Gold & Silver – Precious Metals After The Collapse
The following is an assumption held close by many within the preparedness arena. That is, after “the collapse”, precious metals (gold and silver) will be of value (money) – and be a (the?) means of financial exchange for goods and services. – at least for a time. I would like to broach that subject.
Dennis, here on the blog, brought up the following…
The subject is precious metals…and more specifically, its value as an exchange medium after a collapse. I have no answers, only a bunch of questions.
How and who will determine its value? What a Wall Street broker values it at is of no help to a dog eat dog, day to day survivor half a country away. He has gold (and/or silver), but no food…does his gold or silver have more value than another meal to make it one more day?
Back in the days of the fabled mountain men. Miles from civilization, they had furs. Furs were of great value…back east where there was a functioning commerce. Manufactured goods were scarce. It took some hardy entrepreneurs to arrange for exchange of the manufactured goods for furs. The fur’s potential value was much greater than that of the goods they traded for…but only when transported to where the demand was. Who had the upper hand in determining the exchange rate?
Am I wrong to view precious metals as a means of recovery after a collapsed society returns to a semblance of normalcy…protect wealth through the storm, not so much as currency for transactions when normal commerce comes to an end?
Ision, here on the blog, responded with the following…
Gold only retains value only as long as there is an existing civilization, which values it, and people know they can exchange it for other tangible value. But, if there is no civil contract, no organized grouping of a population around established folkways and laws, precious metals are only worth what one can make from them, and is valued by how sought after that product is by others.
Gold is nice because it doesn’t rust, and is easily worked, and is nice to look at. That’s it… It’s uncommon and hard to find and usually not easy to extract from ore, or placer, deposits. It makes nice jewelry, or used to decorate one’s favorite weapons, but it could also make nice fishing weights.
Gold, and all precious metals and gems, must be traded to another person, who is in the possession of actual wealth, which are the commodities, which sustain and nurture human life..such as shelter, food, water, fertile land, weapons, tools, clothes…and the like. The person who determines the value of your precious metals and gems…is the person who owns the goods you wish to obtain in exchange for it.
In addition, in the absence of any effective, ubiquitous, governing entity, what one’s gold, and precious metals, and gems, are worth to one person, may not be worth anything to another, or even be recognized as valuable at all, beyond their decorative value, or their industrial worth.
In lawless times, where there is no civilization, if someone really wants your precious metals, they may just kill you for them, and for whatever else you might have….and wouldn’t it be better to retain your wealth in a form, where it could actually be used to protect…itself? Bang. Bang.
In my opinion, this all largely depends on “the collapse”, and what that entails. It appears to me that the global masters of the world know that the existing financial system is at its end. All nations around the globe are in severe debt, and issuing much more debt 24/7. There are defaults coming. And that’s the likely reason that WWIII is under way. It’s designed to be the excuse for default and collapse. There is a new system waiting in the wings after most everyone is wiped out. It will be all new, and all digital. It will be part of their Great Reset.
With that said, if this implementation is successful (after the orchestrated collapse via WWIII, assuming we’re not all dead via Thermonuclear War), it is my opinion that gold and silver will be banned (for the common person) from financial exchange within the new system. In this scenario, gold and silver could become functional within an underground barter system – at risk of severe penalty.
Now if the powers-that-be fail at bringing in their new digital system after the collapse of the old system, then we will surely be in SHTF mode. And Ision’s remarks (above) sound pretty valid…
Like many people say, “You can’t eat gold or silver”. It comes down to survival priorities first. The tangibles that aid towards survivability. But logically, eventually, there will be a need for a format of ‘store of value’ for the purpose of buying and selling goods and services. Barter in and of itself won’t work very well. There needs to be something that’s valued as ‘money’.
Anyway, an interesting topic of discussion. Lets hear your thoughts.
