If things get so bad that gold is the only thing that has monetary value, then you had better be invested in a good 12 gauge shotgun, lots of shells, and lots of canned goods.
There might come a time when a can of Pork and Beans is worth a lot more than a ounce of gold.
Originally Posted by Jackie S
Oh, I have those things too, don't worry about lil' ol' me. My brother, some of my closest friends and I have already discussed plans for the coming apocalypse. You may think I'm kidding and I
am exaggerating a bit, but not really. You craft emergency plans for your family, don't you? How to get out of the house, where to meet, what things to grab if you only have a minute, etc., right? Why is it considered so insane to have a plan
just in case shit hits the fan?
We may never need to implement them and I genuinely hope that's the case. But if something
does go wrong, I won't be one of the millions running around with my head up my ass wondering what to do.
Perhaps I'm being alarmist, but I don't think its outside the realm of possibility that our government could completely devalue our currency. As it is, the only reason the dollar has any value is that people continue to have faith in the government to back that money. Once that faith is gone... and it is dwindling as I type this... all bets are off and those bills in your wallet or purse become nothing more than fancy paper again. All it would take is for people to stop honoring that paper as having value, as being
worth something. Its happened before and you're foolish if you think there's no way it can ever happen again. Talk to Germans who remember 1945, walking around with millions upon millions of deutschmarks that had no value. They couldn't even buy bread with wheelbarrows overflowing with bank notes. Hell, talk to a Greek right now.
I have plenty of friends who watched more than half of their retirement money disappear in a matter of weeks. My own godfather had to come out of retirement and go back to work because his retirement money became insufficient for him and my godmother
overnight. I'm not some loon, putting all my money in gold and bathing in it like Scrooge McDuck. But I'm also not stupid enough to stick it all in the stock market and hope for the best. It's called diversification and any broker worth their salt would tell you its a smart way to hedge your bets.
I'm not suggesting that gold is the
only thing with monetary value, now or in the future. Many skills, crafts and services, all sorts of goods and precious items, gems, metals, art and countless other things all have monetary value. But gold is universal and relatively portable. You can take an ounce of it literally anywhere and you'll have something with significant trade value.
Just food for thought.