Planning for societal collapse. Guns or gold?

[Just Jim]

People didn't exactly line up to turn in their gold and I don't think many went to jail. They can make it hard prison time to own guns too. What'cha gonna do? Let 'em? I don't think so.

In the thirties they didn't know who owned the gold. Todays computor records are all they need to hunt you down and make an example of you. Maybe if you turn it into teeth

Hope you didn't buy your gold with anything but cash. Anybody notice alot of countries are running to gold as the dollar weakens??

jj

 

[Gunner3456]

Imho gold is for hiding real wealth. Silver, guns and ammo are for spending/bartering for everyday needs.

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know off the top of their heads which major countries still use the gold standard? Have any that abandoned it returned to it as of late?

 

[clearconscience]

If you invested in gold and it's in a place other than your home then it's probably not going to be your gold for long when the crap hits that fan.
And you can only barter or trade it if there's a place to do so.
And that's if the other guy doesn't have a gun to just shoot you and then your gold is his gold.
So I would rather have a gun and ammo, at least that can feed and defend you.

 

[markw76]

I can think of at least 100 things I would rather have than gold in a SHTF scenario

100 rounds of .45ACP for one...

I can see a limited reason for a modest amount of gold...bugging out the eyes of those who haven't thought things out very well. During SHTF I'm pretty sure many people will have trouble thinking logically. There may be those for whom the sight of gold will make them see dollar signs and encourage them to part with many things much more valuable. Bartering (under conditions safe and advantageous to yourself) gold for needed essentials may be a good thing to prepare for.

 

[Randini]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know off the top of their heads which major countries still use the gold standard? Have any that abandoned it returned to it as of late?

I dont know but we hear about Saudi Arabia and some of them having gold toilet seats maybe they are still "on the gold standard" hehehe

 

[MissJ]

If you invested in gold and it's in a place other than your home then it's probably not going to be your gold for long when the crap hits that fan.
And you can only barter or trade it if there's a place to do so.
And that's if the other guy doesn't have a gun to just shoot you and then your gold is his gold.
So I would rather have a gun and ammo, at least that can feed and defend you.

I can jive with this idea. To "invest" in gold without first investing in self defense is foolish...why not just light your money on fire...at least you'd live to tell the tale...

I think, however that if you have your basic survival needs mostly taken care of (water, food, guns, ammo) then why not get some precious metals? The hope being that someday the economy will recover and order will return and wouldn't it be nice to have a little "nest egg" to rebuild life upon?

The other nice thing about having some precious metals is that in the event that TSHTF never actually happens, the precious metals still have value. When you die, you can will it to someone and it has more or less maintained it's value. Or, say you have a personal crisis instead of a societal crisis i.e. you get laid off and need to pay your mortgage, or you need to go "on the run" and don't want to use a trackable source of money...you can sell some gold or silver and get most of the value back out of it relatively quickly. It would be a lot harder to turn ammo back into cash and surely you'd lose much of the value that way.

Just some thoughts. I think it is good to be prepared for a variety of life situations, not just TSHTF. I'm not advocating rolling over your IRA into precious metals or anything!

 

[markw76]

I'm not advocating rolling over your IRA into precious metals or anything!

Considering how the bottom virtually dropped out of stocks and mutuals, which most retirement funds and other investment vehicles are based on, you might find gold held up a lot better...too late for this cycle, but you youngsters might keep that in mind for down the road. The earlier you start saving, regardless how you do it, the better. Grandpa was right!

 

[BlvdKing]

Call in blind faith but I don't think America has the ability to have a complete long term collapse unless we continue to make a lot of bad decisions for awhile.

 

[Blackfeather7]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know off the top of their heads which major countries still use the gold standard? Have any that abandoned it returned to it as of late?

None, but a few including Russia, China and Saudi Arabia may be considering the possibility. They are quietly cashing in their US toilet paper for gold.

 

[Blackfeather7]

Call in blind faith but I don't think America has the ability to have a complete long term collapse unless we continue to make a lot of bad decisions for awhile.

That sounds a lot like the things Herbert Hoover was saying in 1928.

 

[Gunner3456]

An interesting aside is that we use all of the silver that's now mined each year in industry. That would be printed circuit boards for instance. Therefore, the total amount of silver in the world available for investment doesn't increase each year. That's not true of gold. While some is used in industry (gold contacts in electronics for instance) the supply still increases each year.

Gold is primarily a place to park wealth. It is perceived as a safe harbor. Silver on the other hand is both an industrial commodity and a place to park smaller denominations of wealth.

If we're taking about a few thousand dollars, I'd opt for silver because it can be spent/bartered in small denominations.

I won't buy silver for its numismatic value. (expensive rare coins.) If the SHTF, the raw silver is where the value would be. The collector value of old coins (and old guns) might collapse as it might with collector cars, etc. etc.

$.02

 

[nixuser]

i think weapons water and food and then if you have more $$$ buy rolls of nickels are a good solid way to preserve your survival $$$$ as mentioned on
http://www.survivalblog.com/2007/11/mass_inflation_aheadsave_your.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_(United_States_coin)

 

[nixuser]

i think weapons water and food and then if you have more $$$ buy rolls of nickels are a good solid way to preserve your survival $$$$ as mentioned on
http://www.survivalblog.com/2007/11/mass_inflation_aheadsave_your.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_(United_States_coin)

 

[Blackfeather7]

In the four days we have been discussing this Gold has gone up by about $30. an oz and silver by about $1.25 For the whole month of November gold is up by over $70 and oz and silver by close to $2.00 Here are links to the monthly charts:

http://www.kitco.com/charts/historicalgold.html
http://www.kitco.com/scripts/hist_charts/monthly_graphs.plx

Has the value of the guns in your safe done this? I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, I am very fond of guns or I wouldn't be a member of this site. My point is that they are not a viable investment vehicle. When the value of the dollar goes to 0 and a loaf of bread is going for $1000. if you don't have any real money in your safe along with some guns to protect it, you will be in the position of the guys who have been calling themselves "outlaws" in this discussion. Personally, I would prefer not to have to become a robber, thief or murderer in order to eat. SHTF is a worst case scenario which may or may not come about. "The Greater Depression" however is much more likely to happen.

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

In the four days we have been discussing this Gold has gone up by about $30. an oz and silver by about $1.25 For the whole month of November gold is up by over $70 and oz and silver by close to $2.00 Here are links to the monthly charts:

http://www.kitco.com/charts/historicalgold.html
http://www.kitco.com/scripts/hist_charts/monthly_graphs.plx

Has the value of the guns in your safe done this? I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, I am very fond of guns or I wouldn't be a member of this site. My point is that they are not a viable investment vehicle. When the value of the dollar goes to 0 and a loaf of bread is going for $1000. if you don't have any real money in your safe along with some guns to protect it, you will be in the position of the guys who have been calling themselves "outlaws" in this discussion. Personally, I would prefer not to have to become a robber, thief or murderer in order to eat. SHTF is a worst case scenario which may or may not come about. "The Greater Depression" however is much more likely to happen.

You are missing the point. You are trying to answer the question based on investment principles of a stable economy. If no economy existed anymore then gold and silver will only have as much value as the person you are bartering with determines it to have. There will be no set value. Where as a bullet and a gun capable of firing it will always have real world value. When a group of your neighbors decides to cook you up in a stew, which do you think will be better at preventing that? 20 silver coins or a shotgun and 20 shells?

 

[willseeker]

You are missing the point. You are trying to answer the question based on investment principles of a stable economy. If no economy existed anymore then gold and silver will only have as much value as the person you are bartering with determines it to have. There will be no set value. Where as a bullet and a gun capable of firing it will always have real world value. When a group of your neighbors decides to cook you up in a stew, which do you think will be better at preventing that? 20 silver coins or a shotgun and 20 shells?

By the way, great thread!
I think maybe you're missing the point (although this thread is based on your point) but in economic collapse there will always be bartering, trading, buying, selling and indeed stealing, it just wont be based on the abstract paper money that supposedly has gold behind it. Value will be set, just not in how we have it today.
Say you needed dairy cows this week and the rancher down the road needed what you have which is Mmmm... corn, whatever! He agrees to give you two cows for 50 bushells of corn. Only problem is it's spring and your corn is only just comming up. You both agree, you take the cows this week and give him a symbol of value which is say two oz. of gold. Two months from now you deliver the corn and he pays you 2 oz. of gold.
Heck I dont know! Just take the cows with your guns and feed them your corn!

 

[Blackfeather7]

You are missing the point. You are trying to answer the question based on investment principles of a stable economy. If no economy existed anymore then gold and silver will only have as much value as the person you are bartering with determines it to have. There will be no set value. Where as a bullet and a gun capable of firing it will always have real world value. When a group of your neighbors decides to cook you up in a stew, which do you think will be better at preventing that? 20 silver coins or a shotgun and 20 shells?

Actually I am answering the questions based on investment principles of an unstable economy which is what ours is rapidly becoming. You seem to be talking about a more far fetched Mad Max scenario. That kind of thing might be possible after a nuclear war when a situation exists where no one has anything to eat, but I have enough guns and ammo to protect against cannibals and zombies and thieves, enough food and water to feed myself and my family for a year and a few rolls of silver eagles to buy stuff with. No gold, but I wish I had more silver so I plan on accumulating a little more until it gets too expensive. If I had a 401k or anything much in a bank (which I don't) I would cash it out and put it in silver also.

Before TSHTF (if it ever does) paper money is likely to become worthless like it did in Germany in the 1920's and recently in Zimbabwe. Things have been pretty rough in Zimbabwe for a number of years but no reports of widespread cannibalism to my knowledge. As long as there is any kind of functioning economy silver and gold will be recognized as money, always has. However, you started this thread and if you want to limit the discussion to a disaster movie, video game view of the future I'll just say, "Shalom." One more thing, of course you could also make yourself some of those silver bullets you've been wanting.

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

I think maybe you're missing the point (although this thread is based on your point) but in economic collapse there will always be bartering, trading, buying, selling and indeed stealing, it just wont be based on the abstract paper money that supposedly has gold behind it. Value will be set, just not in how we have it today.

That's not true. When necessary items become scarce things like gold and silver with no intrinsic value become useless. No one will part with a chicken for 100lbs of gold if it is the only chicken alive within 100 miles.

There have been many times during history where the traditional measure of value has been discarded due to necessity. There is an old saying that roughly translates to "all the gold you can carry will not buy you a drop of water in a desert."

 

[willseeker]

That's not true. When necessary items become scarce things like gold and silver with no intrinsic value become useless. No one will part with a chicken for 100lbs of gold if it is the only chicken alive within 100 miles.

There have been many times during history where the traditional measure of value has been discarded due to necessity. There is an old saying that roughly translates to "all the gold you can carry will not buy you a drop of water in a desert."

Ahhh...still can't agree
You're right in saying there have been times, however; I believe 90+% of the time some type of currency has been used.