[I’m stunned and saddened, but he has to do what’s right for himself. William Buckler is a huge inspiration to me, a hero of free markets and REAL capitalism and I hope he re-emerges sooner than later. We need him. ]
Dear Mark Jeftovic,
Please read this letter, it is important.
The 726th issue of The Privateer is now ready for you to download.
On its own, “726” is just a number. In the context of what we do, it
represents almost thirty years of producing this newsletter. The schedule
is inexorable. With the exception of a four-week break at the end of the
year, we do it every two weeks and we do “Gold This Week” every week as
well. That has been going on in an unbroken string ever since our first
issue came out in October 1984. One of our most satisfying achievements
is the simple fact that we have NEVER missed an issue, not once, in all
those years.
October 1984 was a very long time ago.
Our newsletter has always been a “cottage industry”. For most of our
existence, there were three people involved. For the past four years, The
Privateer has been the product of two people, your captain and his wife.
Our task is not just the writing and editing of the newsletter. On top of
that, there is all the necessary research, answering subscriber emails, the
regular tasks of running a business must be done, and all the updates and
upkeep at our website must be kept going. It’s a lot of work and it never
slackens.
We have reached the point in our lives where it is time to say farewell.
We always knew that once we decided to stop producing the newsletter, we
couldn’t get anyone else to do it for us. We can’t “sell” the business or
pass it on to someone else to carry on. We have thought about it, but it
didn’t take us long to come to that conclusion. This is a long-winded way
of telling you that this issue of The Privateer is our second last. The
last issue will be the Late April 2013 issue – Number 727 – published on
April 28. The final update to “Gold This Week” will be for April 26.
Richard Russell is famous for pointing out that the writing and production
of a newsletter is about as close to “the ideal business” as you can get:
http://ww1.dowtheoryletters.com/dtlol.nsf/htmlmedia/body_the_perfect_business.html
We couldn’t agree more. It has sustained us for most of our working life
and we are sure we have enjoyed it much more than we would have enjoyed
any other type of “career”. But there comes a point in any endeavour,
however stimulating, when a sense of “sameness” and “routine” starts to
creep in. We have been analysing the idiocies and imbecilities of the
financial and political “powers that be” for a long time. And for an
equivalent time, we have been watching the “markets” succumb to this
detritus. That process was completed with the global near death financial
experience of late 2008 but it had been building up since long before we
began to chronicle it in 1984.
As we said, we need a break. We do not and cannot know whether this break
will be permanent. We are certainly not going to stop watching and
analysing the state of the political and economic world. We are just
going to stop writing about it – in our newsletter and at our website –
for an indeterminate time. Maybe we will start again in the future, even
the not too distant future. But we will NOT be doing it as we have in the
past, in a newsletter whose structure has been fixed for decades.
All we can say for sure is that The Privateer as it presently stands will
end as of the next issue (#727). That leaves us with unfulfilled
obligations to all our subscribers who have already paid for issues of The
Privateer that they are not going to get. These obligations are VERY
important to us, and will be met in full. We will be sending you a
separate email in the next few days to let you know how that will work.
It remains for us both to thank you personally for being a subscriber to
The Privateer. We apologise for cutting you off from it. But all things
must end. If you would like to stay in touch, our “non Privateer” email
address will be included in our next letter. And who knows, once a writer
– always a writer. There may be something in the pipeline in future.
All the very best to you and yours
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