How does one go about buying metals? I’ve traded the GLD ETF occassionally, but I’ve never tried to buy any gold coins or anything. Is there some place you can go to actually buy a bar of gold at face value?

I read the other day that people who had given their gold coins to some type of organization for storage were having trouble retrieving them. The speculation was that the gold coins had been loaned out or something or over several times over and the original owners were having trouble getting them back.

By the way, what do you think will emerge as a global currency? The Euro? Gold? I don’t think Europe is in much better shape than we are and I can’t imagine that anyone would trust the Russian Ruble or the Chinese Yuan more than the dollar.

It is scary to think about how quickly grocery stores can run out of stuff. Supposedly they only stock about five days’ worth of goods.