Are there any gold bugs here?
I’m from the UK and am having problems obtaining physical gold. It’s advertized at dealers but there are long delays getting it. What’s the situation like in the USA (or anywhere else for that matter).
To be honest, I haven’t bought physical gold recently, but you might take a peek at whether Kitco (https://www.kitco.com/) is delivering.
If there is a problem, it’s potentially related to my theory that China is buying Russian gold for US dollars obtained by selling US Treasury bonds.
Jeff
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You can get gold coins on eBay pretty easily.
Here’s one example - 2023 British Royal Mint Gold Britannia 1/10 oz .9999 fine £10 Coin | eBay
Wow, you can even get bars by the kilo!
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I haven’t bought gold recently.
Think carefully about why you want to buy gold and the downsides compared with other investments.
You pay a transaction fee when you buy and when you sell. Gold doesn’t pay interest the way that bonds (or even money market funds) do. Gold has to be stored in a safe place. (I don’t consider someone else’s vault or a fund that buys gold a “safe place.” I keep mine in my safe deposit box. I want to have it in my hot little hands.
I buy gold as a hedge against the U.S. becoming a fascist dictatorship. As a Jew, I’m aware that I might have to flee to a safer foreign country in that eventuality. (Such as Canada.)
One-ounce coins are about the right size for a bribe (or a month’s rent). Large bars are useless – what can you do with them? I also have 0.1 ounce coins that might be bartered for smaller purchases, such as groceries or arms.
Gold is not a good inflation hedge.
If you want an inflation hedge for cash, buy inflation adjusted bonds (such as TIPS).
Wendy
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He does not trust the FED or US Treasury.
The economics of gold makes sense from time to time. Not right now in my humble opinion. I think about 8 years from now.
I can’t imagine anyone having to think like that.
Gold and silver make up 10% of our portfolio, it’s our insurance policy.
My regular suppliers seem to be strugging at the moment.
“Anyone” is nothing … try imagining ~200 generations of your people having to think that!
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After 2016 my sisters and I have been getting more serious about moving permanently to Ireland. We have or can get dual citizenship. It is an EU passport/citizenship. In retirement we can entertain ourselves making small hops into other EU nations. We have cousins and extended family in Ireland. We may do it regardless of our Jewish heritage just to have a better retirement. I see friends often divorced traveling to Florida and banding together in retirement. That is not really my family scene. My parents want nothing to do with that. We love Ireland.
As @MarkR perceptively commented, Jews have been forced to migrate throughout history due to adverse circumstances. Your lack of imagination reflects a lack of historical knowledge.
The Bible documents that Abraham migrated due to drought which dried up the grass for his flocks. That was about 4,000 years ago, which is about 200 generations at 20 years per generation.
As for more recent history, the Hebrew prayer Vehi She-amda says, " In each and every generation they (our enemies) rise up against us to destroy us."
Wendy
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Hi WendyBG
I’m very aware of history and what has happened to Jews over the years. I have toured Eastern Europe and seen what happened to Jewish communities there, I’ve been to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps when we toured through Poland. It never ceases to amaze me what people can do to each other.
I was surprised that someone living in the USA could think like this:
Although, come think of it, you did have President Trump at one time!
If you ever feel the need to flee the USA then think of coming to the UK. The Jewish community is fully integrated and everyone gets on fine. We have had a Jewish Prime Minister.
The only time in history that I can recall any anti-Jewish sentiment was in the 1930’s, the Battle of Cable Street. In the 1930’s we had taken in a lot of Jews escaping from Facist Europe. The British Facists, led by Mosley, were planning a protest march through the East End where many of the immigrants has settled. Londoners, like the dockers turned out in force and kicked Mosley and his facists out of the East End for good.
I can’t imagine any Jew living in the UK thinking that they might need to flee!
Anyway, my gold dealer has found some gold for me and it should be here soon.
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The rise of antisemitism in the labor party makes us sick.
Ireland is a far better country for Jews and always has been the better country. I do have Jewish family in London. The two branches love London. My sisters and I were raised with my mother’s sister’s children our age in Ireland. Pond hopping.
The EU passport is more valuable than the British passport.
The Jewish culture looks deep into the future and deep into the past. Don’t be amazed.
iirc, before Jews could leave Germany, in the late 30s, they had to sign over their assets to the state. If I were deported as “undesireable”, most likely to Canada, due to the entry on my father’s birth certificate regarding his parents, I would expect to be similarly stripped of assets.
Steve
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If any of y’all didn’t leave during the previous administration, what would it really take?
If you wait until the actual takeover (we were close), it’s too late.
We tend to think it can’t really happen until it does.
That seemed to play out in WWII.
Refugees don’t typically arrive with pockets full of assets. Those people leave early.
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If I saw political events trending in that direction I would electronically transfer my financial assets to the Bank of Canada well in advance of actually migrating myself. I would open the spine of some of my books and glue gold coins into them, reseal and mail to my trusted Canadian friends as “loaned books.”
The hard part would be my home. Not sure how to handle that.
Wendy
You can’t take it with you to Canada. And at your age (mine, too) a change of a significant enough nature to invoke your “bug out” plan is going to be a one way trip. You won’t be returning. So any mementos would have to be sent ahead, and the house sold early enough to salvage as much financial value as possible.
—Peter
Two easy ways: sell and move to an apartment, or, take out a reverse mortgage. When you bug out, let them take the house.
I would expect restrictions on foreign asset transfers to be imposed before anyone gets close to bug-out. I would expect to end up walking across the bridge to Windsor, with a single suitcase, with a couple changes of clothes, and not a nickle to my name.
Ever see “Me And The Colonel”? Danny Kay does a fair job in a straight, dramatic, role. In one sequence, he talks about his moves: leaving his native Poland, because it was unhealthy for Jews, before the Nazis showed up, moving, with his family to Berlin. Then the Nazis showed up. He moves to Vienna. The Nazis move in. He moves to Prague. The Nazis move in. He moves to Paris. The Nazis are approaching, and he is trying to escape again. With each move, he is able to salvage fewer and fewer of his possessions. That is the reality of being a refugee. Canada is rich in resources. Think a fascist shiny-land would leave Canada alone, or nominate that country to be the new Austria?
Steve
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When my great-grandparents left Russia (technically Ukraine, but it was in Russia’s hands back then), all my great-grandfather had was a few hundred dollars of currency in his pocket to pay bribes. However, he was a jeweler, so my great-grandmother had many precious gems sewed into the seams of her dress.
Unfortunately, Jews have been through this drill a few times.
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The Nazis were apparently more through. I recorded the PBS piece on the Nazis and treatment of Jews a few months ago. Happened to watch the first segment again a couple nights ago. iirc it was shortly after Kristallnacht, in 38, when Jews were required to obtain, not only a visa to enter the country they wanted to go to, but also obtain an exit visa from Germany, and, to get that visa, you had to sign over all your assets. The German authorities were probably pretty good at finding valuables sewn into clothes or in false bottoms in suitcases.
steve
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I didn’t realize that there was a problem in the USA for Jews. I thought that they were as integrated as they are in the UK.
After all, despite our success in America and the richness and beauty of our faith and culture, there may be no more consistent part of our heritage as Jews than to be violently attacked, viciously demeaned, and utterly disregarded as we cry out for support.
Here in Europe also:
Mayors from around the world have flown into Athens to focus minds – and efforts – on combatting antisemitism amid a worrying resurgence of near daily hate crimes against Jews.
An eye opener for me.
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SWIFT.
If it can sanction, freeze, and strip assets from Russian oligarch billionaires, it can stop you and me?
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Get some BTC?
Buy some foreign dirt, under a shell company?
Move assets to a BRICS controlled country?
BOHICA?
The asset that floats my boat is a state pension.
It’s difficult to “transfer” that?
ralph
BTW - perhaps some gold, jewels, etc might be smuggled with a drone?
Mailing seems destined for failure, due to today’s technology?