Preparedness for when

jk0

GreyQueen wrote: »

Plenty, MrsLW. Was there electrictity in Ancient Greece? Nope, but there were gold aureus. Was the electricity in China in the 5th century BC? Nope, but there were gold coins called ying yuan. Was there electricity in Ancient Rome? Nope, but there were gold solidus. Ancient Persia? Yup - gold darics. Islamic world 7th century to present day - gold dinar. Italy and various eastern European countries? Ducats - 11th century to now. Britian? Gold sovriegns - 1489 to now.

Electricity is a new-fangled thing from the 19th century compared with the continent-spanning trade which was possible with gold and silver coins. Gold and silver worked for millennia whilst elastictrickery was just a nuisance that sometimes caused lightning fires.

Now, all stores-of-valueand units-of-exchange are subject to circumstances. Imagine, if you will, that you have broken down in the desert many miles from nowhere with all your water already drunk and no rescuer in sight. It's a bad situation, and about to get much worse, because you are starting to hallucinate.

Out through the heat shimmer above the stands step I, GreyQueen, wearing a dented sunhat and a p-d off expression. I am burdened in the crook of my left arm with a substantial gold ingot and in my right hand I am holding a 17p of Tosspots value water. The ingot is 'worth' thousands of pounds and the water is 'worth' a few pence.

Cursing as I set down my burdens, I offer you a choice of having the gold ingot or the bottle of water, the very valuable metal or the cheap commonplace water. You can't have both. Will you take the ingot and hope to be rescued before dying of thirst (it's reckoned a nasty death btw) or will you take the bottle of water, hope to live long enough to be rescued and curse your overheated imagination?

You'd take the water if you had any sense. But if you live in a rainy country and have plenty of water already and I make you the same deal? You'd take the gold, wouldn't you, even if you couldn't immediately use it. Your kids or grandkids could benefit from it. Because trade is possible with a mere fraction of the population we have now, and with nothing nearly as sophisticated as electricity.

Now you might just think I'm playing silly burgers. People fleeing across international borders often buy their way out with gold; went to college with a bloke whose family were Vietnamese 'boat people' and they paid to be there and paid in gold. FerFAL reckons one gold ounce coin per family member is the usual grease to expediate fleeing a country.

I love your posts GQ.

Anyone heard of these combi bars?

http://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/gold-bars/50-gram/degussa-50g-gold-combibar/?s=valcambi&src=quicksearch

They are the size of a credit card, so can fit in your wallet.

GreyQueen

I haven't seen a gold one IRL (not my price bracket) but I have seen an almost identical thing in silver, with 1g little bricks which you could snap off. Which I chose not to buy, but it was an interesting idea. Be murder on your pocket linings, with all those corners, tho.;)

I find it fascinating that we're all been conditioned in only a century or so to move away from the idea which has been held for millennia that silver and gold are money. People used to use real precious metals to go shopping with, FGS, and not that long ago, either. And now we hoard coloured bits of paper and think we're rich.:rotfl:

How does the saying have it? Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, debt is the money of slaves. Hell, even labourers used to be paid in silver every day centuries ago.

I was reading a memoir written (or dictated) in the early twentieth century by one of the last Native American warrior peoples to lose out to the advance of modern society. The Apaches had been interacting with the Mexicans for centuries before 'white people' came from the east and knew perfectly well what gold and silver money was for, and even held up the odd packtrain to get it to buy ammunition and other useful requisties. The old warrior in question was reminiscing about the first time they'd encountered bank notes. They assumed they were just worthless pretty pieces of paper and gave them to their kids to play with, until a passing Navajo who'd encountered fiat currency put them wise to what they were used for, whereupon they took them back from the kids double-quick.:rotfl:

hunters

No matter what form your "money" takes don't forget it is all filthy and you never know who has handled it, it's not called money laundering for nothing. :beer:

Re the weather reports can you give a link to where this information is coming from and if there are any copyright issues.

GreyQueen

hunters wrote: »

No matter what form your "money" takes don't forget it is all filthy and you never know who has handled it, it's not called money laundering for nothing. :beer:

Re the weather reports can you give a link to where this information is coming from and if there are any copyright issues.

My bank is very good at money laundering, one of the best in the whole world.

Jesting aside, I know someone who ended up hospitalised and on a drip from something they'd caught after cashing-up gaming machines . Always remember it isn't called filthy lucre for nothing and wash those handies regularly.

[Deleted User]

That's the thing GQ 'immediate use'. I can see that gold in the future might be beneficial to family descendents but in the aftermath of an event that catastrophic it would have no use whatsoever. I guess I just don't value the decorative or impractical now, so I would most definately take the water and leave the gold for someone else however if the price of the water was the gold ingot I'd be right up the creek paddleless!!! I know that civilisations in the past have set great store by having gold artifacts and that kings and rulers and pharoes have all had huge amounts of the stuff but I'm the descendant of a whole lot of peasants and an iron cooking pot and a turnip would give me more satisfaction than all the gold in christendom, throw in the odd herring and I'm not only a happy peasant but a well fed one too!!!

2tonsils

The essential oil I mentioned is called May Chang...you can use it in those oil burners or put a drop on to stop insects biting. You can also use it on stings. It can be used diluted in water to disinfect and clean the house. I believe that Amazon sell it but I bought it from someone who imports them. It cost me 3.50 euros for ten ml. It lasts for ages as you only need a drop or two.

I will add the links to the weather reports when I post them, but most of it is given to me personally as I help many of them with sharing info and doing translations. All the information I have posted is available to the general public.

2tonsils

Perhaps for those of us who don't have the means to collect gold , it might be an idea to have things we could barter with, maybe seeds, alcohol, cigarettes, long life food etc? Or even services that may help others that they can't do for themselves?

calicocat

jk0 wrote: »

I love your posts GQ.

Anyone heard of these combi bars?

http://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/gold-bars/50-gram/degussa-50g-gold-combibar/?s=valcambi&src=quicksearch

They are the size of a credit card, so can fit in your wallet.

Lol..........this has just had me fannying about weighing my jewellery to see what it's worth instead of getting ready for work. I had thought about selling it as I never really wear any of it anymore, and pay a bit more off the mortgage.....think i'll keep it now though....you never know.

I would imagine if the S really hit the fan, and you had a cellar, booze would be a good currency to have at hand too. Alas...I don't have a cellar.

Frugalsod

nuatha wrote: »

Look at how it was done in Argentina where dollar holdings had been widespread and were seriously devalued practically overnight. A new currency could be introduced at £5 equals 1 new pound, with shops instructed that all stock is repriced at 50% of its old value for the new currency. That £100 item would be 50 new pounds, but your £100 in bank notes would only buy 20 new pounds , so the real price would by 2.5 times the old price.
(Dutch friends regard the Euro changeover as a 150% price rise)

If old notes can only be exchanged for new notes at banks, then the old notes will have no value at all for purchases.

Yes but that was a secondary currency. Most people had opted to use that instead of the local peso. So if you only dealt in the local currency you would not be effected by seizure of dollar accounts. In the same way if the banks seized all the balances of people over £10 000 in their bank accounts most people would not be effected. Most people have barely any money in their accounts.

Some countries did not regulate the change over to the Euro and many cases companies pushed through price increases. Some countries did regulate the change over and the impact was much lower.

GreyQueen

FerFal (Fernando Aguirre - blogger http://ferfal.blogspot.co.uk/) is an Argentine now resident in Northern Ireland, a married man with two children, who went through the financial collapse of his country.

What had been happening there for some time is that the Argentne peso was playing second fiddle to the US dollar. People were making big purchases in dollars (houses, industrial plant, cars) and using peso for the little stuff. The government froze bank accounts and devalued the peso against the dollar, so people couldn't do this so easily.

What this meant for people besieging their banks and unable to get their money was that their wealth was being reduced by government diktat by about a quarter. Some smart cookies had diversified into dollars but the Argentine grubbyment put in capital controls on taking them out or bringing them into the country. They wanted the populace helpless and entirely at their economic mercy whilst they defrauded their wealth. They also stole everybody's pension pots.

This stunt caused a lot of the economy to grind to a halt. A very rich country became a very poor one, children and adults starved, lawlessness became rife, hyperinflation of goods and shortages, chronic worsening of conditions for even solidly middle-class Argentines like his family.

If you've not read his blog, I'd recommend it to you. Not every article or video clip might be of interest, but there's plenty there which is educational and thought-provoking. Read the 27 articles under the listing Argentine Ecomomy on the sidebar and wince at the joke doing the rounds in South America that Brazil in the process of becoming Argentina and Argentina is in the process of becoming Zimbabwe (where the working currency is the US dollars for notes and S African coins for change).

Meanwhile, the lovely Argentine president is wasting £20k of public funds a day having her newspapers delivered by presidential jet.