DidOurBest wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:19 pm
finite_difference wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 6:30 pm
mptfan wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 1:33 pm
bigskyguy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 1:27 pmThis is available should we experience a true national economic/political catastrophe (true hyperinflation) and needed to relocate to be with family in Western Europe.
If the stuff really hit the fan and society broke down, I would rather have a store of guns and ammunition than a store of gold. I certainly wouldn't want to be passing out gold coins or gold bars, that would put a target on my back.
You’d want gold, guns, ammunition, marksmanship skills, close combat skills, first aid skills, food, medicine, antibiotics, water, fallout shelter, strategically located house, land to grow garden, gardening knowledge, mechanics knowledge, survival knowledge, books, lots of supplies and tools, etc. Pray you don’t get sick. It would be helpful to be a doctor.
Be a veteran, doctor, engineer, survivalist, and a good teacher.
If guns and ammo are most useful, then a stash of guns and ammo will paint a huge target on your back. An apocalyptic scenario like that is going to be very rough.
Gold I think has utility for getting out of the country in case your country goes to heck and there’s hyperinflation or a bank run. Think Germany, Italy, France, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Eastern Europe, Venezuela, etc.
This.
When we lived through the total destruction of Katrina outside of Biloxi MS and had no running water or electricity or fuel for a week+ gold and other precious metals were absolutely useless.
Nobody wanted them, nobody was “bartering” with them. Gas, food, ice and medical supplies were what held any final value.
I’ve always thought since then that people who think that they will survive with metals in this type of scenario have never lived through anything remotely like this type of scenario.
We personally own zero gold/metals.
Escaping using gold.
"Between 1978 and 1981, over a million escaped by way of the sea - these were "the boat people". Most left in secret or by bribing officials, although a great number of Hoa (Chinese-Vietnamese) paid many taels of gold for permission to leave. The high cost of supplies and/or bribes to officials left the majority of boat people penniless."
https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibi ... ea03e.html
"According to accounts of refugees who spoke to Post Magazine for this story (individuals named here as well as others who chose to remain anonymous), an adult would be charged, on average, 10 to 12 taels of 24k gold for space on an escape ship (one tael being 1.2 troy ounces); the fee for children was lower and dependent on age. The price of gold in January 1979 hovered at about US$240 an ounce, so an adult would have been paying around US$3,000, the equivalent today of more than US$10,000."
...
"Mai Tran’s parents paid 15 ounces for each child, and gave him a 24k gold wedding band that could be sold in an emergency. “We had small bags with just two or three sets of clothes,” Mai Tran says, adding that they also had no idea where they would be heading. “We only knew that we were getting out.”"
https://multimedia.scmp.com/magazines/p ... src=social
How likely is bartering with gold?
"Even the universities have been swept up in the gold rush. “In November, one of the girls who is studying here told me: ‘A degree is not expensive, because its only 2.5g of gold [for a semester],’” said Arturo Peraza, rector of the city’s influential Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. “It was the first time I learned the value of a university education in grams of gold. I could not have imagined it.”"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... rmed-gangs
Katrina? That's your benchmark? Mkay.
Yes, it might be stolen from you or just taken from your dead body but it can also be the last bit of hard asset you have to get out of a bad situation.
Like I said, families with personal experience with instability understand the desire to own some gold.