Thanks to all for the great advice. My primary goal is to convert IRA/retirement savings $$ as an insurance policy against obama attempting to get hold of it. I may be paranoid but I wouldn’t put it past that barrel of snakes in the current administration to try it.
I find the concept of a gold/silver IRA a little iffy. Why?
First, understand that in some ways you cannot touch any actual asset in an IRA. You cannot, for example, buy a gold eagle and send it to the custodian of your IRA. You can send your custodian an amount of MONEY and have THEM buy and take delivery of a gold eagle. Such a gold eagle, within an IRA, undergoes some degree of storage fees every month/year. It may not be a lot, but it is some. And furthermore, I am going to assume you are newish to gold/silver investing; one thing about it is that it is in your hand. Now, there’s no question that it can be stolen therefrom. But, inside a vault where you cannot see it but pay storage charges on it, there is a piece of faith that it is really there. And, it is there so you can become the owner of it someday, but, you really cannot, because when that day comes, you cannot take delivery of the actual gold. It has to be sold by the custodian and the proceeds remitted to you. [concept: MONEY is the only thing that can enter/exit an IRA as seen from your perspective] And hence, in the macro picture, you are making a pretty sizable bet, some would say a deeply speculative one, that the increase in the dollar-price of gold (aka POG) will outrun a: your storage fees, b: the incoming handling fee, c: the exit handling fee. Those fees absolutely exist. They may seem small, but if you think of an IRA as a 20-year thing, what are storage fees over 20 years? The increase in the POG may or may not outrun that. So this is an item of speculation on your/ones part. Now I as a physical holder take some of the same risk, because the buy/sell spreads on the metals are highly punitive. Example: APMEX gold eagle: Buy $1776.7 Sell $1817.7 add $25 incoming frt. 2.3%.
Now you say you wish to guard against 0bama (or whomever might be in power at the time you need or THEY need it) confiscating or forcibly converting your IRA into “something”. I would posit that the inclusion of an asset into an IRA is one of the strongest guarantees that it WILL be so converted, because its existence and location are profoundly documented, not to mention your general inability to rapidly access it.
So....think about this some more.
I think it is fine to have cash in an IRA, especially if your employer matches or partially matches your contribution. I think it is good to have stock in an IRA that pays dividends. I have heard of the possibility of having an asset such a piece of real estate in an IRA. I’m not especially well informed as to how that works, so I have no fully-formed opinion. It would probably have to be in the form of a trust. I have no idea how a RE IRA would handle depreciation, which is one of the strongest advantages of owning RE in the first place.
But I don’t think it is all that great to have gold in an IRA. That’s just me. I kind of think it is better to have silver in an IRA, but to have enough silver to make a sizable difference in your net worth, unless we think silver is going to octuple in price (and it might) you are going to pay some serious storage fees for the mass/size involved.
Nothin’s free, but your specific statement that you think of an IRA as a bulwark against seizure—I have to disagree. It is, in some cases. But only some.