For the most part he is right. I would add that investing in guns and ammo is the way to go if you think things are really going to collapse (along with water filtration, food storage etc.)
“”You can convert gold holdings to cash, but the transaction costs need to be added in to see your real return on investment.””
Jeff Carter obviously needs to join the current age and get an online broker where he can buy and sell for pennies.
Also, Carter gets the saying wrong. It goes:
“Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.”
Invest in lead and food and you can get all the gold you want later.
Jeff, you're a know-nothing.
First, there's wealth preservation gold (bullion pieces and gold coins) to carry part of your wealth past the major crisis. Ounce bullion pieces, eagles, double eagles, Krugerands and other larger denomination coins fit this purpose.
Then, there's "trading gold" to use as currency during the crisis. For this period, gold is the metal of choice for large transactions, with silver being good for smaller transactions, and possibly lead/brass (ammunition) being useful at times for small transactions as well, if you have surplus ammunition and someone is willing to trade something advantageous to you for it.
For "trading gold," the best choices are 14K gold jewelry (junk necklaces, chains, rings, ear rings, etc.) Small silver bullion pieces (one troy ounce) and high silver content "junk" coins (pre 1964 US coins, for example) are aso good for "trading silver."
Lead and brass should also be in your metals inventory for TSHTF insurance. Lead and brass come in various denominations, 5.56mm, 7.62mm, 9mm, .22LR, .357mag, .45acp are all popular. That's a topic for another thread, though.
Oh, and beware Gold and Silver ETF's. Many disclose that "your investment may lose value if we buy counterfeit bullion bars." Some of these ETF's have historically been claiming to buy more bullion than current world production in several recent years. That seems impossible. Maybe one year, it could be done, but when several consecutive years show asset growth at that rate, something isn't right.
Nuff said...
The way things are moving, the average Joe may be a financial basket-case long before 20 years of his S&P money fund climbs out of the shell-hole.
Meanwhile, huge and easy fortunes have been created over the last 4 or 5 quarters by simply buying near-term call options in the dollar range at every dip in GLD--like taking candy from a baby.
Buying Puts on Gold options--even on the "parabolic curve" theory--seems like a suicide trip
Properly packaged lead and brass is a much handier investment...
Gold has a long journey ahead of it, but of course it is never straight up for long.
It’s gotten ahead of itself lately and must consolidate down around the red moving
average line before another stable advance occurs. When it corrects, it is likely
another buying opportunity.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=GLD&p=W&yr=3&mn=0&dy=0&id=p35284402856
Just an opinion, fyi. Make your own decisions.
Ammo and a whole lot of it.
The threats he mentioned to gold ownership are why gold owners should both investigate and advocate a legal alternative currency to the dollar called scrip.
Scrip is a tightly controlled non-legal tender currency that can do something the dollar may not be able to do: make change for gold.
With scrip, its value and the price of merchandise of any kind that can be purchased with scrip, are fixed, no matter what the dollar does. This has a very strong stabilizing effect on local markets and governments. With any changes in value happening only in, for example, monthly intervals.
Not minute by minute, which is what can happen if there is dollar hyperinflation.
Best of all, in a scrip system, gold is just another product, which is a very, very good thing if you have gold. The last thing that gold owners want is for gold to be so priceless that it is worthless. That nobody can make change for it. This is a disaster, as far as gold owners are concerned.
Convertability, to something, or somethings, or anything, is essential.
I beleive the saying is “Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered”.
‘The Bears make money, the Bulls make money, but the Pigs go broke.’
—Old Wall Street adage
Gold up 29% this year. Silver up 36%. Both have performed much better than stocks, NYSE down 3.5%. Pick your poison.