Considering 99% of Australian problem don't consider gold or silver a store of wealth, why should we assume that in a Cyprus type situation people would want to pay top dollar for bits of metal. I think cash is king there at the moment? In Argentina was it the people who held there cash in other currencies that did the best? Would food stores, self defence tools and off the grid housing be better in that scenario I understand that historically it has been a valuable asset in hard times, but that was when people still valued it. Do you honestly think someone would trade 1000 litres of petrol for an oz of gold if the oil supply dried up?
Oh yeah, I totally missed it. To the OP Google "The Alpha Strategy", it'll be available as a PDF. Basically, stack non-perishables that you use.
I think the whole "problem" with the question you ask Col0016 is the premise that you're going to "sell" your precious metals for fiat currency when the SHTF. To my mind (and I will stress, this is my personal opinion only) that isn't the objective of holding PM's assuming you're planning on a crisis situation (I do believe that the SHTF one day, and agree that holding PM's is an "insurance" against this). One has to stop thinking in terms of the overall economic paradigm we have today. You will not be trading your PM's for fiat currency if SHTF, you will be trading them for other assets that would be unobtainable otherwise (presumably because fiat currencies have collapsed, or have been hyperinflated to oblivion). If you honestly believe the day will come where the SHTF, then you have to prepare on several levels. Firstly, you don't really want to be trading your PM's for tomorrow nights meal - you will want to have an appropriate level of non perishable food on hand to withstand shortages that are extremely likely to occur in a crisis situation. Ditto for drinking water, cleaning (both personal and household), and various other aspects of your daily life that - at the moment - are satisfied by "just in time" type purchasing from your local supermarket. Beyond that, you have to stop and think about "what will come next". Everyone's personal opinion of what will happen when the SHTF is going to be different, and this will determine your personal view on how and what to prepare, and when. Once you have various things sorted (that is, a food and water supply, methods to prepare that food that are not reliant on external energy input from the electricity or gas grid), one turns their attention to what will happen after the SHTF - that may be the week, month, quarter, half year or year or more after the event. How do you give yourself a "head start" in the "new" economy? One of, if not the *ONLY* ways to do this is to find something that is rare, impssible to artificially duplicate, hard to obtain, and will be - one day - in demand again. Here is where precious metals step in (with my own bias that some precious metals are better than others left aside). It is in the "after SHTF" scenario that the gold and silver you set aside today (which would otherwise have been held as cash in the bank - potentially up for grabs by any government, and reliant on the stability of a banking institution that owes depositors considerably more cash than they have on hand) will become your "preserver of wealth". Take a look at any major SHTF scenario in years gone past - WW1, WW2 etc - those that had gold & silver always did very well, they were able to obtain things beyond the wildest imaginings of the population at large - the stories are out there, my parents, thankfully, were able to educate me on this first hand (no, they did not themselves hold precious metals, but they lived in Germany through WW2, and saw first hand what those very few citizens who did hold some precious metals were able to do with them once the war was over).
midnight man:can you share some of the story on what they did with their PM once the war was over? ie: after they have avoided the confiscation from goverment etc. thx
Thanks for that MM. However, again that was a time and place where gold was appreciated as intrinsically valuable by the general populous. I can't imagine average Australians trading anything for gold because so few people value it. I think you'd probably get further with diamonds here :/ (no I'm not saying I value them) If we were in say China, India or even the US I could see how it would be valuable, but I just struggle to imagine "Aussies" wanting it.
See PMs as a protector of value. A unit of PM will always be a unit of PM whereas a fiat dollar will devalue with inflation and quantitative easing. Spot prices will vary so you may regret buying your PM one day but hold onto it and in time it will return to its original purchasing power but fiat will not; you will need more fiat in time but your PM should compensate for that.
"I can't imagine average Australians trading anything for gold because so few people value it." I would say that there are plenty of Australians that value Gold quite highly. They may not know the current price per ounce, because right now that information is not useful to them. Similarly, they may not own any gold (except that coin that Mum got in the back of the heirloom drawer). That doesn't mean that will not get it and use it when the time is right. The fact that this will at a higher price than today is more relevent to us than it is to them.
Morning, "I understand that historically it has been a valuable asset in hard times, but that was when people still valued it. Do you honestly think someone would trade 1000 litres of petrol for an oz of gold if the oil supply dried up?" I think that has nothing to do with the power of pm,s. In severe shortage, nothing bar threat will dislodge supply - so if your oil supply dried up you won't be able to buy it for love nor money - nothing to do with pm,s at all. When supplies are adequate but people have little or no cash or banking systems is when you can use pm,s to purchase supply. Do you think you couldnt buy a tank of gas in Cyprus with a bit of gold or silver when the servo couldn't sell any because no one had cash and credit cards were down? Do you think an Aussie food supplier won't sell you food for gold when no one has cash? His choice is to take your gold - at YOUR price or let it rot? Aussies live in a fools paradise - they will change like lightning if the shtf. Just hope we don't get to see it. Gazza
I must say I am looking forward to the day a round fifty fills the tank in my car or I take the missus out for dinner and pay with a couple of florins
What we can probably all agree on is that when SHTF*, it'll be better to have a stack of PMs than not. *Exact definitions vary per individual.
We can think back to 1937. The silver crown at .84 oz was 5/-. The gold sovereign was 1/4 oz of gold and worth one pound. This is roughly a GSR of 15. These coins had value and were easily traded. It would not take long for ounces of silver and gold to have purchasing power. With the internet PM's value will be easily tracked in respect of products. I am sure businesses would be happy to trade in PM's.
I have worked in a number of places where they experienced, hyper inflation , depression, war, ethnic violence etc. The local currency was being used to light fires and wipe bums. Deutschmarks and $US, and sometimes French Francs were widely accepted, and in every single one of them you could use gold, either buy or sell, trade whatever. I have heard $10 000US in gold or cash was the going rate for a family to buy a ride in a UN APC out of Sarajevo during the siege
