patrick.net

Or to put another way, spend your money on assets instead of consumption.

We can argue about if gold is a good investment or if equities are about to crash, but at the end of the day, assets always have intrinsic value so you’re going to be okay as long as you don’t freak out and sell during a low point.

ignoreme, my pal bought a shitload of silver at $45+ dollars/once, he's so far underwater there is no way up in his lifetime.

Globalist care most about power and wealth. They might take a hit to wealth and hit economy to get Trump out they will make it back and don't care about the damage they do.

clambo says

ignoreme, my pal bought a shitload of silver at $45+ dollars/once, he's so far underwater there is no way up in his lifetime.

Fiat! Currency! Will! Collapse! Gold is $30k/oz! Silver to $5000/oz! You'll see, disbeliever! Muh Axioms are always right! Start you Acme Gold IRA today!

NuttBoxer says

Long term, metals, ones that are recognizable and don't carry high premiums.

I dunno, Boxer. Let's say your Dark Fantasy comes to life, and our country, which has more firearms than people, goes Mad Max. Or goes Venezuela.

How you gonna use your store of value in gold? You sure you will have a buyer, who won't rob you? Are you sure the government won't sanction it, like they already did in 1934? (In that case, you will only be able to sell to a criminal whom you TRUST).

How you gonna get a gallon of gasoline, a few bullets for your weapon, or a loaf of bread with your gold bullion?

If you make a "legal" sale and manage not to get scammed or worse while doing so, all your profit will be taxed at "collectible" rate.

Like Rin, I built up a position back in the day, when I reckoned the purchasing power ought to have been around 600 per ounce and it was trading for less, then creeping up. Took my last position at 700-750 ish.


Then I spent a year or so reading up on the Weimar inflation, and recently read about Mad Max stuff unfolding in Venezuela. Your gold is not practical in these situations.

I have a friend who fled Indochina as a kid with his family after the Communists took Saigon. These folks, long generations of ethnic Chinese in Laos, were fabulously wealthy. They fled with only their clothes and the oodles gold bullion they could carry with them. They had just enough to pay the pirates ("boat people") to smuggle them to somewhere where they got picked up and transported to refugee camp in Hong Kong. I think they were probably robbed of most of it. I suppose, your gold might be practical in that situation. Surely your guns will not be as you will be out gunned.

NoCoupForYou says

Muh Axioms are always right!

Muh ratio is currently at 87:1. Wish I had picked up some silver at the end of May (when silver was sub $15) or June when the ratio popped above 90:1. Still don't have the cojones like Ducky did to go physical.

clambo says

ignoreme, my pal bought a shitload of silver at $45+ dollars/once

There's literally about one week when that was true: April 21-28, 2011. The Gold to Sliver ratio was 35:1 (yikes). At that point, the price of Gold and Sliver corrected to get a more reasonable ratio.

B.A.C.A.H. says

I have a friend who fled Indochina as a kid with his family after the Communists took Saigon. These folks, long generations of ethnic Chinese in Laos, were fabulously wealthy. They fled with only their clothes and the oodles gold bullion they could carry with them. They had just enough to pay the pirates ("boat people") to smuggle them to somewhere where they got picked up and transported to refugee camp in Hong Kong. I think they were probably robbed of most of it. I suppose, your gold might be practical in that situation. Surely your guns will not be as you will be out gunned.

Yes B.A.C.A.H, you hit it on the nail.

In fact, these ppl would have been better off, if they had their 'gold accounts' in the Western Australian mint or the Royal Canadian one, if they wanted to start over in their new homelands instead of carrying it around feeding human traffickers a/o pirates.

What the OP envisions, is a total and complete collapse of the 1st world, western-like economy nations, including the USA, Canada, UK, western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, etc. Sorry, but that's highly unlikely as PRC isn't going to be the home of all the economic refugees from the west nor will India/Pakistan, the middle east, Brazil/Spanish Latin America, or Africa.

Normally debt is a bet on the future. Low rates mean people trust the future.
Now globally, debts are going through the roof: $240 TRILLIONS.
Does it mean people actually trust the future to actually pay back these debts? Does it mean we are about to see an economic boom?
Worse: it can't stop, otherwise the economy implodes.
Where is THIS runaway train going? I don't know but probably nowhere we want to be. This doesn't mean we're boat people waiting to happen.
But it does mean you want some wealth not bound to the banking system & governments.

NuttBoxer says

I meant cash on hand, not in a bank.

Like in a mattress?

So you believe cash will have value if things get so bad that the banks collapse?

Seems to me with that scenario all bets are off, farm land and weaponry to protect it are your best investments.

NuttBoxer says

I meant cash on hand, not in a bank.

Good idea to have some.

We can learn from banking crises that have already happened in recent history. Iceland. Cypress. Greece. And even in the US with some failures, - IndyMac and others: The government makes a bank holiday. Then, daily withdrawal limits for a time. Maybe even a long time. Good to have some ready cash for such an occurence, which has happened and will happen again.

As long as you stay under the insurance limit, your deposit will be there. Just may not be able to get it all, right away. Now... supposing there's a systemic crisis... (like in Iceland)... once the capital controls are lifted, your deposit will be there.... but... like in Iceland, the purchasing power of it might be a whole lot lower.

Heraclitusstudent says

Low rates mean people trust the future.

Interest rates are typically considered equal to inflation expectations plus some real interest rate. What I believe we've had since 2008 is deflationary or anti-inflationary pressure due to the amount of debt out there. Debt has to be paid back - and the nature of the market place is that it won't easily allow it to be paid back in dollars that are worth far less than the dollars that were borrowed (at least not in an orderly fashion).

You might say, then how do we have such upward pressure on financial assets if inflation is so low ? The short answer is that financial assets as well as many real assets such as real estate (that can be financed with low interest rate debt) often move inversely to interest rates. That is low interest rates are good for financial assets, becasue for one thing, financial assets compete with interest bearing securities for where money (all that excess capital) gets invested (or parked). For another thing, low cost money is borrowed to trade financial assets or to invest short term, or long term in the case of real estate. Ever heard of the so called "carry trade?" The term used to apply to Japanese yen borrowed on the cheap to invest in whatever that could earn more than the low interest cost. But in recent years there was a period when US interest rates were close to zero. Even now, interest rates are probably close to negative, if you subtract out the inflation rate.

Bottom line: I'm not so sure that low interest rates so much mean that people trust the future as it means that interest rates can't easily go up in an environment of excessive debt. Because if they did, it would mean one of two things. Either inflation has finally kicked in as Trump and others want it to (meaning debt can be paid back in cheaper dollars).
OR real interest rates (interest rates minus inflation) are very very high, which would be death to the economy.

Is it possible that the problems that led to 2008 have not yet been solved ?

NoCoupForYou says

Fiat! Currency! Will! Collapse! Gold is $30k/oz! Silver to $5000/oz! You'll see, disbeliever! Muh Axioms are always right! Start you Acme Gold IRA today!

I wonder what happened to the chick who used to argue with wookie and pumped bitcoin. It's been trending down every since then.

It is perfectly reasonable to have the stock market appreciate 25% in a year with a 4% increase in earnings and a 2%ish GPD growth rate. This while there has been more selling of equities by general public than buying because the Boomers are selling to fund their retirements, while the Millenials are buying fractional shares (the latest thing).

… or …

there could just be a massive increase in debt purchasing the assets.

However, I don't see what could stop this trend in the short term, but it could collapse overnight.