Does it even make sense to buy gold and silver?
Lola asked:
Rationale: If there is a worldwide financial and economic catastrophe nobody will be able to buy your gold and your silver anyways, because they won’t have money to begin with and if they do the paper money will be worth nothing. What could you do with your gold and silver if you could not sell it? There is no value in something you can’t sell, right?
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Rationale: If there is a worldwide financial and economic catastrophe nobody will be able to buy your gold and your silver anyways, because they won’t have money to begin with and if they do the paper money will be worth nothing. What could you do with your gold and silver if you could not sell it? There is no value in something you can’t sell, right?
April 6th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
I pretty much agree with you. If your purpose is to protect yourself in a worldwide meltdown, your gold and silver would have barter value - you could theoretically trade it for food or whatever. But if you have for example a one ounce American Eagle gold coin, how is the person you are trading with going to “give you change”? Certainly after the meltdown ends you would have more value in those assets than if you held cash or stocks or bonds.
But in the meantime, we have already survived the worst possible scenario in 2008-2009. Are we out of the woods yet? No, but the doom and gloomers who predict a Great Depression I think will be proven wrong. Jim L
April 9th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Gary you mean like carry trading? You should not buy Australian currency, it may depreciate and you could lose everything… 23yoguy
April 11th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
I think if you believe in a worldwide financial catastrophe that horrible then you should invest in a nice gun, then you can “barter” with the gold bugs after the fact. If you believe in bad inflation, then why not just by oil instead, something that has real world value. BOOM shakalaka
April 13th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Well. Even if there is an economic collapse, I guarantee that there will still be prostitution. If there is prostitution, there is pimps. What do pimps love? That’s right, GOLD! Gold teeth, gold chains, gold rings, gold pimp cups. Looks like a sound investment to me. Oh, and the silver? Um. Make bullets in case there is a werewolf outbreak. That solves that! You’re welcome! Mr. Christie
April 16th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
That extreme is so unlikely. You are talking about life as we know it ending-like a giant volcano erupting or being hit by a large meteorite.
So long as a man can work, gold and silver will have value. Gold and silver *are* value. Nevermind how much currency you can buy with your gold, that is not important because in bad times people will gladly accept your gold or silver without needing to convert. In fact they would not even want you to. This is similar to US travelers that have ventured into foreign countries where the native currency is worthless; they beg you to spend your dollars there and in some cases do not even accept their own money from you.
Do your ideas stand up to history in which these metals NEVER IN RECORDED HISTORY have been worthless? If you doubt their value, you doubt the existence of value in anything.
It certainly makes sense to have other things of value available. In all cases possible, food, water, land, guns, gasoline, livestock, non-hybrid seeds and such are the best investments. But you will need things of liquid value too. The former are things that are easier to pillage, steal, confiscate via government or outlaw. Gold can be hidden. Commander McBragg