[Ask the Gulch] If the major economies of the world were to collapse would it really help to have gold?
Posted by richrobinson 9 years, 4 months ago to Ask the Gulch
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How wIll you react to a government confiscation of firearms, gold, silver, seeds?
There was nothing inappropriate in what I wrote. It was on topic.
Don't misunderstand me, gold has frequently been a stable currency throughout history, but the most used currency and usually the most valuable has been Salt. It may be easy to obtain now, but if the worst happens it won't be that easy unless you happen to live near a salt deposit.
It will not directly address your immediate needs for food & shelter without someone to exchange with for those items. It would be of much more use when things are being rebuilt, assuming a different monetary standard does not arise.
My personal opinion is that under the worst case scenario it would be better to have guns and lots of ammo to barter with but who really knows what to expect. I shudder to even think about it because man will do some very nasty things to feed his family and keep them protected.
Remember Executive Order 6102.
If you mean hyperinflation, then yes Gold will be good (if you can prevent it being confiscated, which will not be easy).
If you mean a global disaster, with everyone desperately trying to survive, then no. In that case I would value a bag of rice more than any amount of shiny metal.
It depends how far society collapses as well. How many intercontinental sailing ships (wind-only power) are there, how many horses and wagons, who has the technological skill to keep them traveling? Heck, how many people can get a crew together to cut down 5-10 acres of --appropriate-- oakwood, redwood (or pine) and hickory (not all trees are good for shipwrighting or wheel building) and even have the skills - let alone real, usable working tools - to build something like a sailing ship - without the aid of ANY power tools?
In the 1700's? Sure. In the 2100's? Probably not likely. And travel is the basis of trade currencies like silver and gold, and even then - it's an implied and agreed-upon value, not a value of necessity.
Maybe the wise person would do well to stock up on coal. Four chickens, 3 loaves, and a kilo of cheese? That'll be a pound and a half of lead, 3 of iron, and a 1/4 sack of anthracite. You want to put it on your Lead Master Card today?
(Honestly, tho... I have heard some amazing things said about your bags - best quality for the price, etc. I may just have to change out my Korean War special!)
The problem I seem to be having is getting the gold fouling out of the barrel of my Hawkins rifle, tho... thing started missing rabbits last week, and now I can't hit the broad side of a hog. Darn!
Unless an asteroid hits the Earth, catastrophe will take the form of slo-mo dominoes affecting some regions more than others. Very primitive areas will have life-as-usual; modern ranches and farms will have to watch their petrol supplies carefully; Los Angeles and NY will be SOL. Most of the US is 'somewhere in between'.
Immediately after a collapse, you will still be able to use credit cards and checks for a few days...because 'that is how we do it'. (Buy a bicycle.) Then, cash will be accepted for a little while longer - and that may be as far as the catastrophe takes us. If the situation deteriorates further, then we will get to a place where gold will be valuable. (At that point, buy chickens and 50 gallon drums and a horse.) If things get even worse, then gold will loose value and the only things that will get you something valuable in trade are antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, street drugs, livestock, and food/water.
So, in some sorts of collapses we will be in a 'gold is valuable' phase for at least a while.
Jan
I think for any collapse, gold would be at least a 'pass through' phase - which would give you one last chance to buy survival stuff. No one knows, when a collapse starts 'at what point will it end'. If the collapse is local, then gold will still be worthwhile at the end of the collapse. If the collapse is universal, then gold will be a pass through phase and then we will go to barter for a while.
Jan
The reason I think that primitivism will stop at about 1900/1940 is that information and capabilities are too well distributed to go below that point. I know a lot of people with forges who can do excellent blacksmithing, for instance, and refined metal is all around us.
The reason I could buy a modern bicycle is darker: in any major collapse, it will be the large cities that suffer the greatest loss of life. There will be many modern bicycles waiting to be 'mined' and re-sold.
Jan
I just did a bit of research and the Census Bureau says that 80% of the US pop of 320M is urban - but they include some really little towns (2,000 pop) as urban, so I do not think that figure is a good fit for catastrophe analysis. I looked up the megaregions of the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megareg...) and added them up and got 233M living in mega cities (which comes to 72%).
I think - and I am making this up - that,in the advent of a infrastructure collapse that lasts longer than 3 weeks, people in rural areas will do OK but people in urban areas will experience about a 10% survival rate. That means that, just taking the megacities into account, the US population would drop to 110M. If you also assume that some - let me make up the figure "20%" - of the rural population will also not survive, then we are down to about 92.6 million people in the US.
There are an estimated 100 million bicycles in the US. I assume that there are also a lot of spare parts - tires and gear cables. (And I doubt that everyone will be riding a bicycle - people in really rural areas may go straight to horse transportation.) So I think that bicycles will be a viable first step - and there will be enough for each household member to have their own.
After that, bicycles will be scavenged to repair other bicycles and self-replicating transportation (horses) will become popular again.
Jan, trying to be one of the 10%
The Lead Card - "What do you have in YOUR saddlebags?"™
Without the ability to create legal tender from nothing, the 'credit card' would not exist in any form. The consumer economy would have been tiny and the world would be a different place.
I suspect organized religion might have more power and corporate ceos would not be rock stars. Even rock stars wouldn't be rock stars ;^)
(Roll ad..)
P-38 can opener on a rusty ball chain - ₡ (Charcoal lumpia) 35.00
Rusty and dented but intact can of Dinty Moore Chili from the 1970's - ₡1300.00
Telling a mugger that he shouldn't stab you for your almost-edible chili because you used to be the lead singer for Led Zeppelin? Worthless.
There are some things charcoal can't buy. For everything else, there's the Anthracite ServiCard.
Gold would be good, but silver would be better because you will need to carry out a large number of small transactions for some period, perhaps a year.
But the economies of the world are not going to collapse.
Even if you resorted to paying for local vegetables with silver coins, you might still well buy that Hermes purse with your Visa card… just saying'… because even during the actual and real Dark Ages, we know that Islamic coins were buried in Scandinavia and England. In fact, King Offa of Mercia (England) struck gold coins in imitation of Islamic coins, indicating the extent of trade and commerce, even in the worst of times.
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...
This is where an economist and insider tasked with detecting insider trading for national security purposes goes into detail about macroeconomic issues including the Fed, the IMF, the weak dollar vs strong dollar policies, China, the value of gold, and more.
I strongly agree with this summary.
But you disagree. So be it.
as to what I am going to do. Because I can't af-
ford now to buy enough gold to amount to anything,
if I'm going to pay the rent and utilities, and eat.
Without an economy, however defined, it is useless.
I am a firm believer in the barter system. People helping people. Assets were traded, not credit. A mans worth was and should be his word, not determined by the size of his pocket book.
I quit corporate America in 2012. I live within my means. If I can do it, so can the rest of the world.
Ever hear the saying: "The cowards never started, the weak died along the way, only the strong survived."???
Those actually living by Gulch standards and mentality should not be concerned with world economy and financial collapse. I may be a "mooch" on here, but I am a "free mind" in the real world.
Join me. It's a beautiful place.
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