Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;InfleXion, post: 1359026, member: 29012&quot;]Fatima&#039;s advice of staying out of debt is #1. Beyond that, I think gold and more so silver are your best bet, namely because of the reasons why they constitute the definition of money, which is to suffice the following characteristics:</p><p><br /></p><p>Fungibility: 1 oz is worth the same as any other ounce intrinsically. You can melt it into anything you want, but if it weighs it weighs and they are mutually exchangeable.</p><p><br /></p><p>Divisibility: You can break it up into as many pieces as you want, and each piece will retain its representative value.</p><p><br /></p><p>Durability: 7 million oz of silver was found on the bottom of the ocean last year, perfectly fine.</p><p><br /></p><p>Portability: You can carry it with you without much effort or concern about its integrity.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Housing and land may be a great investment, seemingly very affordable, but they fail the portability and divisibility first and foremost. Yes it can be a good store of wealth, but if you need to get that wealth back you don&#039;t have many options.</p><p><br /></p><p>Stocks, bonds, and currency all fail the durability test. Paper currency also fails the divisibility test. Sure you can &#039;break&#039; a dollar, but you can&#039;t cut it in half. They may outperform precious metals, but you&#039;re not going to get any of them off the bottom of the ocean and jump for joy if you do. They are not a long term store of wealth compared to precious metals, but compared to the average lifespan, yes they are longterm. However they also require that the companies and governments that manage them, that they represent, remain in power. These are what I refer to as faith based assets.</p><p><br /></p><p>So assuming that metals are the way to go, you have big brother gold, the steady climber who never gets too bent out of shape, consistently performing as a hedge against inflation, the safe bet as the ultimate monetary metal.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or you have crazy unpredictable silver, the black sheep of the metal family, who will keep you up at night worrying about what antics he&#039;s up to. As both a monetary and an industrial metal it follows gold for the most part, but tends to race around and make you question whether he will show up for dinner on Sunday prepared by reliable brother gold right when he said he would. Gold is the good son, but silver is the prodigal son.</p><p><br /></p><p>Realistically, why should you like silver? Analogies don&#039;t prove anything. Silver is much more rare than gold above ground, 7 times more rare conservatively, 15 times more rare aggressively. The historic ratio of pulling silver out of the ground has been 17:1 vs. gold, but today&#039;s mining numbers indicate it is only 7:1, as in 7 times more abundant in the Earth&#039;s crust. This indicates silver is becoming scarce inside the Earth in addition to above ground levels, which are at the lowest level in over 700 years. The inflation adjusted all time high for silver in the 1400&#039;s was over $800/oz in 1992 US dollars. A shekel of silver back in the old days was a day&#039;s wages for hard manual labor. That is about 1/3 of an ounce of silver. Are you going to accept $10 for that today? I wouldn&#039;t.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in