inre the March 24 upleg: I agree with Mr. Hamilton that only speculators can move a market as large as gold ($2.7 trillion @ $550/oz by his numbers) up $847 billion in 34 days. I’m assuming that dropping the M-3 numbers was the trigger for this upleg but I’ve been wrong before.
Talk to Mike and April at Cellar Coin in PB if you are interested in purchasing physical metals. Mike has consistently had the best prices whether I was buying or selling. (PS: Mike won’t know who you are talking about if you tell him “4plexowner sent me” and I don’t benefit from his business in any way)
Excellent reasons for holding precious metals, powayseller. As Richard Russell points out, gold will always be worth something but who knows about paper assets.
Also prudent advice for everyone to be prepared within their homes. Start with the idea that you won’t have any supplies except what you have inside your house for three days (no grocery store, 7/11, COSTCO, etc). That means you need water, food, etc. Then work up from that point – add some dehydrated or freeze-dried foods. George Ure (www.urbansurvival.com) recommends focusing on high-protein foods for storage (#10 cans frz-dried chicken, for example). Do you have a first aid kit in the house? Think about the things you might need in an emergency situation and make sure you have them on hand. Pay attention to natural disasters that have occurred in the US – one of the things I notice is that stores that remain open stop taking anything except cash for payment – no credit cards, ATM, etc – plan appropriately.
I find it amazing to think about today’s electronic financial world and the potential for problems. Rick Ackerman (www.rickackerman.com) paints this potential scenario: a financial meltdown occurs overnight in Asia or Europe and the US markets don’t open the next morning. All the stocks and bonds in the world won’t do you any good if they only exist in an electronic account somewhere.