Good morning, everyone!

Thanks to an excellent physical therapist, my ankle is finally improving. That means I'm able to get out and about more and enjoy the sights.

Last week, I went for a wander after my PT appointment, and the thing that struck me was the juxtaposition of history and the modern world. You can be wandering through a modern neighborhood, and suddenly, there's a Byzantine church that was built in 900 AD just sitting there. (With the door open, no less - you can pop over to Instagram and see the inside if you're as interested in this type of thing as I am.)

And that wasn't the only wild sight. I've also added a photo here of a random street with shops, billboards, taxis, and a modern apartment building, with the Acropolis still holding court over the city at the end of the road, thousands of years later.

I'm going to sound super old right now, but perhaps it's that sense of heritage that's missing in young people today. American schools only seem to talk about history when they're talking about negative things that happened. I'm quite certain it wasn't all democracy and rose petals in ancient Greece.

An event that was shocking this past week was the failure of SVB bank. I don't think we're through seeing the shockwaves this is going to send through our society. It remains to be seen whether people will actually receive their FDIC insurance on Monday.

One real-world effect I saw was that people who are Etsy sellers did not receive their pay on Friday because payments were processed through SVB. These are real people like you and me who were expecting a paycheck that never arrived. For some of them, this is what they do. This is the work that allows moms to stay home with children and still make a living. This is their only source of income. I hope that the payments get straightened out on Monday, as they're saying.

I can only see this as a test run for future systemic breakdowns. Now they know how people will react. They have seen how quickly the news raced through the media. They learned how long it took before people were banging at the doors of the bank, demanding their funds.

We can use this as a test run too. We can look at what led up to it. We can identify the warning signs. What led up to this and how can we figure out whether our own bank is at risk?

And perhaps more urgently, we'll soon discover if the promises of Friday become the realities of Monday.

And then, we can act accordingly.

I moved more money into metals the day it happened. I don't trust this situation not to snowball, and I have worked hard to build a better life. This is one way I know I can protect at least some of what I've earned for the future.

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Every situation is different, and the pros there can answer every question you may have. All you're spending is time. Please consider making this call. I don't know of any more important step you can take right now to prepare for this economic tsunami that is very clearly headed our way.

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