I know people out there who have invested a lot in gold under the belief that in the event of like complete societal collapse or hyperinflation, they could use it for purchasing.
I have the hunch it’s a scam, but I haven’t learned enough monetary theory, business, or economics to understand why.
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It’s… Not really a scam so much as a thing for weird cranks who think the apocalypse is coming. If you have gold then you have gold. And gold will likely hold its value for a long time because it’s a rare resource. Unless we find some alchemy that turns common materials into it, it will likely stay that way. So if you buy gold at market value then you can always sell it later at market value, and that market value is almost guaranteed to be higher than when you bought it.
The people who are really into it though are the weird cranks. And I’d imagine certain stocks or even bonds are arguably better returns in the same time span.
Not to be contrarian, but please don’t say gold is almost guaranteed to go up… There have been times in the 1900’s where people lost in gold massively and didn’t recover for decades.
It HAS been a good investment in the last while, but it may have been just luck.
Plus, at the price it’s at now… I kind of fear buying it.
I looked into it as well but in the end went with a Gov Bond ETF instead.
Edit: typos, I have feet for hands
Would you trust this guy’s advice?
I’d chop off my own dick if whatever thing is told me to do it
Societal collapse? No gold won’t save you. Tools and how to use them will.
Maybe during hyperinflation though.
Gods not a terrible investment but it doesn’t have a short term ROI just a REALLY long term one.
I hate Bitcoin but its probably a better investment (and just as useful) than gold.
I’m a fudd though and ONLY buy stable stocks that yield reliable dividends though. ETFs, S&P stuff.
Generally speaking, precious metal commodities are a hedge investment; they aren’t a primary investment themselves, but they’re a hedge against a loss in value of other investments, like stocks or bonds. If you are investing in gold as a hedge against inflation wiping out stock market gains, then yeah, it’s pretty solid. You probably don’t want to hold on to it forever though; if you’d bought gold just prior to Carter taking office and the stagflation of the late 70s, you be pretty much break-even with things like index funds.
As far as total societal collapse, you would need to have the physical bullion, not just have precious metals in your investment portfolio. And even then, gold might not have a ton of value in a subsistence society. People might trade for it, but if I had food to trade, I don’t think I’d be trading for gold, since I can’t eat gold. The people that will clean up in a subsistence environment? The Amish.
If you invest in gold that is not physically in your posession, then yes.
If society breaks down, who is going to honor that piece of paper that claims you own gold in some banks vault? You don’t even know where that gold actually is…
I am not sure how useful owning the actual precious metals would be in a societal collapse. It’s going to lose value quickly. It would take probably 5-10 years before some rich rober baron decides to make a market for it where it gets a decent trade value again. An Oz of gold is going to mean a lot less to me than box of bullets or some chickens, unless I can find someone to give me a ton of that stuff in trade before my family starves I am going to take the chickens.
Much more useful in a hyper inflation scenario.
In a societal collapse, it will be rather worthless, yes. But in an economic collapse, it probably retains more value than paper money or stock options. Property, of course, is premium. If you can uphold claims to it…
Also a in a societal collapse markets will reestablish themselves relatively quickly so if you have a trade good like gold, copper, or silver you could probably use it as a solid liquid asset. Mind you I’d say a 1-2 year minimum for markets to reestablish themselves so you have to survive that first. Also you will be at the mercy of the merchants and tradesmen regardless.
If they ever get around to capturing an asteroid to mine, your hoarded gold will suddenly be worthless.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yes. Tune all of that nonsense out… But don’t fret if you own a tiny bit, either.
I kind of like Warren Buffet’s ramblings on it:
Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.
You could take all the gold that’s ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that’s worth at current gold prices, you could buy all – not some – all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take?
Gold has utility. Every circuit board uses gold.
Same with germanium.
And boron.
…I was gonna say I wouldn’t want a giant cube of boron. But actually, I kinda do?
only a complete bidiot or bignoramus wouldn’t
I feel like you could still do very well in life if you controlled literally all the gold in the world, but also he is Warren Buffet and my current wallet is one that I found on the ground, so I am willing to defer to the experts here.
(NB, the wallet was empty, I’m no savage)
The thing about gold is they are always mining more of it, not great for long term value
There isnt much actually left and it becomes more and more expensive to mine.
Not that I agree with the specific numbers in this infographic (I have seen estimates between 20-40% remaining) but it illustrates my point. The right cube would be bigger, but not as big as the already mined cube on the left if you included all the gold estimates in total.
In a societal collapse your best investment is between your ears. If you can build/grow/… things you don’t need to worry about losing value.
Gold is not going to save you. I’d we get to the point that gold becomes currency again, that will be the least of your worries. Those are just prepper fantasies.
If you are considering investing in gold as an asset, sure that’s legit.
There are a lot of delusional people in here posting about their personal shower-fantasies of what they would do in the apocalypse. You can safely discard all that. If it gets so bad you need guns and tools and… blacksmithing supplies? you are so utterly fucked that gold and bartering will be the last of your concerns. People will be fucking eating each other. You simply cannot run to the woods and start living off the land, you will starve and die without acres of ready land already producing food. Real-life isn’t like a survival video game, there is no tech-tree that you can climb and start producing food.
Read some Cormac McCarthy for a more realistic view of the end of the world. (Then have a therapist on hand for the after-effects.)
For a financial collapse, gold would probably retain value, a society still needs something to base the value of its trading on, we can’t just all carry around sacks of grain. How much value gold will retain is very hard to predict, but people have been using it for so long that it’s already survived several widespread disasters and is still in use.
I remember reading Walden and thinking that even many many years ago this dude failed to be entirely self sufficient and still had to head back to town for random shit. It’d be so much harder nowadays.
In case of complete societal collapse ? Yes.
But if you have to flee from your homeland, gold is a universal currency.
How are you supposed to get it out of your homeland?
Load your gold into your car ? I might have misunderstood the post. If you don’t own it directly it’s no better than any other investment
In the event of a collapse like you describe, I’m going to need something I can eat or wear, something tangible I can trade. If you can get enough people together that agree gold is a valuable bearer instrument then you’ve got a government. That’s not really a collapse.
There was a video essay by Folding Ideas (From “the line goes up” fame) about a weird documentary narrated/hosted by Idris Elba, and If I am remembering it right it was basically a propaganda/ad film targeting people like peepers and that are skeptical of the government and such. So I believe there is at least a push to make gold more marketable and in fashion, like De beers did for diamonds.
I don’t know if I am allowed to link to outside content (because the rule of no reposting outside content) but in any case it should be easy to find for anyone interested.
Linking to outside content is good. How else could people cite their sources?
I’m acquiring a little gold. Not a lot, but enough.
What’s enough? When my family was escaping persecution, they managed to travel under the cover of night and stayed in people’s barns and homes during the day. They planned and managed these arrangements via transactions using gold coins, links or pieces of jewelry, or other relatively universal valuables. They also got away a couple of times using the same goods to bribe authorities.
A small number of generations of my family dealt with being told that their money or credit was devalued due to their religion, profession, or relationship to public figures. In those instances, the family members who fled survived, and most of the ones who didn’t flee died.
I don’t know that I have much faith in my ability to flee anything, so I’m not investing that much time or money into acquiring gold things. Found some old watches from my grandparents/great-grandparents that claim to have gold in them. Have a couple of my own little things and jewelry I’ve given my wife. All just things when the time to survive arrives. Which it might not ever.
I hope this somewhat answered your question.
If it’s not too personal, I’m curious where your family escaped from?
Different parts of the family tree, but pre-Soviet Ukraine and Poland.
The Ukrainian family was erased over a period spanning from pre-WWI to pre-WWII. Around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, a large portion was killed for having too close of ties with the Romanov family, and for taking advantage of the commoners. They incorrectly assumed that their social status would keep them safe. By the time that bolshevism fell out of style, anyone who remained was killed off for their radical support for empowering the commoners. Over just a couple of decades, a relatively vast family name was completely wiped out from a vast number of cities and villages. The only thing they all seemed to have in common with each other and those miles alongside them was their religion.
The Polish family either snuck out of Poland around the time that Nazism was becoming more popular, or died. One family member survived after their parents left them with some Catholic friends, and another two family members shockingly survived the concentration camps. My memories of one of them was how hard they’d cry when they’d see any portion of their numeric tattoo.
Now the living parts of the Ukrainian family live throughout the Americas, and believe that fascist leaders have redeeming qualities. Meanwhile, the Polish family is mostly in Israel and is mostly super-cool with Palestinian genocide. Imagine struggling so hard to survive, just for your offspring to perpetuate or promote the same shit that you escaped from.
You should really schedule a discussion praising Hitler and his buddies at your next family gathering…
My family gets upset when I reference Hitler and his buddies as the creative source material for our current sequel/reboot. The fact that our president had previously bragged about studying books by and about Hitler isn’t a problem, instead, it’s a problem that I bring it up.
