Thanks for the welcome guys. I've been a silver bug for a number of years, but only just found this forum and from all accounts it seems very informative and friendly
benjamind2010...
You are absolutely correct. When investing you should always focus on the longer term and ignore short-term volatility. Failure to do this increases the chance you're wealth will be stolen by the sharks that prey on the weak hands.
However, it's not always about making money, but moreso maintaining the value of your current wealth in REAL terms.
For example, if you had 100K in gold and 100k in cash 20 years ago , which is worth more in todays money. Yes, you'd still have 100K in cash, but in real terms your purchasing power will have been significantly reduced due to inflation. Depending on your age, you can probably relate to this.
However, while it may appear your gold has significantly increased in value, all it has really done is maintained its REAL value compared to it's fiat currency equivalent. So gold hasn't really increased in value, rather fiat currency has decreased in value.
So why do you keep money in the bank for the long term? Because that's what the "system" has programmed us to do since we were an early age. It's in the "systems" best interest.
Since inception the US dollar has lost 95% of it's purchasing power, and this is why they call inflation "the silent tax", because you're being taxed without even knowing it. So even in periods of inflation when stocks and bonds are increasing in face value, in real terms they are losing value due to the effect inflation has on the purchasing power of fiat currency.
Gold is a measure of inflation, so when gold prices increase, inflation increases, which in turn devalues fiat currency, which in turn becomes less attractive to foreign currency investors because they begin to lose faith in the "value" of the currency. This is the very reason why governments do whatever they can to surpress the price of gold (and silver by proxy).
No fiat currency in the history of the world has ever survived, and for thousands of years the best form of storing wealth over the long term has always been precious metals, because unlike fiat currencies, physical gold and silver has intrinsic value and can NEVER go to zero. This is why most people invest in precious metals.
Hope I haven't confused anyone with my rambling
