhead">Achieving Good Mental Health</h2>
To be clear, I&rsquo;m not a mental health professional. I have a lot of advanced degrees, but none of them are in medicine, psychology or psychiatry. That said, I have a no doubt biased view that most mental health professionals go into that field because of their own mental health issues.
In effect, they study the science because they&rsquo;re trying to cure themselves. Instead, as practitioners they end up causing confusion in the minds of a lot of their patients. My approach is much simpler. Just to do what&rsquo;s most beneficial based on common sense and observed experience. It&rsquo;s a pragmatic approach. Just do what works.
The place to start for good mental health is with good physical health. If you&rsquo;re burdened with obesity, lethargy, oxygen deprivation, pulmonary problems, high blood pressure or other syndromes or diseases, it&rsquo;s difficult to put your mind at ease. Of course, some of these conditions are hereditary or contagious and perhaps can&rsquo;t be helped. But most are either a matter of self-control (diet, exercise, drinking in moderation) or can easily be treated (I have asthma, but I have treated it successfully for over twenty years and it has never inhibited my mountain-climbing expeditions!)
Exercise is a key to mental health quite apart from the physical benefits. Most people either don&rsquo;t have the time or money to spend two hours per day, five or six days per week in a gym with a professional trainer. Here&rsquo;s the good news: You don&rsquo;t have to! The science is clear that 30 minutes of walking at a moderate-to-brisk pace four of five days per week will give you 90% of the cardiovascular benefits of an intense workout at 0% of the cost. All you need is nice weather and a relatively small amount of time.
Diet is mostly a matter of self-control and moderation. There are a million diets out there. Most of them are fads and whatever weight you lose will soon be regained and then some. (Believe me, I know). One diet that does seem to work well is n class="subhead"ot about the food, it&rsquo;s about the timing. It&rsquo;s called intermittent fasting.
The basic idea is you finish dinner around 7:00 pm (or earlier) and then don&rsquo;t eat again until 8:00 am the next morning. No after-dinner treats or midnight snacks. Of course, that habit can reduce calories, but the real benefit comes from the 13-hour stretch between meals. It gives the body ample time to make use of the last meal in a way that doesn&rsquo;t add body fat. Those long stretches between meals are akin to the way humans lived before food abundance and refrigeration. Cro-Magnon Man had a meal and necessarily went a long time before the next one. Back to the future!
<h2 class="subhead">Get Outside</h2>
Apart from diet and exercise, just being outside is healthy. We spend too much time indoors in front of TV or computer screens. This situation was made worse by the pandemic lockdowns, which were ridiculous in themselves but made the indoor default position worse.
Being outside gives you fresh air (as opposed to stale, recirculated or air-conditioned air) and more importantly gives you exposure to the sun. You don&rsquo;t want to get sunburned, but moderate exposure to the sun is a natural source of Vitamin D among other benefits. Since outdoor exposure can be combined with your 30-minute walk, it&rsquo;s a two-fer.
Drinking to excess is obviously harmful, but a glass or two of wine once or twice a week can be relaxing and has health benefits of its own. The same goes for tobacco. Habitual smoking can lead to numerous diseases including cancer, emphysema and pulmonary diseases. Still, a nice cigar on the veranda once a month or so can be an enjoyable and relaxing experience. Just make sure the cigar is expensive, preferably Cuban or Dominican. A spot of whisky or rum on the side won&rsquo;t hurt. And it&rsquo;s not a guy thing. Some of the most interesting women I know enjoy a cigar as much as the guys.
<h2 class="subhead">Achieving Balance</h2>
A good hobby or even a side business is a great way to keep balance in your life and avoid being totally wrapped up in your job. Online venues like eBay and Etsy make it easy to set up your own shop.
Collecting is a great pastime whether it&rsquo;s wine, cigars, cars, watches, coins or stamps; (Janet Yellen lists her stamp collection in her mandatory government financial disclosure forms). Don&rsquo;t just collect. Spend time learning about the history and technical terms in the areas you chose for collecting. I have a modest watch collection and, yes, I do know the purpose of a double-axis tourbillion in a watch movement. Most people express interest in others&rsquo; collections. You&rsquo;ll never be at a loss for dinner conversation.
Traveling, reading and sports are all great ways to live a more interesting life and get out of mental and physical ruts. Sailing is a great example of how to combine all three: Sailing is a sport; you travel when you&rsquo;re sailing, and there are tons of books to read about the places you&rsquo;re sailing to. Mountain climbing, bicycling, hiking, tennis and trekking are other good examples. Photography is a great avocation that can be combined with all forms of sport or travel. Reading is the cheapest and easiest way to unwind. Books are relatively inexpensive and a good one can take your mind a million miles away.
<h2 class="subhead">The Spiritual Component</h2>
Finally, we come to the greatest sources of relaxation that help to maintain mental health &ndash; religion and meditation. I&rsquo;m not here to prescribe a particular religion. I happen to be Catholic, but I&rsquo;ve studied every major religion from Judaism to Buddhism and I know they all offer their practitioners comfort and peace of mind. (The non-religious can still meditate; that works too).
Miracles and visions are real (I&rsquo;ve experienced quite a few), and they remind you that that the mysterious and supernatural world is much bigger and more interesting than our own relatively confined existence. And, yes, prayers are answered. That&rsquo;s another source of comfort.
We&rsquo;ve offered a list of things to do to improve mental health. I have a short list of things not to do to achieve the same goal. Avoid cable TV and political podcasts. I have to absorb a lot of political information to do my analyses, but I receive almost all of it in written form where I can control the tempo and easily discard the garbage. TV sports may be fine, but avoid the political junk. Joe Scarborough (on the left) and Sean Hannity (on the right) are both out to push your buttons. Don&rsquo;t let them.
There&rsquo;s a lot more to write on the topic and I&rsquo;m sure you can make your own additions to my suggestions. The point is to break out of your habits and engage in new and healthy pursuits in the form of outdoor activities, sports, hobbies, reading, religion, meditation and travel. Balance the routines with something new. Good mental health is just a question of balance. With a balanced mind, any other crises can be taken in stride.
We&rsquo;ll be back next month with more analyses of what types of catastrophes to expect and specific guidance on how to prepare for and survive them. Until then, stay safe.

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It Just Takes Balance

Intel Corp. (INTC) got slammed last week.
The market was not happy after the company reported earnings.&nbsp;
The stock plummeted 26% on Friday and then it dropped 6% on Monday in the middle of a broad market selloff.&nbsp;
But I don&rsquo;t see disaster. In fact, I&rsquo;m buying.&nbsp;
I&rsquo;m bullish on Intel's long-term prospects and I believe the current share price represents a great buying opportunity.
Intel's has the potential to return to what it once was: the best chipmaker on the planet. The company is clearly on a turnaround path to reclaim process supremacy in chip manufacturing.&nbsp;
Under CEO Pat Gelsinger's leadership, Intel is on track to introduce its 20A (2 nanometer) process in 2024 and 18A (1.8 nanometer) process by the end of 2025. Mass-producing these advanced chips will put Intel back on the map.
It isn't just talk; Intel has been hitting its milestones so far, giving me confidence in its ability to execute.
Last week&rsquo;s earnings call provided evidence of progress. Gelsinger announced that Intel released the 1.0 PDK (Process Design Kit) for 18A last month, an important step that allows customers and partners to begin designing chips for this advanced process node.&nbsp;
Moreover, Intel's Panther Lake processor for client computers and Clearwater Forest processor for servers &ndash; both on 18A &ndash; have already achieved power-on and are on track to launch next year.&nbsp;
18A is a technical achievement and will represent Intel&rsquo;s fifth new process launch in just four years &ndash; demonstrating Intel's ability to deliver on its roadmap.
<h3>The Foundry Game-Changer</h3>
Historically, Intel only made chips for Intel. But the company has launched a foundry business where it can make chips for customers. Intel's expansion into the foundry business is a big part of why I see a trillion-dollar valuation for Intel in the future.&nbsp;
By aiming to become the manufacturer of choice for leading semiconductor design companies worldwide, Intel is positioning itself to capture a significant portion of the high-end chip market &ndash; a market currently dominated by Taiwan Semi.
During the earnings call, Gelsinger reaffirmed Intel's target of $15 billion in foundry revenue by the end of the decade. As of now, in fact, the company has a pipeline worth $15 billion in lifetime deal value from committed foundry customers. While near-term opportunities are focused on advanced chip packaging, the release of the 18A PDK has sparked increased interest from potential customers.
<h3>The AI Accelerator</h3>
Intel's participation in the AI chip market, particularly with its Gaudi 3 AI accelerator, is another reason why I think it&rsquo;s a great time to buy Intel.&nbsp;
The upcoming launch of the Gaudi 3 AI accelerator, later this quarter, will help Intel grab a share currently owned by Nvidia. According to Intel, Gaudi 3 promises to deliver roughly twice the performance per dollar in both inference and training compared to Nvidia's H100. And with Nvidia delaying the launch of its new Blackwell accelerators by months, it could create a great opening for Intel.
On top of that Intel is making significant strides in the AI PC category. The company has already shipped more than 15 million Windows AI PCs since December. It&rsquo;s on track to ship over 40 million by year-end.&nbsp;
The upcoming Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake processors will further extend Intel's leadership in this space, with Panther Lake on 18A set to deliver even more improvements next year.
<h3>Geopolitical Advantage&nbsp;</h3>
With concerns over the concentration of advanced chip manufacturing in Taiwan, Intel's focus on U.S. and European production facilities offers an alternative.&nbsp;
Both the Biden administration and potential future administrations emphasize the importance of domestic semiconductor production, aligning perfectly with Intel's strategy.&nbsp;
<h3>Near-Term Challenges</h3>
Intel's recent earnings report and guidance were disappointing. The company faced headwinds from weaker-than-expected gross margins, driven by an accelerated ramp-up of AI PC products and the transition of Intel 4 and Intel 3 wafers from Oregon to Ireland.&nbsp;
While this left a mark on near-term margins, it's a strategic move that will yield long-term benefits, including $1 billion in capital savings and improved gross margins as the Ireland fab scales up.
In response to these challenges and softer near-term demand, Intel has also announced an aggressive cost reduction plan. The company aims to cut operating expenses to approximately $20 billion in 2024 and $17.5 billion in 2025, representing a more than 20% reduction from prior estimates.&nbsp;
These cuts aren&rsquo;t an easy decision, but they show that Intel&rsquo;s management is committed to maintaining profitability and improving efficiency.
<h3>Why I'm Buying the Dip</h3>
The recent plunge in Intel's stock price doesn't change why I like Intel. If anything, it makes the opportunity more attractive.&nbsp;
In fact, I believe Intel has the potential to reach a trillion-dollar valuation by 2030. The market is reacting to short-term results, but Intel's turnaround is a multi-year journey. The company's progress in process technology, foundry services, and AI accelerators are still in their early stages.&nbsp;
With a commitment to technological leadership, the current price represents a great buy opportunity, should Intel continue to execute on its turnaround plan. With 18A technology on track and showing good early results, Intel is setting up to regain process leadership.
Intel is also well-positioned to capitalize on the growing AI market, both in data centers with Gaudi 3 and in client devices with its AI PC initiative.&nbsp;
While the market focuses on quarterly results, I'm looking at Intel's potential over the next 5-10 years.&nbsp;
Yes, there will be challenges. Competition remains fierce, and Intel must flawlessly execute its ambitious roadmap.&nbsp;
But the potential reward is huge. If successful, Intel's ongoing revamp could be one of the greatest turnarounds in tech history, right up there with Apple after Steve Jobs came back to the company in 1997.
At just under $20 per share, Intel represents what I believe to be a rare opportunity to invest in a potential future trillion-dollar company at a fraction of that valuation, so consider buying the dip here.&nbsp;
It often pays to be greedy when others are fearful. And right now, I'm feeling greedy.

Why I'm Buying Intel After the Selloff

When it comes to innovation, Mark Zuckerberg is no slouch.
This week, the Facebook founder took his boldest step yet&hellip; releasing a powerful new AI model that has engineers at top AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic scrambling.
The newest model, Llama 3.1, builds on the capabilities of Facebook&rsquo;s previous Llama 3 model, with improvements in its abilities to use common sense, follow instructions, and answer math questions. 
According to common industry benchmarks, Facebook&rsquo;s newest model surpasses the accuracy of the latest models from competitors like ChatGPT and Claude 3.5.
As with previous LLama models, Facebook is giving LLama 3.1 away for free &ndash; developers are free to use and improve 3.1 to meet their specific needs.
For companies with AI-intensive tasks, the flexibility of 3.1 is a financial godsend.
According to Meta, the costs of operating Llama 3.1 on a company&rsquo;s infrastructure are 50% less than using the latest models from OpenAI.
Perhaps most excitingly, Llama 3.1 comes with a new legal license that allows developers to use the model to train their own models.
Previous LLama versions had specific restrictions on how developers could take content produced by Llama and use that as input into new AI models.
This concept, called &ldquo;synthetic data,&rdquo; is becoming an increasingly important topic in the next generation of AI development.
Current AI language models have been able to advance by absorbing as much information as possible in order to get smarter.
However, scientists are quickly reaching the limits of the amount of information available to train AI models.
The latest models from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and others have already been trained on nearly the entire public internet and every document ever published.
This means that in order to make AI smarter, scientists are now using AI to create content to train the next generation of models.
With Llama 3.1, researchers and businesses are now free to use Meta&rsquo;s model to create new content.
The policy change represents the latest signal from Zuckerberg that he does not believe that the latest AI tools pose a risk to Meta&rsquo;s profits.
Also worth noting &ndash; the release of 3.1 comes just three months after Meta released its last model update, Llama 3.
This release speed is unheard of in the world of slow-moving big tech companies.
Zuckerberg predicts that at the current rate, Llama will be able to easily surpass the abilities of all competing AI models by sometime next year.
Of course, this sort of development speed comes at a price.
In an earnings call this week, Meta executives indicated that they plan to spend about $2 billion more on capital expenditures (capex)&hellip; including pricey Nvidia servers for developing new AI models.
That pushes Meta&rsquo;s estimated spending into the range of $37 billion to $40 billion for the year.
Despite the expense, Meta is optimistic about the outcome.
Meta&rsquo;s sales in the quarter increased 22% over the past year, a growth rate nearly double that of sales at Google.
Zuckerberg attributed that increase in sales as one of the benefits of the company&rsquo;s AI investment&hellip;
<h3>More Than Just a Tech Flex</h3>
In addition to developing the Llama family of models, Meta has quietly been hard at work improving the AI that powers its recommendation and advertising algorithms.
Meta&rsquo;s success in monetizing AI could give the company greater freedom to invest in even more AI projects.
This comes at a time when other big tech companies are struggling to make the same case to Wall Street.
Just one day prior, Microsoft told investors that growth in its cloud computing business had slowed in the most recent quarter.&nbsp;
Microsoft&rsquo;s cloud business has been a major source of growth &ndash; and expense &ndash; in recent months as the company pushes to achieve sales growth from its investment in OpenAI and other AI projects.
All of this is to say, Zuckerberg's aggressive push into AI with Llama 3.1 is more than just a tech flex&hellip; it's a strategic move that could reshape the AI landscape.&nbsp;
By offering a powerful, cost-effective, and open-source model, Meta is positioning itself as a key player in the AI arms race.
For investors, this signals that Meta isn't just riding the AI wave &ndash; it's aiming to create a tsunami.
The company's ability to rapidly innovate, coupled with its growing revenue from AI-powered advertising, suggests Meta could be a dark horse in the AI market.&nbsp;
While other tech giants struggle to monetize their AI investments, Meta's approach could lead to sustained growth and market dominance.
This development matters because it shows Meta's potential to disrupt the AI industry, potentially offering better returns on AI investments than its competitors while literally giving away its AI tech.&nbsp;
Investors should keep a close eye on Meta's AI initiatives, as they could be a significant driver of future value and market position in the rapidly evolving tech landscape.

Facebook’s Most Powerful AI Yet

Miscellaneous

Twitter takeovers, AI chatbots, Cybertrucks, brain chips, and humanoid robots &ndash; at first glance, it might look like the world's richest man is throwing darts at a board labeled "futuristic ideas&rdquo;.
But, here&rsquo;s the thing:
None of this is random. Musk has a singular goal with everything he does &ndash; and AGI is at the center of it.
Allow me to explain, starting from the top.
Let&rsquo;s take a quick look at the Cybertruck.
Tesla recently announced new updates to the Cybertruck&rsquo;s Off-Road Mode. This includes being able to lock the mechanical locking differentials.
Meaning? &ldquo;By locking the diffs,&rdquo; says Andrei Nedelea of Inside EVs, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re splitting the torque equally and forcing both wheels on the axle to turn at the same speed. This is extremely handy in low-traction situations, like when driving over snow, ice or sand, as well as when rock crawling and the vehicle is in an extreme cross axle articulation situation.&rdquo;
The Cybertruck isn&rsquo;t just a cool car. It&rsquo;s a prototype Mars ground vehicle. After all, the initial delays in getting it to market was because it uses the same stainless steel alloy SpaceX planned to use for the Starship.
Perhaps that&rsquo;s why it&rsquo;s spotted in all types of extreme terrains &ndash; even those useful for testing the Mars rover.
In case there&rsquo;s any doubt, Musk said it outright: a "pressurized edition" of the Cybertruck will be the "official truck of Mars."
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1pwCtcod3IXqZSJfdtqmDw/21db6d9ca3f66b34e1109f4688cdc8f3/pmg-update-7-24-24-img-1.png" alt="" width="540px" />
Also&hellip;
Tesla Energy just reported that Powerwall and Tesla Megapack achieved record storage deployments.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6ipiLfQWq5nbDKtcc2rwn4/1599c39a2eb13aece9e7469ae26a4bbf/pmg-update-7-24-24-img-2.png" alt="" width="540px" />
In practical terms, this means Tesla has installed more battery storage systems than ever before in a single quarter. These systems could be in homes (Powerwall) or in larger installations for utilities or businesses (Megapack).
While large-scale storage can help us out here on Earth, no doubt&hellip;
Powerwall and Megapack technologies are training grounds for creating self-sufficient energy systems. These storage solutions are crucial for managing intermittent solar power, key for Mars. (Even if nuclear power is the play, advanced storage systems are necessary.)
Starlink? Not only could a similar constellation of satellites be deployed around Mars for local communication&hellip; It could also provide the backbone for communication between Mars and Earth.
Astranis, a SpaceX partner, has a long-term goal of getting satellites in higher and higher orbits, but also in &ldquo;Lagrange points&rdquo; &ndash; locations in deep space where gravitational forces balance between two large bodies (stars or planets).
In any two-body system, there are five Lagrange points (L1 to L5). These spots can be used as relay stations for deep space communication &ndash; a multiplanetary Internet.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4q5kffPQ9HvZvDoqTaeX6g/c15938e3de22e68ff95229130ecefee3/pmg-update-7-24-24-img-3.png" alt="" width="380px" />
The Boring company?
Fun fact: The diameter of the Boring Company's tunneling machines (8 meters) matches the diameter of the cargo size on SpaceX's Starship (9 meters), suggesting the technology could be used in conjunction with SpaceX's Mars missions.
Also, the very first Boring Company tunnel ever created was underneath the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne California.
Musk is laying groundwork for infrastructure crucial for his Mars colonization plans. Underground transport systems (like the Vegas Loop) can be adapted for efficient, protected travel between Martian habitats.
Subterranean habitats, after all, offer better protection from radiation and micrometeorites, more stable temperatures, and virtually unlimited horizontal expansion potential.
Flamethrowers? Rapid prototyping and development of tools &ndash; yes even tools like flamethrowers &ndash; is an essential skill on Mars. Automation will play a huge role here, hence the robots.
What about Dogecoin? Seems pretty random, right? Well&hellip; it&rsquo;s true that Musk wants X to be the &ldquo;everything app&rdquo;, including payments.
Engaging crypto is a strategic move.
What else is true? Cryptos are ideal for space economies due to their decentralized nature and ability to function without intermediaries. Perhaps that&rsquo;s why SpaceX partnered with Samuel Reid, founder of Geometric Space Corporation (GSC), to test crypto in deep space.
Here&rsquo;s what Tom Ochinero at SpaceX said: "This mission will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency beyond Earth orbit and set the foundation for interplanetary commerce.&rdquo;
No less&hellip;
Mars will require growing food indoors. Musk's brother Kimbal started Square Roots vertical farming in cargo containers with the goal of changing farming here on Earth but also&hellip; that&rsquo;s right&hellip; growing food on Mars.
One tweet from Kimbal says it all:
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/56V9DBJtPEDzrHUORQ9lU2/49abce5284845d8d992ca9d2d82fd8f3/pmg-update-7-24-24-img-4.png" alt="" width="540px" />
Last April, Musk said it openly: &ldquo;SpaceX is the horse, everything else is the cart.&rdquo;
Point is&hellip;
All these seemingly disparate and random moves are part of his master plan. And there&rsquo;s one thing that&rsquo;s going to pull it all together: AGI.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">AGI Wars </h2>
First stop: Tesla's Gigafactory in Austin, Texas. Already a behemoth of car manufacturing, it's now becoming a cathedral to computation.
Musk has poured billions into a supercomputer cluster. We're talking 50,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs paired with 20,000 of Tesla's own AI chips. That's enough processing power to simulate entire worlds.
But Musk isn't stopping there.
In Memphis, his XAI venture is constructing what he calls the "gigafactory of compute." To that end, they just launched 100,000 liquid cooled H100s, making it the world&rsquo;s most powerful AI training cluster.
The endgame? 300,000 units of Nvidia's next-gen B200 GPU, several times more powerful than the current top dog. Musk wants this digital Goliath up and running by 2026.
Again, all of Musk's ventures &ndash; Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, XAI, even his Twitter/X shenanigans &ndash; they're all pieces of a larger puzzle.
<ol>
<li>Tesla isn't just about electric cars. It's also about creating a vast network of mobile autonomous robots, each one contributing to a supercomputer that could rival anything in a stationary data center.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="2">
<li>Neuralink isn't just about helping the disabled. It's about creating a direct interface between the human brain and artificial intelligence &ndash; crucial for high-risk space missions. (See Neuralink&rsquo;s test patient Noland Arbaugh&rsquo;s comments on his newfound ability to control devices, eventually robots, with his mind.)</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>The humanoid robots aren't just about replacing human labor. They're about creating a physical extension of AI into the real world, gathering real-world data, and training for the Big Mission.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="4">
<li>And X (formerly Twitter)? It's not just a social media platform. It's a real-time data feed of human thought and behavior, the perfect training ground for AI.</li>
</ol>
All of these initiatives feed into Musk's ultimate goal:
To create an artificial general intelligence (AGI) that can help solve all of these challenges &ndash; on Earth and especially beyond.
And then? Make humans multi-planetary. Fortunately, the same tools that will make us resilient in space will also make us far more resilient on Earth, too.
At the center of this push is AGI.
This is just the beginning.
As usual, we&rsquo;re on the lookout for the under-the-radar plays in this space (no pun intended).

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Then there&rsquo;s Jim Rickards, former advisor to the CIA and Pentagon. The U.S. intelligence community has contracted him to use AI to help predict everything from financial crises to terrorist threats.
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AGI Wars: Musk’s Master Plan

In addition to what might be regarded as &ldquo;normal&rdquo; extreme events (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes), we&rsquo;ve also written about &ldquo;ultra&rdquo; extreme events such as nuclear war. In every case, there are some crisis survival strategies that can be utilized.
If you&rsquo;re near ground zero in a nuclear strike, you&rsquo;re either killed immediately or will die soon after. But if you&rsquo;re at some distance from the detonation, the immediate problem is fallout and the intermediate problem is the collapse of civil infrastructure. There actually are survival strategies that can be applied in both cases, and we have written about those. After all, humanity survived the Black Death and Genghis Khan, so there&rsquo;s no need to feel helpless.
In this issue of Crisis Survival Insider, we look at another extreme event that should be put in the &ldquo;ultra&rdquo; category and is perhaps more likely than a nuclear war. That event would be a complete collapse of the electric power grid. It&rsquo;s not the end of the world but it is the end of the world with electricity. We&rsquo;re not looking at a blackout that might last a few days. We&rsquo;re considering one that might last months or longer before power can be restored. What can you do to prepare for that eventuality?
<h2 class="subhead">If The Power Goes (You Can Cope!)</h2>
A good place to start is to read Ted Koppel&rsquo;s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-Cyberattack-Unprepared-Surviving/dp/0553419986/ref=sr_1_1">Lights Out</a>, about how a cyberattack could take out the entire U.S. power grid. Koppel&rsquo;s scenario is one of many that could play out. The grid could also be disabled by natural disasters, terrorism or simple incompetence. Still, Koppel does a good job of explaining the aftermath of such an event and how most Americans take electricity for granted and are completely unprepared for such an event.
In fact, there is a lot you can do to prepare. One source of comfort is the simple realization that it was not that long ago that the United States had no electricity. Benjamin Franklin and other 18th century scientists were able to isolate electricity as a natural force and relate it to well-known phenomena such as lightning. In the 19th century, scientists found ways to generate electricity and store it in batteries. Still, those experiments and technical advances were on a relatively small scale.
It was not until the early 20th century that electricity for everyday use became widespread in U.S. cities and some towns. It was well into the 1930s before electricity reached most rural areas under FDRs rural electrification program. If your great-grandparents and earlier generations were able to cope without electricity, so can you!
<h2 class="subhead">Surviving A Power Grid Shutdown</h2>
The following is a description of instruments, tools and techniques that are readily available, extremely useful and that require no electricity. We have intentionally excluded items that rely on batteries or solar power (which also requires batteries). Those are fine and if you have them, use them. But batteries run down and very few homes have the solar modules and industrial scale batteries needed to operate off the grid. With that in mind, here's your shopping list for surviving a complete shut-down of the power grid:
Have a watch or mechanical clock. A good quality Swiss-made automatic watch (which means self-winding) will serve you well. Of course, it tells the time. But watches have what are called &ldquo;complications,&rdquo; which are added features devised by master watchmakers. Some complications will let you read the time in two times zones. Other dive-rated watches (called &ldquo;divers&rdquo;) are water resistant to 300 meters (about 1,000 feet). Some watches can compute altitude (by letting air in the case that reacts with a mini barometer).
Did you know that you can use any watch as a compass? Simply align the hour hand with the direction of the sun. North will be the point halfway between the hour hand and 12:00 moving clockwise starting at 12:00. You can easily fill-in the rest of the compass once you have North. (Use 1:00 during Daylight Savings Time. The process is different in the southern hemisphere; you align the 12:00 numeral with the sun and then move to the hour hand). Of course, it&rsquo;s a good idea to have a pocket compass handy anyway!
You can also determine your latitude using a watch (set to solar time in your location) if you separately know the exact time in Greenwich, England (the Prime Meridian or Greenwich Mean Time). This requires two watches (or a watch and a clock). Longitude can be determined by matching the position of the sun at noon or the stars at night to a chart. (Adjustments need to be made if your altitude is materially above sea level). One model of the Breitling Navitimer watch actually has a circular slide rule printed on the watch face that is operated by turning the bezel. I have one and it works fine. Who needs a pocket calculator!
It&rsquo;s great that watches are so versatile but there&rsquo;s no reason not to have all of the instruments that watches can mimic. By all means, have a thermometer and barometer. Good quality instruments can make you a serviceable weather forecaster in no time. When the barometer reading is dropping, a storm is on the way. When it&rsquo;s rising, there are fair skies ahead. A thermometer used in conjunction with the barometer will tell you if a coming storm is rain or ice and snow.
Another useful tool is a hand-cranked radio. This has a battery, but the battery is charged by winding a crank so there&rsquo;s no need for a separate power source to use it indefinitely. AM/FM bands are standard, but make sure it has a short-wave (SW) band also. Short-wave radio signals can be picked up over greater distances so you may be able to receive news from distant points that are outside your area of no electricity.
For transportation, the best bet is a bicycle. It should have a basket or saddlebag so you can carry food home from whatever local farmer&rsquo;s market you can access. Don&rsquo;t buy a top-of-the-line racing bike with skinny tires. Buy something more robust with off-road capability. That can mean fatter tires and upright handlebars, but you&rsquo;ll still need at least six gears or more to get up and down hills without too much difficulty.
Keep a full tool chest and a workshop or garage full of larger implements. Saws and axes will be good for firewood. Hammers, wrenches and screwdrivers can be used for repairs. Duct tape and WD-40 or other lubricant are good for everything. Shovels are needed for removing snow or perhaps digging a well if the water table is not too deep.
My favorite survival technique is a large well-curated library. It will not only be a great source of education and relaxation, but your texts will be full of practical information that will help with survival independent of any educational value. Start with the Bible and the Boy Scout Handbook, then build your collection from there.
For food, you can stock up on canned goods and non-perishable items like 25-pound sacks of rice. Freeze-dried non-perishable &ldquo;survival&rdquo; food kits that can provide hundreds of meals that last for years are readily available. For cooking, you can have a wood-burning stove or barbecue (with a good supply of charcoal or propane tanks).
Put in large supplies of medicines such as aspirin, Tylenol, bandages, antiseptics, ace bandages and more. Aloe plants are easy to keep and are an excellent treatment for burns and bites.
For fresh protein, you can hunt game birds. Good idea to take a two-day course in how to gut them and prepare them for eating. Building a pond stocked with fish is another source of protein. I did that once only to discover the Great Blue Herons and Bald Eagles ate my fish. I called it the world&rsquo;s most expensive bird feeder. The fishpond idea works better if you don&rsquo;t have predator birds in your vicinity. A good fishing stream or river nearby is another good source of fresh fish.
As always, the most critical item on the list is water. For this you can drill an artesian well with a hand pump or fetch water from a stream or pond. Be careful to boil before drinking or use purification tablets. Doing both should be a safe approach.
The main point is that none of this is impossible or even particularly difficult. It just means living like all Americans lived until around 1870. Cyberterrorism aimed at our power grid may take us back to the future sooner than we expect.

If The Lights Go Out

Imagine owning the only source of drinking water in a desert.
Now imagine that desert was Dubai in the 1990s before it became a world-class city growing like crazy.
It&rsquo;s an enviable position and exactly the position Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) finds itself in today.
TSM, the unsung hero powering your iPhone and probably half the gadgets in your house, just dropped a bombshell that's got Wall Street salivating.
The world's largest contract chipmaker reported a jaw-dropping 32% year-over-year increase in Q2 revenue, raking in a cool $20.67 billion.
With a firm lock on the white-hot market for chip manufacturing, it's no surprise that TSM is cleaning up.
However, TSM&rsquo;s success could have been predicted by anyone keeping an eye on technology news&hellip;
<h2 class="subhead nbp">The AI Gold Rush</h2>
It's no secret that we're in the middle of an AI gold rush.
TSM is not just selling pickaxes; they're manufacturing the entire mining operation.
The surge in demand for artificial intelligence applications has TSM's factories working overtime.
They're the go-to chip manufacturer for AI giants like Nvidia, Apple, AMD, Qualcomm, Google, and more.
In fact, TSM produces a mind-boggling 92% of the world's most sophisticated chips.
To put this into perspective, the oil cartel OPEC has just a 40% market share in the global supply of crude oil.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">Just Getting Started</h2>
What has investors most excited is how TSM is pushing the boundaries of what's possible in chip manufacturing:
<ol>
<li>2nm Chip Production: TSM is gearing up for trial production of 2nm chips next week, more than 3 months ahead of schedule. In the slow-moving world of chip manufacturing, they&rsquo;re running circles around the competition. </li>
<li>Expansion Plans: The company is readying six fabs in Taiwan for 2nm process in 2025 and beyond. They're also bringing this cutting-edge tech to their Arizona plant. This will allow them to take advantage of US government subsidies provided by the CHIPS Act and diversify their operations beyond their Taiwan base. </li>
<li>Investment in Innovation: TSM is doubling down on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, with plans to acquire 60 of these $205 million behemoths from ASML by next year.</li>
</ol>
<h2 class="subhead nbp">The Paradigm Press Crystal Ball</h2>
Our team first recommended TSM in our <a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/media/million-dollar-ai-portfolio">Million-Dollar AI Portfolio </a>back in September of 2023.
At the time, the stock was trading at just $85.45.
Since then, the stock has skyrocketed 117%, not to mention the $1.57 (1.8%) in dividends they&rsquo;ve distributed.
But here's the kicker &ndash; this might just be the beginning. With AI demand showing no signs of slowing down and TSM's technology edge widening, we could be looking at the next tech titan in the making.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">The Road Ahead</h2>
Of course, no journey to the top is without its bumps. TSM faces challenges:
<ol>
<li>Geopolitical Tensions: The ongoing China-Taiwan situation keeps investors on their toes. As I mentioned earlier, TSM is highly concentrated in Taiwan. If China chooses to escalate its military position on Taiwan, it would be a hit to TSM&rsquo;s stock. </li>
<li>Competition: Intel and Samsung are nipping at TSM's heels, particularly in the race for 2nm chip production. Right now they&rsquo;re much smaller, but TSM&rsquo;s dominance has their customers nervous, meaning that TSM&rsquo;s competitors will likely chip away (pun intended) at their lead as soon as they get their own 2nm production up and running. However, if TSM's track record is anything to go by, they're not just prepared for these challenges; they're probably already working on solutions to stay one step ahead of the competition.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>Capacity Constraints: TSM will likely struggle to keep up with the insatiable appetite for AI chips. Some reports have indicated that Apple has already called dibs on all of TSM&rsquo;s 2nm capacity. Of course, this sort of deal doesn&rsquo;t come cheap. If the rumors are true, Apple probably paid TSM a nice premium for this advantage, meaning that TSM&rsquo;s shareholders are likely to benefit.</li>
</ol>
<h2 class="subhead nbp">The Bottom Line</h2>
TSM isn't just riding the AI wave; they're literally creating it.
Their dominance in chip manufacturing, combined with their relentless innovation, positions them at the forefront of the AI revolution.
For investors, TSM represents an investment at the center of AI hardware.
As the manufacturer of choice for all of the big tech companies, TSM stands uniquely positioned to benefit.
While companies like OpenAI and Nvidia have been stealing the AI headlines, sometimes the biggest winners are the least flashy companies powering the revolution behind the scenes.
TSM is that giant, and it's showing no signs of slowing down.

TSM Drops A $20.67 Billion Bombshell 

The first presidential debate of the 2024 election season is now in the books. The result is undisputed and indelible. Trump won and Biden lost badly. It was so one-sided that if it were a boxing match, the referee would have called the fight and awarded Trump a technical knock-out.
That&rsquo;s clear. The question is why. Each of the candidates went through the usual talking points. Trump talked about the dangers of the open border, the disaster of the War in Ukraine and the impact of Biden&rsquo;s inflation. Biden talked about the dangers of Russia winning in Ukraine and moving to attack Poland and other NATO members. Biden talked about presidential scholars who rate Trump as the worst president in U.S. history, his student loan forgiveness and support for black colleges.
None of this matters. We know the respective views of the two candidates. We&rsquo;ve heard about them thousands of times. We all have our opinions. That&rsquo;s fine; that&rsquo;s what democracy is all about. But the policies and views were the least relevant part of the debate.
<h2 class="subhead">The Contrast Is Stark</h2>
What was most relevant was the appearance and carriage of each candidate. Trump had his usual orange tan and red necktie tied too long. But he seemed fit, energetic and mentally sharp. He may be 78 years old, but aging is not a uniform process. Trump was Trump but gave no reason to believe he could not carry out the duties of the presidency for another four years. (He even mentioned the &lsquo;green new scam&rsquo;, a phrase I originally coined. Thank you, President Trump!).
Biden was a funereal zombie. It was easy to tell he was heavily medicated because the usual &ldquo;slit look&rdquo; in his eyes was gone (for one night) and his eyes were bugging out because of the medication he was pumped up with. He was over rehearsed after spending eight days with sixteen advisors in a Hollywood produced set in Camp David. The problem with rehearsing your lines and not being able to speak extemporaneously is that if you get one fact wrong or even slightly confused you go off track and can&rsquo;t get back on.
Biden did that time and again. He mumbled, he slurred his words, he tailed off into nothing and lost his train of thought. He stared off into space with a vacant stare.&nbsp; He looked weak and acted weak.
He also droned on about his pet lies. He referred to Belarus as a Russian target after Ukraine. In fact, Belarus is one of Russia&rsquo;s closest allies and is helping Russia to fight the war in Ukraine. Biden said, &ldquo;My son died in Iraq.&rdquo; Not true. Beau Biden served in Iraq, but then returned home and later died of a form of cancer that had nothing to do with the war there. Biden resorted to name calling and used rote phrases like &ldquo;malarky,&rdquo; a cute Irish term of disparagement that most Americans have probably never heard from anyone other than Biden.
Trump had some zingers. He called Biden &ldquo;the Manchurian Candidate&rdquo; which is a succinct way to point out that Biden and his crime family are on the Communist Chinese payroll. Trump was nimble when he connected the open border crisis and flood of illegal aliens to diminished job prospects for blacks and Hispanics. The illegals are taking jobs that might otherwise be available for disadvantaged Americans. Both issues &ndash; immigration and jobs &ndash; are hot button issues and Trump&rsquo;s ability to connect them and score two points at once showed quick thinking and command of the stage.
<h2 class="subhead">Watching Biden Said It All</h2>
Here&rsquo;s the most important takeaway. It&rsquo;s something you won&rsquo;t hear elsewhere and which almost none of the commentators and talking heads understand. Television is a powerful medium with little understood effects on human cognition. Canadian philosopher and communications theorist Marshall McLuhan said &ldquo;The medium is the message&rdquo; over sixty years ago. What he meant was that content is almost irrelevant; what matters is the process by which humans comprehend what they&rsquo;re seeing.
Mountains of research compiled over decades demonstrate that when people watch television, they barely listen to what&rsquo;s being said. Instead they process what they are seeing. It&rsquo;s a visual medium that McLuhan described as &ldquo;cold&rdquo; because it takes a lot of engagement to decipher what is being shown. Viewers don&rsquo;t listen, they watch.
With that as the proper frame, Biden turned in the worst debate performance ever and one of the most vapid, impaired and scary presentations of any politician ever. The only thing scarier than watching Biden with sound was watching Biden without sound. The visage was empty and frightening.
Biden is done. It remains to be seen if the Democrats will stumble to Election Day with a mentally and physically failing phantom or will move quickly to substitute a new candidate. That&rsquo;s up to Democrats.
Americans have seen Biden for who he is. Trump got a major boost and now has powerful momentum toward a victory in November.
Stay tuned.

Biden Is Done

In the mid-1990s, it seemed like everyone in my circle was obsessed with the internet.
Between working at the IT department of HBO and having friends who were software engineers, it seemed like the internet was the only thing that mattered.
Outside in the real world, most Americans were more interested in the OJ Simpson trial and the Atlanta Summer Olympics than the internet.
In fact, the majority of Americans never even used the internet, and about half had never even used a computer.
While my colleagues and I were busy building the future, many Americans were totally clueless.
We are seeing the exact same thing play out right now in AI.
Despite all the talk and focus we give to AI here at Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network, only about 23% of Americans have even used ChatGPT.
And while this number will inevitably grow over time, until now AI usage has been mostly limited to tech-savvy early adopters.
All of that is set to change this Fall.
<h3>The AI Supercycle Begins This Fall</h3>
Yesterday at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple finally unveiled their hotly anticipated new AI features for iPhone and Mac.
The features, which Apple has coined &ldquo;Apple Intelligence&rdquo;, include a new set of tools that use AI to improve the productivity and creativity of Apple&rsquo;s customers.
Some of these features include some pretty straightforward capabilities that AI users have already been using for months&hellip; like the ability to use AI to write/respond to emails or generate images.
The major difference here is that Apple&rsquo;s tools are baked directly into Apple&rsquo;s products.
This means that people who otherwise wouldn&rsquo;t use AI will be prompted to use AI when replying to text messages or emails.&nbsp;
For most people who aren&rsquo;t tech-savvy &ndash; which are most people &ndash; making AI features easier to learn, access, and use will make all the difference.
The more exciting component of Apple Intelligence is a set of features that makes performing tasks easier with Apple devices.
Apple execs described a new feature for Siri called App Intents.
App Intents allow app developers to create features that can be used by interacting with Siri.
For example, in the near future I expect that Tesla owners will be able to use Siri to make sure their car seats are heated before they get into their car on cold days.
Another new Siri feature will make it easy to interact with AI tools like ChatGPT.&nbsp;
In the demonstration, Apple showed how Siri will seamlessly engage ChatGPT if the user asks a question that Siri doesn&rsquo;t know the answer to, like a recipe.
Although ChatGPT is the first AI model that Siri will integrate with, Apple plans to allow its customers to select different AI tools if they&rsquo;d like in the future.
These new features represent some of the most exciting developments in the AI space because they will finally deliver on the promise of digital assistants.
While Apple started this journey 13 years ago when they launched Siri with the iPhone 4s, Siri hasn&rsquo;t evolved all that much over the past decade.
With these new features, Apple will allow its customers to perform tasks through voice&hellip; without needing to pick up their phones or open their laptops.
Although these tasks will start with user voice instructions, over time, they&rsquo;ll likely evolve to happen automatically without any user involvement.
A phone conversation with a spouse about picking up groceries for dinner might automatically trigger Siri to order groceries and find recipes without the user needing to lift a finger.
This is ultimately the dream of AI&hellip; the ability for technology to accomplish things on its own so we can all have more time to do what we love.
With Apple&rsquo;s new features &ndash; set to release this fall &ndash; billions of users will begin to experience the benefits of AI for the first time.&nbsp;
As one of the most influential tech companies in the world, Apple&rsquo;s investment in AI will throw gasoline on the AI arms race.&nbsp;
Apple&rsquo;s ability to create technology that feels like magic will inevitably push the whole industry forward, meaning it won&rsquo;t be long before Android users get similar or even better features.
In general, competition between rival companies results in better products and the development of new technology.
With Apple now putting their weight behind AI technology, the race to develop more intelligent AI products is hotter than ever.

Apple Throws Gasoline on the AI Arms Race

Paradigm Press LLC, provides independent economic commentary, analysis and education through print and online publications, videos, online seminars, conference calls and more.

We provide independent economic commentary, analysis and education through print and online publications, videos, online seminars, conference calls and more.

Rickards Uncensored Call (with Jim Rickards 8/23/2024)

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