Best ways to hold precious metals

markj113

America's projected national debt is now forecast to reach $99,000,000,000,000 By 2048.


This is indicative of most western countries debt problem and it wont end well so having a little gold outside of the system is a sensible insurance policy in my opinion.

short_butt_sweet

Computer_Beginner wrote: »

I don't know what emergency. Could be war, capital controls, cyber attack, sickness, unemployment, alien invasion.

I keep a box of half sovereigns. Hopefully even if all the computers were down, I could pay people using gold. I'm pretty sure people such as farmers, mechanics, shop keepers, butchers etc would accept gold. Especially those who already know and trust me, to some extent.

well, for emergencies such as sickness or unemployment, you'd be better off holding cash (in a savings account - even 1.x% is better than 0%). because in an emergency, your gold might happen to be worth (say) 50% less than it was when you bought it. cash is much more stable in value. gold isn't useless for this purpose, but cash is simply much better.


for cyber attack: if you mean temporary loss of access to cash machines and payment systems, some physical cash would be useful. regular retailers won't be keen on accepting gold in case of a temporary glitch in payment systems; but will accept cash. but you don't need much cash for this purpose, because most people hold very little cash, which means the government would have no option but to make sure this kind of problem was resolved in pretty quick order.


capital controls? who cares? are you about to flee the country, taking all your assets with you? just make sure your long-term investments (i.e. equities etc) already include plenty of overseas investments, because capital controls might limit your ability to add to them.


alien invasion? lol.


the only kind of emergency that gold might be relevant for is a general collapse in the UK financial/banking system. and if you want to protect against that, the only good method is to get most of your assets, and yourself, out of the country now, while you can. alternatively, you could face the boring reality that we live in a stable country.

short_butt_sweet

markj113 wrote: »

America's projected national debt is now forecast to reach $99,000,000,000,000 By 2048.


This is indicative of most western countries debt problem and it wont end well so having a little gold outside of the system is a sensible insurance policy in my opinion.

wow, you certainly convinced me, by writing out all those 0s, instead of using the word "trillions". not.



you have made no argument. what is the appropriate level of national debt, for the USA, which happens to be the richest nation there has ever been on this planet? you haven't even attempted to answer this.

markj113

short_butt_sweet wrote: »

wow, you certainly convinced me, by writing out all those 0s, instead of using the word "trillions". not.



you have made no argument. what is the appropriate level of national debt, for the USA, which happens to be the richest nation there has ever been on this planet? you haven't even attempted to answer this.

So you dont like the formatting of my numbers, but it does not alter the point I made.


You think $99 trillion is an appropraite level of debt and consider yourself a financial guru. Glad I am not paying for your financial advise.


Richest nation there has ever been by hitting the print button, on the flip side the most indebted nation there has ever been. Many countries are now making moves away from the dollar and what do you think will happen when these countries no longer opt to purchase US debt?


WWIII no doubt as they won't have any other options.

Computer_Beginner

short_butt_sweet wrote: »

well, for emergencies

you could face the boring reality that we live in a stable country.

Which is why most of my investments are shares and property etc.
The gold is just enough for any unlikely emergency. I don't consider it an investment.

I know enough people who could buy the gold off me for cash if needed. That's why I don't keep much myself.

Computer_Beginner

short_butt_sweet wrote: »

wow, the USA, which happens to be the richest nation there has ever been on this planet?
his.

In terms of wealth per person, I expect somewhere like Saudi Arabia is wealthier.

There are a lot of poor people in the USA.
And how would you put a value on something like nuclear weapons or space shuttles?

I think the USA as a unified state is probably weaker than many imagine.
The ordinary population are very resilient, individualistic and well armed. They have a very different mindset to the British.

At the moment, they're still largely brainwashed into being obsessed with their "constitution" etc. Once they realise that's just a piece of paper written hundreds of years ago, things could unravel quite quickly over there.

markj113

US debt clock always makes interesting reading:


http://www.usdebtclock.org/?

short_butt_sweet

markj113 wrote: »

So you dont like the formatting of my numbers, but it does not alter the point I made.

you have advanced no argument about why that would be too much debt for the USA. it's just: wow, look at the big number! yes, the numbers are big when you look at country-level figures. it would be silly for a household to have trillions of debt. but that doesn't necessarily make it silly for the USA.

You think $99 trillion is an appropraite level of debt and consider yourself a financial guru. Glad I am not paying for your financial advise.

i didn't make any definite statement about whether or not it's appropriate.


it does sound (from your reference to financial advice) as if you may be confusing the finances of households and countries. they are very different, both in scale and in other ways.

Richest nation there has ever been by hitting the print button, on the flip side the most indebted nation there has ever been. Many countries are now making moves away from the dollar and what do you think will happen when these countries no longer opt to purchase US debt?


WWIII no doubt as they won't have any other options.

the usual financial measures of wealth (GDP, etc) may have flaws. despite that, there is no doubt that the USA is the richest country to date.


there are 2 components to national debt: internal and external.


in the internal component, the national debt is just the national savings - i.e. it's the other side of the same coin. it ought to go up as a country gets richer. if it went down, that would imply the private sectors (households and companies) were getting poorer. so aversion to this kind of debt rising is ridiculous. though there is room to argue about exactly how fast it should grow.


the external component of national debt necessarily goes along with a trade deficit. the USA has a huge trade deficit, mainly (to simplify a bit) with china. china exports more to the USA than it imports from the USA. that means it must end up buying more US assets each year, of one sort or another, of equal value to the trade deficit. that doesn't have to be US treasuries, but for various reasons (especially the scale of the trade deficit), it is likely to be mostly US treasuries. as long as the trade deficit continues, china will keep buying US treasuries. they don't actually have much choice about that, unless they do something to reduce the trade deficit.


basically, there is no issue with a "buyers' strike" for US treasuries.


overseas (chinese) buyers will keep buying as long as there's a trade deficit. OTOH, if the trade deficit fell, so would be fiscal deficit. i'm not getting into whether the trade deficit should be lower here - that's another discussion; the point is just that, as long as it's high, overseas investors will keep buying US treasuries to fund it.



and the private sector in the US will keep buying US treasuries as long as they keep getting richer. because treasuries pay more interest than cash does.


perhaps it's not the mythical "buyers' strike" that you're concerned about. in that case, what problems do you think will occur as the national debt rises?

short_butt_sweet

Computer_Beginner wrote: »

In terms of wealth per person, I expect somewhere like Saudi Arabia is wealthier.

yes: per person, there are a few richer countries. in total wealth, the USA is far ahead, by any measure.

markj113

short_butt_sweet wrote: »

yes: per person, there are a few richer countries. in total wealth, the USA is far ahead, by any measure.

Mortgaged up to the eye balls with everything paid for on plastic living paycheck to paycheck is not my idea of personal wealth.


check the data for yourself:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/?