And exactly how long do you expect to live? And how do you intend to hold on to your gold store when the entire country is so devastated that its currency becomes worthless? And what will you then exchange your gold for?
Gold needs a confluence of several lucky and unlucky accidents to be useful. If you’re actually worried about the apocalypse you should build a bunker like Cleve, not hoard gold.
Obviously you buy guns too. Duh. A good investment strategy is diversified. A decent split equally between gold, guns, and canned goods is key for a long term apocalypse portfolio.
Err, I said upthread I’m not a gold bug.
The value of holding gold as a store of value increases with the likelihood of serious inflation, government confiscation, etc. Right now, I view those events as having a low probability for the foreseeable future in the U.S. If I lived in a different country (or perhaps in this country at a different time), I might see things differently.
Uh, what kind of long-term? If you’re worried about random countries collapsing/inflation, I’m pretty sure a global GDP weighted currency pile would have less variance than gold.
I’m not sure about the appreciation potential long-term, but if you actually want appreciation and not an inflation hedge you’re talking about a different asset class.
Uhh… yes? Well, a stable investment. If it were actually used as currency it wouldn’t be so volatile.
Why not?
I dunno man, you’re talking about different asset classes, but then cite gold’s value as if it has relevance as a currency, which it doesn’t.
And besides, the value of currencies always seem to like to go down.
Agreed. The whole point of gold is that it’s the “oh shit” option. If an economy totally collapsed and the currency became valueless there’s a 99.9% chance that you’d be able to barter gold and other precious metals for virtually anything. Of course, in order to do that you’d actually have to take delivery of it, store it securely, etc.
I remember reading Andrew Tobias’ The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need, where there’s a section on what to do if you win the lottery or have some similar windfall. He suggested using some of it to buy a bag of silver dimes, which could be traded more easily than gold ingots in the event of a catastrophe.
I’m fond of Warren Buffett’s take on gold:
But it’s so shiny!
Bartering won’t be done with gold. It will be done with bullets.
All I know is, I’m hanging on to every bottle cap I’ve ever seen.
Gold once originally held value because you could rub it against a touchstone to determine purity. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchstone_(assaying_tool)
Anyone who isn’t a chemist can’t really say that their gold has inherent value.