Does buying physical silver bullion mean you are investing?

[mmissinglink]

Silver is NOT insurance....period....and anyone who argues that it is, is truly misguided I'm convinced.

Why do you still continue to shove YOUR beliefs down our throats? Who are you to tell me why I buy my silver? I don't think you're going to stop until everyone on this forum admits that silver is an investment.

Ok, so we're all truly misguided. Happy?

You're missing the whole point and you are making yourself angry by doing this.

You can call a tricycle a Boeing 787 all you like (I have no intention of trying to take away your right to do this)....but that doesn't make it a 787. My argument is NOT that you shouldn't have the right to call something that it isn't but rather that you are calling it something that it isn't and potentially misleading others. It's no different than me correcting you if you call a silver plated non-denom round a pure silver coin. I have no intention of taking away your right to call it a coin but I will tell you that you've got it wrong.

Silver is NOT insurance no matter how much you might tell yourself it is.

And chill out a bit, pal.


.

 

[mmissinglink]

@ mmissinglink - to add on to what BeHereNow said: you claim that silver is not insurance because it's not a guarantee that someone's wealth is preserved when an economic meltdown occurs.

Now you claim insurance is only valid when there is a guarantee. Lets use car insurance for example. Hypothetically, if everyone on earth had car insurance and got into a car accident all at once, I will GUARANTEE you that not everyone will get their claims fulfilled. It's not possible for any insurance to reimburse a higher total amount that they receive. Similar to how banks running a fractional reserve on fiat, if everyone came in to withdraw their whole balance at once, the bank will not be able to pay out to everyone.

There is no such thing as a 100% guarantee. Holding physical silver is an insurance against an economic collapse, vaguely speaking, but it's just not a 100% certainty.

You are mis-stating my position, you are making a very grand presumption, and your hypothetical is beyond absurd.

First, my position is not contingent on some alleged hypothetical end-of-days scenario.

Second, it's that exact alleged hypothetical end-of-days scenario that is a very grand presumption (for which there is no evidence to suggest that such a scenario is in the cards for you and I).

Third, I won't even dignify that wildly absurd hypothetical that every car owner in the world will get into a car accident all at once.

You've really got to do a LOT better than this if you are going to expect me to take your arguments seriously.



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[iluvbeanz]

You are mis-stating my position, you are making a very grand presumption, and your hypothetical is beyond absurd.

First, my position is not contingent on some alleged hypothetical end-of-days scenario.

Second, it's that exact alleged hypothetical end-of-days scenario that is a very grand presumption (for which there is no evidence to suggest that such a scenario is in the cards for you and I).

Third, I won't even dignify that wildly absurd hypothetical that every car owner in the world will get into a car accident all at once.

You've really got to do a LOT better than this if you are going to expect me to take your arguments seriously.

You're missing the whole point and you are making yourself angry by doing this.

You can call a tricycle a Boeing 787 all you like but that doesn't make it a 787. My argument is NOT that you shouldn't have the right to call something that it isn't but rather that you are calling it something that it isn't and potentially misleading others. It's no different than me correcting you if you call a silver plated non-denom round a pure silver coin. I have no intention of taking away your right to call it a coin but I will tell you that you've got it wrong.

Silver is NOT insurance no matter how much you might tell yourself it is.

And chill out a bit, pal.

Oh I see, so these debates are set by your rules and parameters of what is valid and what is absurd. There is no guarantee that you'll get a claim on car or house insurance all the time, every time. These still run on a certain degree of trust, just like government fiat. You discredit the claim that silver can be a type of insurance because it's not a guarantee on wealth preservation. But let me tell you again, no insurance or a 100% guarantee no matter how absurd it is, but rather to how much of a degree.

You can call silver an investment, but that doesn't make it so. I don't disagree that silver can be a type of investment, but people buy it for other reasons as well. Simple as that.

How do you take what I say as anger? The point is that you're still shoving your own rules of what silver is and isn't down people's throat, and bringing up different viewpoint won't matter to you anyways.

 

[mmissinglink]

There's lots of things that are guaranteed. With my home owners insurance as just one of many examples, I am guaranteed protection against suffering financial loss ("Guaranteed Replacement Cost Coverage") for specific damage delineated in the contract.

Your "back-up plan" (blobs of metal) is rife with risk. That's not necessarily unusual as most people's retirement savings in the form of stock market-tied paper is also rife with risk....but I have to call silver what it is and what it isn't.

Silver is NOT insurance....period....and anyone who argues that it is, is truly misguided I'm convinced.

Buying silver is a form of speculative investing, not a form of insurance.


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Okay, so a 'guarantee' is a written piece of paper.
If it is a piece of paper you want, I will sell you some ASEs and give you a written guarantee that if you keep them for 25 years they will increase in value. Problem solved, now they are insurance.

If there is no guarantee tomorrow will exist, how can you believe your insurance company must exist, and pay a claim, that they may dispute?
I have a family member who works for an insurance company, claims are often denied.
You have certain expectations concerning your insurance, and the company, that may occur, or may not occur.
I have certain expectation concerning silver, that may occur or may not occur.

We do disagree but I understand what you are saying.
Using the terms 'insurance' and 'guarantee' in a certain way, silver has neither of these.
I will continue to buy silver for the piece of mind it gives me, just like my insurance.

Please don't forget, after all those years of paying insurance premiums, a couple of thousand a year, if I make no claims, I lost that money.
That guarantee for replacement of loss, also guarantees you will lose money if you make no claim.
Because of this some people 'self-insure'. They buy no insurance, have no guarantees, but have equity to replace financial loses. (In some cases the law gives them no such choice.)

You make a good point about the premiums paid on insurance. There is a cost no doubt to guarantee against specific loss. Keep in mind though that there are real and sometimes significant costs associated with storing, securing, and moving/relocating blobs of metal. This alleged "store of wealth" argument doesn't look very rosy when we consider these and many other costs associated with purchasing and holding blobs.

I don't contend that a guarantee must necessarily be in writing but that can help of course in certain situations. In my view, buying silver is basically a fiscal decision. You can't eat silver bars, you can't wear them, you can't use them to create energy to power your electrical devices or appliances, you can not use them for very much at all. Silver blobs stacked in a SDB or safe are dead, inanimate objects that frankly do nothing. The value that we attach to them is not a characteristic of the blob but rather it's a perception we attach to the blobs....the blob has done nothing except cost you money to store, secure, move, etc it. Except to re-sell them for money or in a far, far, far less likely application of converting blobs into something useful to your daily life, to barter them for things that you can actually use, blobs are dead weight. But it is because blobs can do nothing except be used as just noted is why I see buying blobs as a fiscal decision.

That decision is not a guarantee of wealth storage because you can easily lose wealth storing blobs. How much does 500 oz of ASE's cost you over a period of 25 years holding them if the spot silver price was $25 at the time of purchase? That's not such an easy answer is it because you may not have considered any fees associated with the purchase on top of the premium paid. And you may not have considered whatever (annual) storage, securing, moving charges that you might acrue over 25 years time. Then when you try to sell these blobs of metal, what will be the costs associated with this (travel costs and others) as well as the buy back premium loss you will sustain when you sell these 500 ASE's to a dealer like APMEX or whatever. Stacking blobs turns out to be not such a tidy "store of wealth" especially if the sentiment toward owning blobs has declined or if when you need to sell everyone is also selling and the price consolidates rapidly and immensely due to supply overwhelming demand.

So, a guarantee (when talking about fiscal decisions/purchases) is more or less a legally bound promise backed by some form of authority (usually the government). As I mentioned in a previous comment in this thread, in the U.S., insurance policies that offer property and casualty insurance policies (as well as some other policies) are backed by state governments because these insurance companies must be members of state Insurance Guaranty Associations. With blobs of metal sitting in a box somewhere, you have no such guarantees, legal or otherwise, to protect against loss of value.

I'm not sure how I can make this more clear than I already have but blobs of metal are not insurance because they offer no guarantee of protection in any way, shape, or form and can be a liability in fact.

That said, I think that some members here forget that just because I know that blobs of metal are not insurance, like you, I do believe that there's a very good likelihood that these blobs will be valued just as much by our societies long after our corpses have fed the earthworms as they are today. It is this belief, and I certainly could be wrong, that drives me to buy blobs and other silver products. I consider myself a stacker (very small scale) but also a realist and I don't drink the "silver-to-da-moon tomorrow" Kool-Aid just because most others may have.

I am a little more optimistic about the sustaining value power of silver than I come off most of the time....it's just that I have very strong opinions about certain claims that others make.


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[HAC888]

Does buying physical silver bullion mean you are investing?

In my Opinion, I buy silver Bullion for investing (taken a risk for profit or loss)

 

[Miloman]

"missing a link" loves the word "blobs" and arguing that anyone that disagrees is wrong. I've made my point.

Back to my blobs.

 

[BeHereNow]

You make a good point about the premiums paid on insurance. There is a cost no doubt to guarantee against specific loss. Keep in mind though that there are real and sometimes significant costs associated with storing, securing, and moving/relocating blobs of metal. This alleged "store of wealth" argument doesn't look very rosy when we consider these and many other costs associated with purchasing and holding blobs.

I don't contend that a guarantee must necessarily be in writing but that can help of course in certain situations. In my view, buying silver is basically a fiscal decision. You can't eat silver bars, you can't wear them, you can't use them to create energy to power your electrical devices or appliances, you can not use them for very much at all. Silver blobs stacked in a SDB or safe are dead, inanimate objects that frankly do nothing. The value that we attach to them is not a characteristic of the blob but rather it's a perception we attach to the blobs....the blob has done nothing except cost you money to store, secure, move, etc it. Except to re-sell them for money or in a far, far, far less likely application of converting blobs into something useful to your daily life, to barter them for things that you can actually use, blobs are dead weight. But it is because blobs can do nothing except be used as just noted is why I see buying blobs as a fiscal decision.

That decision is not a guarantee of wealth storage because you can easily lose wealth storing blobs. How much does 500 oz of ASE's cost you over a period of 25 years holding them if the spot silver price was $25 at the time of purchase? That's not such an easy answer is it because you may not have considered any fees associated with the purchase on top of the premium paid. And you may not have considered whatever (annual) storage, securing, moving charges that you might acrue over 25 years time. Then when you try to sell these blobs of metal, what will be the costs associated with this (travel costs and others) as well as the buy back premium loss you will sustain when you sell these 500 ASE's to a dealer like APMEX or whatever. Stacking blobs turns out to be not such a tidy "store of wealth" especially if the sentiment toward owning blobs has declined or if when you need to sell everyone is also selling and the price consolidates rapidly and immensely due to supply overwhelming demand.

So, a guarantee (when talking about fiscal decisions/purchases) is more or less a legally bound promise backed by some form of authority (usually the government). As I mentioned in a previous comment in this thread, in the U.S., insurance policies that offer property and casualty insurance policies (as well as some other policies) are backed by state governments because these insurance companies must be members of state Insurance Guaranty Associations. With blobs of metal sitting in a box somewhere, you have no such guarantees, legal or otherwise, to protect against loss of value.

I'm not sure how I can make this more clear than I already have but blobs of metal are not insurance because they offer no guarantee of protection in any way, shape, or form and can be a liability in fact.

That said, I think that some members here forget that just because I know that blobs of metal are not insurance, like you, I do believe that there's a very good likelihood that these blobs will be valued just as much by our societies long after our corpses have fed the earthworms as they are today. It is this belief, and I certainly could be wrong, that drives me to buy blobs and other silver products. I consider myself a stacker (very small scale) but also a realist and I don't drink the "silver-to-da-moon tomorrow" Kool-Aid just because most others may have.

I am a little more optimistic about the sustaining value power of silver than I come off most of the time....it's just that I have very strong opinions about certain claims that others make.


.

I do not understand this concern about storage of 500 oz, and you are certainly not the only one to bring it up.
Most do not mention a specific amount, but I am sure they would agree with you.
I do see that the big players add another zero to that, and that could be a concern. Converting some to gold at that point could make sense.
500 oz is a few 50 cal ammo cans.
As I pack up to move 1000 miles for another phase of my life, our stained glass lamps are more concern than my blobs.
I have no cost for storage or moving, at 500, not 5000.
Very little cost in acquiring, although some has postage associated.
My blobs are part of a plan, that include a store of food, and alternative energy.
All things are a liability, inanimate or otherwise. With some, the expectations are that the benefits will exceed liability. I am thinking a family pet that reached the end of a life that enriched mine more than I did hers. I provided for her what I could, but she gave me more.

Where we start often determines where we end up, and your starting point for buying silver was very different from my own.

~ ~
I do not mind being told I am wrong about something, as long as the reasons are explained. You have done that very nicely.
We still disagree, but I never got the feeling you expected (some suggest 'demanded') me to switch sides. You brought your side to us, to prevent misguided stackers from being deluded. I see a benefit to that, and no harm.
Other posters seem less open minded. They would not do well, at all, on debate forums, but they do not need to.
The posters have considered this stuff and know their mind, I expect none were changed.
But the lurkers, that is where the converts are. Shine the light of knowledge, so that others may walk an informed path. All contributions helped in this, at your lead.

There are a segment of the forum members who say silver is not only not insurance, but it is not investment either.
Their side was not fully presented in this thread, the lurkers will have to find it other places.
For the most part, you and I agree on that point.

Cheers

 

[Miloman]

There are a segment of the forum members who say silver is not only not insurance, but it is not investment either.
Their side was not fully presented in this thread, the lurkers will have to find it other places.
For the most part, you and I agree on that point.

Cheers

I disagree. My point was made.

Also other points were made. If you require a thesis go to Professor Fekete or Mises or any of the Austrian School Graduates, there's plenty on the subject. Most couldn't be bother to argue with a self proclaimed know-it-all.

 

[BeHereNow]

There are a segment of the forum members who say silver is not only not insurance, but it is not investment either.
Their side was not fully presented in this thread, the lurkers will have to find it other places.
For the most part, you and I agree on that point.

Cheers

I disagree. My point was made.

Also other points were made. If you require a thesis go to Professor Fekete or Mises or any of the Austrian School Graduates, there's plenty on the subject. Most couldn't be bother to argue with a self proclaimed know-it-all.

So if I understand you, you have told us everything a reasonable person needs to know about silver being an investment, since you.....know it all.
Interesting.
As for the Austrian School, the more I see the less I like.

My MBA friend is one of those Austrian school followers. He didn't quite give me a guarantee, but he assured me in December that QE would continue unabated, and probably increase, as the financial world would collapse if QE dropped from $85 Billion in the U.S. He also assured me $100 silver was imminent - right around the corner - certainly by July 2014, December 2014 at the latest. To da moon.
He was offended when I questioned his reasoning. "I've been studying this stuff for years (Mises, etc.). How could you think I could be wrong?"
So far I am batting 1000, him, not so well.

 

[Miloman]

So if I understand you, you have told us everything a reasonable person needs to know about silver being an investment, since you.....know it all.
Interesting.
As for the Austrian School, the more I see the less I like.

My MBA friend is one of those Austrian school followers. He didn't quite give me a guarantee, but he assured me in December that QE would continue unabated, and probably increase, as the financial world would collapse if QE dropped from $85 Billion in the U.S. He also assured me $100 silver was imminent - right around the corner - certainly by July 2014, December 2014 at the latest. To da moon.
He was offended when I questioned his reasoning. "I've been studying this stuff for years (Mises, etc.). How could you think I could be wrong?"
So far I am batting 1000, him, not so well.

Sorry but your friend is speaking on behalf of the entire "Austrian School"? That's funny.

Actually if you read the thread, I called silver and gold the "anti-investment"

There are many ways that the economy is changing. I personally sold metal at higher prices and have been buying more lately.

So your a monetarist and believe in the system?

 

[BeHereNow]

Sorry but your friend is speaking on behalf of the entire "Austrian School"? That's funny.

Well, I did not say, but since you bring it up.....
His college prof was 100% Austrian, had some minor works published, magazine articles, nothing big.
He gave my friend wonderful grades, little 'attaboy' notes in the margins of his papers. They talked after class. All of this supposedly to stand as evidence that my friend "Knew the Truth."
He would be very offended (as would his prof) if I suggested he was not a sterling example of a follower of the Austrian school.

Actually if you read the thread, I called silver and gold the "anti-investment"

I said nothing about your position on the subject, only that you would have us believe that you know-it-all.

" Miloman : Also an investment in the sense of increased purchasing power relative to other goods then I think most people here agree that silver is "undervalued" especially when compared to things like real estate.
Silver is undervalued as an investment, that's what I read.

You do add to that post, saying "I should add that by "investing" - removing one's covering - we usually get a return because we are "naked" and are taking a risk. In another real sense I feel the exact opposite about silver because of (1) history (2) foresight (3) silver is money (4) I believe that people who have "savings" silver are "covering" themselves by "insurance.

So I am doing in a literal sense of the word investment, the opposite."
Which seems to me like nothing except a contradiction.

Surely you know that the Austrian concept that 'Silver is money" is controversial. Not merely silver can be money, but silver IS money.
I know that right now, where I live, silver is NOT money, as I do not want to exchange my ASEs for $1 worth of goods or bill paying.

There are many ways that the economy is changing. I personally sold metal at higher prices and have been buying more lately.

So your a monetarist and believe in the system?

I am a critical thinker, suspicious of all systems.
You are free to use your labels as you choose.
Freidman's Chicago school seems to me to pass the smell test as good or better than most.

I know that the Austrian school proposes that fiat has been characteristically unsuccessful as a monetary system, when in fact it has been around 4000+ years, and there is no evidence that PM backed systems have done any better.
The Romans had a PM backed system, and it failed.
The story tellers put it a different way. Let me see if I can present it as they do.
The Romans had a perfectly good PM backed system, until some lunatics just switched it over to fait, for no good reason, except greed.

When a system fails it is replaced.
Successful systems are not replaced.
PM backed failed, for the reasons why it will always fail.
When a nation fails, its fait fails.
Fait is backed by the wealth of the nation, not by PM.
Manpower, infrastructure, armed forces, these are the wealth of nations, not blobs hidden in underground holes.
Unless of course you subscribe to the Austrian School.
Then, dig a hole, protect your wealth.

 

[mmissinglink]

You make a good point about the premiums paid on insurance. There is a cost no doubt to guarantee against specific loss. Keep in mind though that there are real and sometimes significant costs associated with storing, securing, and moving/relocating blobs of metal. This alleged "store of wealth" argument doesn't look very rosy when we consider these and many other costs associated with purchasing and holding blobs.

I don't contend that a guarantee must necessarily be in writing but that can help of course in certain situations. In my view, buying silver is basically a fiscal decision. You can't eat silver bars, you can't wear them, you can't use them to create energy to power your electrical devices or appliances, you can not use them for very much at all. Silver blobs stacked in a SDB or safe are dead, inanimate objects that frankly do nothing. The value that we attach to them is not a characteristic of the blob but rather it's a perception we attach to the blobs....the blob has done nothing except cost you money to store, secure, move, etc it. Except to re-sell them for money or in a far, far, far less likely application of converting blobs into something useful to your daily life, to barter them for things that you can actually use, blobs are dead weight. But it is because blobs can do nothing except be used as just noted is why I see buying blobs as a fiscal decision.

That decision is not a guarantee of wealth storage because you can easily lose wealth storing blobs. How much does 500 oz of ASE's cost you over a period of 25 years holding them if the spot silver price was $25 at the time of purchase? That's not such an easy answer is it because you may not have considered any fees associated with the purchase on top of the premium paid. And you may not have considered whatever (annual) storage, securing, moving charges that you might acrue over 25 years time. Then when you try to sell these blobs of metal, what will be the costs associated with this (travel costs and others) as well as the buy back premium loss you will sustain when you sell these 500 ASE's to a dealer like APMEX or whatever. Stacking blobs turns out to be not such a tidy "store of wealth" especially if the sentiment toward owning blobs has declined or if when you need to sell everyone is also selling and the price consolidates rapidly and immensely due to supply overwhelming demand.

So, a guarantee (when talking about fiscal decisions/purchases) is more or less a legally bound promise backed by some form of authority (usually the government). As I mentioned in a previous comment in this thread, in the U.S., insurance policies that offer property and casualty insurance policies (as well as some other policies) are backed by state governments because these insurance companies must be members of state Insurance Guaranty Associations. With blobs of metal sitting in a box somewhere, you have no such guarantees, legal or otherwise, to protect against loss of value.

I'm not sure how I can make this more clear than I already have but blobs of metal are not insurance because they offer no guarantee of protection in any way, shape, or form and can be a liability in fact.

That said, I think that some members here forget that just because I know that blobs of metal are not insurance, like you, I do believe that there's a very good likelihood that these blobs will be valued just as much by our societies long after our corpses have fed the earthworms as they are today. It is this belief, and I certainly could be wrong, that drives me to buy blobs and other silver products. I consider myself a stacker (very small scale) but also a realist and I don't drink the "silver-to-da-moon tomorrow" Kool-Aid just because most others may have.

I am a little more optimistic about the sustaining value power of silver than I come off most of the time....it's just that I have very strong opinions about certain claims that others make.


.

I do not understand this concern about storage of 500 oz, and you are certainly not the only one to bring it up.
Most do not mention a specific amount, but I am sure they would agree with you.
I do see that the big players add another zero to that, and that could be a concern. Converting some to gold at that point could make sense.
500 oz is a few 50 cal ammo cans.
As I pack up to move 1000 miles for another phase of my life, our stained glass lamps are more concern than my blobs.
I have no cost for storage or moving, at 500, not 5000.
Very little cost in acquiring, although some has postage associated.
My blobs are part of a plan, that include a store of food, and alternative energy.
All things are a liability, inanimate or otherwise. With some, the expectations are that the benefits will exceed liability. I am thinking a family pet that reached the end of a life that enriched mine more than I did hers. I provided for her what I could, but she gave me more.

Where we start often determines where we end up, and your starting point for buying silver was very different from my own.

~ ~
I do not mind being told I am wrong about something, as long as the reasons are explained. You have done that very nicely.
We still disagree, but I never got the feeling you expected (some suggest 'demanded') me to switch sides. You brought your side to us, to prevent misguided stackers from being deluded. I see a benefit to that, and no harm.
Other posters seem less open minded. They would not do well, at all, on debate forums, but they do not need to.
The posters have considered this stuff and know their mind, I expect none were changed.
But the lurkers, that is where the converts are. Shine the light of knowledge, so that others may walk an informed path. All contributions helped in this, at your lead.

There are a segment of the forum members who say silver is not only not insurance, but it is not investment either.
Their side was not fully presented in this thread, the lurkers will have to find it other places.
For the most part, you and I agree on that point.

Cheers

For me and perhaps some other newbie stackers, 500 oz is a lot. When you live in a big city in a small apartment, and when you may have to move 500 oz from your SDB that just doubled in price to your apartment via private car service (because you can not legally get a driver's license) while you find a better priced SDB to relocate your small stack to, 500 oz can be a burden in several ways including a bit of financial burden (private car service ain't cheap) but you sure as hell don't want to take 500 oz in a subway in a city that has the strictest anti-gun laws in the country (probably) and risk being held up by every thug who carries an illegally purchased handgun. But I digress a little.

I have realized over the past few months that here on the SS forum, most members have SIGNIFICANTLY more stacked precious metals than I have or ever will have (unless I win the lottery). I incorrectly assumed that most stackers I'd come across were shooting for a goal of 1000 oz and that many stackers are not even half way there. Why I thought this? I'm actually not entirely sure but I think it has to do with my early exposure to some stackers on YouTube who talked about this 1000 oz goal. My goal for the end of the year is to accumulate a total of 500 oz....I have a lot of work to do to achieve this.

So I have to agree with you BeHereNow that we all don't come from the same place in terms of stacking. I perceive that I am very late to the game comparatively to other stackers. On the positive side though, at least I have awoken to the notion that buying pm's is a worthwhile investment of, in the very least, my time to know as much about it as I can....99.9% of the people I know (other than serious stackers) have never even considered buying a single blob.

So maybe the glass of being late to the game here is not half empty for me but rather half full....just depends on which group of people I'm comparing myself with.



.