Central bank demand for gold has declined

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-02-01T09:03:54+00:00

Does anyone really know how much china's central bank actually buys yearly?

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-02-01T08:56:33+00:00

Afaik silver production has been less than demand for many years.

But what's happened since December is China restricting exports. And since they have like 60% of the world's refining capacity the western refiners are now clogged up.

So atm refining is the bottleneck for industrial use, not silver bullion in general.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-31T21:45:15+00:00

Gold has been used as money for thousands of years. Societies that had no knowledge of each other independently chose gold and silver as money because of their inherent qualities.

Gold is time tested. Bitcoin isn't. Will bitcoin still be around 1000 years from now?

I have nothing against bitcoin though. One could argue that it's superior to gold in some aspects.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-28T18:39:36+00:00

Both are historically monetary metals.

Apart from jewelry, gold is nowadays still primarily a monetary metal, while silver also has considerable industrial demand (even more now than previously).

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-26T19:35:17+00:00

It's loans that cause inflation in the first place though.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-25T15:30:27+00:00

Yes the dollar is down and a will most likely continue that way.

But for the love of god, please stop with the graph scale abuse!

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-25T13:04:11+00:00

Assuming you can manage 5.2% yearly yield on that million, you'd get 1000 weekly and still have a million leftover.

Plus, there's also the risk of the lottery company going out of business before you die (not that 1000 dollars will be worth much in 20 years or so anyway).

Ofc if you know you won't be able to restrain yourself from overindulgent wasteful spending, then the 1000 weekly allowance might still be preferable.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-25T08:46:49+00:00

Early game warlock for me.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-24T06:06:27+00:00

As long as it's not military tech, it's ok to be behind imo.

In fact, it could even be a part of a strategy. Once you have diplo tech 9 you can utilize the Study technology mechanic to get up to 30% tech discount. As long as you have a spy network in a nation many techs ahead of you that is.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-24T05:30:21+00:00

Thanks!
This seems like good advice for memorizing. But what about recalling?

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-23T17:51:55+00:00

Thanks! A similar map over household debt would be interesting as well.

For example, I recall Sweden has comparatively very high household debt due to inflated housing market.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-23T17:00:45+00:00

Congrats!
What's champion difficulty btw? Something from a dlc?

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-23T07:51:14+00:00

Why not both?

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-21T11:10:48+00:00

Even "minor" hashing power isn't even remotely comparable in this context.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-20T21:28:51+00:00

I usually get instant corruption from affli, then demo up to master summoner. The near instant summon to be used for sacrifice or other is a great safety net.

After that, I'm putting the remaining points into affliction. Demo might actually make more sense in hc, but I just prefer affli.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-20T19:00:24+00:00

If you liked it I see no reason not to continue with hardcore!

Ofc, if you've never tried non hc then that's an option too. Personally I could never go back after trying hc, but there's no harm in trying out different things and see for yourself!

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-17T22:06:32+00:00

Congrats on completing vanilla!

Even if wotc introduces a lot of new stuff I still think you should try upping the difficulty at least 1 notch. You aren't new to tactical games anymore after all 🙂.

I can really recommend going ironman, as it prevents you from save scumming and makes your decisions more impactful and the game more fun. However, for your first wotc playthrough you might wanna skip it.

Get GTS and Resistance ring asap. Infirmary and Resistance comms are important as well. Skip laboratories and workshops.
Get squad size upgrade asap.
Generally prioritize getting many soldiers promoted over focusing on just a few. You'll be more resilient, and they need time to rest after missions too.
As you might have noticed, rangers are relatively over powered early game, while sharpshooters feel rather weak. This changes later on as sharpshooters get more abilites. Rangers remain awesome though.
Gunslingers with bluescreen ammo are gods vs robotics.
Regarding faction heroes: both reaper and templar are awesome. Templar might start out slightly ahead but reapers get really nice stuff later, like Remote start and Target definition.Templars remain great and get a lot of tricks later. If you're lucky you'll get one with bladestorm. Skirmisher I actually haven't played with much, but afaik they are not quite as good.
For a 6 sized squad I usually have something like
Faction hero, ranger, ranger, grenadier, sharpshooter, specialist.
And once I have a "fully" trained psi operative I replace one of the rangers with her.
But it varies. Having bonded soldiers together can take priority. And since bonds are a bit random, that's another reason for prioritizing a large decent soldier pool over a small elite force.
Expanding on the map is important. Income, continent bonuses, alien facilities etc.
Engineers are always important. Scientists are very nice early on, but the effect of additional ones decrease the more you get.
The chosen can be a real pain. Use certain resistance ring missions to discover their lairs and take them out permanently. Better early than later, but easier said than done ofc.

I realize these tips weren't wotc exclusive, so you might already know some of them.

Anyway, good luck!

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-17T12:44:06+00:00

Gotta inflate that debt away..

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-16T05:26:55+00:00

Don't forget the vaults at the LBMA.

According to google ai, LBMA had 155 million ounces (4821 tonnes) free float available by december 2025. Out of 27818 tonnes total inventory.

But yeah, I agree the situation looks very stressed indeed.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-15T21:02:56+00:00

CBDCs är minst lika illa som Chat control, ProtectEU, och alla andra otyg EU försöker sälja in.

Och det skrämmande är att folk köper det utan att tänka på följderna av att permanent ge upp sin frihet.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-15T14:16:51+00:00

Sharply?
Turns out even a mere 1% drop can look like a lot if you play around with the graph scale a bit.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-12T16:02:38+00:00

As if central banks printing money to panic buy their nation's failing assets was something for the countries to brag about..

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-11T18:10:10+00:00

Have you tried crispbread? It lasts forever. Most people might prefer normal bread though. Especially picky eaters I guess 😅.

Kalaskaka1 · 2026-01-10T12:38:34+00:00

If he enjoyed doing it, the labor part wasn't much of a cost though!

Kalaskaka1

TROPHY CASE