[quote=TheBreeze]I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If society collapses, I’d rather have an infinite supply of canned goods and clean drinking water than an infinite supply of gold. You can’t eat gold.
Gold is nice to have in relatively stable societies, but I can’t see it having much value in a period of chaos.[/quote]
Actually Breeze, you will need ample supplies of both gold AND food because they each serve very different purposes. Having both at your disposal gives you maximum flexibility and greatly enhances your options, and having options will be key to your survival and prosperity in the coming decades.
Gold can be used to purchase other, more valuable assets: land, water, fuel and other commodities. When the money-printing spirals out of control and the U.S. eventually defaults on its debt (we can argue about what that would look like, but I’m talking about a situation in which the U.S. either refuses to make payments on its debt OR the payments it attempts to make are rejected by its creditors), hyperinflation will set in.
At that point, gold at $4000/oz is within the realm of possibility. For those of us who have not stored a lifetime’s worth of food and water, gold will enable us to buy those items at hyper-inflated prices that will simply be unaffordable to most. And for for those who have decided that life on a spread outside the city is more sustainable and defensible, we will have the means at our disposal to buy such land at severely-depressed prices. Breeze, I hardly think you want to put yourself in the position of having to deliver 5 dump trucks full of canned food in order to make this transaction?
Now, at some stage in this crisis I believe there will come a time when food — regardless of price — will not be available in sufficient quantities to meet demand. At that point, Breeze, your investment in food would have been a very wise one.
I posted a thread in late September predicting that chaos would erupt in early October. I was apparently wrong in my timing. The seeds of chaos were undoubtedly sown in early October, but they will come to harvest by summer. With the U.K. now teetering on the verge of bankruptcy and the worst earnings data in decades scheduled for release next week, I firmly agree with you that the writing is on the wall.
Come spring, most people will realize that the world is about to change forever on a most profound scale, and come summer that change will have enveloped us whole.
I reiterate the advice I have always given: as much food as you can safely store, most of your assets in gold and silver, 3-6 months of cash to carry you on necessities like food and shelter (not credit card debt or any other debt) until the masses realize that paper is worthless and gold/silver take their rightful place as money, 6 months of any supply that you need on a regular basis in your household (toiletries, medicines, batteries, etc), heirloom seeds to get a garden going in the spring, and personal protection ( a .12g shotgun, a handgun .40 or .45 caliber work nicely and a rifle if you ever plan to pursue rural living in the future).
