Are you prepared? Trying to be more self sufficient

Yes we have

 

on the topic of bartering. what are your thoughts on silver and gold coins or bars? tons of books and prepper personalities highly recommend it. But I can see the point of others who say they wouldn't trade anything for it. Can't eat coins. Can't put it in a gun and shoot it, can't plant it in the ground, etc.

Maybe certain situations. I dunno. Might depend on if you think we are headed for complete long term economic collapse or relatively short term local disaster?

 

Alcohol, prescription drugs, tobacco including seed, and any kind of seed that makes edible food. And essential skills are always something to barter. My wife and I are former certified childbirth educators and have experience in home births. We build things and have experience with crops and domestic animals. Better to be useful than rich, IMO...

 

I always wondered if you have say silver bars. Who de idea the worth? How was old you split it? How can you spend it? I get precious metals being a constant through history but just have no idea how it would work

 

that's what I'm saying. What if the dollar was worth nothing? Supposedly precious metals would work like anything else, it's worth what people think it's worth. But is it worth it to invest as a prep? I just pose the question.

In books you can buy fuel for your vehicle/boat or maybe bribe a corrupt official. but that is fiction. a stack of twenty 1oz gold coins would feel good in my hands!

 

Better to have quarter ounce pieces. They might go farther.

 

We’ve been saving coins for years. A good bit of silver coins. It may not all be precious metals but still hard currency.

 

90% silver (pre 1964) for smaller amounts. Will be used to rebuild the civilization, not in immediate aftermath.
PMs (precious metals) are a hedge against inflation in other times. And will allow to pick land, houses on the cheap, in relative terms, once price controls on the PMs fail.
I think we are looking at Wiemar Germany/Chile/USSR style hyperinflation more than the end of the world.

If you have not seen the History of Money videos, you should.
https://youtu.be/DyV0OfU3-FU?si=aMMiRCMGHWP8wcnX

 

$1 worth of pre-1964 US coins has 0.715 troy ounces of silver. Regardless if it is 10 dimes, 20 nickels or 4 quarters or a combination thereof.

 

Completely silly. Why would someone want something like that unless there was a functioning economy of some sort, that just happened to use that instead of something more practical? And, IF there was enough economy for something like that, a local group could just choose to use another token instead.

I mean those metals aren't unuseful - can be drawn out into wires pretty easily, etc. And, in a functioning economy, /can/ be an inflation hedge... because other people believe it has value. But that's about it.

 

It is a good retirement/hyperinflation hedge. Popular opinion is that stocks are overvalued by 80%. But you need to be able to feed yourself, cope with outrageously expensive food prices, etc, before investing into PMs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMuRkDY1SRw

PM purchases by the Central banks have been going up over the last several years. What do they know that we don't?
The prepper talk seem to always drift into Mad Max type end of US. Why? EMP? Only if our ruling oligarchs decide to start a WWIII. Why else?

A prolonged economic malaise is much more likely. In that case PMs will increase in value, relative to a fiat USD. The point of holding PMs is to convert them into another long-term asset class (land, houses, etc) when assets priced in fiat currency become cheap, compare to PMs priced in fiat currencies.

Study the fall of the Roman empire. We are much closer to the late Roman empire as far as politics, society and military influence over the society than other failing empires/countries. USSR still had a vast manufacturing base, so while its experience with hyperinflation is relevant, our recovery path will be different due to the lack of manufacturing capacities in US (after WII we had 30% of the world manufacturing, now we have less than 10%, closer to 7%, IIRC) . Romans relied on colonies to support their lifestyle (same as we do with exporting our industrial base and inflation). Interwar Germany is another close comparison. They were destroyed by the post WWI reparation payments, awful balance of trade, careless fiscal policy. Same as us. We do not have reparation payments, but we threw away trillions of dollars on wars. We import more than export. We financialized our economy (if we take away the fake funds of the stock markets and health care revenues, our GDP takes a real dive).
https://goldsilver.com/blog/fall-of-empires-rome-vs-usa-hidden-secrets-of-money-episode-9/


More details for PMs vs real estate over the last 100+years for those who want it.
https://sdbullion.com/blog/gold-vs-home-prices

 

For precious metals to be worth "money" I feel like there has to be a society to place value on it. Otherwise it's a paper weight. Now, maybe someone needs gold or silver because they are using it in electronic components but that's pretty situational

 

You make great points!

 

Why there would not be a society placing value on precious metals in 1 year? In 3? In 10?

 

If I’m understanding his point, he’s saying that coins/gold/money would be pointless in a situation where society collapses and it’s survival of the fittest.

 

I agree with that point. But my question to you and him is do you expect a total societal collapse in US in a year? in 3? In 10? What will cause it?
If you do expect a Mad Max scenario, do you have your passport so you could get out of the country? Did you establish residency in another, safe, country? Why not? It would be better than staying and dying over a can of beans.

I am trying to bring logic into discussion. Thread title is "Are you prepared"? Preparations depend on what we are expecting. So what are we expecting and why?

 

Depends on your definition of collapse.

For ALL currency to be useless, that's a complete collapse and return to agrarian sustenance, where there is absolutely nobody alive that has the skills to restore infrastructure or technology. For that to happen I would speculate a 99% reduction in population would be needed.

For a long term economic crisis or disaster that sees infrastructure down for maybe a year, currency will still be around.

 

I'm being hypothetical. Of course in the vast majority of scenarios having gold, etc is a good idea. No I don't expect a total collapse any time soon.

 

Considering the National debt and the looney possibilities... what if the economy goes south due to someone declaring bankruptcy to get out from under it?

 

Oh no, I was just translating his post based on what I thought he meant lol