I guess you have to kinda be living under a rock to not notice that gold hit an all-time high the other day. I don’t really keep more than a passing glance on gold prices, but I watch silver pretty closely. You know, it was only a few months ago that silver crapped the bed at around $12. Today its more than twice that. In other words, silver doubled within four months. I can’t think of the last time that happened. Maybe back when the Hunt brothers were working their mojo?
Where does it go from here? Beats me. But, to my uneducated way of thinking, people flocking to metals and driving up the prices is indicative of a belief that perhaps the economic outlook is not that great. If that’s true, I think you’d do well to spend some of that precious metals money on getting your debt knocked out, some food and ammo in the basement, and whatever else you need. If you’re so uncertain of the future that you’re buying precious metals, than that future is uncertain enough that you may wanna backstop with ammo and canned goods. Just sayin’.
But…if the market tanks, people are gong to need to raise cash in a hurry to cover their market losses. And that means selling their metals. And that means a big dump into the market which, as I understand it, depresses prices. Or does it? Seems like all the rules are off these days.
As I’ve said, whatever disposable income I have gets split into three different areas: silver in case things go really, really wrong; my Roth in case things go really, really well; and cash savings in case I’m not sure which way to go. That way I’m not totally caught flat-footed if the economy tanks or if it booms.
As much as I enjoy the sexy parts of survivalism, like guns and gun bunnies, the fact is that you’ll need fifty-dollar bills far more than you’ll need fifty BMG in most emergencies. I can’t recall the last time I had a personal-level TEOTWAWKI that was resolved by the judicious application of M193, but I can rattle off a half dozen where a pile o’ greenbacks turned out to be the multitool that fixed things.
By all means, buy some precious metals when you have the money…but not before you’ve got the really unsexy-but-more-likely-to-be-needed things taken care of.