So I buy gold from Chuck Woolery, then the economy tanks and/or the financial system collapses. Then what? What do I do with this gold? Who's buying it from me? Who's accepting gold as payment? Seriously, I don't understand how this is supposed to work. Are the only beneficiaries Mr. Woolery & Co.?
I often wondered why the brokers advertise to buy gold. If it were that important, wouldn't they be clamoring for you to sell it to them? Also, do they send you actual gold, or do they send you a piece of paper, or electronic statement saying that you own some gold that you have never seen, nor will ever see? Call me a gold skeptic. The real safe haven is land and food. If you have those, you have what you need.
In general, bullion dealers will mail you gold and silver coins and bars that you order. There are some services (vaults) where you can order allocated (to you) gold and silver bars to be stored in vaults in various countries (UK, Switzerland, etc.). In this case, you can sell the allocated gold/silver bars electronically. I've done both and there are advantages and disadvantages to each way of owning gold/silver.
While food and land are important, gold is much more a safe haven asset since 2023 because of the Basel III accords. This made gold a Tier 1 (highest Tier) asset and incentivized banks to hold allocated gold (that they really had in possession) rather than paper (pretend, unallocated) gold. In addition, the current expectation is that the BRICS nations will back their "Unit" currency by 40% gold. Finally, central banks have been buying gold and repatriated gold that was stored in the U.S. and U.K. All of this may be why gold has gone up in relation to the U.S. dollar something 25% in less than a year.
If I was to buy gold, I would tend to buy physical coins or bars and purchase near the COMEX options expiration date. For silver, I would purchase near the options expiration date or the COMEX futures contract settlement date. I would be careful about holding a significant amount of silver past December of this year.
This post was edited 6 minutes after it was posted.
So I buy gold from Chuck Woolery, then the economy tanks and/or the financial system collapses. Then what? What do I do with this gold? Who's buying it from me? Who's accepting gold as payment? Seriously, I don't understand how this is supposed to work. Are the only beneficiaries Mr. Woolery & Co.?
1.)I often wondered why the brokers advertise to buy gold. If it were that important, wouldn't they be clamoring for you to sell it to them? 2.) Also, do they send you actual gold, or do they send you a piece of paper, or electronic statement saying that you own some gold that you have never seen, nor will ever see? 3.)Call me a gold skeptic. The real safe haven is land and food. If you have those, you have what you need.
I don't know Mr. Woolery & Co. but I've looked into Monetary Metals & Co. (not that seriously) which is a gold/silver bond and lease business. @hvitt gull - you trade gold for things you want, the person you are trading with has to want gold in return for whatever they are selling, same as it ever was.
1.) It's not like there is such a limited supply than if one person buys it the price changes. Presumably they do own a lot of gold and decided they need fiat, or they don't own the gold but buy it as a middleman with a transaction cost & markup.
2.) With Monetary Metals & Co. you can redeem your gold as bullion. Normally I'd guess its paper/electronic ownership i.e. what currency used to be.
3.) I'd agree that land is a better safe haven.
When talking gold you have the end-of-the-world types and the don't-trust-fiat types and there is a big difference. The end of the world types would have gold bullion whereas the don't trust fiat types could have it in storage at whatever facility lumped in with others. The end of the world types would also suggest land/food/guns/ammo whereas the don't trust fiat types would just go with land.
Anyhow as for investment/black swan risk protection. Once someone has a few hundred thousand in regular investments it's probably not the worst idea to have a few thousand in gold bullion. You can treat it as part of your fixed side with bonds/cash equivalents.
In terms of the origin of money, people (the market) gravitated toward gold which is why governments then starting using it (and trying to abuse it). It obviously has its own value outside of commodity money such as jewelry/electronics. Gold is subject to supply and demand just like anything else, although it might I wouldn't bank on it appreciating.
1.)I often wondered why the brokers advertise to buy gold. If it were that important, wouldn't they be clamoring for you to sell it to them? 2.) Also, do they send you actual gold, or do they send you a piece of paper, or electronic statement saying that you own some gold that you have never seen, nor will ever see? 3.)Call me a gold skeptic. The real safe haven is land and food. If you have those, you have what you need.
I don't know Mr. Woolery & Co. but I've looked into Monetary Metals & Co. (not that seriously) which is a gold/silver bond and lease business. @hvitt gull - you trade gold for things you want, the person you are trading with has to want gold in return for whatever they are selling, same as it ever was.
1.) It's not like there is such a limited supply than if one person buys it the price changes. Presumably they do own a lot of gold and decided they need fiat, or they don't own the gold but buy it as a middleman with a transaction cost & markup.
2.) With Monetary Metals & Co. you can redeem your gold as bullion. Normally I'd guess its paper/electronic ownership i.e. what currency used to be.
3.) I'd agree that land is a better safe haven.
When talking gold you have the end-of-the-world types and the don't-trust-fiat types and there is a big difference. The end of the world types would have gold bullion whereas the don't trust fiat types could have it in storage at whatever facility lumped in with others. The end of the world types would also suggest land/food/guns/ammo whereas the don't trust fiat types would just go with land.teAnyhow as for investment/black swan risk protection. Once someone has a few hundred thousand in regular investments it's probably not the worst idea to have a few thousand in gold bullion. You can treat it as part of your fixed side with bonds/cash equivalents.
In terms of the origin of money, people (the market) gravitated toward gold which is why governments then starting using it (and trying to abuse it). It obviously has its own value outside of commodity money such as jewelry/electronics. Gold is subject to supply and demand just like anything else, although it might I wouldn't bank on it appreciating.
That commercial with Chuck Woolery is a joke. He cherry-picked a date when the Gold price was at is absolute nadir. You could do that with the stock market and pick 2009 or 2003 and the results would be similar. I would never buy gold.
If the economy tanks even further and we go into another depression, won't gold be the LAST thing anybody will give a sh*t about?
I think that the only real safe haven investments are food, water and shelter stocks. Is there a Survival Index??
Only morons buy gold as an investment. If you want to buy gold because you like the looks of it (kind of crazy, but whatever), then more power to you, but as an investment, moronic.
The BEST way to hedge against a down market is to buy, buy, buy and then buy some more...stocks that is. The stock market (diversified mutual funds only) is the safest way to make you rich over time. I'm not a fan of bonds. If you want to protect what should be MILLIONS of dollars when you retire from a down market, either take less from the pile during that down market, or have saved up a liquid emergency fund of at least 3 YEARS of expenses...could be in a HYSA or CDs or even just cash in a regular savings account...the idea is to use this money for expenses if the market has dropped a ton.
BUT, if you retire with ZERO debt including a paid-for house (as you should) and you invested in the market heavily while you were working (as you should have), then you should be able to take a very small percentage from your investments in retirement if you want to or need to. 1% of $8 million is $80,000. If you can't make it on that for a few years in retirement while you wait for a down market to go north again, then you've got problems.
People who hoard a bunch of gold are sitting ducks for burglary, unless they spent a lot of money to protect or insure it. Someone steals your gold bars, you'll never see them again.
Better to buy oil that way. Nobody's gonna bother stealing 10,000 barrels of oil from your backyard. Allocated petro is the safe haven.
If the economy tanks even further and we go into another depression, won't gold be the LAST thing anybody will give a sh*t about?
I think that the only real safe haven investments are food, water and shelter stocks. Is there a Survival Index??
It’s always fun to look back at posts from 2010. This one was in early July.
That point struck a gradual and consistent uptick on the economy with jobs being added every much. It went for about 10 years. Then covid hit in March 2020. We basically reset at the beginning of 2021.
2020 was way worse than 2008-2010. No one had to resort to trading with gold in either case.
If things really go to absolute hell, why would gold be valuable? You can't eat gold. You cant power your home with it, or build a fire with it or make weapons from it. Someone with a weapon can easily take it from you too.
Universally sought after:
-water
-food
-alcohol
-p#$$y
This post was edited 31 seconds after it was posted.
While the boy slept he began to go methodically through the stores. Clothes, sweaters, socks. A stainless steel basin and sponges and bars of soap. Toothpaste and toothbrushes. In the bottom of a big plastic jar of bolts and screws and miscellaneous hardware he found a double handful of gold krugerrands in a cloth sack. He dumped them out and kneaded them in his hand and looked at them and then scooped them back into the jar along with the hardware and put the jar back on the shelf. He sorted through everything, shifting boxes and crates from one side of the room to the other. There was a small steel door that led into a second room where bottles of gas were stored. In the corner a chemical toilet. There were vent pipes in the walls covered with wire mesh and there were drains in the floor. It was getting warm in the bunker and he’d taken off his coat. He went through everything. He found a box of .45 ACP cartridges and three boxes of .30-30 rifle shells. What he didn't find was a gun. He took the battery lantern and walked over the floor and he checked the walls for any hidden compartment. After a while he just sat on the bunk eating a bar of chocolate. There was no gun and there wasn't going to be one.