I have always looked on gold as something of an insurance policy against a falling dollar and rising interest rates. I’ve been a little surprised by the rising price of gold alongside a rising dollar and rising interest rates.
This led to an interesting headline in the FT, the article itself being behind a paywall:
The article is summarized quite nicely by Nick Beams on The World Socialist Web Site:
As one of the analysts put it, “this isn’t just an interest rate thing. People are hedging against a new world.”
Here’s another headline from the FT (2004)
Going, going gold
The pointlessness of holding bullion continues to sink in
I do not hold gold, nor do I plan to. However, the intensity of technological change combined with the insane short sightedness and steadily increasingly malevolence of world politics does make holding talismanic substances more sensible with every passing month.
I prefer land with solid title and water rights at a significant distance from urban centers.
Good idea, but you can’t take it with you if you have to do a runner - not that I expect that either or us will have to. In addition land with title is always subject to taxation/seizure by governments.
@flyerboys you make a good point. But land and water rights can’t be picked up and moved if the local environment (including climate, government, crime, etc.) becomes dangerous. Like @Divitias, I look on gold as an insurance policy that has stood the test of time if a household has to flee. Thousands of years of time, in fact.
Anything that requires movement would be subject to checkpoints and confiscation. (like what the N*zis did to the Jews in WW2) If things get so bad that one has to flee (in a first world country no less), then knowledge/expertise is the only thing you can secure on your person. How to farm and hunt, make clothing, heck, even how to make or repair shoes with hand tools would be extremely valuable in a world-wide collapse.
To flyer’s point, the best solution is land with access to water in a rural area - and the knowledge on how to live off it.
Gold is utterly worthless in an EOTWAWKI situation. It would only have value after the crisis is over and any rebuilding has progressed enough to have a new form of currency (and then it probably has very little value). Its not like you can carve up 1 oz bars of gold for a dozen eggs.
Hawkwin
Who frankly has no interest in trying to live through a world-wide apocalypse. That stuff is fun to watch in a movie but would not be worth living in reality.
A few years ago we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. Jewellery was apparently most popular way of hiding/transporting wealth. Not that it did those poor people much good.
The biggest asset I hold connected with my land with water rights is being good friends with my rural neighbors, being trusted, being a godfather to many local kids, being a reliable provider of engineering expertise and a buyer of fresh eggs, vegetables, and a portion of the pigs I’ve been helping to feed.
Friends are are far more valuable than gold or coin or bitwhatever.
There should be early warning signs. Like talk about a Reich and the highest court saying it’s ok to fix elections under certain circumstances, theoretically speaking.
This is definitely true. But when TSHTF, it’s very likely that a “warlord” comes into town (with big guns) and takes over. Heck, in many parts of Mexico, even before TSHTF, there are plenty of “warlords” that control village after village.
I suppose you can befriend the local warlord, but then they eventually make you do things you don’t really want to do.
But in an event when one would need to flee a location, gold is so easy to transport - your 10, or 100, 1000 ounce bars or your many, many tenths of ounce coins. And no one would ever rob you of it since you’d be able to hide it easily as you used it. And getting change for your tenths or ounces would be easy, too.
