Gold and silver are expensive and way overvalued. They are useless pieces of metal, unles your making cirucit boards or making medicine out of silver. Usless.
They only reasons they're valueable, because humans think it's shiney and worth something.
When resources are scarce, people will be bartering. However, you will be using $1000 of gold to get $100 of goods. Best to have the $100 of good and trade for $1000 of gold. However, this country is made up of over 300 million people. Easily 200 million have absolutely no means of providing anything for themselves. The remaining 100 million may have some land to provide themselves. My guess is about 20 million even have even a slight chance of providing a significant food resource for themselves.
If your trading stuff, you have extra. When the people you're trading with end up with nothing to trade and still need basic resources to live, they will do anything to aquire them. You traded their last gold coins for guns, don't sound too smart now.
In general, if a bad long term situation happens, 1 out of 15 people will have absolutely nothing worth trading. People have the means to survive for a week or two and thats it.
My plan is to lay as low as humanly possible for the first year. Trading is not in my plan during that time, period.
Gold and Silver, the new prom queen vote. People thought putting money down on google or Enron was a good bet. Well, people are being talked into having gold as an investment. When it becomes worthless, it sure is nicer to have something shiney than some fancy looking piece of paper.
I keep little track of gold prices, but looked today at a gold price chart site before posting. Since, 2002, gold has gone up 19% every year. With stocks, You invest in a company, they make profits, you get returns. Gold does not do that. You buy a hunk of metal, it stays a hunk of metal. You are not making money, your a keeping money. That what it used to be, it's not that anymore. It's a new way of folks skimming from the top of your retirements now. Last time I took an economics class was 2004. Gold goes up 19% every year, and inflation goes up 3%. no need for fancy math there. In a few years, I could see gold going down a good chunk and folks loosing a boatload of money. The folk obsessed with aquiring wealth know the rollercoaster ride game. They get out when on the top, while the casual thiller seekers jump out while going downhill. The folks who were wise during the market collapse, what did they do. They held on for a ride. I acutally invested in bad news. Ford might be going under, I put down on that. Same thing will happen to gold.
IF you really expect the US dollar to tank like some think it will, gold is not the answer. Leaving the country and living in a more stable economy is the answer. That is where my plan is. I am focusing my career on the place where I want to go. I have a country picked, I learned the language, and I am well versed in two booming industires in that region. I have relatives there and I know where I am going to live if need be.
IF prices get out of hand, this is my plan. Being able to make my own food. This is where prices will get wildy out of hand. It requires a good bit of fuel to get food to supermarkets, it requires trading with another country to get food, it is also a direly needed thing. Combine those three and you got a real good money maker right there. Work location, even when the economy tanks, you'll still be going to work, though someday it may seem a bit futile. Make sure you're not one of those people who lives farther away from work than you could ride a bike to.
I think economic hardship is much much more likely than some sort of zombie movie thing. Prepare you mind is the best thing. What makes human much greater over other animals is their minds. We are much more fragile animals than just about anything the walks or swims the planet. We survive because we use our heads. Learn how to garden, make sure you learn and have experience to do atleast 2-3 other important jobs incase you need a second job or need to find new work. Learn how to make do without modern conviences. Like pioneer skills. Making your own soap, preserving food, making household items without modern tools. Learn how to protect yourself. Both at the range and with your hands. Learn how to shoot a gun quickly, not more accurately like everyone else does. Conflicts happen at 50 yards or less. All that time folks spend sitting at a table spending 20 seconds shooting a bullet is useless, it's even useless for hunting in most cases too.
Far as investments go, I like as tangible as possible. IF times get rough, my spare tractor I bought real cheap will be worth lots of gold. My extra egg laying chickens will double in value. That food I bought on sale will be worth quite a bit too.
I do have some gold and silver. I keep them around incase I need something I can not provide for myself, which is less and less as time goes by. Paying property taxes, seeking assitance from a doctor, or in the case I need to pay off somebody. Don't expect sine you got gold, you can get anything.
Ammo and guns. Again bad idea to trade them. In all practicality, what are the odds of your coming out unharmed from a firearms based conflict. I looked at some police statistics based on their experiences with gunfights and came up with some numbers. I am assuming your a better shot than the other guy, which with cops is probably true most of the time to some extent. I forgot the exact numbers, but I think your chances of coming out unharmed from 10 conflicts was about 2%. The average conflict used 7 rounds. Without modern medicine, any gun shot is pretty much fatal, more from infection than blood or major function loss. Do you need 20,000 rounds for you rifle. Not really in my opinion. I have a good defensive carbine for everyone in the home plus a spare or two, a 22lr rifle for everyone, and a shotgun for everyone. Probably about 2000 rounds for each rifle, 15,000-20,000 rounds for each 22lr, and about 500 birdshot and maybe 100-200 rounds of buckshot for each shotgun. Past that, I have my hunting rifles and a historical gun or two. I think I am more set than I need to be.
The reason I got much more 22lr because it's affordable. A gun is worthless unless you know how to use it. I know I have enough ammunition to keep my skill good.
