Posted on 12/27/2013 5:44:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Since November, financial advisor David Marotta has been publishing a series of blog posts on how to manage your money in the event of a financial apocalypse—as in a world of hyperinflation, governmental collapse, and anarachic mobs. You know, the standard stuff of a doomsday prepper's fever dreams. While Marotta admits he has some fears about the direction of the country (the man's not an Obamacare fan, to say the least) most of it seems to be fairly tongue-in-cheek material aimed at talking potential clients down from investing in some of the crazy, survivalist scams advertised on conservative talk radio. (Sadly, The Washington Examiner seems to have missed the humor).
And the first scam on his agenda? Plowing all your money into gold, of course. Here's his biblically inflected explanation of why toting around a suitcase of gold come the end times—and at today's prices, a $1 million in gold coins would fit in a suitcase—would be a suboptimal strategy:
If there really is a collapse of the money supply it is difficult to believe that your briefcase of pretty coins will still have any purchasing power near $1 million. In the 1970s, Christian singer Larry Norman made popular the Apocalyptic song lyric, “A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold” based on Revelation 6:6. In The End, I’d rather not have bought as much gold as possible.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
/johnny
/johnny
“I asked him if in a SHTF scenario if he saw a gold coin on the ground if he would walk by it or pick it up. He made up some cockamamie story about it being a set up ambush.”
That is EXACTLY what I thought it was. I would NOT pick it up and I would get out of there quickly. Maybe you would pick it up and get your head bashed in due to an ambush.
Answer the question or stay out of it. The thread’s premise is gold is worthless in a SHTF scenario. My premise is that is BS and every sane person here knows it. You would pick the coin up. Why? Because you know it has value and it can be traded for something. So stop the games people. Continue to sore dried beans and MRE’s but gold and silver will be useful for barter, always and forever.
/johnny
He said he would walk by because it was probably an ambush.
Your reply then went into very strange logic about how could it be a trap when the coin had no value ignoring two things.
1.) People have a normalcy bias in that they tend to react to things the way they used to be rather then how they are at the moment. The guy lost in the desert would probably pick up the coin even though the item was worthless to him. The one who was more adjusted to the present reality would ignore the coin but would pick up the tin can lying near by.
2.) People are magpies. We are attracted to bright shiny things.
Both are reason that people with evil intentions would bait a trap with a gold coin in the scenario you postulated.
They don't want the wary or the adjusted person to take the bait. They want the unadjusted. Stupid prey is always easier to take then more intelligent.
Say you’re just driving along and you happen upon a case of supermodels... just lying there...
are you gonna pick ‘em up, or leave ‘em there?
/johnny
In a SHTF scenario you will dance like a circus clown for a little piece of gold. And yes if it is me you are dancing for I will be armed and you will not “take” it.
You said to JRandomFreeper: “Answer the question or stay out of it.”
You’ve had it now.
Keep your gold. I'll sell the tobacco I grow and the booze I make to people that aren't jerks.
/johnny
Since you think gold is worthless then why would people carry that dead weight? Why, I would think gold and silver will be laying everywhere - It being stupid to carry and possess and all. I mean why carry little bits of shiny metal around when you can hump a 80 pound sacks of dried beans everywhere you go.
You’ll take my gold, you will. You are not seeing things correctly.
I didn’t say gold was worthless...
But, I’ll leave any gold I might have in a secure stash and buy and sell in 1964 quarters/dimes.
Your answer = cow pie
I love backups.
But you are right, what you want is what you will not have which is why doing test runs is vital. Hydrocortisone cream and gold bond powder are now part of my kit because of such a test run.
Unlike keyboard warriors, I've lived rustic, still do, to some extent, and I'm fine with it. I don't have much use for gold, since I own my property outright, and can provide for myself.
/johnny
So you agree the premise of the thread is stupid?
Just like the worlds oldest profession will always be an option for the younger females....
I notice that the thread title doesn't say "worthless", it says "useless".
"in" = "during"
Yes, gold would be "useless" "in" an economic apocalypse.
But not after an economic recovery.
UseFUL during a collapse would be things you need to survive until the recovery.
So, the advice would be, only buy the gold if you have "excess" wealth after you've acquired all the B's you need. (Beans bullets bandaids and batteries)
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