I am not as worried about bank theft as others. The true theft through inflation has been occuring since 1913 (Fed Reserve formation). The government could electronically replace all stolen funds with a few keystrokes. The more likely scenario is exactly what has been happening. The Fed Reserve takes worthless assets from the banks and in return, gives the banks USDs. Similar effect on your money, but legal.
I have been storing food for years. If stored properly it will last ages. I'm eating things I bought in '08 and they're perfectly fine. Thing is, if you wait until the last minute to prep your good stores, you may well miss out. However you can message me and I'll sell you some rice for some silver - 1oz per kg. Last year when Bridbane had its worst flooding since 1974, many stores ran out of basic food items on the first day. I know for a fact (because I went there) that my local Woolies ran out of water, bread, batteries, toilet paper, eggs, milk, nappies, baby food was all gone on the first day. Half the canned good was gone, as we the breakfast cereals, long life milk, pasta and pasta sauce, rice, biscuits and pretty much every other packaged food. This was on day one. Later that same week when visiting with a group of friends, many of them had run out of basic food items and one couple with a baby ran out of both food and nappies. The shop shelves didn't get fully restocked for ten days. And this flood didn't really last long. Now imagine what a USD collapse would do to global food distribution. It will cause a food shortage that will last much longer than 10 days. And I promise you, anybody who goes without food for a week will give every last ounce of their gold and silver if someone would feed them.
Yes, one of the first doomsday preppers episodes I watched covered precious metals. It was silver heavy and all weights up to 100 oz bars were covered/shown.
Jash, I saw this during the floods, as I was working as a checkout chick at the time. There was no "orderly fashion" to speak of, either. People stood six deep in front of a display of a particular item, while the person closest to the display took every item, leaving nothing for the people clamouring behind them who were obviously waiting to get some too. This caused much grumbling, but not as much as there would be if people knew how long it was going to take to re-stock. I saw a father with little kids skipping along behind him, emerge from a Brumby's store with a scowl on his face and two 15kg bags of flour on his shoulder. He was positively furtive, looking around at people as if they were going to take his flour. Curiously, the frozen foods were almost completely unaffected. No one was stocking up on them, presumably because they all thought the power would go out. Everything else went, including things that wouldn't really have come in handy in an emergency, but were just bought by people keen to stock up on SOMETHING, because most of the food was gone. The prices didn't go up, as it was a large chain, but the fish and chip shop's cigarettes were $50 for 25. I had a couple of "refugees" for a couple of weeks, who weren't allowed to go home. Fortunately I was prepared. From my point of view, I couldn't work out why so many others didn't see the shelf-emptying coming. Sometimes people do see it coming, but this doesn't change the amount of money they have available for food in a given period. Logically, if you have not a bite of food in the house at all, and blame a flood that's been going on for two whole days, I don't see how that's anyone's fault but your own. On the other hand, that's not a very compassionate opinion. People don't expect the infrastructure that's always been there to suddenly vanish. Preparing that far ahead is beyond some people's capabilities.
It always amazes me how quickly people lapse into panic and chaos and agressive behaviour when they suddenly find themselves without their usual easy supply of food and water. It is frightening actually, because most people are 100% reliant on the supply lines and never stop to think what could happen if the supply suddenly gets cut off. When you think of it the quickest and most likely way to get cut off especially in Australia would be by flood water. I have lived in the bush sometimes for months at a time without going to a shop and have learnt to live on very basic food if I have to. The best staple to keep for emergencies is rice.
Just joined the site and thought this would be an apt thread for my first post, given that prepping (together with metal detecting) is what led me to this site and got me started on stacking. While that was the segway I needed, the aim of my stacking is really for investment with a small element of collection. In regards to prepping and currency/exchange I now believe for a number of reasons that gold/silver would not be as useful as other items to barter with (e.g. coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, medications, staple foods).
Unless you build up your network beforehand of people willing to exchange goods and services for precious metals. Check out the barter threads - one of the dealers on here also sells sides of lamb for silver etc. I pay an accountant with gold, and know one or two people in the medical profession who will accept likewise. That said, PMs are for preserving your wealth - not for spending during widespread economic hardship unless you're into a small supply of fractionals to grease the wheels along the way. Everything ends, and you want to come out the other side with your purchasing power locked and loaded.
Definitely agree - especially with the last bolded bit. While I am not expecting complete financial collapse or other doomsday scenarios, I can envisage significant devaluation of fiat currency and a prolonged period of economic turmoil. Will check out the barter threads too - figured they were just exchanging PMs for PMs and wasn't that interested - but now curious to see some of the deals there. PS - my first and to date only purchase has been from GS. Cheers for the good service.
Maybe if the world goes pear shape, gold and silver will be the next to benifit. Then if it gets worse and goes really bad so to speak,bartering food ,water,fuel etc..will come into their own.My question is will gold and silver then be of no importance? And will we have time to convert from precious metals to life essentials?
Civilisation has been using money in one form or another for millenia - most of that time precious metals have been used as money. It's really only since 1971 that we've abandoned gold as money - if you're genuinely concerned about SHTF, fiat won't even be good for wiping your bum (damn polymer). So while there's people on the planet that don't farm, hunt or gather for subsistence living, there will be a need for money.
Even owning a farm may not get you out of trouble, the government would take over farms in a food crisis. Looks like with US crops failing this year a world food crisis on its own without an economic crisis is not that far fetched any more. They are already predicting increases in food prices world wide and that could be devasting for poorer countries. You never know, the collapse could be triggered by something quite unexpected happening which starts the domino effect. I think that gold will always be used as a tradeable asset no matter what the crisis, just as it has been through the centuries.
Slightly off-topic, I'd like to correct this notion of bartering for gold and silver in a doomsday scenario, because people seem to be confused by it. Barter is a means of direct exchange - I have flour and I want corn, Jim has corn and wants flour - we meet and make an exchange. Money is a means of indirect exchange - I want Jim's corn but he doesn't want my flour, I give him money instead and he uses that to indirectly exchange for what he wants. Money doesn't satisfy people's needs directly but it is a means of satisfying their needs by indirect exchange. Money on it's own is fairly useless. When the Zimbabwe currency collapsed people didn't revert to a barter economy, they simply used an alternate currency - U.S. dollars. In a hypothetical situation where ALL world currencies collapse then people WILL be using gold and silver as MONEY. When merchants won't accept your paper money they will readily accept your gold and silver. You won't be bartering away your gold and silver, you will be buying stuff with it. A monetary system is much more preferable to a barter system so people will naturally seek the next best money. If doomsday never comes then at worst you retain your purchasing power over the long term. At best the price rises and you make a tidy profit when you sell. This is a win/win. This is why you buy gold and silver. This is what Joe Sixpack doesn't understand - what money actually is.
I think that if you have a source of clean water or a good filter, a firearm or compound bow/bow and sleeping/camping gear you have all the basic's you would need for survival. I personally don't store food because if things were that bad that I couldn't buy any, I wouldn't be hanging around town, ide be going bush.
For gold to be used widely as money it would have to be in the form that everyone recognises as genuine. That would mean minting gold coins on a large scale which I just can't see happening. Most people dont know how to tell real gold from fake gold. It would only be a small number of people like Silver Stackers, gold dealers, coin collectors etc confident to accept the gold coins that are around now. Silver coins are probably easier to recognise as genuine as they are more well known. If I tried to pay for something with a gold nugget and I was not known to be a gold prospector, I doubt if many people would be willing to accept that it was a genuine gold nugget. Easier to barter with a goat as you can't fake it so easily! :|
This tells you all you need to know. DHS have now bought around 1.5 billion bullets in the past 12 months. Four for every man, woman and child in America. DHS to purchase another 750 million rounds of ammo Mon Aug 13, 2012 1:27PM GMT Preparing for civil unrest in America. Fears that federal authorities are preparing for mass civil unrest have increased after it was revealed that the Department of Homeland Security is planning to buy a further 750 million rounds of ammo in addition to the 450 million rounds of hollow point bullets already purchased earlier this year. The purchase comes in addition to an order for 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets which was fulfilled by Alliant Techsystems Inc. back in March, news greeted by some as an indication that the DHS was arming itself in preparation to go to war with the American people. The second massive ammunition buy this year has led to speculation that the purchases are connected to confirmed preparations for civil unrest in the United States. The DHS recently put out an order for riot gear in preparation for the upcoming DNC, RNC and presidential inauguration. The U.S. Army is also busy buying similar equipment. A recently leaked U.S. Army Military Police training manual for "Civil Disturbance Operations" outlines how military assets are to be used domestically to quell riots, confiscate firearms and even kill Americans on U.S. soil during mass civil unrest. The manual includes lists of weapons to be used against "rioters" or "demonstrators," including "antiriot grenades." It also advises troops to carry their guns in the "safe port arms" stance, a psychological tactic aimed at "making a show of force before rioters." Non-lethal weapons and water cannons are also included. The increasing likelihood of a full blown financial collapse in the coming months has also spurred federal agencies and the U.S. Army to hone their preparations for domestic disorder on a scale greater than riots witnessed in Europe over the past two years. A 2008 report produced by the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Institute warned that the United States may experience massive civil unrest in the wake of a series of crises which it termed "strategic shock." "Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security," stated the report, authored by [Ret.] Lt. Col. Nathan Freir, adding that the military may be needed to quell "purposeful domestic resistance". Prison Planet FACTS & FIGURES According to a recently published study, the U.S. is headed towards a violent upheaval in the coming years. Peter Turchin, an ecologist, evolutionary biologist and mathematician at the University of Connecticut has led the development of the field of study called "cliodynamics," in which scientists attempt to find meaningful patterns in history. In the new study, Turchin, who reported his results in the July issue of the Journal of Peace Research, compiled historical data about violent incidents in U.S. history between 1780 and 2010, including riots, terrorism, assassinations and rampages. The data indicates that a cycle of violence repeats itself every 50 years in America, like a wave that peaks in every other generation. If Turchin's model is right, then the current polarization and inequality in American society will come to a head in 2020. "After the last eight years or so, notice how the discourse in our political class has become fragmented. It's really unprecedented for the last 100 years. So basically by all measures, there are social pressures for instability that are much worse than 50 years ago." LiveSciencehttp://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/256028.html
I thought that hollow point bullets were illegal under the Geneva Convention. Can anyone confirm, or deny, this?
Zombie apocalypse!!!!! Those cosmetics companies and their damned anti aging creams are going to kill us all!! Seriously though, I think people may not be so concerned about the exact weights and so on, for smaller transactions... Pieces of 8, for example... As ye pirate speaking folk will recall. Alas, depending on the nature of this 'doomsday' event, the point is irrelevant until after civilization starts to build again and people actually exchange things other than gunfire for what they need. .... Which reminds me, I've been meaning to take up "sports shooting" for a while now...
Re: hollow points, there are a lot of things out there right now that are not GC friendly... And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the US ratified the treaty from the 1970's... History lessons a bit blurry now, but I thought their congress had to ratify and has not done so because that would mean a lack of advantageous weapons that everyone who did sign it can't use any more....the idea being with hollow points to tie up enemy medical and logistics resources for as long as possible... Which means as few actual kills as possible for maximum wound damage, during a war of attrition.
I think gold and silver would always be of importance in varying degrees based on the scenario. However in the event things got really bad, the main problems I can see in trying to exchange gold or silver for goods and services are: - Value. How much is it worth? (all world markets have stopped, there's no common accepted value. e.g. someone might want 10 ounces of silver for a bag of rice you believe is only worth one, especially given your ounce would have bought you three bags before the collapse) - Authenticity. goldpanner above covered most of this - the average joe doesn't know gold has a specific gravity of 19.1 and may not even be able to calculate the volume of a bar to determine if the measured weight is at least approximately correct for gold. Silver IMO is even more difficult to determine if its authentic and with fractionals like the 1966 50 cent, I doubt most people would know that its 80% silver and even less so with pre-decimals or foreign coins. - Acceptance. If there is widespread hunger and thirst, what would you take for your last bag of rice or gallon of water? 1oz of gold? 10oz? How confident are you that you'll be able to take that gold and trade it for other goods you might want instead? (which are the same essentials everyone else is after and you just gave up) I think PMs are a good store of wealth and would provide a means of trade in all but the most extreme doomsday scenarios, however should one of those eventuate I would probably wish I had invested more of that time and money in survival skills and items like the above instead of PMs.
Re: above I think everyone knows deep down that if there is worldwide famine - something comparable to an apocalypse - then nothing will have as much value as water and food.
