Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says the U.S. is a “long way” from launching one, and even if it did, it wouldn’t spy on users.
err, it’s already been bench tested by SWIFT:
Collaborative experiments with 38 global institutions demonstrate new use cases for Swift solution across digital trade, securities, and foreign exchange.
The ‘Creature from Jekyll Island’ was brought in by some trickery (a day or so before Xmas) so I wonder if they are going to do the same with a CBDC. They will probably call it something else and hope that people won’t notice.
Divitias, would you mind educating me as to why you think gold is a good investment? Below is a chart comparing gold to the S&P over the past 50 years. Stocks vs. Gold - Updated Chart | Longtermtrends
I have some curiosity as to where do you keep gold? Is it in the form of coins? A safe deposit box? Or does some broker hold it? When you buy gold, how do you determine you are actually getting gold? I’ve thought of buying krugerands or maybe Canadian gold coins. I’ve just lacked the intestinal fortitude required!
Most of my gold is physical gold kept in a very secure places that only OH and I know of. To save people saying that if we were both killed in a car crash then it might not be found wouldn’t bother me as I would be dead - as they say, ‘you can’t take it with you’
I also keep some in a Swiss bank vault.
It is a variety of coins and small gold bars. I tend to concentrate on Sovereigns and Britannias as they have tax advantages here in the UK. In alI I have 14 different types of gold. I buy from dealers that I have dealt with for many years and have come to trust that they are honest dealers.
Apart from not having the physical gold it is no different from anything else held on a platform. They seem efficient enough though:
I started with silver just to get a feel of what dealing was like. It’s quite cheap at the moment.
I also have three Rolex watches that are probably worth upwards of $100k. Sadly I don’t tend to wear expensive watches these days. The world isn’t as safe as it was twenty years ago and usually go out with a $50 digital watch, that is, incidentally, more accurate than the Rolex ones
Don’t forget that gold, silver and Rolex watches do not produce income so rises in value are never quite as good as they seem. A gold Britannia that I bought ten years ago has just about doubled in value but I’ve lost ten year’s income that cash or shares would have brought. At 5% this halves the amount that I have made on the Britannia. If you buy gold/silver and it drops in value then you get hit twice.
When it comes to money I always heed the words of Sir Francis Bacon:
Money is like manure, its only good if you spread it around
I wish Desert Dave, a long time Motley Fool regular, was still around to give you one of his well reasoned and thorough how to do it answers.
You almost always should want physical possession, so you need to get it and safeguard it. Be careful when and where and how you take physical possession.
In emergencies a bag of old real silver dimes and quarters will likelu be far more useful than gold.
Where it store it (secretly) is another entire topic.
I think that having no loved ones that you want to give your assets to upon death changes the calculus somewhat. Of course it also negates a large part of the point of growing or strongly protecting unused assets until death.
