Posted on 05/09/2013 10:02:51 AM PDT by pabianice
I went to the bank today to buy a savings bond for a young relative, where I was told that banks no longer sell savings bonds. Rather, Obama has changed the rules so that one must buy a bond directly from the Treasury. Online.
I went to the Treasury site about savings bonds and it is a typical Obama nightmare of confusion and misdirection. After 15 minutes I gave up.
Can any FReeper tell me how to buy a bond?
Give silver eagle coins instead of savings bonds
Yes. Don’t buy a bond. Buy something worthwhile.
Do you honestly believe that the government will really be able to honor any long term bonds?
Yeah, buy Silver.
The post office used to sell them. As some have posted here maybe bonds are no longer a wise investment. I don’t know.
No to bonds! RU Kidding? Government’s dead broke busted. China won’t buy them so why would you?
Buy silver!
Being in my 30s now, I’ve been cashing in bonds bought for me when I was born. I have to pay taxes for “income earned,” and the cash is not worth anything to me outside of paying some bills or buying something frivolous.
I took the cash from several bonds and rolled it right into silver eagles. In retrospect, my relatives wish they’d bought me gold/silver at 1980 prices. I’d be freaking rich right now!
Why do you want to?
That bond will be worthless by 2016.
LLS
An ounce of gold would be much more appropriate. That bond will begin losing value at purchase because the tiny interest rate is lower than the actual rate of inflation and it may even be repudiated at some point. Gold cannot be robbed of its value by the government.
I was given one in the mid-80’s that would have cost about $7 at the time, that’s now selling for around $40.
Even if I had paid for it, it would have been a better investment than a US savings bond.
Buying as a gift? That's a nightmare now. Even setting up a single person Treasury Direct account is painful enough. Add to that EE bonds pay a fixed 0.20% interest, while I bonds pay a 0% base rate plus inflation.
You could give the kid a brick of .22LR... better long-term value. OTOH that’s harder to buy then the bond.
As some have posted here maybe bonds are no longer a wise investment. I don’t know....Bought AFTER taxes are taken out, takes thirty years to full maturity (inflation just ate up all your profit), paying taxes on your profit after cashing them in (taxes almost always go up)? Yep, bad investment.
Sorry. Cannot provide insight on purchasing US Savings Bonds. Too much has changed since I last dealt with them.
Will provide unsolicited advice. Before buying US Savings Bonds, I recommend looking closely at their interest rates, stability (do you expect our out-of-control government to honor them), and convertibility into cash.
Basically, besides value, if you are having this much trouble purchasing US Savings Bonds, how much trouble can you expect when trying to cash them in?
Buy more foreign made products, several of those nations buy our bonds. Of course you are killing USA production, but...
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