re: Physical Gold

I’ve met people who own physical gold and silver as a hedge against financial calamity. I’ve always been hesitant to buy because I haven’t met anyone who has walked me through a personal experience of selling any. Before I would buy any, I would like to know there is liquidity for its real value (near spot). If there is not liquidity near spot, then it’s real value is obviously less.

Let's say dollar crashes and i have 100,000 in gold. How do I use gold to pay for gas? Insurance? Utilities? My gold won't last forever because I don't have millions in gold. I'm back at square 1, because during that time I wasn't being paid in gold in employment earnings.
For all you precious metal holders, the government can make it illegal to own at the stroke of a pen. The only way to prevent that, is to store your metals in another country. Good luck with that

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Let's say dollar crashes and i have 100,000 in gold. How do I use gold to pay for gas? Insurance? Utilities? My gold won't last forever because I don't have millions in gold. I'm back at square 1, because during that time I wasn't being paid in gold in employment earnings. For all you precious metal holders, the government can make it illegal to own at the stroke of a pen. The only way to prevent that, is to store your metals in another country. Good luck with that

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There are currently 11 states where gold and silver are used as legal tender ….. another 7 that have started the process. Some states, like Texas, have started their own bullion depository and mint.

The US government has never confiscated silver. And they were only slightly more successful at confiscating gold. Most coin collectors have pre-confiscation gold in their collections, and it is commonly traded.

Storage in Singapore or Dubai is straightforward and secure ….. Canada or Switzerland less so.

If you don’t own precious metals , you might consider adding some as part of a healthy, diversified asset portfolio. 10% is a good guide ….

Either way, backing a fiat currency with metal is undoubtedly a smart policy ……

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Why did gold become the standard for money? Why not copper or platinum or argon? A chemical engineer explains. An element must meet four qualities to stand alone as a premium currency, Sanat Kumar, the chair of the chemical engineering department at Columbia University told NPR.

First, it can't be a gas — gases simply are not practical for currency exchange. That knocks out a bunch of contenders from the right side of the periodic table, including the Noble gases, which would meet the other three qualifications.

Second, it can't be corrosive or reactive — pure lithium, for example, ignites when exposed to water or air. Iron rusts. This qualification knocks out 38 elements.

Third, it can't be radioactive. For one thing, your money would eventually radiate away to nothing . For another, Kumar pointed out, the radiation would eventually kill you . This eliminates the two rows that are separate from table, the elements known as actinides and lanthanides.

Any of the 30 or so remaining elements would make nice, stable forms of currency if they met the fourth qualification: They must be rare enough to be valuable, but not so rare that it's impossible to find .

That brings us to five elements, according to Kumar: rhodium, palladium, platinum, silver and gold. Although silver has been used for currency, it tarnishes easily, so it's out. Rhodium and palladium were discovered only in the 1800s, so they'd have been of no use to early civilizations. That leaves gold and platinum. Platinum, however, has a melting point around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,600 degrees Celsius), which, Kumar noted, could only be attained in a modern furnace, so early civilizations would not have been able to conveniently shape it into uniform units.

That leaves gold, which is solid but malleable, doesn't react, and won't kill you. It is truly the gold standard.

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Storage is the hidden costs of gold. You need a safe or a safe deposit box. And if this is really a hedge against a currency failure, maybe you should collect silver by the ounce from a reputable mint since that would be far easier to barter for basic necessities.

And maybe add some ammo to your metal collection.

For gold….buy from a reputable dealer. I bought via APMEX before their fees went sky high. Now I don’t bother with them and go through GSM or Scottsdale on the rare occasion that I buy anymore. They take longer to fill an order but their prices are fair.

good points, dewster.

Storage is a challenge , to one varying degree or another.
Home safes are a security risk for all but small amounts.
Bank deposit boxes are definitely not safe from government risk and seizure.
Storing in other countries is very easy, and not as expensive as you might think, … but I imagine it would be difficult to get to in the event of a crisis.

I use a private vault service in Atlanta that I can get to in short order. It isn’t cheap, but neither is it expensive …..but we use it for many things. We use it for household documents, deeds, wills, PM’s,, and a few heirloom valuables …. things like that.

Premiums are currently half of what they were a month ago … even at Apmex. They are still high IMO ….. $2.50-$3.00/ oz for silver bullion is still “high” to me …. It telegraphs that dealers are trying to lighten their inventory prior to an anticipated pullback is spot prices (silver)

The trick will be to wait for the pullback ( gold target $1870 spot) and grab physical while the premiums are discounted, and before the dealer’s physical inventory is depleted. In my experience, this period lasts only about a week. That’s what I’m watching for …..

There is a very strong level of support at $1820 for gold, but if you wait until it bounces off $1820 there likely won’t be any physical inventory remaining at the majority of dealers.

Be safe out there, …. and good luck to all ….

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It creates its own type of inflation when the supply runs short.

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Deflation.

Under the gold standard, a finite amount of gold in an expanding economy and/or population forces prices down.

It was a source of social unrest during the robber baron era (between the California and Klondike Gold Rushes). Even though the price of goods declined, so dollars went further, with a finite gold supply companies concomitantly forced salaries down, which played poorly with workers.

No

Regarding the performance of Gold during prior stock crashes ……

That is the strangest dataset ever created.