Why do you think Gold or Silver is worth more then a red turd?

[cyborg]

I grow weary of the "You cant eat precious metals" argument. If someone ONLY stores PMs then they are not prepping for SHTF rather just getting an inflation/currency collapse hedge. I think everyone who has a good amount of stores of food etc should consider the wealth preserving attributes of PMs. If someone buried $1,000 cash back at the turn of the 20th century and dug it up today, they would find it had lost much of it's purchasing power. If they had buried the same dollar value of gold then they would not see much difference once they dug it up.

A $1,000 worth of PMs purchased 111 years ago bought a lot of food then.....it will still be true today.

Even during a post currency collapse scenario where barter is king and people only really want tangibles PMs will still have a place. Imagine you are a farmer. You have just harvested your fresh food and are bartering it. All the people that have things you need have gotten what they can from you and you are left with a large pile of perishable food. Plenty of people want it but they don't have anything you need. Do you let it rot? Give it away for free? .... or do you trade for some PMs? I think even in a fairly hardcore bartering environment PMs can act as a back up currency of sorts. Maybe when you trade things of slightly unequal value some PMs can be used to sweeten a deal to make it balance?

I think for serious preppers who want to be ready for just about anything the value of PMs should not be overlooked as part of the diversified plan.

 

[lonegunman]

Copper, brass and lead will be worth far more if the socialists/communists/democrats begin to "cleanse" America of it's "unwanted" elements.

 

[slimmer13]

Im rich!

 

[Gunner3456]

Copper, brass and lead will be worth far more if the socialists/communists/democrats begin to "cleanse" America of it's "unwanted" elements.

Come on and cleanse me. Guess what? 100 years from now I won't be alive.

 

[Hook686]

The value is the value that the market places on it. The market doesn't give a ratsass what you or I think.

hmmmm I guess we all got something different from selco's posts about his Bosnia experiences. I gathered he and a tribe member went out at night looking to barter with someone, if they found someone with what they needed, and they had what that someone needed. Generally it seemed to be food, clothing, meds, energy items, guns/ammo that were the trade goods. I never once noted gold, or silver .

Again, it may be hard for some to grasp, but anything only has the value I place on it.

IF YOU ARE LOADED WITH RESOURCES THEN NOTHING WRONG WITH STOCKING UP ON AU, ag, PB, pl, CU, sb, or anything else that floats your boat. BALANCE IN ALL THINGS GRASSHOPPER. however it remains anything you have only has the value I GIVE IT. you may give it a lot of value. I MAY GIVE IT ZERO. the 'MARKET' MAY GIVE IT SOMETHING ELSE.

CYBORG MAY BE WEARY OF HEARING THAT YOU CAN'T EAT GOLD, OR SILVER. hOWEVER IF I am hungry I will not trade you a box of ammunition for a bar of gold, but I certainly will trade a box of ammunition for a can of tuna. People want to play 'Wall street' when the SHTF go right ahead. There will always be those that want to set up a bank, establish value for others and control the flow of goods.

However it remains ... anything only has the value I give it.

GOOD LUCK.

 

[Grunwald]

hmmmm I guess we all got something different from selco's posts about his Bosnia experiences. I gathered he and a tribe member went out at night looking to barter with someone, if they found someone with what they needed, and they had what that someone needed. Generally it seemed to be food, clothing, meds, energy items, guns/ammo that were the trade goods. I never once noted gold, or silver .

Again, it may be hard for some to grasp, but anything only has the value I place on it.

IF YOU ARE LOADED WITH RESOURCES THEN NOTHING WRONG WITH STOCKING UP ON AU, ag, PB, pl, CU, sb, or anything else that floats your boat. BALANCE IN ALL THINGS GRASSHOPPER. however it remains anything you have only has the value I GIVE IT. you may give it a lot of value. I MAY GIVE IT ZERO. the 'MARKET' MAY GIVE IT SOMETHING ELSE.

CYBORG MAY BE WEARY OF HEARING THAT YOU CAN'T EAT GOLD, OR SILVER. hOWEVER IF I am hungry I will not trade you a box of ammunition for a bar of gold, but I certainly will trade a box of ammunition for a can of tuna. People want to play 'Wall street' when the SHTF go right ahead. There will always be those that want to set up a bank, establish value for others and control the flow of goods.

However it remains ... anything only has the value I give it.

GOOD LUCK.

Even if SHTF like it did in Bosnia, things eventually will return more or less to normal.
If I have more than enough food , but you did not prepare and are looking to buy some food with your gold then no matter how much I already have, I will make that deal.
If you however have just ammo that you want to trade for food and I already own enough ammo, then the trade is unlikely.

 

[cyclesarge]

Some people are also preparing for JICTWDEAWKIT (Just In Case The World DOESN'T End As We Know It Today). Man, are they stupid, haha.

 

[Burt Gummer]

The owners of America have spent decades creating a spend and consume society of drones. They aren't going to flush all that away. America will just slowly sink into decline as the standard of living will level off with other nations. Things will get progressively worse, but slowly, like the froggie in the boiling milk scenario.

The Ponzi monetary system will be used to rob the masses of any of their wealth as the middle class vanishes. Gold or other PMs are just one resource to protect one's wealth from being extracted via eventual destruction of the dollar. If they wanted a SHTF scenario they could have that tomorrow, but most likely a slow extraction of wealth fits their plans better. Let the wage slaves continue to play the piano on the back of the Titanic as it goes down.

Of course wealth never really goes away, it just transfers over to the smarter folks. Americans are far too busy twittering or wondering what their favorite celebrity is doing to notice what is happening. More champagne, more Lear jets for them, Top Ramen for the masses.

 

[slimmer13]

Youre right, put your $$$ in the stock market. And BTW "as a GENERAL rule" means by definition that there is exceptions.

 

[slimmer13]

Youre right. GENERALY pm's ONLY go up. Or more accuratly they maintain value as the dollar loses value. So you think youll see $300 gold again in your lifetime?

 

[Scott]

As a general rule, Gold and Silver prices dont ever go down, only up. So if you already have your "bullets, beans and bandaids" squared away then precious metals are a much better and safer investment than a 401k IMO. If the S ever does HTF then paper $$ will be toilet paper but I would imagine that gold and silver would retain its value as currency as its done for ever.

Gold will fall again.... It will not stay this high.
It has risen and fallen in the last 30 years and depends on the current markets..... It is no different than any stock...

 

[EZLivin]

I still think red turds are a poor investment or store of wealth. The tomatoes used to produce the red turds will always cost more than what you can get for the finished product.

 

[slimmer13]

The OP's question was (too lazy to quote) Basically why is gold worth anything when SHTF. So the price of gold is high right now and started climbing steadily over the last few years because enough people see whats going on in the world and there is a high demand for real currency that will be worth something when paper currency is not. So if you think that this current mess will sort itself out and the world will turn into a much less scary place anytime soon, then yeah if that happens (and I hope it does for the sake of my kids) then the price of gold will fall dramatically.

 

[Grunwald]

Don't ever go down, only up?

Look at 1974 to 1976.
1980 to 1982.
1983 to 1984.
1987 to 2001.

Nothing goes up and up and up forever.

The Most Ridiculous Price Bubbles In History

This chart is not accurate as gold was fixed at $35 per oz until Nixon closed the gold window. Before then, it was fixed at $20 per oz until FDR issued his unconstitutional executive order and ripped of the population of the US.

 

[Burt Gummer]

Absolutely. Gold could go to $10. But the point is it is still better than the dollar that WILL go to $-0-.

 

[Grunwald]

That doesn't change the fact that the price of gold has DECLINED during several periods since Nixon's presidency, contrary to the earlier claim that the price of gold "doesn't EVER go down", and "ONLY goes UP".

No it does not. However that happens to everything. If you take a "from orbit" look at 1980 was the only real gold bubble. It was also soon after the dollar was completely cut loose from gold. Since then the value of a dollar has declined relatively steadily. You can measure that decline against any number of commodities: gold, silver oil, natural gas, sugar corn.
It will undoubtedly continue until the dollar becomes completely worthless. The question you have to ask yourself, is gold in a bubble right now and will it correct down to it real level. I don't know the answer to that, but II do know that in 30 years, I will be a able to buy a whole lot more for an ounce of gold than for $1800.

 

[slimmer13]

Yeah I guess you cant "know", you can only look at the last 5000 years or so. So say you are up to your armpits in supplies and you still have disposable income after the bills are paid and you spoil the family once in a while, where would you put the rest of your money that would be a better long term investment (in the context of preparing for hard times) than gold/silver?

 

[Grunwald]

No one can "know" the situation 30 years from now with that much certainty. Those who think they can are fooling themselves. I don't even know if I'll be alive in 30 years.

The people who bought gold at its peak in 1980 thought they could see the future. 29 years later, their gold was worth less than half of what they paid for it when adjusted for inflation.

Never mind this crap about adjusted for inflation. What are the Federal Notes worth adjusted for inflation?? Oh, that's right, they do not get adjusted for inflation.

 

[Decker]

No one can "know" the situation 30 years from now with that much certainty. Those who think they can are fooling themselves. I don't even know if I'll be alive in 30 years.

The people who bought gold at its peak in 1980 thought they could see the future. 29 years later, their gold was worth less than half of what they paid for it when adjusted for inflation.

The issue I see here is what time frame we are looking at. 30 years is a very small speck of time in a grand scheme of things. If you're considering what you can to do help your kids and grand kids then I can see something investing in PM's. But, as several have said, best to have all the preps squared away for you and the family before you start looking at a 50 year (or more) time frame.

My 0.0002

-d

 

[Grunwald]

Um, you adjust for inflation when you want to talk about the real changes in value of something over time. Surely, as a sophisticated and savvy gold investor, you already knew that.

I'll respond once again - what are Federal Reserve Notes worth adjusted for inflation?

All that aside, the more I see what is going on on Wall Street the less I want to have anything to do with it (even though most of my money is parked there (that includes my retirement accounts). I am especially disheartened by the lack of prosecution of those who break the laws, and even more so by the lack of investigation by the oversight agencies when something is brought to their attention. It makes me want to convert my paper into real assets.
If I hold physical gold there is no chance of some slime ball white collar criminal pressing a few buttons and making it disappear. The biggest risk is from a real thief physically stealing it.