Why most people buy PMs for the wrong reasons...

The forum software says not.

 

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Wrong.. Inflexion since 2011, Santini since 2015. Santini may have the big post count, but that doesn't mean much of anything...as you can attest to, right?

 

Oh, so four years extra of lurking is good. Okay, good to know.

 

You should try it sometime...

 

Yeah, nothing worse for you than hearing from an educated dissenting voice. It ruins your ability to spread your venomous disinformation.

 

Inflexion is just one of these pontificators who like to come to this site and spew forth. They come and they go. Their hot air, like all hot air, rises and soon dissipates.

 

We've got beaucoup problems in this country, economic, cultural, social, moral, and political. But one thing that is NOT ANY KIND OF PROBLEM is our monetary policy and the Federal Reserve system. Cripes, it's almost the only thing that IS right.

 

Gentlemen, stay on the subject, and abandon the personal stuff. You can argue about monetary theories all you want, but follow the rules. Thanks, Jim

 

A monetary system designed to keep its citizens in a state of perpetual debt and competition (at each other's throats) via a scarcity of currency. All controlled by a small group of self-described experts that suffer no competition (monopoly) and live above it all, fabulously wealthy and unaccountable.

Yea jeez. I wish we could get to the bottom of these "beau coup problems". I can only imagine how disturbing it must all seem, when viewed from Ivory Towers. (lol)

 

That post is so full of paranoia and internal inconsistency and outright lies that I don't even know where to start.

 

A suggestion, start with the "outright lies" (should be easy, being as they're "outright"), and go from there. (lol)

 

Going out of town so I won't be available to comment until the first week of next month. It's been real, it's been fun but it ain't been real fun!

I'm lying, it's been very informative.... And fun! Love these types of discussions. Learning a ton!!

Take care,

Dan

 

just ignore them all.
Spend only when you have to spend
and save all other times, even in PMs at prices you deem good.
If you take on debt, pay it off as quickly as possible.

then there's nothing to worry about.

 

Ok, but in the current climate of ZIRP and QE to whenever from whichever central bank needs to take its turn, isn't saving a bad move with many penalties?

 

From who's perspective?

From the gov't perspective they want the people to spend, spend, spend. Take out loans etc to keep the banks paying all their high staff exorbinant salaries, and keep money flowing in the economy.

From the financial advisor who only makes money when you invest your money into their investments (and not sitting on the sidelines in cash).

But for the individual, saving is a good thing. Even if it's in PMs or in cash in the mattress.
You don't have to use a bank savings account.
You don't have to listen to the central banks.
You don't have to be influenced by gov't macro economics.

In all actuality, having a savings acct is helping the banks to provide loans. It gives them cash to loan out. You are in essence, supporting gov't policy by Saving.

There is also many other alternative methods of savings.
For instance, if you have a mortgage without an escrow account. Make additional payments. Get ahead of your payments . Think of the compounded finance charges being saved and reduced debt term. Plus, if you get into a cash crunch you can simply not pay your mortgage because you are ahead in it.

That extra cash hitting the banks reserves can be used for other loans. So you are once again supporting gov't policy by paying down your debt.

If the market or economy is going to pop at some time wouldn't you rather have those savings rather than debt?

Look what QE's done for the once strong German banks. And then there's Greece and floating the debt over and over again, and Italy, Spain, Portugal, France the banks are floating debt back and forth.

Your avatar identifies the stock market is where it's at. There's also the bond market, money market to sit your money. No need to spend.

In short, don't become gov't cattle.

 

Saving retains MOST of the personal benefits it always has, but the yield component has been made less favorable, which in fact is the entire purpose from Day 1 of the Fed Open Market Committee - to alter the yield calculus of short-term vs. longer term saving and/or investment. In this environment, the Fed still wants to favor long term yields, through investment in job-creating enterprise, vs. short-term yield by regular savings stashes. This wasn't invented by Yellen, or Bernanke, or even Greenspan; it's ALWAYS been this way. I can't help it if some brand shiny new neocons one day read their second book all-time and discovered this.

 

You've basically given me all the reasons I have the largest portion of my savings in metals. If it's not in a bank, they can't re-loan it X10 and I don't worry about inflation or other methods of hidden losses.

My signature line is sarcasm for the jokers here that keep spouting off how great the banks and wall street are... just a FTI

 

I've posted here plenty when active. I don't lurk. If I am reading, I am posting.

I stand by all my posts here and I encourage everyone to read my old posts as I have put much thought into articulating my views with rational thought, and have encountered resistance every step of the way from one person or another.

In a nutshell, chasing yield is a fool's errand in my opinion. It amounts to earning profits without providing a good or service to the economy. At best it cheapens the value of existing goods and services at the expense of personal gain by taking money from the productive economy without giving anything back, and at worst it can cause someone to overextend their position which is a good way to achieve near certain ruin.

I've never advocated a full position in metals. I treat it as a savings account, and only spend what I can afford to lose. It's a far more reliable means of savings than holding debt based currency.

If people want to gamble in the stock market, they should be aware of the added risk that does not come with hard assets. The house always wins, and the exchanges would be insolvent if they ever had to pay down all their collateral debt. It's not a safe place to be. But if people want a free lunch, it's one way to try.

 

And yes, holding metals has risk. Holding dollars has risk. Driving your car has risk. Breathing air has risk. Nothing is foolproof, but my goal is to mitigate things where possible.

The risk with metals has to do with how much buying power they will retain, which will always be some amount, never nothing, and also safety from a physical storage perspective.

Holding it yourself, you open up to burglary from breaking and entering.

Using a safety deposit box, you open yourself up to burglary from a bank or the government.

Having digital IOU based assets like stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc. you open yourself up to burglary from banks, investment firms, the company you're invested in, hackers, governments, and most importantly you have no recourse if the financial system breaks. In addition to burglarly, you are also put at risk by their potential incompetence.

Metals remove dependency on anything other than self. That's why I like them. I'd rather be in control than trust another human being to prioritize my interests as highly as their own, or to trust that systems which I believe to be insolvent will outlast my lifespan. To me the potential loss in value is worth it to ensure that I won't be left with an empty bag.

If my motivation for metals was to get rich, then I would have probably sold my position already instead of having the freedom to choose my exit (re-entry to fiat currency) point without concern or stress around profit. Rather, my motiviation is protection from cronyism, and with that I sleep pretty well.

 

I guess I'll eat crow and respond for the sake of education.

Printing money from thin air is market coercion. Markets always seek equilibrium. By adding currency to the overall supply which is inflationary, and by not also adding a corresponding good or service to represent that currency, the market reaction is deflationary after the initial inflationary shot in the arm. This is the fundamental flaw with QE and fiat currency creation in general. And yet the solution for combating the deflationary whiplash effect caused by QE is yet more inflation. The solution IS the problem. Keynesianism is a vicious cycle, and is literally the definition of insanity (doing the same thing and expecting a different result). I don't comprehend how you can view Fed policy as going right, unless you agree with deliberately destroying the global economy which is what central banking has done.

This is the fundamental reason why I advocate a gold backed currency, because there is no human element. Inflation in that case is self regulating based on the amount of new gold being mined, and thus all newly created currency has a labor cost inherently baked in (not to mention the physical gold supply increase) as opposed to no labor cost or asset collateral in fiat currency which is why it has no actual value except for government mandate. With the labor of mining being the regulating factor, there is no potential for human intervention with personal agendas.

If we didn't live in a country where a select elite minority had the ability to create money from thin air for their own purposes, then we wouldn't be subjected to the will of that minority. There would be no funding for wars. There would be no funding for the welfare state, which teaches people not to be self-sufficient, and ultimately undermines our competency as a nation which leads to all sorts of other issues.

The current monetary policy is the root cause that enables so many other problems by allowing irresponsible spending decisions to proceed without consequences, that allows financial companies with insolvent business models to put good companies out of business, and that has allowed these insolvent businesses to take control of our political process, repealing the Glass-Steagle act, holding Congress hostage for bailouts, and using investors' assets as collateral to keep the ponzi scheme afloat, not to mention tax payer dollars in a pinch.

We are literally paying for our own oppression. Precious metals are the way out. I can't put a price on freedom, which is why I'm not concerned with profit.