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No. Gold is worthless. I rather stock food, tp, ammo, guns, fuel, shelter, stuff that actually has value and helps you survive. Gold can't feed you, keep you warm or dry.
Gold helps if you have some sort of trading/civilization and need a item as currency everyone agrees on. And if you're talking total global collapse there are millions of pounds of gold in houses, in banks, etc. it won't be rare.
Right now you got 3 billion people and 10 million pounds of gold. Apocalypse you have 10 million pounds of gold and 5 million people
If you're talking a regular local emergency no. I have cash and a few silver coins I collected but IMO aren't hugely valuable. Enough to get by for a while. Otherwise it's cc or I'll go to the bank and get more. If the world ends cash is worthless but so its gold.
Silver for a multiple of reasons. It's what a family friend taught me for he grew up during the post WWI Germany and that's what worked then. As a less precious metal than gold, it could be used for day to day needs such as a loaf of bread. Hence, it is easier to stockpile silver in those forms (dimes and quarters) than gold. As old but still viable US currency, there is a greater penalty/less risk in counterfeiting. I'm not saying that it still can't happen but just that the penalty is greater (and it probably comes under a greater watchful eye of enforcement) if it is attempted. There is a point of how it is reported for taxes when one is dealing in old coins vs just the metal. Finally, I find the art work beautiful and the history potentially fascinating.
To the last, when I hold a silver dollar from the 19th century in my hands and think about what history it must have seen. I do, from time to time, include silver dollars in my emergency stockpiling but they are on the outside market; it is easier as in cheaper to deal in dimes, quarters, and half dollars.
No. Gold is worthless. I rather stock food, tp, ammo, guns, fuel, shelter, stuff that actually has value and helps you survive. Gold can't feed you, keep you warm or dry.
Gold helps if you have some sort of trading/civilization and need a item as currency everyone agrees on. And if you're talking total global collapse there are millions of pounds of gold in houses, in banks, etc. it won't be rare.
Right now you got 3 billion people and 10 million pounds of gold. Apocalypse you have 10 million pounds of gold and 5 million people
If you're talking a regular local emergency no. I have cash and a few silver coins I collected but IMO aren't hugely valuable. Enough to get by for a while. Otherwise it's cc or I'll go to the bank and get more. If the world ends cash is worthless but so its gold.
You nailed it. There's a certain segment of doom-and-gloomer type scammers out there who like to sell this fallacy to the paranoid. The idea of gold as a protection against "the collapse of the economic system" ignores the fact that if there's no longer a working economy, why would anyone need or want gold? Food, safe water, and other of life's necessities would become priceless and gold worthless in such a situation.
It is meaningless to hide gold, because the government can easily control or even seize your gold in case of a n emergency.
Probably better to stock up on food and other things you may need. If the people in Venezuela had stocked up on food, then they could spend their time more productively than standing in line in front of supermarkets.
What the heck are you going to do for gold in an "emergency" - maybe you can melt it down for bullets in case of a vampire or werewolf apocalypse. It has no value without a functioning financial market to exchange it.
You "invest" in gold as a hedge (diversify) and/or as a speculative investment.
Gold is Money. If the FED rebels against Dollar Strength, then oil will rise, stocks will fly, and we will head into negative interest rates and the destruction of all fiat currencies.
Negative interest rates are the final act of the apocalypse. Then gold will rise exponentially. And the only currencies that will survive will be those backed by gold. So, the choice will not be easy for the FED. If they raise interest rates, it will support the US Dollar, save the US Dollar as a world reserve currency, but it will deflate the global economy, brick by brick, oil and commodities first, then multinational corporations, then force foreign defaults of US Dollar debt taken out during the massive QE flood of money that inflated the global debt bubble, then the crash of banks, then the Great Depression (finally).
It seems like the FED has to choose either the Great Depression now, or later, after the complete destruction of the fiat currency system. The strong Dollar begins the deflation now. The weak Dollar begins the deflation after all the currencies have been destroyed. That seems to be the only choice the FED has now. It should have begun raising interest rates (small steady increases) in 2001, making money more expensive and not supporting the debt bubble inflation that has been the new religion of central banks, which I believe will be proven to have been a catastrophe.
I started stockpiling bottled water (in plastic jugs) a few years ago. It's been in my basement ever since, and no doubt would taste terrible by now. So I am using it in my greenhouse - hope whatever has leached out of the plastic won't adversely affect my plants. I probably should stock up on ten gallons of bottled water, just in case - but with gravity-fed public water and underground lines, I'm in pretty good shape, even when the power goes out. Gas water heater helps, too. Even if the local water got contaminated and the power was out, I could boil enough for drinking, using the fireplace.
As for stockpiling gold, no way. A small stash of smallish bills for a short-term emergency, sure (though I have not done it). Fully gassed-up car. Hand tools. Hand-operated can opener. Fully charged cell phone. Battery flashlights, fan and radio. Canned goods, of course. Firewood for my woodburning fireplace - check. Oil for the oil lamps. Candles. Locate and clean up cast-iron for fireplace cookery. Blankets to hang in doorless doorways between rooms to conserve heat. Most emergencies are more likely to be weather-based - think about week minus power, and what you might need to get by. I've had to do this twice, following ice storms.
Despite the many woes of the political/international world right now, I think hurricanes, blizzards, floods, tornadoes, and ice storms are far more likely to affect most Americans currently than are political disasters severe enough to bring the country to its knees. So plan accordingly.
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