I have been writing this column for just over two months now, and as you have hopefully noticed, the one reoccurring theme that I write about has been the shortage of physical product.

As I have said over and over, I truly believe the one main hurdle people will face in accumulating gold as this bull market advances, will not just be the escalating prices, although that will contribute.  Rather, it will be the lack of availability of refined product, coins and bars.

I was speaking with a client today and he told me a very interesting story about his father during WW2.  I believe it is very apropos in describing the way I see things unfolding, and I would like to share it with you.

In 1940, the Allied commanders decided that the ship The Queen Mary, and two others The Normandie and the Queen Elizabeth, the three largest ocean liners in the world, could be used as troopships (The Normandie would be destroyed by fire during her troopship conversion).  The Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth were the largest and fastest troopships involved in the war, often carrying as many as 15,000 men on a single voyage, and often travelling out of convoy and without escort. Their high speed meant that it was difficult for the German U boats to catch them.

This story is about my client’s father, Charles, who in 1942 was an officer in the navy.  In September, just before he was to leave for service, Charles got married.  His call to duty was on board The Queen Mary.

As a wedding gift Charles and his new bride were given a puppy dog.  Charles immediately liked the puppy so much he decided to sneak him on board the ship, as a cabin mate for his long journey ahead.  After all, Charles was an officer, so sneaking the tiny puppy on board was a piece of cake. And, by the time it was noticed, Charles probably felt that nobody would care too much that he had brought along a friend.

In late September, The Queen Mary left New York for Sydney, where she, along with several other liners, was converted into a troopship to carry soldiers from Australian and New Zealand to the United Kingdom.

On the evening of October 2 1942, Charles decided to take the puppy out for its nightly stroll on deck.  It was a common practice at that time that when allied ships were sailing in a convoy they would zig and zag about instead of  traveling in a straight line, so as to make a harder target for the deadly German U boats lurking underneath.  That night however, The Queen Mary zigged when one of her escorts accidently zagged and The Queen Mary accidentally sank one of her escorts, slicing through the light cruiser HMS Curacoa off the Irish coast, killing 338 soldiers. Due to the constant danger of being attacked by U-Boats, on board The Queen Mary the Captain was under strict orders not to stop for any reason, and the Royal Navy destroyers accompanying The Queen Mary were ordered to stay on course and not rescue any survivors.  The lucky few survivors floated in life boats for 3 days before being rescued.

The Queen Mary was such a large ship that she was hardly even dented and her crew was unharmed.  However, the noise of the collision was so loud, that the sailors, many of whom were asleep in the bunks, woke up thinking they had just been torpedoed by a deadly German U boat. The sense of fear and panic was so great, that in their attempt to get up on deck, the violently awoken sailors, all running through the one door that lead up to the deck, trampled to death 11 of their ship mates.  This all happened as Charles and his puppy helplessly watched in horror, from the saftey of the deck above.

Will you or someone you know be violently awakened to a loud noise in the night when the dollar sinks to the bottom of the ocean? Will you be trampled by the masses in their effort to run through the closing gold and silver door, after the collision? Or, have you listened to my warnings that product is beginning to disappear and started to accumulate gold and silver?

Please listen to me and build your gold and silver life raft before the boat USS Dollar goes down, because by then it will be too late.

Andy Schectman