EFT's

Exempt. IRA and 401k proceeds are taxed as ordinary income when withdrawn regardless of source.

 

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It's a trade-off. Holders of ETFs are more likely to sell and take small gains rather than hang in for most of the bull market. Warren Buffett said that liquidity is not important to the true investor.

 

Gosh I love that guy......

 

But liquidity may be forced upon some in this market who are being forced into taking hard ship withdrawls from their plans, even if they perceived themselves otherwise to be true investors. Not everyone can be Mr. WB.

 

It is to be your utmost to try......

 

Most definitely. But I have heard of many facing this situation taking early distributions due to joblessness and such pressures. This evenings 60 minutes had a story on those in this plight. Some mentioned taking their savings from plans to make it through.

 

It's sad to hear about what you have mentioned Chris...I know it to be true.

 

Sometimes you have to raid your IRA, but one should know the circumstances in advance to avoid surprises. My goal in the next 2 months is to determine and act on how much of my IRA 401 I can pay taxes on (split over the next 2 years) to convert to my ROTH IRA. Although I am a few years away from mandatory withdrawals, I expect taxes ( including on 401Ks ) to increase between now and then, and want as much as possible in ROTHs, where there will be no taxes on withdrawals and no mandatory withdrawals needed.

 

Knowledge is indeed more important than gold, but depending on how severe the crisis, and the contacts of the individual.....moving PMs might not be too difficult to move/trade for some people.

(besides....should it all collapse and We experience a "worst case scenario".....We`re all going back to the barter system in one way or another)

 

In a worse case scenario, why would someone with food, bottled water, or antibiotics, etc. trade them for a piece of metal since they would not know how the scenario would progress or how long it would last. In a worse case scenario, I suspect our values of worth would change. If you had an infection heading towards loss of a body part, how much gold for a tube of antibiotics?

 

Because there is always someone who will have plenty more than You and I.....someone who might have an abundance of certain items would trade some of them for PMs. (who can gauge a situation like that?)

When manual labor is required for a certain situation....and fiat money is basically used as kindling....You mean to tell me that somebody is not selling out for the PMs?

Scenarios like these may never happen, (much to the dismay of the doomsday crowd) but if they did ever happen people will be trading anything of value....and like it or not gold and silver have ALWAYS had value.

 

A better question is, in a worst case scenario, would someone with food, water or antibiotics be more likely to trade them for gold/silver, or for a piece of paper?

 

"Exempt. IRA and 401k proceeds are taxed as ordinary income when withdrawn regardless of source."

cool. PM ETF might be a nice fit in my ROTH. Anybody know if I can transfer investments such as stocks, treasuries from an IRA to ROTH or do I need to liquidate then transfer the cash to the ROTH?



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Cloud; I am not knocking those that choose not to use ETFs, but question the reasoning used in most cases on this forum.

A great example is this thread... a thread about "ETF", yet here the tread is...talking about end of the world...doomsday...SHTF. This extreme end point logic is so attractive (and fun to talk about) that it ends up being used for investment advice.

I have finally gotten old enough to vaguely see how ignorant I was/am. For me, one of my past errors in planning/reasoning was using extremes instead of reality for non-critical evaluations.

This conceptual flaw is being used a lot here and by many of my "prepared" friends.

Disclosure; I used SLV to diversify my investments out of the dollar, selling at highs, buying at lows and using the funds to down cost my physical. I also have some GOOG, (Google) but have not read the prospectus to see if I can redeem my shares of GOOG for physical GOOG. If I see the stock having issues...I will sell it....just like I would for an ETF.

 

Cloud, you are correct, I assumed that was even a worse trade and didn't mention it, but PM, although preferable, still might not invoke a trade when looking at long term survival in a day to day survival scenario. Of course we don't know, it is all very extreme postulation and I personally do not expect it to occur.​

 

I personally don't believe in the doomsday scenarios popular in some circles. But I would still stay away from ETFs that hold futures and contracts with bullion dealers who may or may not hold bullion, but count it as such. A lot can go wrong when the asset value depends on contractual promises instead of physical metal.

 

" . . . A lot can go wrong when the asset value depends on contractual promises. . . "
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Can you spell CDS (credit default swap) and CDO (Collateralized debt obligation)